Zephaniah 2

One of the prophets rightly spoke of this relation to those who had fallen into negligence: "Be gathered again and tied back together, you undisciplined nation, before you become like the flower that passes away." A disciple can also be said to "attach" himself to a teacher in terms of a love of study, and we too can attach ourselves to one another not in one fashion only but in many. In short, when someone assists another in a task, should we not consider that he has been conjoined by will to the one who receives his assistance? It seems to us that this is exactly what these innovators mean by conjunction. You must have heard how they stupidly maintain that God the Word assumed a man, as if he were a different Son to himself, and then proposed him as a kind of assistant to his designs so that he underwent the trial and death, came to life again, rose up to heaven, and even sat upon the throne of the ineffable Godhead? With arguments such as these have they not completely and utterly proven that this man is altogether different from the true and natural son?

Come together, gather yourselves, unlovable nation, before the command brings forth the day like passing dust; before the wrath of the fury of the Lord comes upon you, before the wrath of the indignation of the Lord comes upon you. LXX: Be gathered and be collected together, untaught nation, before you are like a flower passing away in a day, before the wrath of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the wrath of the fury of the Lord rushes upon you. After the description of the evils which are to come on the day of the Lord — according to the twofold explanation of the captivity which we gave above —, the people is called to repentance, and it is said to it: Come together, and gather yourselves, or, as is written in the LXX: Be collected together, that is, according to the Apostle, be bound to one another by the bond of charity, unlovable nation, you who are unworthy of the love of God, or untaught nation, of which it is said in Deuteronomy: A foolish people, and not wise, and in Jeremiah: In vain have I struck your sons; you have not received discipline, before what has been prophesied comes to pass, before the effect follows the command, which will come as easily as passing dust, before the fury of the Lord is fulfilled upon you. And at the same time discern the clemency of God: for the prudent it would have been enough for him to have described the onset of the coming evils; but because he does not wish to inflict punishments, but only to frighten those who are about to suffer them, he himself calls them to repentance, so that he may not do what he has threatened. In a general sense, however, the whole multitude of believers, and of those who are called the people of God, is gathered into the Church, and it is said to it: Come together into the Church, join yourselves to one another in charity and peace, O untaught nation, you who will not receive the discipline of God, nor have knowledge of his commandments, but take delight in riches and in bodily health and in the beauty of this world, and in the pleasures of the flesh as well, which passes like a flower that withers in a single day. And for this reason I say to you: Come together, join yourselves, lest, when the time of judgment has come and all your glory has passed away, you should wish to repent only then, when there will be no place for repentance, but for punishments. Someone may ask how this same thing can be understood of each person departing from the world. It is said, then, to each one: O you who, occupied with the business of the world, run about in all directions, return to the Church of the saints, and join yourself to the life and company of those whom you see pleasing God, and draw the loosened limbs of your soul, which do not hold together, into the one framework of wisdom, and cling to her embrace, and hear in a mystical sense: Be strengthened, you slack hands; you feeble knees, be made firm; and do not glory in the goods of the flesh and in its flower, which passes away: For all flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass has withered, and the flower has fallen; but the word of the Lord abides for ever. We can use this passage as occasion requires, if ever we see someone occupied with the honors of the world and with gathering riches, coming to the Church either rarely or never, and say to him: gather yourself and join yourself to the people of God, you who do not hear the commandments of the Lord, before your glory passes away, before the day of the fury of the Lord comes upon you.

Struggle, my beloved, for the time is near and the days have been shortened. There is no father who instructs his children, there is no child who obeys his father; good virgins are no longer; the holy fathers have died on all sides; the mothers and the widows are no longer, and we have become like orphans; the humble are crushed underfoot; and blows are showered upon the head of the poor. Therefore there is little to hold back the wrath of God from grieving us, with no one to console us. All this has befallen us because we have not practiced mortification.

Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth, who have wrought his judgment; seek the just one, seek the meek one, if somehow you may be hidden on the day of the fury of the Lord. For Gaza will be destroyed, and Ashkelon into a wilderness. Ashdod they will cast out at noon, and Ekron will be uprooted. LXX: Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth; work judgment, and seek justice and answer them, that you may be protected on the day of the wrath of the Lord; for Gaza will be plundered, and Ashkelon into a wilderness; and Ashdod will be cast forth at noon, and Ekron will be uprooted. He is called humble of the earth who has been humbled not by humility, which signifies a virtue, but by sins, and cannot say with Christ: Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart. For everyone who humbles himself will be exalted. And in another place the word is directed to the holy man: The greater you are, the more humble yourself, and before God you will find grace. But he who has been humbled by sins and weighed down by the conscience of his offenses, and says: Like a heavy burden, they have grown heavy upon me, that man ought to hear: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Let this be said at the beginning according to the LXX translators. But according to the Hebrew there is another sense. For it is said to the saints: O you who keep my precepts, who, set on the earth and knowing that everyone who humbles himself will be exalted, have imitated my meekness and have wrought judgment, seek the Lord in your meekness. And if you wish to know who this Lord is, seek the just one, seek the meek one: For the Father has given all judgment to the Son, who is going to judge justly. And because you are meek, therefore seek the meek one, so that whatever is lacking in your meekness may be filled up by him who is the fountain of meekness. And this I say to you: If somehow you may be hidden on the day of the fury of the Lord; that is, if perhaps, from the fact that you have sought the Lord and have wrought his justice, you may be able to avoid the wrath of the coming day and to escape the captivity that is to be brought upon the people of the Jews either by Nebuchadnezzar or by the Romans.

