Nahum 3

Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and injustice. He has called it a city of blood; for those who had reigned in Nineveh were most ready for murder and exceedingly bloodthirsty; and those in it were otherwise warlike, and always eager to make their attacks untamable against whomever they might go. And he says "full of lies," because it was also full of idols, in which falsehood is especially not unproven. For they are falsely named, and the handmade gods steal the glory of divinity, "Silver and gold, according to what is written, the works of men's hands." And the wise Jeremiah somewhere also called it a land of graven images. But "full of lies" might also be understood in another way, with falsehood being understood as villainy and guile and deceit hateful to God, with injustice clearly running alongside. For where there is deceit and guile, there injustice will surely follow. And a city of blood, full of lies and injustice, is also Jerusalem, which killed the Lord. For we remember Christ saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her." And he said somewhere through the voice of the prophets, "Woe to them, because they have departed from me; they are miserable, because they have acted impiously against me; I redeemed them, but they have spoken lies against me." For they have spoken against the glory of Christ, at one time saying that he casts out demons by Beelzebul; at another time calling him a winebibber, and in addition to this, a Samaritan, and things much more shameful. For it would be fitting for their foul mouths alone to babble those things which they have dared to say.

Woe, city of bloods, all full of the laceration of falsehood; plunder will not depart from you. The voice of the whip, and the voice of the onrush of the wheel, and of the snorting horse, and of the seething chariot, and of the horseman going up, and of the flashing sword, of the gleaming spear, and of the multitude slain and of heavy ruin; and there is no end of corpses, and they will fall upon their own bodies. Because of the multitude of the fornications of the harlot, beautiful and pleasing and having sorceries, who sold nations in her fornications, and families in her sorceries. LXX: O city of bloods, all lying, full of iniquity, the hunt will not be handled; the voice of whips, and the voice of the commotion of wheels, and of the pursuing horse, and of the bearing chariot, of the horseman going up, and of the shining sword, and of the gleaming arms, and of the multitude of the wounded and of heavy ruin, and there will be no end to her nations, and they will grow weak in their bodies from the multitude of fornication. A harlot beautiful and pleasing, leader of sorceries, who sells nations in her fornication and tribes in her sorceries. Where we have put, full of laceration, in the Hebrew there is pherec malea, which Aquila translated ἐξαυχενισμοῦ πλήρης, that is, full of stiff-neckedness; but Symmachus ἀποτομίας πλήρης, which we can render full of cruelty, or of severity. In another edition of his I found μελοκοπίας πλήρης, that is, of cuttings of flesh and of pieces cut up limb by limb; and then he immediately added: where there is ceaseless plunder. Moreover, the Hebrew interpreted pherec not as stiff-neckedness, for which in Aquila's edition we find ἐξαυχενισμὸν, but as a rudder, that is, κυβερνισμὸν, to show both that the city had been royal and that, as on a ship, it had held the rudder of all the nations. Now its power, that is, Nineveh's, is described, and under a lament it is convicted of cruelty. Woe, city of bloods, in which there is no truth, but all is falsehood, full of plunder and of the laceration of prey.

These things have been said of Nineveh in the simple sense. But if, on account of the name of beauty, we have reasonably understood Nineveh as the world, rightly the world, which is set in evil, is called a city of bloods, because of the multitude of archers and of those who kill men with their tongues as with swords. Hence, consequently, it is also all lying, which refers to the perversity of the teachings, since the word of God has nowhere in it to lay its head, while perverse dogmas possess everything. There is none who understands or seeks God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one. Although these things happen in part even now, yet they are fulfilled more at the consummation, when, iniquity having multiplied, the love of many will have grown cold. How many are captured by Nimrod, the giant and most savage hunter, because, proud against God, he has entangled very many from his forest in his snares, whose prey, or hunt, will not be handled by many. For he has many attendants, and hunters together with him, who rejoice in his hunting and stand by him after the manner of captives.

Let us mourn with Nahum, and say with him, "Woe to him that buildeth his house on high." Or rather let us mourn for them as Christ mourned for those of old. "Woe to you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation." Let us, I beseech you, not cease thus lamenting, and if it be not unseemly, let us even beat our breasts for the carelessness of our brethren. Let us not weep for him who is already dead, but let us weep for the rapacious man, the grasping, the covetous, the insatiable. Why should we mourn for the dead, in whose case it is impossible henceforth to effect anything? Let us mourn for these who are capable even of change.

Because emptying they have emptied them out and their branches. They destroyed the weapons of their power from among men, mighty men mocking in fire. The reins of their chariots on the day of his preparation, and the horsemen shall be thrown into confusion in the ways, and the chariots shall be thrown into confusion and shall clash together in the broad ways; their appearance is like torches of fire and like lightnings running to and fro. As the God who knows all things sounded in the holy prophets the things that would be at various times, they necessarily announced them according to what seemed good to him. And many times they occurred even in the very visions of things. Therefore they were astonished, and seeing them all but fulfilled, they made their pronouncements about them; something of which sort the Prophet now seems to have experienced concerning the inhabitants of Nineveh, and those who shielded themselves with Cyrus, that they both shook them off and their branches. But the account is made as from what is accustomed to happen to vines. For the cluster is shaken off and spits out the grapes, either when a most violent wind attacks, or when a scorching heat burns it, or when any other harm befalls it, so that the branch itself appears with the fruits, stripped even of its blossom. So then they shook them off like vines. And their weapons have been destroyed, that is, their power; for 'weapons' sometimes signifies power. But he says that being terrible horsemen, and knowing the battles from chariots, they were in such unbearable terrors, that they were turned to flight, and entangled with one another, and were shattered dashing against each other, and he thought he so gazed upon the phalanxes of the enemy, that they yielded in no way to torches, or even like lightning consumed them, darting with a swift and unrestrained course.

