Zechariah 6

And I turned, and lifted up my eyes and saw. And behold, four chariots coming out from between two mountains, and the mountains, mountains of bronze. In the first chariot were red horses, and in the second chariot black horses, and in the third chariot white horses, and in the fourth chariot spotted and strong horses. And I answered, and said to the angel who spoke in me: What are these, my lord? And the angel answered, and said to me: These are the four winds of heaven, which go out to stand before the Ruler of all the earth. The one in which were the black horses went out into the land of the north, and the white went out after them, and the spotted went out toward the land of the south. But those which were the most robust went out, and sought to go and run to and fro through all the earth. And he said: Go, walk through the earth; and they walked through the earth. And he called me, and spoke to me, saying: Behold, those who go out into the land of the north have made my spirit rest in the land of the north. LXX: And I turned, and lifted up my eyes, and saw. And behold, four chariots coming out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of bronze. In the first chariot were red horses, and in the second chariot black horses, and in the third chariot white horses, and in the fourth chariot spotted, starling-colored horses. And I answered, and said to the angel who spoke in me: What are these, lord? And the angel who spoke in me answered and said: These are the four winds of heaven, which go out to stand by the Lord of all the earth. The one in which were the black horses went out over the land of the north, and the white went out after them, and the spotted went out into the land of the south, and the starling-colored went out, and they looked to go around the earth. And he said: Go and go around the earth; and they went around the earth, and he cried out; and he spoke to me, saying: Behold, those who have gone out over the land of the north have made my fury rest in the land of the north. I passed, he says, to another vision, and lifted the eyes of my heart higher, toward heaven, and saw: four chariots came out from between two mountains which were of bronze, that is, unconquerable and most strong, and such as could be consumed by no age. For those he had called above mountains of myrtles, or shady and wooded ones, he now calls mountains of bronze.

According to allegory, let us take in the present place too whatever we said about the four horns and the four smiths. I have read in a certain person's volume that the four chariots, in which are red, and black, and white, and spotted and strong horses, are to be understood as the four Gospels, and the horses as the apostles, possessing different graces through the diversity of the colors: of whom some are red with martyrdom, others dark and black, knowing the mysteries of Christ, of whom it is said in the psalm: Darkness was under his feet, and: He made darkness his hiding place. Others white, with the grace of virginity; others spotted and strong, having the grace of healings and of various powers.

These four kingdoms which overthrew Judea Zechariah writes that he saw in four horns, the angel saying to him: These are the horns which have scattered Judah and Israel and Jerusalem. And again: I lifted up, he says, my eyes and saw; and behold, four chariots coming out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of bronze; in the first chariot, red horses; and in the second chariot, black horses; and in the third chariot, white horses; and in the fourth chariot, dappled, strong horses. And when the prophet had said to the angel who spoke in him: What are these, my lord? The angel answered: These are the four winds of heaven, which go forth to stand before the ruler of all the earth; and the sense is: These are they who go forth from the face of the Lord, to fulfill his will.

In the first chariot were red horses, bloody and bloodthirsty, and terrible with the cruelty of Babylon. In the second chariot, black horses, the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, which, seated in a two-horse chariot and going out through the edict of King Ahasuerus, bore before it, with sad tidings, the death of all the Jews. In the third chariot, white horses, the Macedonians, under whose king Antiochus we read of the victory of the Maccabees. In the fourth chariot, spotted, strong horses. For we know that of the kings of the Romans some were merciful toward the Jewish nation, such as Gaius Caesar, Augustus and Claudius; others persecutors and terrible, such as Gaius Caligula, Nero, Vespasian and Hadrian. For strong, which Aquila translated κρατεροὺς (strong), the Seventy ψαροὺς (dappled), in the Hebrew is written amasim. And certain copies wrongly have πυῤῥοὺς, confusing the differences of the colors and of the kingdoms, since πυῤῥοὶ, that is, red, are called not amasim but adamim.

So when the prophet asks what the things he saw meant to signify, the angel who spoke in him answers, and relates that they are the four winds of heaven, that is, the four quarters of the world, which the Greeks call κλίματα, which stand by and obey the will of the Lord. For these four kingdoms of which we have spoken did nothing apart from the will of the Lord.

These chariots, four in number, or cars, were sent into the four winds of heaven, that is, to the hinges of the world, and the whole circle of the lands, to fulfil the will of the Lord; to whom it is afterward said by the angel: Go, and walk through the earth, and sow the Gospel in all the ends of the earth.