But according to the Seventy, the humble of the earth, of whom we spoke above, are commanded to work judgment and to seek justice, which I do not think is anything other than Christ. And because everyone who seeks will find, what they have found let them answer to others, that is, let them teach others: For wisdom hidden and a treasure that does not appear, what profit is there in both? And this, he says, I command you, that you may be protected on the day of the wrath of the Lord, either at the consummation of the world or at the departure of each one from this world.

But if he is in doubt about those who have done his judgments, saying: If somehow you may be hidden on the day of the fury of the Lord, what will become of sinners? For so great a devastation will come upon the land of Judea, and so lofty a conqueror, the Babylonian army, will come up hither, that the same captivity will seize even the most powerful cities of the Philistines, which always withstood you in equal combat. For Gaza will be destroyed, and Ashkelon will be reduced to desolation, and Ashdod they will drag into captivity not by stealth but by war, that is, in open daylight and by victory; and Ekron, which is interpreted uprooting, will undergo what its name signifies, that is, it will be uprooted. This is according to the letter and the Hebrew truth.

For Gaza and Ashkelon and Ashdod and Ekron will undergo different punishments. For Gaza is interpreted its strength. All, therefore, who applaud themselves in strength of body and worldly power, and say with the devil, By strength I will do it, will be plundered on the day of the wrath of the Lord and brought to nothing. Ashkelon also, which is called weighed, or murderous fire, when the day of the wrath of the Lord comes, will feel the measure of its crime and will be pressed down by the same weight with which it acted. And because it burned to shed blood, and caused many souls to stumble, and in it was fulfilled: The man of blood and deceit the Lord will abhor, it will not be plundered like Gaza, but, reduced to desolation, it will be burned to dust by the fires of Gehenna. Ashdod too, which in Hebrew is called esdod and in our language means fire of generation, will be laid waste in clear light; for it burned with lust and raged in the fire of generation. And because all adulterers, their hearts are like an oven, and they have been wounded by burning arrows, not in darkness, not in a hidden judgment, but at noon, that is, when the saints will receive their full brightness, they will be cast forth into darkness, and they will not have the fellowship of the saints. But Ekron, which is interpreted barrenness, or uprooting, because it bore no fruits and by the perversity of its teaching uprooted very many, will itself also be uprooted. Understand all these varieties in the vices and sins of souls, and that on the day of judgment the fire will test of what sort each one's work is.

But according to the spiritual sense and the translation of the LXX the understanding is difficult, especially since they also disagree in the interpretation. For where we translated nation of the lost, they said strangers of the Cretans; and where in Hebrew is written goi chorethim, for goi, that is, nation, they read car, that is, stranger; and chorethim, which means of the lost, they took for the name of the island of Crete. Indeed both Aquila and the Fifth Edition translated ἔθνος ὀλέθριον (a destructive nation); and Theodotion ἔθνος ὀλεθρίας (a nation of destruction); Symmachus too ἔθνος ὀλεθρευόμενον (a nation being destroyed), all of which agree with our translation.

Woe to you who inhabit the cord of the sea, nation of the lost; the word of the Lord is upon you, Canaan, land of the Philistines, and I will destroy you so that there is no inhabitant. And the cord of the sea will be a resting place of shepherds, and folds of flocks; and the cord will be his who has remained of the house of Judah; there they will feed, in the houses of Ashkelon they will rest at evening, for the Lord their God will visit them and will turn back their captivity. LXX: Woe to you who inhabit the cord of the sea, sojourners of the Cretans; the word of the Lord is upon you, Canaan, land of the foreigners, and I will destroy you from habitation. And Crete will be a pasture of shepherds, and a fold of flocks, and the cord of the sea will be for those who are left of the house of Judah; upon them they will feed in the houses of Ashkelon; after noon they will turn aside from the face of the sons of Judah, for the Lord their God will visit them and will turn back their captivity. As regards the history, it is not difficult to interpret, because above he had said: Gaza will be destroyed, and Ashkelon into a wilderness. Ashdod they will cast out at noon, and Ekron will be uprooted. Four great cities of Philistia having been named, it is plain that the word of the Lord is now addressed to the province itself in general, and that it is foretold to it: Woe to you who inhabit the cord of the sea, when the Babylonian comes, for those too who dwell beside the sea will perish and be carried off. And that the land of the Philistines is the land of Canaan, no one doubts. And I will destroy you, he says, so that there is no inhabitant; and you who rejoiced at the overthrow of Judea will come to such devastation that all your most fortified cities will become folds of shepherds. And after the Lord has visited his people and made them return under Zerubbabel and Joshua, and they have built the temple and raised up Jerusalem again, you will be so uncultivated, and so covered with briars and nettles, that shepherds from the remnant of the Jews will rest in Ashkelon after noon and make their flocks lie down in a once noble city; and this will happen because the Lord will visit his people and turn back its captivity. Whether this happened or not, that is for God to see. For it is not now our purpose to weave together the truth of the history, but to make known to our own people what we have received from the Hebrews.