But the voice of whips too is heard in the world, since many are the tribulations of the just, and those who are scourged by them cry out and testify with a tearful voice to the greatness of their pain: when one is seized by a demon, another by anger, which is like madness, another by lust, hatred, envy, pride, the whip of the Assyrian king sounds in them. And in the ills of the body too we understand the whip of the devil, of which it is said to the just man: And the whip will not come near your tent; if ever we see this man rotted with jaundice and outliving his own corpse, another with water under the skin swimming in a swollen body, and, as the limbs grow, the form of the former man shrinking, as we lately saw in the Hydra; that man coughing up certain purulent matter and the wastings of a wounded lung; this one, with the humor dried into stones, feeling the bitterness of urine and the torments of the bladder, let us not hesitate to say that this is the voice of the whips of Nineveh. Granted, some suspect that these things happen either from corrupted air or from the diversity of foods and of bodies. Let us, who read both that a fever was rebuked, and that the woman who had been bound by the devil for eighteen years was cured, with the Lord as her physician, know that all these are the whips of Nineveh. Hence there follows: And the voice of the commotion of wheels, while the human race is swept hither and thither, and in uncertain runnings about through all things we do not know where the danger is, where safety; of which wheel it is written also at the beginning of Ezekiel; in the seventy-sixth (77th) psalm we read: The voice of your thunder in the wheel. Nineveh also has the pursuing horse, whose neighing and hoof digging the ground and heaving breast always desire wars, as the Lord speaks against the devil: From afar he smells the battle, when with leaping and shouting he does not spare those who flee, nor lets those who turn their backs get away, but pursues to lay them low, kill, trample, dash them down. There is also in Nineveh the voice of the seething chariot, such chariots as I think Pharaoh had, which were sunk by the Lord. To this chariot four horses are yoked, namely four perturbations, about which the philosophers dispute, and Maro is not silent, saying: These desire and fear, grieve and rejoice... With these horses and with this chariot Nineveh throws everything into turmoil.

The voice of the whip of an empire ever cruel and raging, and the voice of the onrush of the wheel. Let us take voice for sound; the seething wheel, a running about in different directions, and of the snorting horse and of the seething chariot: in all of them voice is understood. So beautiful, according to the Hebrew, and so like a painting is the description of an army preparing itself for battle, that every word of mine would be poorer. For what he says, And of heavy ruin, and there is no end of corpses, let us understand of the adversaries who were slain by them. And they will fall upon their own bodies: either they will fall from their own multitude, while they are crowded together by one another, or they will fall upon the corpses of the slain; for αὐτῶν means both "their own" and "their".

And the voice of the horseman going up also resounds in her, who, prepared for war by a certain art and by wheeling, advances not without danger to the one fighting against him. This horseman has the sword of speech, sharpened on the whetstone of dialectic and smoothed with the oil of the rhetorical art; he has gleaming arms, as Satan transforms himself into an angel of light, arms which are contrary to the apostolic armor. Nor is it any wonder if there is a multitude of the wounded in Nineveh, since there is a multitude of arrows. And just as the four with which we fight and are protected are the shields of the virtues, prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, so on the contrary there are four vices, folly, iniquity, luxury, fear, by which we are struck by the enemy. Each of these has within itself sprouting and manifold kinds of arrows, by which wounds are inflicted; and unless medicine heals them at once, there follows a heavy ruin. And would that as many in Nineveh were falling lightly and lightly wounded, as there are those who, through the weight of their ruin, are plunged down even to hell. And there is no end to her nations; her malice has no end, and as many as are the kinds of sins, so many are the nations of Nineveh, which will grow weak in their own bodies from the multitude of fornication. Although this can also be taken of those who, on account of venereal pleasures, are weakened even in body, and with the perdition of the soul also break the flesh which they serve, yet these nations of which we have spoken do not fall, according to the Hebrew, except upon their own bodies, and do not stumble — as Symmachus translated — except upon the corpses of the dead, which have been laid low by the multiplication of fornication.

Because of the multitude, he says, of the fornications of the harlot, since she fornicated with many nations, and worshiped the idols of the whole world which she had subjected to herself. Beautiful and pleasing, and having sorceries: it means magicians; who sold nations in her fornications, and families in her sorceries, that is, she who had power over all the nations.

In this place the LXX translators, although we have put, according to the Hebrew, Because of the multitude of the fornications of the harlot, wanted, as it were, another beginning, so as to say: For the multitude of fornication, and, the sentence being finished there, then to begin: A harlot beautiful and pleasing, leader of sorceries. For leader of sorceries Aquila and Symmachus translated, having sorceries. Nor will anyone wonder that Nineveh is now the most pleasing of harlots, who has seen so great a multitude of men fornicating with her, and almost all being drawn to love of her by her sorceries and by certain incantations. She sold nations in her fornications, nations which take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot, and tribes in her sorceries. For she makes them love what they ought to have hated, and detest what they ought to have loved, so that, when they have been deceived, according to what is written: Evil conversations corrupt good morals, they too may trip up others by the art of sorcery. I have read in the holy Scriptures that sorcerers are also taken in a good sense: And of the sorcerer who enchants wisely. But such a sorcerer enchants for this purpose: to draw back to soundness of mind those bound by love of the harlot Nineveh.

Behold, I am against you, says the Lord Almighty; because I am almighty, I can heal all diseases, and what is impossible for others is possible for me. I will lay bare your hinder parts in your face, that is, my virtues, precepts and words, which you have cast behind your back: though you do not deserve it, I will make you see them. For I had commanded you concerning my words, that they should always move before your eyes, be bound on and hang there. But you, scorning the command of him who gave it, left them behind your footsteps, so that you not only did not do what I had commanded, but did not even deign to look at it. Or certainly I will make you see and understand your errors, which before, when you were borne along blind and headlong, you thought to be virtues. After this I will also show your nakedness to the nations whom you sold in your fornication, so that they may by no means be captured by love of you, but, seeing within the filthy and foul body by whose surface they were at first led on, they may cease to fornicate with you. To the kingdoms also, which are greater than nations, I will show your disgrace, which you yourself brought about, so that you should have it.