The one in which were the black horses, he says, went out into the land of the north. How finely the first chariot, in which were the red horses, is passed over, and what the second and the third and the fourth did is described! For already at the time when the prophet was relating these things, the kingdom of Babylon had passed away, and the power of the Medes held all Asia; under their king Darius, in his second year, in the eleventh month, which is called Shebat, on the twenty-fourth day of the month, he beholds all that we have expounded above. The one, then, in which were the black horses went out into the land of the north, so that the might of the Medes might overthrow the kingdom of the Chaldeans. And this is to be noted, that the κλίματα, that is, the quarters of the globe and of the world, are named in the holy Scriptures according to the situation of Jerusalem and of the temple. The white also went out after them: the kings of the Macedonians, following the footsteps of the Medes and Persians, to subjugate the Chaldeans and Babylon to their own rule. But the fourth, that is, the starling-colored and spotted, for which in the Hebrew is read borodim, and which by another name are called amasim, that is, strong and robust, went out toward the southern quarter, and traversed the whole earth with swift onset. And the angel who spoke in the prophet cries out to the empire of the Romans: Go, walk through the earth, and go around the circle of the lands, and lay all kingdoms beneath your feet.

And turning to the prophet he testifies with a clear voice: Behold, those who go out into the land of the north have made my spirit rest in the land to which they set out. In a passage that is indeed most difficult, it was handed down to me by the Hebrews that Alexander and all the Macedonians, that is, the white horses which went out after the Medes and Persians, who had themselves also gone into the land of the north, made the prophetic spirit rest in the land of the north, because against the Medes they fulfilled the will of God, and in a short time the empire of the Medes and Persians was destroyed by the Macedonians. For great is the consolation of those who are oppressed, if they know that their enemies will soon perish. These things, as we were able, or rather as we received them, we have handed on to those devoted to our language, following the truth of the history; not hunting out with tenacious memory, after the fashion of the Egyptian exposition, the chariots of Pharaoh and the Babylonian cars; for what must be considered is not where something is written, but for what reason it is written.

This too, which follows: Behold, those who go out into the land of the north have made my spirit rest in the land of the north, he explained in such a way as to say that the spirit of the Lord, or of the angel, rested when, in the land of the north, the most harsh kingdoms of the devil were overthrown by the apostolic preaching; and that these are the kingdoms which the devil, showing them to the Lord and Savior on a high mountain, boasted had been handed over to himself.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Take from the exiles, from Heldai and from Tobijah, and from Jedaiah, and you shall come on that day, and enter the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah, who came from Babylon. And you shall take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them on the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and you shall speak to him, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts, saying: Behold a man, the Rising is his name, and beneath him it shall rise, and he shall build a temple to the Lord. And he himself shall raise a temple to the Lord, and he himself shall bear glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between the two of them. And the crowns shall be for Helem and for Tobijah and for Jedaiah and for Hen son of Zephaniah, a memorial in the temple of the Lord. And those who are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord, and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. And this shall be, if with hearing you hear the voice of the Lord your God. LXX: And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Take the things that are from the captivity, from the rulers, and from its useful men, and from those who have known it; and you shall go in on that day into the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah, who came from Babylon, and you shall take silver and gold, and make crowns, and place them upon the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and you shall say to him: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Behold a man, the Rising is his name, and beneath him it shall rise, and he shall build the house of the Lord, and he himself shall receive power and shall sit, and shall rule upon his throne. And there shall be a priest at his right hand, and the counsel of peace shall be between the two; but the crown shall be for those who wait, and for its useful men, and for those who have known it, and for the favor of the son of Zephaniah, and for a psalm in the house of the Lord; and those who are far from them shall come and build in the house of the Lord. And you shall know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you, and it shall be, if with hearing you hear the voice of the Lord your God. I resolved once for all to bring forth to Latin ears the secrets of Hebrew learning and the hidden teaching of the masters of the synagogue, only so much of it, at any rate, as agrees with the holy Scriptures. For this reason I must, in the most obscure places, draw the lines of the history, and so set forth openly what I have received from churchmen, leaving it to the reader's judgment which he ought rather to follow. And first the order of the reading must be rendered, so that what is said may become clear according to the letter. Take, he says, from Heldai and from Tobijah, and from Jedaiah, who came from the Babylonian captivity, and you shall take from them the gifts that are offered, silver and gold, and you shall enter the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah; and there you shall make crowns, set off by the variety of gold and silver, not one crown but two or more; for ataroth, that is, στέμματα, signifies not the singular but either the dual or the plural number.