Again, where we said: And the cord of the sea will be a resting place of shepherds, and all the translators agreed with this translation, in the LXX is written: And Crete will be a pasture of the flock, and a fold of flocks. Therefore, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, and keeping to the path of the common edition that we once began, we ask whether we have read the name of Crete elsewhere in the holy Scriptures. And, unless I am mistaken, this is ready to hand: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies. This testimony is true. Those who waver and are carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the deceit of men, in the craftiness of error, though they ought to have dwelt in the land of confession, that is, in the land of Judea, chose rather to be strangers of the Cretans, who are beaten this way and that by the various waves of the sea, and sound with Corybantian bronze, and are, according to the Apostle: Like a tinkling cymbal. And because they are strangers of the Cretans, therefore the word of God, that is, a threat, comes to them, and they are called the land of Canaan, always in the surge, always in motion, and the land of the foreigners; for, being alien from God, they dwell in the cord of the sea and in the region of Crete. And so the word of God comes to them, either at the consummation and end of the world, or daily through churchmen and those who can say with the Apostle: Or do you seek a proof of Christ, who speaks in me? so that they may be cast out of Crete and be destroyed from their former habitations, and that region which formerly held a lost flock may begin to be a fold of the flocks of Christ; and Judah, that is, true confession, may dwell in the cords of the sea. And when the world has now begun to be at evening, and of many called few are chosen, and those who are now called the remnant of the house of Judah have fed those who formerly fed in the sea and in Crete and in falsehood, they will turn aside into the houses of Ashkelon, that is, where formerly the fire of the devil and the blood of the slain flowed. For Ashkelon is interpreted murderous fire. And this will happen because the Lord will visit his people, and those who before were easily caught by the sophisms of heretics will, as if coming out of captivity, conquer their adversaries and dwell in their tents.

But what is read in the LXX, From the face of the sons of Judah, we have marked with an obelus, for it is neither in the Hebrew nor found in any of the translators, and it disturbs the context and the sense of the chapter; not that it would have been difficult to weave a meaning somehow even with this set down; but we have once for all resolved to follow the truth of the translation, and the judgment of the more learned reader rather than that of the crowd.

I have heard the reproach of Moab and the blasphemies of the sons of Ammon, with which they reproached my people, and they were magnified over their borders. Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, Moab will be as Sodom, and the sons of Ammon as Gomorrah, a dryness of thorns and heaps of salt, and a wilderness for ever; the remnants of my people will plunder them; the residue of my nation will possess them. This will befall them for their pride, because they blasphemed and were magnified over the people of the Lord of hosts. Terrible is the Lord over them, and he will waste away all the gods of the earth, and men will worship him from their place, all the islands of the nations. LXX: I have heard the reproach of Moab and the insults of the sons of Ammon, in which they reproached my people and were magnified over my borders. Therefore, as I live, says the Lord of powers, the God of Israel, Moab will be like Sodom, and the sons of Ammon as Gomorrah, and Damascus left like a heap of the threshing floor, and scattered for ever; and those who are left of my people will plunder them, and the residue of my nation will possess them; this will be to them for their insult, because they reproached and were magnified over the Lord Almighty; the Lord will be manifest over them, and he will destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and they will worship him, each from his place, all the islands of the nations. Except for the prophet Daniel, who quite often sees visions of the four kingdoms and sets out their differences under one image after another, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel do this: after the vision of Judah they turn their prophecy against the other nations that are round about it, and announce, according to the ἰδιώματα (particular characters) of each, what is going to come upon them, and dwell at some length on describing them; and this the prophet Zephaniah now does, briefly indeed, yet in the same order. For after the Philistines, against whom the threat ran on before above, Gaza, he says, will be destroyed, and Ashkelon into a wilderness, Ashdod they will cast out at noon, and Ekron will be uprooted. Now the prophecy is woven against Moab and the sons of Ammon, or, as is added in the LXX, against Damascus, which in Isaiah is called Aram, because by furnishing aid to Nebuchadnezzar they laid waste Judah, trampled its sanctuary, overthrew the temple as well, and, when the people of Israel had been subjugated, blasphemed the Lord. For Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans, after demolishing the cities of the Jews, oppressed the other nations too, and so it came about that those who had insulted the people of God were themselves also pressed by the same straits of evils, and had Judah as a fellow servant, whom they had thought they had as a subject. Therefore, before the captivity comes, while Josiah is still king and Jerusalem and the temple are not yet overthrown, the prophecy is directed against those who insult, so that the evils once suffered by the people of God might be lightened by the evil of the other nations. I have heard, he says, the reproach of Moab, which is now called Areopolis, and the blasphemies of the sons of Ammon, which is itself also a city of Arabia, second after Bozrah, and is called Philadelphia; in which they reproached my people and, having cast out the Jews, extended their own boundaries in their land.