Behold, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will lay bare your shameful parts before your face, and I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your disgrace; and I will cast abominations upon you, and I will heap insults upon you, and I will make you an example. LXX: Behold, I am against you, says the Lord Almighty, and I will uncover your hinder parts over your face, and I will show the nations your shame, and the kingdoms your disgrace; and I will cast abomination upon you according to your uncleannesses, and I will make you an example. Because you have sold nations, O Nineveh, in your fornications, and families in your sorceries, and like a public brothel have spread your feet for all, therefore I myself will come to you to overthrow you; I will not send an angel, I will not entrust your judgment to others. I will uncover your shameful parts in your face, so that what you did not see before may be set before your sight. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your disgrace, so that those who have fornicated with you may themselves despise you, mock you, heap insults upon you; and you will be an example to all who see you. Now all these things are told under the metaphor of an adulterous woman, who, when she has been caught, is brought out into the open and paraded before the eyes of all. This, indeed, the prophetic word in Ezekiel also describes most fully, by a transference, against Jerusalem. Yet they are said more truly and more usefully to the world, to which the true physician came from heaven both to cut and to cure.

And I will cast abomination upon you according to your uncleannesses, so that, as you are unclean, so you may be seen to be unclean, and may not deceive very many who, cleaving to you before, were made one body with you. And I will make you an example, so that the dreaded likeness of the punishment may forbid the likeness of the sinning.

And it shall be: everyone who sees you will spring back from you and will say: Nineveh is laid waste. Who will shake the head over you? Whence shall I seek a consoler for you? In the Hebrew the word head is not found, but we added it, so that the sense might become clearer. Indeed, Symmachus translated it thus: And everyone who sees you will withdraw from you and will say. Nineveh is torn apart, who will mourn with her? The Seventy, moreover: And it shall be, everyone who sees you will go down from you and will say: Wretched Nineveh, who will groan for her? Whence shall I seek consolation for her, tuning the string. Whoever sees the ruins of Nineveh, and her set as an example for all, will be terrified and will marvel, and will say: Nineveh is torn apart, who will shake the head over you? That is, who will grieve over you, who will be able to be your consoler? You who, as long as you were powerful, like a cruel mistress, had no pity on the old man, nor regarded the little child, nor prepared for yourself a companion in your mourning, you who would have no partner in reigning. But he who despises these earthly things, and has scorned the sorceries of Nineveh the poisoner, and has not been ensnared by her false beauty, when he has seen all her foulness within and has begun to hate what the rest love, will flee and spring back from her, or, as is said by the Seventy, will go down. For as long as we honor earthly things and think them lofty, we are, as it were, once at the pinnacle of pride, and we admire the beauty of Nineveh. But when we have considered her nature, and have despised all bodily goods as lowly, subjecting ourselves to the power of the hand of God, then we shall pity Nineveh, and judge all earthly goods worthy of lamentation, and we shall say: Wretched Nineveh, how many have been ensnared by your snares, how many you hold bound with your chains. Who, do you think, will spring back from you and go down from your pride, and judge you wretched? Now what he says, who, we ought to take not so much as meaning what is difficult, as what is rare, as we have often said: Who, do you think, is the faithful and prudent steward? and: Who is wise, and he will understand these things? and: Who will ascend into the mountain of the Lord? Who, then, will groan over Nineveh? Who can be found who, weighed down by this tabernacle, may say with Paul: Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? We see daily that if death has come near to anyone, and he has understood that he is being taken away from this world by fever, or by a wound, or by any kind of disease, he panics, he trembles, and, shaking in his whole body, he clings to the embraces of Nineveh and is scarcely torn away from the body of the beautiful harlot. Now what follows, Whence shall I seek consolation, or a consoler for you, who may tune the string? It is still said in the person of him who will spring back or go down from Nineveh, and will say: Wretched Nineveh, who will groan for her? He is discoursing on the confused way of life of this age, in which nothing can please anyone for ever; but what pleased displeases, and what had displeased pleases again. Who, then, will be able to be found as such a consoler? And, so to speak, a lyric writer and a lyre-player who could draw her discordant strings into one harmony, and make of them a concert of voices in the praises of God? This which we have expounded, who may tune the string, or tuning the string, which in Greek is said ἁρμόσαι χορδὴν, we have found neither in the Hebrew nor in the other translators, but in its place the beginning of another passage: Are you better than Amon, which dwells among the rivers? Hence it seems to me that it should rather be joined with what follows.

For what is read in the Seventy, Tune, or set in order, the string, is still said to Nineveh. And the sense is: What is disordered and out of tune in you, and jarring in different directions, tune like strings, Nineveh, for your beauty and your greatness, which you believe you possess in a pre-eminent degree, will profit you nothing unless you tune yourself for singing. For consider the whole part of the lot of the sons of Ammon, and how whatever goods they are reckoned to possess did not defend them from going into captivity and from their little ones being dashed in the ways. What did the rivers profit her, beside which the city of Ammon is set? What did so great a multitude of wells and springs, besides the rivers, beginning from the Dead Sea and walling in her region, profit her?

