Malachi 2

Cursed is the deceitful man who has a male in his flock, and making a vow sacrifices a feeble one to the Lord. For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the nations. And now this commandment is for you, O priests: If you will not hear, and if you will not set it upon the heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, I will send want upon you, and I will curse your blessings, and I will curse them, since you have not set it upon the heart. LXX: And cursed is he who was powerful, and had a male in his flock, and his vow was upon it, and sacrifices a feeble one to the Lord, because I am a great king, says the Lord Almighty, and my name is illustrious among the nations. And now this commandment is for you, O priests: If you do not hear, and if you do not set it in your heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord Almighty, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessing, and I will curse it, and I will scatter your blessing, and it shall not be in you, because you do not set it in your heart. What is written: And I will scatter your blessing, was added by the LXX, and is not found in the Hebrew. Whatever the human mind can find in excuse of its sin, to defend itself with a false satisfaction, the divine word foresees, and rebukes and condemns. And the sense is: Because you offer the blind and the lame and the sick, and this very thing not from what is yours, but from plunder and spoils and the tears of the wretched, and moreover you say, from our toil and poverty we offer what we have, therefore I speak in general terms, so that your own conscience may convict you. Certainly you plead poverty and the injury of captivity and the slenderness of your household means; hear what I add: Cursed is the deceitful man who has a male in his flock, and making a vow sacrifices a feeble one to the Lord. If you do not have a male, the curse does you no harm. Now by saying these things he shows that they have what is best, and offer what is bad. To you, therefore, O priests, this commandment is given: you have done what is impious, in contempt of me. But because I prefer the repentance of the sinner to his death, even now I say: If you will not hear me, nor understand, so as to give glory to my name, which is dreadful among the nations, I will send real penury upon you, so that, by no means lying, but forced by want of all things, you may say that you do not have the best things to offer. And I will curse, he says, your blessings, that is, the things which you now possess by my blessings; or else, whatever is blessed by you will be cursed by me. And I will curse them: your blessings is understood, since you would not understand what is said; for this is what is said: You have not set it upon the heart.

Hence it is said in its proper sense to the priests that, if they will not hear and keep it in their heart, so as to give glory to the name of the Lord by good conduct, but on the contrary his name is cursed among the nations because of them, he will send upon them want of all good things, and turn their blessings into a curse. Those who abuse health for lust, and turn riches into luxury, and disfigure a good reputation by sordid conduct, these change the blessings of God into a curse. Or else, since the commandment is given in its proper sense to the priests, their blessings are turned into a curse when they do not bless the saints from a true affection of the heart, as Isaac blessed Jacob, and Jacob the patriarchs, and Moses the twelve tribes, but through sweet words and blessings deceive the hearts of the innocent; and those who act wickedly are blessed by them, and they flatter sinners, provided they are rich, and fawn upon their vices; of whom it is said: My people, those who call you blessed lead you astray, and supplant the paths of your feet.

In which place, dearest brother, we must consider, for the sake of the faith and the religion of the sacerdotal office which we discharge, whether the account can be satisfactory in the day of judgment for a priest of God, who maintains, and approves, and acquiesces in the baptism of blasphemers, when the Lord threatens, and says, "And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you: if ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord Almighty, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings." Does he give glory to God, who communicates with the baptism of Marcion? Does he give glory to God, who judges that remission of sins is granted among those who blaspheme against God? Does he give glory to God, who affirms that sons are born to God without, of an adulterer and a harlot? Does he give glory to God, who does not hold the unity and truth that arise from the divine law, but maintains heresies against the Church? Does he give glory to God, who, a friend of heretics and an enemy to Christians, thinks that the priests of God, who support the truth of Christ and the unity of the Church, are to be excommunicated? If glory is thus given to God, if the fear and the discipline of God is thus preserved by His worshippers and His priests, let us cast away our arms; let us give ourselves up to captivity; let us deliver to the devil the ordination of the Gospel, the appointment of Christ, the majesty of God; let the sacraments of the divine warfare be loosed; let the standards of the heavenly camp be betrayed; and let the Church succumb and yield to heretics, light to darkness, faith to perfidy, hope to despair, reason to error, immortality to death, love to hatred, truth to falsehood, Christ to Antichrist!