But the man who is learned, and compares spiritual things with spiritual, and seeks not the things that are below but those that are above, and rises with Christ from the underworld, and, putting off the old man, is clothed with the new, will refer the reproaches of Moab and the blasphemies of the sons of Ammon to the masters of doctrines contrary to the Church, who themselves also seem to be of the stock of Abraham, and to have escaped the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, and to dwell in little Zoar. But because their generation is in darkness, and they cannot look upon the light of truth — for they have turned aside from God the Father, which is interpreted from the names Lot and Moab —, and they have ceased to be sons of God, which is what my people means, and, conceived of incestuous unions in a dark cave, they came into being, therefore to this day, insulting the simplicity of the sons of Judah, they desire to magnify their own possession over its borders; of whom it is said in Proverbs: Do not remove the everlasting boundaries which your fathers set. See the heretics applauding themselves in dialectic and rhetoric and the doctrines of every sophism, despising the rusticity of the Church, and looking down on it as unworthy of their mysteries, which they have fashioned for themselves like idols, and holding it for nothing, and you will not ask what the reproaches of Moab are, and the insults of the sons of Ammon, in which they reproached the people of God.

Therefore, because they have blasphemed me and reproached my people, I, the Lord of hosts, who am able to fulfil what I threaten, and the God of Israel, who myself suffer injury in my people, will make Moab to be as Sodom, and the sons of Ammon as Gomorrah. Let us read visions of this kind in Isaiah and Jeremiah, and we shall find the same things that we now read here. A dryness of thorns and heaps of salt, and a wilderness for ever: in its place the LXX, meaning I know not what, translated: Damascus torn up and left, deceived, unless I am mistaken, by the ambiguity of the word; for dryness, which in Hebrew is called mamasac, if its first letter mem is changed and daleth is taken, has the same remaining letters as Damascus too, and in place of the former word damasec can be read. But it is asked how these cities, that is, Moab and the sons of Ammon, have been reduced to Sodom and Gomorrah, and, like an aridity of thorns and heaps of salt, are not to be built up for ever? And that they were indeed laid waste like Sodom and Gomorrah, there is no difficulty in explaining. But what follows, They will be deserted for ever, either we shall interpret of the destruction of their kingdom — because afterwards, overthrown by the Chaldeans, they lost their kingdom, and then, held either by the Antiochi or by the Ptolemies, they at last bowed their necks to the Roman empire —, or else it must certainly be taken as said ὑπερβολικῶς (hyperbolically); for lolam signifies both eternity and an age, so that it can be taken both for one age and for some length of time, and for one lifetime. And those who are left of the people of Israel will lay them waste, and will possess the once blaspheming auxiliaries of the Chaldeans.

Now what we said above, that Damascus is not found in the Hebrew, nor in any other translator, we shall prove also from the very order of Scripture. For to what he had said, I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the blasphemies of the sons of Ammon, he afterwards related: That Moab will be as Sodom, and the sons of Ammon as Gomorrah. As for what follows, then, And Damascus deserted, like a heap of the threshing floor, he ought also to have said something about Damascus beforehand, so that, just as he had said of the two nations, Moab will be as Sodom, and the sons of Ammon as Gomorrah, whose sins he had already stated before. So he would also have described either the reproaches or the blasphemies of Damascus, so that afterwards he might be seen to inflict punishment deservedly. But this very phrase too, Like a heap of the threshing floor, which in Greek is said ὡς θιμωνιὰ ἄλωνος, we think the LXX translated ἀλος, that is, of salt; but that by unskilled men, who took θιμωνίαν, that is, a heap of grain or of crops, in place of ἀλος, with the two letters ω and ν added, as though to follow on from the crops, ἄλωνος, that is, of the threshing floor, was set down. Let this be said about the variety and error of interpretation, and about the difficulty of the history.