Are you better than Amon, which dwells among the rivers? Water is round about her, whose riches are the sea, waters are her walls; Ethiopia is her strength, and Egypt, and there is no end; Africa and the Libyans were your help. Yet she too is led away into exile, into captivity; her little ones will be dashed at the head of all the ways, and over her renowned ones they will cast lots; and all her nobles will be fastened in fetters. And you therefore will be drunk and will be despised; and you will seek your help from the enemy; all your fortresses, like fig trees with their early figs, if they are shaken, will fall into the mouth of the eater. LXX: Tune the string, part of Ammon, you who dwell among the rivers, waters round about her, whose beginning is the sea, and water is her walls; Ethiopia is her strength, and Egypt, and there is no end of your flight. And the Libyans became her helpers, and she herself will go into exile as a captive, and they will dash her little ones at the beginning of her ways, and over all her renowned things they will cast lots, and all her nobles will be bound with fetters; and you will be drunk and will be despised, and you will seek there to make a stand against the enemies; all your fortresses are like fig trees that have early figs: if they are shaken, they will fall into the mouth of the eater. Where in the Seventy one reads Tune the string, part of Ammon, the other translators too rendered: Are you better than Amon? The Hebrew who instructed me in the Scriptures asserted that it can be read thus: Are you better than No, Amon? And he said that in Hebrew Alexandria is called No, and Amon a multitude, or peoples; and that the order of the reading is: Are you better than Alexandria the populous, or of the peoples, which dwells among the rivers, water round about her? Not that it was called Alexandria at that time, since it received its name long afterwards from Alexander the Great of Macedon, but because under its first name, that is, No, it was always the metropolis of Egypt and most abounding in peoples. Finally, those too who have handed down to memory the deeds of Alexander affirm that it was the chief city of Egypt. Moreover the prophet Jeremiah too understands Amon, or No, as Alexandria in the vision against Egypt, to which he says: Egypt is a beautiful heifer; a goader will come to her from the north. He also adds this more plainly: The daughter of Egypt is confounded, she has been delivered into the hand of the people of the north, says the Lord of powers, the God of Israel. Behold, I will visit upon Amon Menno, that is, upon the people from Alexandria. For Amon, as we have said, means peoples, men the preposition 'from', and No Alexandria. And I will visit, he says, upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt and upon her gods; and upon her kings, and upon Pharaoh, and upon those who hope in him; and I will give them into the hands of those who seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants. And so it is said to Nineveh: Are you more populous, or more powerful, than Alexandria? And the site of Alexandria is described, which, set upon the Nile and the sea, is surrounded on this side and that by waters and rivers. Water is round about her, whose riches are the sea, waters are her walls. For on one side she is girded by the stream of the Nile, on another by Lake Mareotis, on another side by the sea. And that Ethiopia and Egypt, and Africa, for which in the Hebrew Phut is put, and the Libyans are her protection, the very situation of the provinces and of the city shows.

Let these things be said παραφραστικῶς (by way of paraphrase) according to the Seventy translators: for we have once for all resolved to follow the common edition too, lest we seem to have given the Hydra and Sardanapalus any occasion for censure. However, the example of the overthrow of Nineveh does not seem to me to fit well enough with the sons of Lot, who are called Amman. For first, it is called Ammon and not Amman; then Ammana, which is now called Philadelphia, is not set upon rivers, nor is its wealth gathered from the sea, since it is inland; nor are waters its walls, nor does it have Ethiopia and Egypt and Africa and the Libyans as allies; whereas all these things, as to the example, as to power, and as to the description of the place and region and of the friendly nations, are rather to be fitted to Alexandria; and Nineveh, a most powerful city, compared with lesser Philadelphia, would never hear from the prophet: Are you better? But the one to whom it is said, Are you better, is shown to be less than the one with which she is compared, and that she ought not to take it ill if she is captured, since a greater, firmer and more powerful city, both by the nature of its site and by its brave men, has been overcome by the same enemy.

But since we have interpreted Nineveh also as this world, she is commanded to tune and set in order her strings and to prepare herself for a mournful song; for the part of the sons of Ammon, which had been much better than Nineveh and had dwelt upon rivers, because it was caught in error, has paid the penalty of its crime. And first, as must be said according to the history of Alexandria, Ammon means peoples, and the sense according to the laws of allegory is this: Consider the peoples of the Church, which dwells upon the streams of the prophets, and has teachers round about her, out of whose belly rivers flow, and whose beginning is the sea. For from the reading of the law, which without the wood of Christ is bitter, like Marah, one comes to her mystery, and she has Ethiopia for her strength. For Ethiopia indeed will be first to stretch out her hands to God; and she has Egypt, into which the Lord came on a light cloud; and the Libyans, who before dwelt in parched places and afterwards became her help.

But if we wish to interpret Ammon of the sons of Lot, let us say that Lot had two sons by his two daughters, Moab and Ammon, of whom the elder, Moab, means 'from the father' or 'paternal water', and the younger, Ammon, either 'son of my race' or 'our people'. And I think that, just as to one who had been born of Judah it is said because of his sin: Seed of Canaan, and not of Judah, and in Ezekiel to sinful Jerusalem: Your root and your generation are from the land of Canaan, your father an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite, so whoever were of the former people, that is, of the Jews, and of the younger, that is, of ours, are figuratively called Moabites and Ammonites. And because they turned aside from their father — for Lot means turning aside — they are to be subjected to punishment and will suffer all that we have set out above. But if the severity of God begins with those who were once holy, and she who dwelt among the rivers will be purged by the fire of Gehenna, how much more will Nineveh, which before did not have the law nor receive the yoke of God's commandments, because of her pride at the last fall into the mouth of the devourer.

What protection did Ethiopia and Egypt, once her allies, afford her? As, then, the help of her allies did not aid her, so neither will there be an end of your fleeing, O Nineveh, but you will be laid waste hither and thither. Why should I speak of the Ethiopians and the Egyptians, who were the protectors of the sons of Ammon, when even the Libyans were her allies?

Moreover, what we passed over, And there is no end of your flight, since it is said to Nineveh and is set among the things written about Ammon, and seems to be inserted irregularly in a place not its own, let us refer to Nineveh as if by ὑπέρβατον (hyperbaton), so that the order is: And you will be drunk, and there is no end of your flight, and you will be despised, and the rest that is said to Nineveh. And we will interpret it to mean that there is no end of Nineveh's flight from God, because she always makes progress in fleeing and never wishes to stand still, according to what we said above: And they, fleeing, did not stand, and there was none to look back. And we will say that holy Scripture is woven with these difficulties, and above all the prophets, who are full of riddles, so that the difficulty of the language too may wrap up the difficulty of the meanings, that what is holy may not easily lie open to dogs, nor pearls to swine, nor the holy of holies to the profane.

She too, therefore, whom my discourse, says the prophet, describes, will be taken by the Babylonian king, and the same man will be the devastator both of you and of her. These things Josephus too, the writer of the Jewish history, relates in his books: Her little ones will be dashed at the crossroads; her nobles will be divided by the lot of the victors, and princes once most powerful will be led captive in chains.