Behold, I will cast the arm at you, and I will scatter upon your face the dung of your solemnities, and it will take you with it. And you shall know that I have sent to you your commandment, that my covenant might be with Levi, says the Lord of hosts. LXX: Behold, I will separate the shoulder from you, and I will scatter the stomach upon your face, the stomach of your solemnities, and I will receive you together; and you shall know that I have sent to you this commandment, that my testament might be with the Levites, says the Lord Almighty. Since he is speaking to the priests: I will cast, he says, into your faces the things you think holier in the law, and granted to you by God from the sacrificial victims as a reward for virtues. The arm, for which the LXX translated shoulder, that is, the right shoulder of the animal. And I will scatter, he says, ἔνυστρον, that is, the stomach, or according to the Hebrews, dung, that is, phares, μετωνυμικῶς (by metonymy), naming that which is contained in place of that which contains it; for the shoulder and the breast and the tongue and the stomach, and the things described in Leviticus, the priests received from the sacrificial victims. All these, he declares, he casts away for their sins and throws into the faces of the priests, so that, namely, those who offer may be such as the things that are offered.

Now God willed all men indeed, but especially priests, to have no blemish, and to adorn either the shoulder or the arm with good works. In the breast a good conscience is signified; in the tongue holy confession, so that what we believe with the heart unto justice we may confess with the mouth unto salvation. In the stomach too, to have nothing deadly, but what sustains and quickens our life; for unless food is digested in the stomach, and the body is watered by its juice, the body wastes away, lacks strength, and is borne toward death. But we turn everything to the contrary, so that the Lord casts the arm at us, or separates our works from the works of the saints; and we, who were commanded to anoint our head, and when fasting to wash our face from the filth of sins, and with unveiled face to contemplate the glory of the Lord, now say: The confusion of my face has covered me; and like Cain our face has fallen, nor can we fulfil what was commanded: Lift up your eyes and see, but we have faces smeared and polluted with the dung of vices, and we say: My scars have putrefied and are corrupted, from the face of my folly. Hence all these things have been turned into dung, as Scripture says: And the dung will take you with it, namely the dung with which our faces are smeared, we who ought to have come full and clean to the solemnities of God, and either to eat the flesh of the lamb with our shoes on, or, when seven weeks were completed, to offer God the fruits of our works, or to live as passers-through in the tabernacles of this world, and to say: I am a stranger and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.

And it will take you, he says, with it, that is, the dung of your solemnities, so that your stinking faces may be befouled by the putrid admixture of dung; and so that, from the fact that I cast you away, you may understand that I am the very one who once chose your father Levi, and through Levi Aaron, and granted you the glory of the priesthood, that my covenant or testament might be with Levi, and he might minister to me in an eternal priesthood. It is to be noted that the Hebrew word brith Aquila translates συνθήκην, that is, covenant; the LXX always διαθήκην, that is, testament; and that in very many places of the Scriptures testament means not the will of the dead, but the covenant of the living.

And because, for what we have translated: The dung will take you with it, the Seventy translated: And I will take you up together, an interpretation is supplied: that after the priests have been covered with shame and disgrace, and have understood their sin, and have done penance, they are then taken up by the Lord; and that what follows fits this sense: And you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you. But the former interpretation seems to me the true one, lest among words of threatening he should have placed the words of one who coaxes, especially since what follows also speaks of the indignation of God.

A little further on Malachi speaks of Christ, again in the person of God: "My covenant was with him of life and peace, and I gave him fear; and he feared me, and he was afraid before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and equity and turned many away from iniquity. For the lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the laws at his mouth because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts." No one should be astonished to hear Christ spoken of as "the angel of the Lord of hosts." He was called his servant because he came to humanity in the form of a servant; similarly he was called an angel because of the evangel, which he brought to humankind.