And so the Lord swore by himself, saying: As I live, says the Lord. And beautifully, to distinguish himself from the dead gods, who are called idols, the God of Israel, that is, of the people that sees God, says that he lives; whereas these blaspheming nations, that is, Moab and the sons of Ammon, of whom we said above: They will be as Sodom and Gomorrah, seem indeed to themselves, in that they are not Gentiles, to have come out of Sodom and Gomorrah; but because they blaspheme the people of God and act against Israel, they will be reckoned as Sodom and Gomorrah; and they will be blotted out as those were blotted out before, having in themselves no trace of greenness and life. Nor is it surprising if we understand this of heretics, that they are reckoned as Sodom and Gomorrah, since even to churchmen who have not observed the commandments of God and have gone out from his precepts it is said through Isaiah: Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom, and attend to the law of the Lord, people of Gomorrah. And to the elders who desire, under the figure of Susanna, to corrupt the chastity of the Church, Daniel may say: This is the judgment of God, seed of Canaan, and not of Judah. And that you may know that whenever Sodom and Gomorrah and Egypt are named, it is not said of these provinces which we see with our eyes but of other, spiritual ones, which the prophetic word threatens, read in the Apocalypse of John: But the place in which the Lord was crucified is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt. If, then, Jerusalem, in which the Lord was crucified, is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, why should not, conversely, Egypt and Sodom and Gomorrah, if they have done the works of Jerusalem and of the land of Judah, be transferred into the land of the Lord's lot? Indeed David too was not of the priests, nor was it lawful for him to eat the loaves of proposition; but because he grew through his works one by one, and the persecution of Saul was the advancement of his virtues, therefore in his flight, without knowing it, he is suddenly made a prelate, and receives the loaves of proposition, and does not violate the commandment of God. We have said all this because Moab will be as Sodom, and the sons of Ammon as Gomorrah. Damascus too, which is interpreted drinking blood, or blood of sackcloth, will be left by the mercy of God like a heap of salt. For because its ruler is King Aretas, and the Damascenes desire to kill Paul, and he is let down through the wall in a basket, it is not said to Damascus: You are the salt of the world; nor is it called that salt which is always offered with the sacrifices, but the salt that has lost its savor, of which it is written in the Gospel: But if the salt has lost its savor, with what will it be salted? It is useful for nothing, neither for the earth nor for the dunghill, but they cast it out, so that it may be trodden underfoot by men.

And so Moab and Ammon and Damascus, which have prepared themselves against the knowledge of the Lord, and have blasphemed the people of God, and spoken very many insults against it, and wished to extend their borders in the land of the Church and to possess the people of God, will be deserted and destroyed; and the remnant of the people of God, that is, churchmen learned in the Lord's Scriptures, will plunder them, and the residue of the Lord's nation will possess them, and this will be to them for the insult with which they reproached and were magnified against the Lord Almighty. See the clemency, see the mercy of the Lord: he suffers insult, he is blasphemed, his borders are plundered, and what does he do? He sends to the remnant of his people, of whom we have spoken, that he may divide out for himself those who blaspheme him and lead them into his own possession. For it is much better for a fool to serve a wise man, and for his folly to be corrected by the wisdom of the Lord, than for him to be left to his own stupidity.

Now let us return to the LXX translators, and let us compel the Jews, who follow only the history, to explain to us when Moab and the sons of Ammon became like Sodom and Gomorrah, and like heaps of salt, and deserted for ever; they must show the sulphurous rains, the vineyards, the land turned into ashes and embers, and that the sea which is now called Dead flooded over from what were once wells of salt, when the Jews plundered them, when the remaining Israelite peoples possessed them. Or what indignation of the Lord is it, for blasphemy and insults, to waste away and destroy them? Not Moab and Ammon, but the whole earth, so that they may worship him, each from his place, all the islands of the nations? This he will rather bestow on the blasphemers as a benefit, that they may return from error to salvation. But if they wish to say that after the return from Babylon these nations were subjected to the people of Israel, first we shall demand the authority of the Scriptures by which they may prove that this happened; then, when they are quite unable to demonstrate it, we shall grant it to them out of superfluity and say: Suppose that what you say happened; what justice of God would it be that the grandfathers blasphemed and the forefathers reproached, and afterwards it was repaid to the grandsons? Especially since that sentence by which it was formerly said in the law that the sins of the fathers are repaid upon the sons in the third and the fourth generation has been loosed through Ezekiel: As I live, says the Lord; this parable shall no longer be spoken, but the soul that sins, it shall die. And at the same time notice that what was said is a parable, and does not mean what they bring forward on the surface of the letter. But if it is unjust to repay grandsons for what their grandfathers did wrong, how much more unjust is it, according to the folly of the Jews, to hope that this very thing will happen at the consummation of the world, when not their Christ, as they think, but the Antichrist is going to come. For wherever they are hard pressed in the history to show that what was said has been fulfilled, they at once leap over to the future times of Christ, and everything that they cannot explain they promise themselves after many ages; and they say that Moab and the sons of Ammon, and Egypt and the Philistines, and Idumea, which now insult the Jews, are to be punished at that time. Let us ask them, therefore, why God punishes these nations above all, and not the whole world, in which the Jews are scattered far and wide. For if Moab deserves to be chastised for insulting the Jews, and the sons of Ammon and the other nations round about, why is Gaul not chastised? Why does he not put the Britains in the threat? Why are the Spains exempt from punishment? For what reason is nothing said of Italy? Why is there silence about Africa? And to say it once for all, since the whole world holds the Jews captive, what so great a crime have the nations alone committed that are round about it, that they alone above all should be named? These things against the Jews, and as a general explanation in all the prophets wherever any prophecy is spoken against the nations.