She too, therefore, will be led into captivity; her little ones, because they will not be able to walk, will be slain in the ways, struck down before the faces of their parents, and all her wealth will perhaps be divided by the victors. Nor will any of her princes escape, for they will be bound with iron and fetters.

She too, therefore, if she does not take heed to herself and keep her heart with all diligence, will be led captive and will mourn her sons. Her little ones too, who are still at the beginnings of the ways and have not reached the middle of the journey, will be dashed at their very beginnings, and the most savage enemies will hasten to divide among themselves by lot all her splendid things, and they will drag into captivity her nobles, whom we can understand as princes and overseers, bound with chains and hampered by the heaviest weight of fetters.

Since, then, Alexandria is to suffer these things, you too, O Nineveh, will drink from the same cup, and will be drunk, and lying stupefied you will be despised, and you will come into such need that you will ask help from the Babylonians, or against the Babylonians, from your enemies.

And you therefore, O Nineveh, will be drunk, and you who were once rich and beautiful, who had so many lovers, will be despised by all, and with your enemies pursuing you will seek rest and will not find it.

And you therefore, Nineveh, that is, unbelieving men, men clinging wholly to the world, will feel punishments and will be stupefied by my cup, since those too have drunk who had been of my portion and fell by their own fault. And you will be despised by me; you will seek an end amid the vices and passions that will press upon you, and nonetheless you will not be able to find a resting place and an end of evils; but all your desires and delights, and the powers of the age, and the dogmas you seemed to yourself to hold most firmly, will be devoured by the eater, of whom Samson speaks in a parable: Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. For then all your strong things, and those that promised sweet fruits to the eyes of onlookers, will tumble at the first shaking of the tree into the mouth of the devouring devil, by whom Nineveh had always been held and possessed.

All your strongholds, and your walls stretched up on high, and the heights of your towers, which you now think impregnable, and your brave men and warriors, will be compared to first-ripe figs, which, if they are shaken with a light touch, will fall into the mouth of the devourer.

All your warriors and all your auxiliaries will be a prey to the enemies, and will be taken without any labor, like the early figs of a fig tree, which, when shaken, fall not to the ground, so that there may not be even the small labor of gathering them, but straightway into the mouth of the devourer.

These things, as I said, have been said by us briefly so that the sense may be grasped; now, returning to the beginning of the section, let us unfold each point as we can. Who would not say that beautiful Nineveh, a soul beautiful by nature, beguiled by the luxury and pleasures of this age, has come to womanish delights, and, her manliness lost, has languished into a woman? For if the soul of the righteous man, coming to the perfect man and keeping the firmness of its creation, and cleaving to God, is made one spirit with him, why should not, on the contrary, the soul that loves the world become one with the world, and, reduced to womanly softness, lose its manly firmness? I think that for this reason in Exodus Pharaoh commands that every male born to the Hebrews be thrown into the river, and every female be kept alive. For the Egyptian king, who says elsewhere: The rivers are mine, and I made them, could command nothing other than this, that whatever is strong and manly in the Hebrews, and in those who pass through this age, be thrown into the waters and carried down by their streams into the sea. And on the contrary, whatever seemed womanly and soft and comely in this age, that should be kept alive, should grow up and beget. And consider at the same time that the Egyptian ruler cannot kill the men of the Hebrews, nor those who have already come out of infancy, but only those whose age is still tender, and their body soft, and their progress just beginning; he knows that the females cannot be reared unless the males have been killed. So he wishes to drown in the whirlpool of his river whatever is strong and manly in the Hebrews, so that what is womanly may grow up alone more freely. As for what follows, To your enemies the gates of your land will be opened with opening, you will be able to understand it by taking testimony from Jeremiah, in whom it is written: Death has come up through your windows. And what in Jeremiah is shown in the windows, here you will declare is shown in the gates, and you will refer these very gates to the senses. For the divine word, knowing that the senses are twofold, says in Proverbs, to distinguish them from the evil senses: You will find a divine sense. But here you should not take sense for the soul and the mind, which in Greek is called νοῦς, but for αἰσθήσει (sense-perception), from which the five senses also are named: sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing. The gates of the land of Nineveh, then, are understood as the bodily senses; but the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem as every divine sense, and one coming from above. These gates of Nineveh her people opens through sight and hearing and all the remaining senses, as through the broad and spacious way that leads to death, seeking to seize the bodily pleasures against which the men of God close their gates, stopping their ears lest they hear the judgment of blood, closing their eyes lest they see iniquity, stopping their nostrils lest they take in by smell the chief ointments to the effeminacy of their soul, closing the mouth to the gullet and to the greedy belly, and drawing back their hands from soft touch, lest the belly, boiling over into lust, drive the burning soul into womanly embraces. But those who are men of God open their senses, that is, the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, so that the word of God may enter into them. Of the evil gates this is an example: You who lift me up from the gates of death. Of the good, this: That I may announce all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion. When you see a lover of pleasures rather than a lover of God, and one given over to luxury, say of him at once: He has opened the gates of his land to his enemies; for it is not to the friends of their soul, but to the enemies, that they open the gates of the land of Nineveh. And if those too who are reckoned princes among the people do the same, you will not fear to say of them also: The leaders of my people have been cast out of the house of their delights. But if you see them hampered by pleasures and by luxury surrounding them on this side and that, having no mercy toward the poor and no concern for the people of God, you will fit to them what follows: Who sleep upon beds of ivory and flow with pleasure on their couches, who eat kids from the flocks and sucking calves from the herds; who drink strained wine and are anointed with the chief ointments; and they suffered nothing over the affliction of Joseph. Moreover, what is said, Fire has eaten your bars, is of this kind: If there seemed to be anything of natural good in your soul which, like bars, could hold back and repel the enemies who were trying to break in through the gates of your senses, this has been burned up by the Babylonian fire.