My covenant with him was of life and peace, and I gave him fear, and he feared me, and he trembled before the face of my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found on his lips; in peace and in equity he walked with me, and he turned many away from iniquity. For the lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law from his mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts. LXX: My testament with him was of life and peace, and I gave him fear, that he might fear me and be afraid before the face of my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found on his lips. In peace, directing, he walked with me, and he converted many from iniquity. For the lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and the law shall be sought from his mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord Almighty. The office of the perfect priest is described in the person of God: what he ought to be, and what he wished him to be who commanded that he should be. For above he had said: That my covenant might be with Levi, says the Lord of hosts, and through the patriarch Levi it came down to his posterity, Aaron and Eleazar, Phinehas and the rest who were born of his stock. Now at the end he says: You have made void the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts. From this it is clear that everything said through Levi pertains to the priests, and especially to the high priest. We read in Numbers of Phinehas, who struck Zimri with the Midianite harlot with a dagger: Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has made my fury rest from the sons of Israel, because he was jealous with my zeal against them; and I did not destroy the sons of Israel in my zeal, saying thus: Behold, I will give him a testament of peace, and it shall be to him and to his seed after him a testament of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made entreaty for the sons of Israel. Now let us not think that the testament, or covenant, of life is of this life which we share with beasts and all living things, but of that life which says: I am the life. For indeed our life is hidden with Christ in God, of whom we can say that he himself is also our peace, as the Apostle confirms: For he himself is our peace. God therefore granted to Levi, and through him to his posterity, that they should fear him: For the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord; and that they should be afraid before his face, or draw back and shrink together, showing the dread of the mind by the shuddering of the body, according to what is written: Upon whom shall I rest, but upon the humble and quiet and him who trembles at my words?

The law of truth was in his mouth, that is, the teaching of the apostles, which in a priest ought to be disfigured by no poisoning, but should proceed wholly from the fountain of truth. And iniquity was not found on his lips, so that he may imitate his Lord, of whom it is said: Who did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. In peace and in equity he walked with me, so that he may both have peace in himself and make peace for others, and accept no one's person in judgement, and therefore walk with God, as Enoch walked, who was translated to the Lord and was not found: And he turned many away from iniquity. He who is a priest, and does not rebuke those who offend, passes over the office of a priest.

For neither may we address ourselves to almighty God, but only by Christ. In the same manner, therefore, let the laity make known all their desires to the bishop by the deacon, and accordingly let them act as he shall direct them. For there was no holy thing offered or done in the temple formerly without the priest. "For the priest's lips shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth," as the prophet somewhere says, "for he is the messenger of the Lord God almighty."

For this reason we ought to fear lest the harsh rebuke of the prophet be directed toward us: "Dumb dogs are not able to bark." By the barking of dogs and the shepherd's staff the fury of wolves is to be warded off. Now it is certain that priests are not only ordained to be stewards of fields and cultivators of land but also to exercise the spiritual cultivation of souls, that of which the apostle surely spoke when he said, "I have planted, Apollos watered." Again he said, "We are God's helpers, you are God's tillage." With great fear these facts ought to be considered by all the priests, who cannot be ignorant of the divine law and canonical regulations, according to what the apostle says: "If anyone belongs to the Lord, he knows what I say; but if anyone ignores this, he shall be ignored." For this reason, what the Lord says through the prophet is to be feared exceedingly: "Therefore my people are led away captive, because they had knowledge";8 moreover, "He that turns away his ears from hearing the law of the Lord, his prayer shall be an abomination"; "the lips of the priest shall keep knowledge." Now it is written concerning the garments of priests that when entering the temple they should have gold bells on the edge of their vestments. What else does this mean but that when entering the church all priests of the Lord should not stop shouting, that is, preaching about the last things, namely, the end of the world and the future judgment. By ceaselessly proclaiming the rewards of the just and the punishments of sinners, they may arouse the good to better things and recall the wicked from their sinful actions through fear of the future judgment.

For in sacred language teachers are sometimes called prophets, in that, by pointing out how fleeting are present things, they make manifest the things that are to come. And such the divine discourse convinces of seeing false things, because, while fearing to reprove faults, they vainly flatter evil doers by promising security: neither do they at all discover the iniquity of sinners, since they refrain their voice from chiding. For the language of reproof is the key of discovery, because by chiding it discloses the fault of which even he who has committed it is often himself unaware. Hence Paul says, "That he may be able by sound doctrine even to convince the gainsayers." Hence through Malachi it is said, "The priest's lips keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth." Hence through Isaiah the Lord admonishes, saying, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet." For it is true that whosoever enters on the priesthood undertakes the office of a herald, so as to walk, himself crying aloud, before the coming of the judge who follows terribly.