And this will befall them for their pride, because they blasphemed and were magnified against the people of the Lord of hosts; and this Lord of hosts will be terrible over them, and his terror will not kill the proud; he will not shed the blood of the blasphemers, but will destroy and waste away all their idols, so that those who before were held by error and did not perceive the benefits of the Lord, pressed by the necessity of evils, may know that idols profit nothing, and may worship him, each one from his place, all the islands of the nations. Thus far according to the Hebrew.

Nor think that it was foretold that the nations should come unto some one place of God, in that it was said, "Unto Thee shall the nations come from the extremity of the earth." Understand, if you can, that unto the God of the Christians, Who is the Supreme and True God, the peoples of the nations come, not by walking but by believing. For the same thing was by another prophet thus foretold, "The Lord," saith he, "shall prevail against them, and shall utterly destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth: and all the isles of the nations shall worship Him, each man from his place." Whereas the one says, "Unto Thee all nations shall come;" this the other says, "They shall worship Him, each man from his place." Therefore they shall come unto Him, not departing from their own place, because believing in Him they shall find Him in their hearts.

And they, though they had for so long a time been silent in their temples about these things that were to come, things that were predicted, as they could not have been unaware, through the prophets, after their fulfilment began to draw nigh, they wished to foretell them (so to speak), so as not to seem ignorant and defeated. Therefore, since Zephaniah the prophet had made the following prediction (to omit the other prophecies for now) and written it down so long ago—The Lord will prevail against them and exterminate all the gods of the nations of the earth, and they will adore him, each and every one from his own place, all the islands of the nations—three possibilities remain. First, they did not believe that these things were going to happen to themselves, who were worshipped in the temples of the nations, and so they did not want to repeat these things through their seers and fanatics.

The Lord will come suddenly upon them, and will utterly destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and men shall worship him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the nations! From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia shall they bring offering to me.

But let us also call the churches islands. And indeed it is said in another place too: "Many islands shall be converted to me." Do you wish to know that the churches are called islands? It is said in the prophet in the person of the Lord: "Speak," he says, "to the inhabitants of this island." Let the many islands be glad. For just as islands are set in the midst of the sea, so also the churches are set as it were in the midst of the sea of this world, and thus they are battered by persecutions as if by diverse waves. But these islands are battered daily, yet they are not overthrown. They are indeed in the sea, but they have Christ for their foundation, who cannot be moved.

The Lord Almighty will therefore come and will be manifest over them, he whom they do not now know, of whom they are ignorant; and he will destroy all their doctrines, that is, their gods, and the idols of the various nations, so that, after the images which they had composed for themselves out of their own mind have been overthrown, the nations may turn to the Lord, and each one in his own place may worship him whom he did not know before.

Despite all this, they still could not raise up a temple and restore the place in which they would be allowed to observe all these rituals according to the law. For the power of Christ, the power which founded the church, has also destroyed that place. The prophet foretold that Christ would come and that he would do these things, even though he would not come until after the captivity.

But if we note that in all the Scriptures those are called Ethiopians who are sunk deep in vices, according to what we read in Jeremiah: If the Ethiopian will change his skin, then, when the Ethiopians are converted to better things, there will be hope that no one who is willing to repent will be a stranger to salvation. Hence also the soul, at first polluted and stained with the filth of sins, says: I am black. And afterwards, at the end of the Song of Songs, it is written of that same soul, now cleansed and washed through repentance: Who is this who comes up made white; Moses too, that is, the spiritual law of the Lord, took to wife the Ethiopian woman from the nations. And Miriam, that is, the synagogue of the Jews, and Aaron, that is, the carnal priesthood, and not according to the order of Melchizedek, murmur against the law, but in vain. For at once the synagogue is drenched with leprosy, and, cast out of the camp, when the time is completed, at the prayer of Moses himself, she is brought back into the camp. For Ethiopia's hand had already come before God. So now the divine word threatens those who, clinging to sins and smeared with the filth of their sins, are unwilling to be converted to better things and to wash out their dark color; and it threatens them with the sword of which I think it is written also in Genesis: He set the Cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turns about to guard the way of the tree of life, and in Isaiah: He will bring a great and holy sword upon the dragon, the twisting serpent, and will kill it on that day. And he says that they will be either wounded or slain by the sword, so that, fearing the punishments, they may imitate Nineveh, and repent, and not undergo what the Lord threatens. This indeed is what the prophecy of Jeremiah also declares: I will speak, he says, concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, and I will remove and destroy them; and if they repent, I too will repent of all the evils that I spoke of doing to them. And that you may know that the Lord now threatens the Ethiopians with the sword for this reason, that he may convert them to better things, a little later in this very book he adds concerning the Ethiopians: Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, from there my suppliants, the daughter of my dispersed ones, will bring a gift to me, or, as it stands in the LXX: From the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia I will receive my dispersed ones, and they will offer victims to me.