These things I have explained more plainly according to the Hebrew, treading in the very footsteps of Scripture, for the reader's easier understanding. But I will speak also according to the LXX, following the τροπολογίαν (tropology) I have begun, first briefly, that is, as in an epitome, and afterwards discussing each point more broadly: Your people, O Nineveh, that is, the men of this age, who are properly called the people of the Assyrian city, are so unnerved by passions and have so languished in vices that they are compared to the weakness of women; for they possess nothing strong in their souls, nothing robust and manly. Hence the enemies, prevailing against them, have opened all their senses and have entered through the bodily doors. And significantly the senses of bodies are called the doors of the land of Nineveh. But even those who have enslaved themselves to vices have, from God's first creation, an occasion of knowing God, like the stoutest bars, with which they may block and close the gates of the senses. But fire will consume these too, the fire that is winged by burning arrows; wherefore it is said to Nineveh: Draw yourself water, and sprinkle yourself with the word and with reason, and make full use, for fighting, of the occasions of understanding God and of exercising the virtues that are implanted in you. But you, with slackened hands, that is, by the works of pleasure, have lost whatever strength you had in you; therefore turn back, and do repentance, and hold your fortifications again. And since she has once entered the clay, and you are shut up in a body — which, as from earth and straw and water, so is compacted of flesh, blood, veins, sinews and bones — bear the injury and the necessities of the body, and be trodden down by the enemies, and suffer all things that are worthy of repentance for subduing the flesh. For having once taken on the clay and the straw, and being entangled in the empty dealings of this age, you ought willingly to be trodden down through injury; and yet do not utterly despair of salvation: be confident, and bring your body, that is, your brick, into servitude, because of the word you have taken up like water; and subject it to yourself, so that you may rule over your brick; otherwise, unless you do this, a living flame will afterwards consume you, kindled either for punishment through Gehenna or by the burning darts of the enemy, and you will not only be laid waste by fire, but the sword too will eat you, as the locust eats the green things of the earth. And this you will suffer if you are not over the brick: weighed down by your own weight and losing all flight, you will be dragged wholly down to the earth, as the cankerworm suddenly falls to the earth when with wearied flight it can go no further. Have, therefore, virtues as innumerable as the cankerworm, lest you be dragged down to the earth by your weight like the cankerworm. All these things you have suffered because you multiplied for yourself riches and the tradings of diverse dogmas, thinking them brighter than the stars and shining more than the constellations of heaven.

Behold, your people are women in the midst of you; to your enemies the gates of your land will be thrown wide open; fire will devour your bars. Draw yourself water because of the siege, build up your fortifications; go into the clay, and tread it, and working it hold the brick. There fire will devour you; you will perish by the sword; it will devour you like the cankerworm; gather yourself like the cankerworm, multiply like the locust. You have made your tradings more than the stars of heaven are. The cankerworm spread out, and flew away. Your guards are like the locust, and your little ones like the locusts of locusts, which settle in the hedges on the day of cold. The sun has risen, and they have flown away, and their place where they were is not known. LXX: Behold, your people are like women in you; to your enemies the gates of your land will be opened with opening; fire has eaten your bars. Draw yourself water of the siege, hold your fortifications; go into the clay and be trodden in the straw, prevail over the brick. There fire will eat you, the sword will destroy you, and it will eat you like the locust; you will be weighed down like the cankerworm; multiply like the cankerworm; you have multiplied your tradings like the stars of heaven. The speaker's discourse is still woven as addressed to Nineveh. No wonder if your strong men and fighters, like early figs, fall at once into the mouth of the devourer, since your people has become effeminate and cannot resist. Your gates, then, will be thrown open, and the city will lie open to the enemies; fire will consume the stoutest bars with which the gates were closed. Draw water, therefore, and take care that drink is not lacking to the besieged fortress; make bricks, so that you may build up the breaches of the walls: for the siege is near. And when you have done all these things, you will be devoured by the sword as the ground is by the cankerworm. But even when you have been multiplied like the cankerworm, and gathered together into one like the locust, and have gathered your riches like the stars of heaven, then, just as locusts and the cankerworm, and the small offspring of locusts which are called attelabi, fly away when the sun grows hot and are not found, so you will be scattered and will flee. For this is the nature of locusts, that, torpid in the cold, they fly about in the heat. Moreover, the attelabus, which Aquila has rendered more expressively as 'the glutton', is a small locust, between the locust and the cankerworm, creeping rather than flying with its small wings and always hopping, and for this reason, wherever it has sprung up, it consumes everything down to the dust, because until its wings grow it cannot go away.

Also, Draw to yourself water of the fortification, is said of the word of God, so that the soul may surround herself with the teaching and reason of the Scriptures as with a most firm wall, lest the enemy be able to break into her inner parts. Hold, he says, your fortifications. Whatever good you have in you by nature, which preserves in you the beginning given by the best Creator, this, unhappy soul, Nineveh, hold for your defense, and do not let it flow out of the ruling part of the heart. As for what is added after this, Walk into the clay, and be trodden in the straw, another perhaps may think it is said of the soul which, fixed in the clay of the body and the straw of this world, empty, that is, and perishable, turning itself about wholly, is trodden down by demons. But to me this seems to be said to her: Bear the temptations, the injuries to which you have been handed over, the punishments which you suffer by your own desert; for if you walk upon the empty and fragile dealings of this world, know that you are bearing them as a remedy, if only you prevail over the brick and subjugate the flesh to the rule of the soul.

Then follows: There fire will eat you. If you are not over the brick and do not have dominion over the flesh, but remain in the brick, and love the straw, and live in the flesh according to the flesh, not only will the burning darts of the enemy devour you, but his sword too will kill you, and like locusts it will consume with greedy tooth whatever in you seemed green and sprouting of its own accord from the good of nature, and as the cankerworm, its flight lost and weighed down by its own weight, so you too, weighed down by the burden of sins, will be dragged down to the earth. Therefore, lest you suffer such and so great things, multiply like the cankerworm, and as great as its number is, so many virtues must you have. For you who have multiplied your tradings, and of every kind — as if you desired to possess heavenly things — have gathered for yourself by right and by wrong riches that will perish, ought to equal the multitude of sins with a multitude of virtues.