The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge; he did not say, shall bring forth, but, shall keep, so that they may speak in season, and give their fellow servants their food in due season. And they shall seek the law from his mouth. In Haggai the same is written: Ask the priests the law of the Lord. It belongs to the discipline of a priest, when asked, to answer concerning the law. If, diligent in other matters, he pleads an ignorance that is negligent in the holy Scriptures, he boasts in vain of a dignity whose works he does not display. This is what the apostle Paul writes to Titus: That he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine, and to refute those who contradict. And to Timothy: Since from infancy you have known the sacred letters, which can instruct you unto salvation, that you may rebuke sinners before all. There follows: Because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts. Ezra, the priest of God, sets forth his own name, that is, Malachi, which is interpreted angel of the Lord; and the priest of God is most truly called an angel, that is, a messenger, because he is the mediator between God and men and announces his will to the peoples; and for this reason the rational is on the breast of the priest, and on the rational doctrine and truth are placed, so that we may learn that a priest ought to be learned, and a herald of the Lord's truth. Some falsely think that what is said to Levi, and through Levi to the priests, is to be understood of Christ, not observing that what follows is contrary to the person of Christ.

See the apostle's wisdom; to obviate the objection that he was prompted by vainglory to applaud his own doctrine, he includes himself also in his anathema. And as they betook themselves to authority, that of James and John, he mentions angels also, saying, "Tell me not of James and John; if one of the most exalted angels of heaven corrupt the gospel, let him be anathema." The phrase "of heaven" is purposely added, because priests are also called angels. "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger angel of the Lord of the hosts."

But you have departed from the way, and have made very many stumble in the law; you have made void the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts. Wherefore I too have made you contemptible and lowly to all peoples, as you have not kept my ways, and have accepted the face in the law. LXX: But you have turned aside from my way, and have made many weak in the law; you have corrupted the testament of Levi, says the Lord Almighty. And I have made you contemptible and dissolute among all the nations, because you have not guarded my ways, but accepted persons in the law. That these things do not pertain to the person of Christ, nor to those who are dedicated to his worship, the prudent reader understands even if I am silent. And the sense is: I wished you to do what is contained in the previous passage, and what I spoke of through Moses in Deuteronomy: Give to Levi his doctrine, and his truth to the just man, and the rest; but you have departed from the right way, or turned aside, though I said: Turn aside neither to the right nor to the left; and you have made many weak in the law, or made them stumble, as Aquila and Symmachus translated. To turn aside to the right is to abstain from foods which God created to be used, to condemn marriage, and to run into what is written in another place: Be not overmuch just. To turn off to the left is when someone gives himself over to luxury and lust, and makes many stumble in the law, someone for whom it is better that an ass's millstone be tied about his neck and he be cast headlong into the sea, than that he should make one of the least stumble. Now those make many weak who, when believers in Christ have received the strength of faith, make them grow weak by the negligence of their own conduct; to them it is most rightly said: You have made void the covenant of Levi, the covenant of life and peace, and the other things which we said pertain to the office of the priest.

For which reason I too, he says, have made you contemptible and lowly to all peoples, so that they might despise you, and instead of honor and glory trample on you as cast down and lowly: As you have not kept my ways, and have accepted the face in the law. Among all the sins of Levi, or of those who are from Levi, the priests of God, this one is set down as both the last and the greatest: that they accept the face in the law, so that they consider not causes but persons, and, despising the just poor man, receive and honor the unjust rich. To them it is said in Psalm 81 (82): How long do you judge iniquity, and take up the faces of sinners? And Paul to the Galatians: God, he says, does not accept the person of man. And the apostle James rebukes and condemns this sin more fully. But whatever is said to the former people, let us think said to us also, so that we may more cautiously withdraw from vices and not accept the face in the law, nor, we who are worshippers of God, prefer falsehood to truth.

But this is God's kindness to humanity, that of whom he is the maker, of them according to grace he afterwards becomes Father also. He becomes, that is, when people, his creatures, receive him into their hearts, as the apostle says, "the spirit of his Son, crying, 'Abba, Father.' " And these are they who, having received the word, gained power from him to become sons of God; for they could not become sons, being by nature creatures, otherwise than by receiving the spirit of the natural and true Son. Wherefore, that this might be, "the word became flesh," that he might make humans capable of godhood. This same meaning may be gained from the prophet Malachi, who says, "Has not one God created us? Have we not all one Father?" For first he puts "created" next to "Father" to show, as the other writers, that from the beginning we were creatures by nature. And God is our Creator through the word, but afterwards we were made sons, and thenceforward God the Creator becomes our Father also.