But you also, Ethiopians, will be slain by my sword; and he will stretch out his hand over the north and will destroy Asshur; and he will make the beautiful one a wilderness, and a pathless place, and as it were a desert. And flocks will lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations, and the pelican and the hedgehog will dwell on her thresholds; the voice of one singing in the window, the raven on the lintel, because I will wear away her strength. This is the glorious city, dwelling in confidence, which said in her heart: I am, and outside me there is no other any more; how has she been made a desert, a lair of beasts? Everyone who passes through her will hiss and will move his hand. LXX: And you, Ethiopians, will be wounded by my sword; and I will stretch out my hand over the north and I will destroy the Assyrian; and I will make Nineveh a wilderness, and waterless as a desert. And flocks will feed in the midst of her, and all the beasts of the earth; and chameleons and hedgehogs will lie down in her stalls, and beasts will cry out in their pits, and ravens in her gates, because her height is a cedar; this is the city given over to evils, which dwells in hope, which says in her heart: I am, and there is none after me any more, how has she been made a wilderness, a pasture of beasts? Everyone who passes through her will hiss and will move his hands. The Jews refer this whole section, and the two preceding ones against the Philistines and Moab and the sons of Ammon, to the coming of Christ, who they think will come at the consummation of the world, to build up Jerusalem and to free his people from the hand of the nations by which they are held; and they say that this is the meaning of what is said: And men will worship him from their own place, all the islands of the nations. And not only the nations above, they hold, but also the Ethiopians and the Assyrians and Nineveh, the city of the Assyrians, are at that time to be made a wilderness, and all the beasts of the earth will lie down in her, or, as is written in the Hebrew, all the beasts of the nations, by which they think all the peoples that are to overthrow Nineveh are signified. And because Nineveh means beautiful, in the present passage they refer the beautiful one to Babylon. And all that follows, The pelican and the hedgehog will dwell on her thresholds, and so on, they say suits Babylon rather, whose same desolation is foretold in Isaiah also. Others, on the contrary, affirm that it is clearly said of the Assyrian, of whom it had already gone before: And he will stretch out his hand over the north, and will destroy Asshur, and will make Nineveh a wilderness. For by the Assyrians Nineveh is meant rather than Babylon, which is a city of the Chaldeans. And as for his saying, the pelican and the hedgehog in its hinges, and the raven on the lintel, these are signs of desolation; and there are two kinds of pelicans: one of the water, the other of the wilderness. And by what he says, The voice of one singing in the window, either demons are meant, or the voices of various birds that are wont to dwell in deserted cities. Moreover, where both we and the LXX have translated alike, The raven on the lintel, in the Hebrew is set hareb, which, according to a difference of reading, is taken as either dryness, or sword, or raven. Hence Aquila translated sword, and others dryness. And after the overthrow, as if mocking her ruin, the prophetic word speaks: This is the glorious city, dwelling in confidence, which said in her heart: I am, and outside me there is no other any more; how has she been made a desert, a lair of beasts? Everyone who passes through her will hiss and will move his hand. But according to what we said above, either beasts will truly dwell in the deserted city, or at any rate under the figure of beasts the variety of many nations is indicated. If anyone should ask how, according to the history, this prophecy is referred to the times of Nebuchadnezzar, when the Ethiopians and the Assyrians are also named, to whom the Medes and Persians did nothing, let him read the histories, and he will see that the Assyrians too and the Ethiopians were subject to the Medes, and he will see the reign of Cambyses, and the power of Cyrus, and all that followed thereafter. Let these things have been said in the Jewish way.

After this it is not the Lord who speaks, as above, but the prophetic spirit speaks about him: And he will stretch out his hand over the north, and will destroy Asshur. The north, of which Jeremiah wrote: From the north evils will blaze up upon all the inhabitants of the earth. And of which Solomon makes mention: The north wind is a harsh wind, but by name it is called the right. And God stretches out his hand, the hand that inflicts punishments, for this reason: that both the north may feel the penalties, and those who are in its land, to which, according to Zechariah, the black horses go, of which it is said: There were black horses, they were going into the land of the north. And fittingly, whoever has moved his feet and withdrawn from the East, of which the same prophet says: Behold a man, the East is his name, and has looked toward the west, goes at once toward the north, which is not the right, but by name is called the right. This indeed is understood bodily as well: whoever stands in the east and turns himself, looking toward the west, has the north on his right; those who have grown cold from its blast call it the right, though it is the right only in name, but in reality and in deed is rather on the left. And after the Lord has stretched out his hand over the north, he will also destroy Asshur, which means εὐθύνων, which many think means one who directs, but that is false; for εὐθύνων means one who reproves and convicts. And since the devil himself is the enemy and the avenger, and he himself suggests sins, and afterwards convicts sinners in their sins, for that reason he is called εὐθύνων. I reckon him to be the prince of the Assyrians, who dwells toward the north, and has Nineveh as his capital, and says in Isaiah: By strength I will act, and by the wisdom of understanding I will take away the boundaries of the nations, and I will devour their strength.