However, you will not be able to hesitate to call cankerworm the multitude of men which, going along the broad way, busies itself in the world, when you see them wholly given to the earth, running about hither and thither with fickleness of opinion, and unable to fly to higher things. Look at Rome, and at Constantinople exchanging its former poverty together with its earlier name. See Alexandria, the head of Egypt, and when a riot has been stirred up, either for scarcity of the grain supply or, what is matter for shame and blushing, on account of charioteers and mimes and actors, see the people rush like the cankerworm and, clinging wholly to vices, flit hither and thither through its fickleness and its change of opinion from moment to moment; then truly you will be able to say: The cankerworm went off with a rush and flew away.

Above, according to the Hebrew, I had come as far as the place where it says: The sun has risen, and they have flown away, and their place where they were is not known. And I said what seemed to me in the context of the discourse itself. Now, because the LXX seem to have the beginning of a sense of their own, I will set down their testimony and follow the order of the explanation I have begun.

LXX: The cankerworm rushed in and flew out; your commingled one leapt out like the attelabus, like the locust that goes up upon the hedge on the day of frost; the sun rose, and it leapt out, and did not know its place. It seems to me that the multitude of Nineveh, without a ruler, mingled together from here and there without order, and rushing wherever impulse carries it, is compared to the cankerworm, a small and innumerable creature, which seems to raise itself only a little from the ground. And the attelabus too, which in Greek is called συμμικτὸς and in Latin has been translated as 'commingled one', we can understand as the ignoble rabble and a people gathered from here and there out of diverse nations, that is, not citizens but foreigners. Hence the people of Israel too, as it went out of Egypt, is related to have had πολὺν σύμμικτον (a great mixed multitude), that is, of Egyptians and Ethiopians and various nations. This mixed one of Nineveh, then, so to speak, is compared to the leaping attelabus and to the locust, which on the day of cold, because it cannot fly away, settles on the hedge, and afterwards, when the sun has risen, warmed by its heat leaps out, and flying away to other regions by no means remembers the hedge on which it had sat in the time of cold. Let these things be said παραφραστικῶς (by way of paraphrase), so that the prophet's discourse itself may be more easily understood.

Moreover, as to what follows, The attelabus leapt out, and your mixed one like the locust, I think the mixed one differs from the cankerworm in this, that the cankerworm is compared to the unskilled and innumerable multitude, but the mixed one is gathered from here and there out of all nations. And just as in cities some are citizens and others foreigners, who are pleased to live in a city not their own, so I think that the mixed one who dwells in Nineveh are those who seem to themselves, in their own opinion, to follow some dogmas of truth, and to be better than the cankerworm in this, that the cankerworm does nothing else but stay always on the ground and, without wings, serve its food and its belly; while the attelabus at least takes on small wings, and though it cannot fly on high, still strives to leap up from the ground, and at length, coming to be a locust, it flies about indeed, but its flight is not lasting; for when its little wings fail and are stiffened by the cold, even the locust settles, and settles not on a fruitful tree and on green leaves, but on a hedge woven of brambles and brushwood, or on a dry-stone wall put together from stones picked up at random here and there. Let us consider the wise men of Greece, and of the Egyptians and Persians, and the Gymnosophists of the Indians, and the Samaritans, and the various opinions among them, and the Jews and their Pharisees, and the Sadducees, and the manifold heresies of the Church, and we shall see the attelabus lifting itself a little from the ground, and the locust flying indeed, but not at full course, and, because it does not have the heat of the sun of righteousness, its love toward God growing cold, sitting in thorny hedges. For all their dogmas, since they are cold and cannot fly, find a seat and rest for themselves among the thickets of Aristotle and Chrysippus. From there Eunomius brings forth: What was born did not exist before it was born. From there Manichaeus, to free God from the creation of evils, introduces another author of evil. From there Novatus withdraws pardon, so as to take away repentance. And to sum up everything at once in a brief word, all the dogmas draw the streams of their argumentations from those springs, so that they have even entitled the very places from which arguments are taken τοπικὰ (Topics). This locust, then, which now sits in the hedges, when the time of judgment has come and the world has grown warm at the rising of the sun, will leave its seat and its places to which it clung in the time of cold, and, turned to better things, will not remember its former seat. But what we have said generally of the time of judgment can be understood in part even now: that through learned and erudite men the light of the sun of righteousness may rise for locusts of this kind, and that, leaving their thorns, they may pass into a pure and free flight.

Your shepherds have slumbered, king of Asshur; your princes will be buried, your people is scattered upon the mountains, and there is none to gather them. Your crushing is not obscure, most grievous is your stroke. All who have heard the report of you have clenched the hand over you, for upon whom has your malice not passed continually? LXX: Woe to them. Your shepherds have slumbered, the king of Asshur has lulled your mighty ones to sleep, your people has gone away upon the mountains, and there was none to receive them, and there is no healing for your crushing; your stroke swells. All who have heard the news of you will clap their hands over you, for upon whom has your malice not rushed continually? It is no wonder if your shepherds have slumbered, O king of Asshur, you who held dominion in Nineveh, and if your princes are buried, or wander, your petty kings, that is, and the leaders of all the nations who served you before, since your people have become women in the midst of your city, and its gates have been opened to your enemies, and the whole multitude sitting on the wall has been likened to the locust, which, as at the rising of the sun, so has fled from the ramparts at the coming of Nebuchadnezzar, and has turned its back to the enemies, and its place has not been found. Therefore, since God was angered because you had laid waste his people, O Asshur, and had raised your nest up to heaven, whence you are also called great sense, your city has been destroyed. And with all the princes slain who were able to resist the adversaries, the rest of your people, unwarlike and ignoble, has been scattered on the mountains, and none of the leaders can be found to gather them and from those gathered to muster an army again.