Truly, then, the Scripture declared, which says, "First of all believe that there is one God, who has established all things, and completed them, and having caused that from what had no being, all things should come into existence:" He who contains all things, and is Himself contained by no one. Rightly also has Malachi said among the prophets: "Is it not one God who hath established us? Have we not all one Father?" In accordance with this, too, does the apostle say, "There is one God, the Father, who is above all, and in us all." Likewise does the Lord also say: "All things are delivered to Me by My Father;" manifestly by Him who made all things; for He did not deliver to Him the things of another, but His own. But in all things [it is implied that] nothing has been kept back [from Him], and for this reason the same person is the Judge of the living and the dead; "having the key of David: He shall Open, and no man shall shut: He shall shut, and no man shall open." For no one was able, either in heaven or in earth, or under the earth, to open the book of the Father, or to behold Him, with the exception of the Lamb who was slain, and who redeemed us with His own blood, receiving power over all things from the same God who made all things by the Word, and adorned them by [His] Wisdom, when "the Word was made flesh;" that even as the Word of God had the sovereignty in the heavens, so also might He have the sovereignty in earth, inasmuch as [He was] a righteous man, "who did no sin, neither was there found guile in His mouth;" and that He might have the pre-eminence over those things which are under the earth, He Himself being made "the first-begotten of the dead;" and that all things, as I have already said, might behold their King; and that the paternal light might meet with and rest upon the flesh of our Lord, and come to us from His resplendent flesh, and that thus man might attain to immortality, having been invested with the paternal light.

Is not one Father of us all? Has not one God created us? Why then does each one of us despise his brother, violating the covenant of our fathers? Judah has transgressed, and abomination has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem, because Judah has defiled the sanctification of the Lord, which he loved, and has had the daughter of a strange god. May the Lord destroy the man who shall have done this, the master and the disciple, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him who offers a gift to the Lord of hosts. LXX: Is not one Father of us all? Has not one God created us? Why has each one forsaken his brother, so as to make abominable the testament of your fathers? Judah has been forsaken, and abomination has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem, because Judah has defiled the holy things of the Lord, in which he loved, and has devised strange gods. May the Lord destroy the man who does these things, until he is driven out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and from among those who offer sacrifice to the Lord Almighty. Before we discuss the present passage, the tradition of the Hebrews must be set down, or rather the truth of Scripture must be unfolded. We read in the volume that bears the title of Ezra, in the person of Ezra himself speaking: The princes came to me, saying: The people of Israel, and the priests and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands and from their abominations, namely of the Canaanites, and the Hittites and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and of the Ammonites, and of the Moabites, and of the Egyptians, and of the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, and have mingled the holy seed with the peoples of the lands. The hand also of the princes and magistrates has been first in this transgression. And when I had heard this word, I tore my cloak and my tunic, and plucked out the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down mourning. And again in what follows: And there were found among the sons of the priests those who had married foreign wives: of the sons of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, and his brothers: Maaseiah, and Eleazar, and Jarib, and Gedaliah; and they gave their hands that they would put away their wives, and offer a ram of the flock for their offence. At the end of the passage also, after the enumeration of those who had taken foreign wives, Scripture records: All these had taken foreign wives, and there were among them women who had borne sons. Having returned, then, from the Babylonian captivity, the princes and the priests and Levites, as well as the rest of the people, cast off their wives of the Israelite race, who, through poverty and the hardship of the long journey, and through the frailty of their sex unable to bear the toil, had been broken down, and had contracted infirmity and unsightliness of body; and they had joined themselves in marriage to foreign women, either in the flower of their age, or more beautiful in the adornment of their bodies, or the daughters of the powerful and rich. So Ezra the prophet rebukes them and calls them to the repudiation of their new spouses, that they may take back the wives whom they had let go: Is not, he says, one father Abraham of us all? Of whom it is written in Isaiah: Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah, who bore you, for he was one, and I called him. Has not one God created us, who chose our race out of Abraham? Why then do we despise our old wives, and cast off the daughters of our brothers, so as to forsake the covenant of our fathers and not take wives according to the law?