Moreover, what follows about Nineveh laid waste: And flocks will feed in her, and all the beasts of the earth, chameleons, and hedgehogs will lie down in her stalls, and beasts will rest in her hinges, and ravens in her windows, and so on, seems to me to have to be understood in accordance with what is written either in Jonah or in the prophet Nahum. And in Jonah indeed we interpreted Nineveh, that is, the beautiful one, which repented at the preaching of Jonah, that is, of the dove, as the Church gathered from the nations. In Nahum, however, we tempered the interpretation toward the world; and concerning the world, indeed, it is not difficult to interpret and to say that, when the Ethiopians have been wounded by the sword of the Lord, and he has stretched out his hand over the north, and has destroyed the Assyrian, the prince of the world, the world itself too perishes with its prince, and is reduced to the utmost desolation, and is pitiable to no one, but all hiss at its ruin and move their hands. But concerning the Church it seems at first sight to be blasphemous that she should become pathless and deserted, and that beasts should dwell in her, and that afterwards it should be said to her with mockery: This is the city given over to evils, which dwelt in hope, which said in her heart: I am, and there is none besides me any more, how has she been made a wilderness, a pasture of beasts? But whoever has considered that apostolic saying in which it is said: In the last times very evil times will set in, and men will be lovers of themselves, greedy, arrogant, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, accusers, intemperate, cruel, hating the good, traitors, rash, puffed up, lovers of pleasures more than of God; having the form of piety, but denying its power. And also this, which is written in the Gospel, that as iniquity is multiplied the love of many grows cold, so much so that at that time this is fulfilled: Yet when the Son of man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth? He will not wonder at the final devastation of the Church: that, while the Antichrist reigns, she is to be reduced to a wilderness, and handed over to beasts, and is to suffer whatever the prophet now describes. For if God, because of unbelief, did not spare the natural branches, but broke them off, and turned rivers into a desert, and springs of waters into thirst, a fruitful land into saltness, because of the wickedness of its inhabitants, why should he not, conversely, overthrow those of whom he had said: He turned a desert into pools of waters, and a land without water into springs of waters, and made the hungry dwell there, and so on, and those whom he grafted from the wild olive into the root of the good olive, if, unmindful of his kindness, they withdraw from their Creator and worship the Assyrian, and bring them back to the same thirst in which they had been before? Although this can be understood generally of the coming of the Antichrist, or of the end of the world, yet it can be taken daily of those who pretend to be of the Church of God and deny it by their works, and are hearers of the law and not doers, who vainly boast that they are beautiful, when flocks dwell in them, namely a multitude of vices, and brute animals serving the body; and all the beasts of the earth, which devour their hearts, and chameleons, which do not have one color, but are changed from moment to moment by different sins, now by avarice, now by luxury, now by cruelty, now by lust, now by sadness, now by exultation. And hedgehogs in their stalls, an animal spiny and full of thorns, and wounding whatever it touches. But beasts too will lie down in the holes, that is, in their hearts, and ravens, unclean birds, in their gates, either in the mouth or in the ears, so that they may always either speak or hear evil things. After this it is added and said: the Church will suffer these things, or has suffered them, for this reason, that she raised herself up in pride and, like a cedar, lifted up her top, given over to evil works, and nonetheless promising herself future blessedness, and despising the rest in her heart, and not thinking that anyone exists besides herself, and saying: I am, and there is no other besides me any more; how then has she been made in the wilderness a pasture of beasts? For where previously the Father dwelt, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and his angels presided over its ministries, there beasts will then dwell, about which the prophet too laments, saying: Do not hand over to the beasts the soul that confesses to you.

Everyone who passes through her will hiss and will move his hands. But if we understand this of the angels, we will interpret it thus: when the angels pass through her, and do not remain in her, as they had been accustomed to do before, they will be stunned and will marvel, and will not prop her up nor hold her up with their hand as she falls, but will lift up their hands and pass on through. Or else with a hiss they will raise their hands, and, as though lamenting in the manner of mourners, they will clap them together. If, however, we wish to take this of the devil and his angels, who also laid waste the vine that had been transplanted out of Egypt, we will say that through the soul from which Christ has withdrawn, and which before had been the temple of God and has ceased to be so, the serpent passes, and hisses in it, and vomits out the venoms of his malice, and not only does this, but also moves his works, which τροπικῶς (figuratively) are called hands. And lest you think, because we have named a serpent, that we forcibly understand the hands of a serpent as its work, take the testimony of Solomon: Death and life are in the hands of the tongue. We have said these things serving the allegorical interpretation as best we could. But if anyone finds things more probable and more reasonable than those set out by us, let the reader rather be led by his authority.

Some from the circle of your friendship go out with a made-up face; they wear a bandeau around their face; they put this black thing over their eyes under pretext of illness; they have numberless rings attached to their handkerchief, and on their belt, fringes that flap behind them, like calves frisking about in an enclosure. Often they bathe quite naked without necessity; they wear soft shoes on their feet—"she went out taking pride in the desires of her soul"—they mince along in the assembly; they accost their friend with a boisterous laugh, like the noise of thorny twigs cracking under a cooking pot. They build themselves alcoves; they adopt customs of the crows and vultures of the world, making themselves comparable to them in their food: dead meat and rotted venison.