But upon us lies the necessity of saying, according to the LXX translators, what our forefathers said. Take from the captivity, and from the rulers, and from its useful men, and from those who have known it, gold and silver, and having gone into the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah, who himself too came from Babylon, make in it crowns of gold and of silver, which you shall place upon the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest. The captivity of the Jews, that is, of the people that confesses the Lord, is vices and sins, which he who has begun to do repentance and to long for the former Jerusalem, that is, the Church of Christ, abandons and leaves behind in Babylon; and it is offered by the rulers of the captives, and by its useful men, that is, of the captivity, who themselves too were handed over for their own profit to an angel of Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved; and by those who know that it, namely the captivity, is to be turned to good account after the punishments. And the gold and silver is offered by those who confess the Lord both in understanding and in speech, and from it, that is, from the gold and silver, crowns are made in the house of Josiah, who is interpreted saved, and is the son of the visitation of the Lord, that is, ἐπισκοπῆς κυρίου. For he is visited by the Lord who before had been grievously sick. And rightly is he called Josiah, saved, because he too returned from Babylon.

And in the days of Joshua, son of Jehozadak, why did an angel say to the adversary who was opposing him, "The Lord rebuke you, O Satan"? And why are the Jews called "sons of Satan" for transgressing the laws, if he [the adversary] perseveres in the command he received and they transgressed the commandment? And why would he be called utterly a liar, he who remains faithful to the rule? Because that evil comes not from him but from the very one who made him so. And why should he be sent into the "outer darkness"?

And the crowns, or the crown, are set upon Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, because, as we advance and return to better things, the Lord is crowned through each of our virtues; or rather, as we are crowned through the virtues of repentance, the Savior receives a crown in each one, according to what Paul also says: For the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me; and not to me only, but also to all who love the coming of our Lord Savior Jesus Christ. Whence the father of the Lord Savior also took his name from the crown of justice. For Jehozadak is interpreted Lord of justice, because he renders to each according to his works. Of this crown James too speaks in his epistle: Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

And when you have made the crowns, you shall set one of them on the head of Joshua (Iesus, the same name as Jesus) son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and you shall speak to him: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Behold a man whose name is the Rising, which in Hebrew is called sema, written not with the letter sin but with sade. He is called the Rising, that is, ἀνατολὴ, or ἀναφύη, or βλάστημα, that is, shoot, for this reason: because he shall suddenly spring up of himself, and shall sprout from his own root in the likeness of a shoot; and this man shall build the temple of the Lord.

Therefore God helps the city, producing in it early morning by his own rising and coming. "Behold a man," it is said, "the Orient is his name." For those upon whom the spiritual light will rise, when the darkness that comes from ignorance and wickedness is destroyed, early morning will be at hand. Since, then, light has come into the world in order that he who walks about in it may not stumble, his help is able to cause the early morning. Or perhaps, since the resurrection was in the dim morning twilight, God will help the city in the morning early, who on the third day, early on the morning of the resurrection gained the victory through death.

The inscription, "for the octave," therefore, that we not look to the present time, but that we look toward the "octave." For whenever this transitory and fleeting time ceases, in which one thing comes to be and another is dissolved, and the necessity of coming to be has passed away, and that which is dissolved no longer exists … the hebdomad too, which measures time, will by all means halt. Then that "octave," which is the next age, will succeed it. The whole of the latter becomes one day, as one of the prophets says when he calls the life, which is anticipated "the Great Day." For this reason the perceptible sun does not enlighten that day, but "the true light," the "sun of righteousness," who is designated "rising" by the prophecy because he is never veiled by the settings.

And the prophet is commanded, after he has placed the crown, or the crowns, upon the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, to speak to him and say: Thus says the Lord: Behold a man, the Rising is his name, and beneath him it shall rise, and the rest. We do not divide Jesus, nor can we make two persons in one person, but he who is called Jesus because he saved the world is himself also called the Rising, because in his days justice has risen. And it is sung in the psalm: Truth has risen from the earth, because, begotten from a virgin's womb at the consummation of the ages, he said: I am the truth, and he came at the last hour, according to the epistle of John, who says: Little children, it is now the last hour, in which he hired for a denarius the people of the nations, who were standing and doing nothing, and sent them to the vineyard. Otherwise, if he becomes different according to the diversity of names, the shepherd will be one, the ram another, the lamb another, the door another, the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense another. He, therefore, who has been crowned with our virtues shall rise and shall be called the Rising. To him the Father said: You are my Son, today I have begotten you.