Some, not understanding this place, nor knowing the truth of the history, understand what he says, Is not one father of us all?, of Abraham in such a way that they recall that Abraham is the father of the nations too, according to what is written: Is God able from these stones to raise up sons to Abraham? Or at any rate they affirm one God the Father, according to what we read in Deuteronomy: Is not this the very Father who possessed you, and made you, and created you? And again: You have forsaken the God who created you. And elsewhere: I have begotten sons and exalted them: but they have forsaken me. And in the volume of the psalms: Strange sons have lied to me, strange sons have grown old and have gone lame from their paths. And those who sinned, departing from this one father, made for themselves many fathers of their vices: For everyone who commits sin is born of the devil. And what follows, Why does each one of us despise his brother, violating the covenant of our fathers, they have interpreted so as to say: that we all, begotten of one father, ought to be one and to have one lip of confession, but that afterwards, through pride and the building of the tower against God, we were divided into many tongues and opinions. They refer it also to almsgiving, so as to say: that we despise our brothers when we do not share with them what we have received from God for the sustaining of life. And they go on to this, that they assert that according to the Scriptures the Lord is called our brother, he who commanded Mary Magdalene to announce to his brothers that the Lord had risen; and he speaks in the psalm: I will declare your name to my brothers, in the midst of the Church I will sing to you. So the Jews deserted their brother, and defiled the covenant of their fathers, which God had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that in their seed, which is interpreted as Christ, all the nations should be blessed. These things they conjecture in various ways, because they do not find a sure way.

And if you wish to see more clearly how utterly unlawful it is for a Christian woman to marry a Gentile, consider what the same apostle says, "A wife is bound for so long time as her husband lives. But if the husband be dead, she is freed to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord," that is, to a Christian. The one who allows second and third marriages in the Lord forbids first marriages with a Gentile. Whence Abraham also makes his servant swear upon his thigh, that is, on Christ, who was to spring from his seed, that he would not bring an alien-born as a wife for his son Isaac. And Ezra checked an offense of this kind against God by making his countrymen put away their wives. And the prophet Malachi thus speaks, "Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loves and has married the daughter of a strange god. The Lord will cut off the man that does this, him that teaches and him that learns, out of the tents of Jacob, and him that offers an offering to the Lord of hosts." I have said this that they who compare marriage with virginity may at least know that such marriages as these are on a lower level than digamy and trigamy.

Judah has transgressed; for this tribe returned from Babylon with the priests and Levites; and abomination has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem. Not at all among the ten tribes, which were held by the Assyrians, but among those which returned from Babylon by command of King Cyrus under Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah. Because Judah has defiled the sanctification of the Lord, which he loved, and has had the daughter of a strange god, by mingling with foreigners the seed of Israel and of the Gentiles; that is, by taking as wives the daughters of the heathen, who serve idols. Since, therefore, they have done this, the word of the prophet is directed to them, and they are drawn back from sin by curses.

In short, what follows according to the LXX, Judah has been forsaken, and abomination has been done in Israel, and in Jerusalem, they expound thus: that the Jews have been forsaken because they blasphemed the Lord Savior, and have suffered what is written: According to the multitude of their impieties drive them out, for they have provoked you, O Lord, so that they were scattered as wanderers and fugitives through all the provinces. For they defiled the holy things of the Lord, loving, in place of the Son of God, and devising for themselves, strange gods: For he who does not receive the Son does not receive the Father, who sent him. And therefore, because they did this, they perish for so long, until they are humbled, either by the hardship of captivity or through the consciousness of their sins; and they are cast out of the tabernacles of Jacob, so that, the temple and the altar having been destroyed, sacrificial victims are no longer offered among them. Not content with this explanation — because Judah means confession of the Lord —, they transfer the interpretation to the penitent, who, after he has confessed the Lord, if he sins, does abomination in Israel and in Jerusalem, in the mind that sees God and in the vision of peace. For he pollutes the mysteries of Christ, receiving his body and blood unworthily, because he has loved vices and has devised for himself strange gods, having as many gods as he has sins. According to the apostle Paul: The belly is the god of the gluttonous; and according to James: By whatever one is overcome, to that he is made subject. And he who has done this is driven out of the Church, and out of the tabernacles of Jacob, who supplants vices and sins, until he is humbled for his own good, and a victim is offered for him to the Lord Almighty.

May the Lord destroy the man who shall have done this. How beautifully he does not cut off pardon from error, nor did he say, May the Lord curse him who has done this, but, who shall have done, stretching the curse into the future, so as to call sinners to repentance. The teacher, he says, and the disciple, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, whether he be a priest or a layman, will be struck by one curse, and there will be no difference of punishment among those in whom the sins are equal. And him who offers a gift to the Lord of hosts: it is understood, may the Lord destroy him also who would wish to offer a gift at the altar for men of this kind, whose only remedy is not to do what they have done.