Woe, therefore, to those who are masters of perverse doctrines in Nineveh. And fittingly it is said to them: Your shepherds have slumbered; for they have given sleep to their eyes, and slumber to their eyelids. And therefore they did not find a place for the Lord, nor a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. Nor did they hear of Ephrathah, that is, the fruitful Church, nor did they find it in the thickets of the woods. But not only have the shepherds of this mixed one, and of the locust, which, when frost threatens, sits in the hedges, slumbered, but they have also been lulled to sleep by the king of the Assyrians. For the Assyrian king knows that he cannot deceive the sheep unless he has first lulled the shepherds to sleep. It is ever the devil's endeavor to lull wakeful souls to sleep. Finally, in the Lord's passion too he weighs down the eyes of the apostles with heavy sleep; and the Savior, rousing them, says: Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. And again: What I say to you, I say to all: watch. And because he never ceases to lull the wakeful to sleep, whomever he has deceived, and enticed to sleep as with the sweet and deadly song of the Sirens, the divine word rouses, and says: Rise, you who sleep, and be lifted up, and Christ will enlighten you. At the coming, then, of Christ, and of the word of God, and of the Church's teaching, and of the consummation of Nineveh, once the most beautiful harlot, the people that had before been lulled to sleep under its masters will be lifted up and will hasten, and will go to the mountains of the Scriptures, and there it will find as mountains Moses and Joshua son of Nun, as mountains the prophets, as mountains the apostles and evangelists of the New Testament; and when it has fled to such mountains, and has been occupied in the reading of mountains of this kind, if it does not find anyone to teach it: For the harvest is great, but the laborers are few, then both its zeal will be approved, because it fled to the mountains, and the sloth of the masters will be convicted. For he adds: And there was none to receive them.

But according to the Hebrew as well, before we discuss the edition of the Seventy — for in them the sense is far other and different —, we ought to climb a little from the history to the heights, and to teach that in the last prophecy of Nahum an ἀποστροφὴ (apostrophe) is made to the devil, the great sense, the prince of the Assyrians, who once said boastfully: By strength I will do it, and by the wisdom of understanding I will take away the bounds of the nations, and I will feed upon their strength, and I will shake the cities that are inhabited, and that it is said to him: O Lucifer, who rose in the morning, who sent your sparks to all the nations, how have you fallen to the earth and been crushed? Nineveh, your beautiful and mighty city, has been destroyed, in which you presumed so great an empire for yourself that you dared to say even to the Son of God: All these things have been delivered to me; if you fall down and worship me, I will give them to you. Your shepherds and petty kings have slumbered, who did not feed men unto salvation, but nourished them for your slaughter, so that you might devour fatter victims. All your people, and the throng of peoples that once worshiped you, has deserted you and your city, and has fled to the mountains, and has placed itself under the hiding places of the apostles of Christ and of the teachers; and meanwhile there is none of your leaders to call back to himself the throng that was once yours. Your stroke and your wound have resounded through the whole world; all who had once been deceived by your supplanting have insulted you; for there is either no one, or scarcely anyone, whom you have not at some time deceived, and through whom your malice has not passed. And it must be noted that the one in whom the malice of the devil has stood fast cannot insult his ruin and wound, since he is of the shepherds and the people of the Assyrian king; but the one through whom it has passed insults him, and with good and upright works, as with hands, claps over him. And fittingly, according to the Hebrew, up to this point it has been spoken of the ruin of the world, and last of all the stroke and wound of the devil himself too is proclaimed, who was the prince of the world: For the world is set in the evil one. But in the Seventy it is still said to the σύμμικτον, that is, to the mixed one of the world, that its shepherds have slept, and that, so that they might sleep, they have been lulled to sleep by the Assyrian king; and so it comes about that, while in them is described what the Assyrian practiced among others, and not what he himself suffers, nothing is said of the wound and stroke and slaying of the devil.

Your wound is not obscure, nor is it such a stroke as could be cured by a physician's hand. All who hear that Nineveh has been overthrown and the Assyrian king overcome, and that the most mighty city, and the king once lord of the city, has been wounded, and lies half-dead, and wallows in his own blood, will either be stunned at the greatness of the event and the unhoped-for news, and will clench their hands, or surely, for the greatness of their joy, insulting you, they will clap their hands and resound with a kind of clamor of joy. For there is no one who can grieve over you and grant tears to your overthrow and your wound, since there is no one over whom your malice has not continually passed. And "has passed" is well said: for the malice of the Assyrian king cannot remain perpetually in his enemies. Thus far let the order of the history have been woven.

There follows: There is no healing for your crushing; your stroke swells. Therefore the mixed one of Nineveh cannot be healed, because he does not lay aside his pride, and the wound is always fresh, and he is struck every day as the devil smites him. And after all these things there is no healing for his crushing; for although he seems to himself to be sound, yet his soul is broken and crushed, as the hammer of the whole earth strikes from above, and it is not healed, because it is always lifted up. But if he is humbled and submits himself to Christ: A crushed and humbled heart God does not despise, and: A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit. At the end is placed: All who have heard the news of you will clap their hands over you. For upon whom has your malice not rushed continually? When you begin, ὦ σύμμικτε (O mixed one), to undergo punishments, all who hear the news will insult you and rejoice with a harmonious and vocal clapping, and, so to speak, with the sound and concert of works. For there is no one, or surely scarcely anyone, upon whom your malice has not rushed, or come, continually. For if the city of Nineveh has συμμίκτους shepherds and mighty ones, and every false doctrine and lying opinion of knowledge comes from the symmictus, it is to be feared that perhaps there is no one upon whom the malice of the συμμίκτου has not come. And observe carefully that he did not say: Into whom your malice, σύμμικτε, has not entered, but: Upon whom it has not come. For often the darts of false dogmas come upon us, and desire as it were to enter into the secret place of the soul; but when we shut the gates, the σύμμικτος does indeed come upon us; and as far as in him lies, he rushes in, and always does this; but with Christ the Lord helping, and guarding our heart with all watchfulness, he rushes in indeed, but cannot enter.