And beneath him shall rise the multitude of believers, and he shall build the house of the Lord, the Church, and he himself shall receive the power and beauty and progress and glory of each one, and shall sit and rule on his throne, on the throne of David, of which it is also written in the Gospel: And there shall be a priest at his right hand, or, according to the Hebrew, upon his throne, because he himself is both king and high priest, and shall sit on the royal as well as on the priestly throne, and there shall be a peaceful counsel between the two, so that neither shall the royal eminence depress the priestly dignity, nor the dignity of the priesthood the royal eminence, but both shall agree in the glory of the one Lord Jesus. I have read in a certain person's book that what is said: And a peaceful counsel shall be between the two, refers to the Father and to the Son, because he came to do not his own will but the Father's, and the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father.

Nor was there night in Peter when he confessed, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," when the heavenly Father revealed it to him, but there was night in him too at the moment of his denial. And in the present instance, moreover, when Judas received the morsel [and] went out immediately, night was present in him at the same time he went out, for the man whose name is "Sunrise" was not present with him because he left "the Sun of justice" behind when he went out. And Judas, who was filled with darkness, pursued Jesus; but the darkness and the one who had taken it up did not apprehend the light that was pursued. Wherefore also, when he said as word of justification, "I have sinned because I betrayed just blood" and "went and hanged himself," Satan, who was in him, led him to the noose and hung him, at which time the devil also touched his soul. For Judas was not such that the Lord could say to the devil on his behalf what he said on Job's behalf, "But touch not his soul."

And when he has raised it, he himself also shall bear glory, that is, the second crown, which in Hebrew is hod, and is written by one ἐπιδοξότης, by another εὐπρέπεια, by another ἀρετὴ, by another δόξα; which mean either renown, or beauty, or virtue, or glory. And they think Zerubbabel is signified, who, rising suddenly from a lowly man and a captive to be leader of the Jewish people, built the temple of the Lord, and sat upon his throne, and ruled with the power of a prince; but the high priest too, he says, Joshua son of Jehozadak, shall sit on the priestly throne, and with minds and counsels joined they shall govern the people of God.

And there shall be peace between those two, that is, between him who is of the royal tribe and him who descends from the Levitical stock, so that priesthood and kingdom alike may rule the people of God; and the crowns themselves which you have made of gold and silver, after they have been set on the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak and on the head of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, you shall consecrate in the temple with the names of those by whom they were offered, that is, of Helem, and Tobijah, and Jedaiah, and Hen. The second and third names are the same as above. The first has been changed; for in place of Heldai he has now put Helem; a fourth, which he had not mentioned above, has been added, that is, Hen; of these we shall speak in what follows.

Heldai is interpreted the entreaty of the Lord, which in Greek is said more expressively λιτάνευσις κυρίου. Tobijah, good of the Lord. Jedaiah, known of the Lord. In place of Heldai he has now put in the first place Helem, which means dream; and in the fourth place he has added Hen, that is, grace. The crowns of these four men shall be with the son of Zephaniah, whom we read above was Josiah, who is the guardian and warden of the temple of the Lord, and there they shall rest in an everlasting abode. The Hebrews relate that Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael, coming from the captivity, brought gold and silver as gifts for the temple, and the crowns of the high priest and of the leader; and that Hen, whom he had not mentioned above, that is, grace, means Daniel, who came with a gift; and that Helem was put in place of Heldai for this reason, so that from the interpretation of the name, which means dream, it might be shown that Daniel, set in captivity, and the three young men knew the mysteries of the king's dream. For Daniel, taking the three young men with him, prayed to the Lord and obtained the interpretation of the dream. This is how the circumcision tries to expound these things according to the history.

And the crown, that is, the emblem of victory, once Christ has been crowned, is promised also to those who wait for him, and understand the profit of their former captivity, and know all the mysteries of God, so that they may be for the favor of the son of Zephaniah, that is, of the visitation of the Lord.

And those who said in Babylon: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion; on the willows in the midst of it we hung up our instruments, once they have returned to Jerusalem, let them take up psalm and timbrel, and sing in the Church of the Lord; and let those who through greater sins had been far from Judea come, with a most true confession too, and through each of their advances build the house of the Lord; and then let all with one mind know that the Lord Almighty has sent the prophet to them. And all that has been promised shall come to pass, if they are willing to hear the Lord, and, having done repentance, remain in good works.

And when the crowns, he says, have been laid up in the temple of the Lord, and consecrated for an everlasting memorial, nations from the whole circle of the lands and set far off shall come, and shall build in my temple, each according to his strength. And then, by the outcome of events and the prosperity of all, you shall know that the Lord has sent me, and that at his command I foretold all things. And all these things shall come to pass if you obey the precepts of the Lord and do his commandments.