What we have expounded specially, according to the book of Ezra, concerning the forsaken wives, others think is said generally against those who plunder what belongs to others and, gathering riches unjustly, dare to offer gifts to God, which he says he can by no means accept, prevented by the tears and weeping and groans of those who have been laid waste; and that this place agrees with that testimony: Honor God from your just labors. But they also insert this sense: that those who, because of the loss of their property, and the death of their children, and shipwreck, and the other things that belong to the loss of worldly goods, are turned to weeping and give themselves wholly to lamentation and groaning, and do not, by strength of mind and hope in God and the rewards of things to come, despise all things, are not received by him even if they direct prayer to God, because they are disfigured by lamentations unbecoming and unfitting for a man.

And this again you have done: you covered the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and groaning, so that I no longer look upon sacrifice, nor accept anything pleasing from your hand. And you have said: For what reason? Because the Lord has borne witness between you and the wife of your puberty, whom you have despised; and she is your partner and the wife of your compact. Did not one make, and is the remnant of the spirit his? And what does the one seek, but the seed of God? Guard therefore your spirit; and do not despise the wife of your youth. Since you have hated, put away, says the Lord God of Israel; but iniquity shall cover his garment, says the Lord of hosts. Guard your spirit, and do not despise. LXX: And these things which I hated, you have done: you covered the altar of the Lord with tears, with lamentation and groaning, from toil still worthy to look upon sacrifice, or to receive anything acceptable from your hands. And you have said: Wherefore? Because the Lord has borne witness between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have forsaken, and she is your partner, and the wife of your testament, and no other made her, and the remnant of your spirit. And you have said: What else does God seek but seed? And keep guard in your spirit, and do not forsake the wife of your youth; but if, hating her, you put her away, says the Lord God of Israel, impiety shall cover your thoughts, says the Lord Almighty; and keep guard in your spirit, and do not forsake. Let us interpret the history, and, fitting brief statements to the individual verses, let us set out what has been handed down to us by the Hebrews. The Israelite wives, forsaken, and seeing women of foreign nations in their husbands' beds, fled to the help of God alone; prostrate day and night before the altar of the Lord, with tears, groaning and wailing, they cast reproach upon his providence, that it did not look upon human affairs and did not help the wretched. Hence God says that he cannot accept sacrifice and sacrificial victims from the hands of the priests who committed these things, hindered as he is by the weeping and lamentations of the wives; and moreover that they ask for what reason he does not accept sacrifice from their hands; and at once he adds: Because the Lord has borne witness between you and the wife of your puberty, whom you have despised, saying: For this reason a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh. And therefore she is called partner, and wife of union and of compact, she who was made by God from the rib of the man.

Now what follows, Because the Lord has borne witness between you and the wife of your puberty, or of your youth, whom you have despised; and she is your partner and the wife of your covenant, or of your testament, ; and no other made her: and the remnant of your spirit, they interpret thus, so as to call the wife of youth the natural understanding and the law written in the heart, which is implanted in all men. Whence also the nations, not having the law of God, do the things that are of the law. Of this spouse, they say, it is proclaimed in Proverbs: A wife is joined to a man by God; and we are commanded to drink from our own waters and fountains, and that no one be partner in the drinking, and that we rejoice with the wife of our youth. This wife impels even the credulous to say: May God judge and may God see; and to him I leave all things between me and you to be judged; of her Ecclesiastes also speaks: And live life with the woman whom you have loved, all the days of your vanity which have been given you under the sun.

And the remnant of his spirit, whether of God, as some think, or of the husband, as others suppose, because through affection one soul seems in a certain manner to be in two, joined in spirit, united in mind. Since, then, one made both, both the man and the woman, the union of both was therefore made by the Lord, that children might be born. For the one God, what does he seek but the seed of God, that is, sons begotten of the Israelite stock? Since, then, you have fruitful wives and rejoice in children, why do you seek beauty in wives, which is fitting for harlots, not for wives? So God commands through the prophet, and says: Guard your spirit, that you be not led away by lust, that you be not overcome by love of foreign women. And do not despise the wife of your youth, so that she who was first joined to you in virginal marriage may continue until old age.

This wife is the remnant of our spirit, because she is always joined to our sense; and if she withdraws from us, at once we offend God, and our impiety covers us. Hence again it is urged: Guard your spirit; not the flesh, for those who are in it cannot please God; not the soul: The natural for man does not receive the things that are of the spirit; but the spirit: Because the spirit intercedes for us with unutterable groanings.

For in the Gospel of Matthew he says, "Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery." He also is deemed equally guilty of adultery who marries a woman put away by her husband. The Creator, however, except on account of adultery, does not put asunder that which he himself joined together, the same Moses in another passage enacting that he who had married after violence to a damsel should thenceforth not have it in his power to put away his wife. Now if a compulsory marriage contracted after violence shall be permanent, how much rather shall a voluntary one, the result of an agreement! This has the sanction of the prophet: "You shall not forsake the wife of your youth." Thus you have Christ following spontaneously the tracks of the Creator everywhere, both in permitting divorce and in forbidding it. You find him also protecting marriage, in whatever direction you try to escape. He prohibits divorce when he will have the marriage inviolable; he permits divorce when the marriage is spotted with unfaithfulness. You should blush when you refuse to unite those whom even your Christ has united, and repeat the blush when you disunite them without the good reason why your Christ would have them separated.

But it could happen that the princes, priests, Levites and people would answer: God commanded through Moses that when we have hated our wives, we should put them away. And it is to be read: You tell me, it is written: Since you have hated, put away your wife, says the Lord God of Israel. And at once he answered: This was indeed commanded in the law, but because of the hardness of your heart. Which the Lord pursues more fully in the Gospel: But whoever, except for the cause of fornication, unjustly puts away his wife, iniquity shall cover his garment, that is, the body with which the soul is clothed, says the Lord of hosts, so that he may be punished in that very thing in which he sinned. Wherefore, this little question having been resolved, he presses home and repeats what he had said above: Guard your spirit, and do not despise, either the guarding of your spirit, or at any rate your wife, if she is poor or unsightly.

Wherefore now we call the proud people happy, for they that work wickedness are built up. It was such complaints as these that compelled the prophet to anticipate, as it were, the last judgment in which the wicked will be so far from even a pretense of happiness that their misery will be apparent to all, whereas the good, untroubled by even transitory sorrow, will enjoy a manifest and unending blessedness. Malachi had already given a similar illustration of the kind of murmurings that wearied the Lord: "Everyone who does evil is [thought to be] good in the sight of the Lord and as such pleases him." The only point I want to make is that such murmurings against God were the result of an unspiritual interpretation of the law.

You have made the Lord labor with your words, and you have said: In what have we made him labor? In this, that you say: Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such please him; or at any rate, where is the God of judgement? LXX: You who have provoked the Lord with your words, and you have said: In what have we provoked him? In this, that you say: Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and in these he is well pleased; and where is the God of justice? This passage is pursued more fully by Psalm 72 (73), whose beginning is: How good is the God of Israel to those who are of right heart. But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well-nigh been poured out. For I was jealous over the wicked, seeing the peace of sinners. For there is no regard for their death, and firmness in their stroke. They are not in the labor of men, and with men they will not be scourged. And then: And I said: Then in vain have I justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent. The people, then, having returned from Babylon, and seeing all the nations round about, and those very nations that serve the idols of Babylon, abounding in riches, vigorous in body, possessing in the world all the things that are thought good, while itself, which has the knowledge of God, is covered with squalor, hunger and servitude, is scandalized, and says: There is no providence in human affairs; all things are borne along by uncertain chance and are not governed by the judgement of God; rather, the wicked please him and the good displease him; or at any rate, if God judges all things, where is his equitable and just judgement? A question of this kind the mind that does not believe in things to come raises daily against God; and when it has seen the wicked powerful and the holy humble, the former abounding in all things, the latter not having even what is necessary for sustenance, and sometimes weighed down with deaf ears and blind eyes, and with sores in every part of their limbs, and with infirmity, such as we read of Lazarus in the Gospel, who before the doors of the rich man clothed in purple longed to sustain his needy soul with the crumbs that are thrown away from the leftovers of the tables; but the rich man of such savagery and cruelty that man did not pity man, whom even the tongue of the dogs pitied; not understanding the time of judgement, nor that those are the true goods which are everlasting, they say: The wicked please him, and where is the God of judgement?