Enarratio in prophetam Isaiam

PREFACE TO THE PROPHET ISAIAH. Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath. We must note, then, that God did not make winter or a blameworthy sabbath; for it is written: Summer and spring, you formed them. But we are in winter when the passions of the flesh hold sway in us. So, then, the gospel saying must be understood thus: that our flight should not take place when the worse things prevail in us, or when we pass our life in idleness. For this is what he suggests we understand by the sabbath, so that we may obtain that blessing: Blessed is that servant whom the Lord, when he comes, will find watching. Be wise as the serpents. Perhaps because of stripping off old age wisely and prudently; for when it must shed its skin, it gives itself to a narrow place that presses closely upon its body, and thus, threading itself through, it strips off its old age. Perhaps, then, the word wishes us too, as we travel through the narrow and constricted way, to put off the old man and put on the new, so that even our youth may be renewed like the eagle's. Great indeed and first is the gift (and one requiring a soul exceedingly purified)—to receive the divine inspiration for prophesying the things of God. Second after that, and not itself requiring small or ordinary diligence, is to hear attentively the meaning of the things spoken by the Spirit, and not to miss the sense of what is said, but to be guided straight to it by the Spirit who arranged for the prophecy to be written, guiding also the understanding of those who receive the gift of knowledge.

For this reason the Lord also added, saying: He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And the prophet Joel: Who is wise and will understand these things? and prudent and will know them? And the Apostle, in the passage concerning gifts, calls one gift prophecy, and another the discerning of spirits. For he who offers himself as a worthy instrument to the working of the Spirit is a prophet; but he who receives the power of the things announced with understanding has the gift of the discerning of spirits. Therefore also, giving orders to the Corinthians: Let the prophets (he says) speak two or three, and let the others discern. And so it is a great thing, that it lies under threat, that the Lord should take away from Judea prophet and diviner and wonderful Counselor and prudent hearer. But we must pray to receive the gift of wisdom and that of knowledge and that of teaching, so that all running together upon our governing faculty may impress the formation of all the truth that is prophesied. There is need of the word of knowledge for contemplating the hidden things of the Spirit; and of the word of wisdom, for establishing and working out the things that have been delivered in condensed brevity; for it is proper to wisdom to draw out words. For I stretched out (he says) words, and you did not attend. Then the gift of teaching for the edification of the hearers.

It is necessary, then, that the suitability of the soul of the one who is going to prophesy be present beforehand, arising from the movement that lies within our power, so that the Logos who is in all things, choosing the more harmonious souls—in which not even a small movement of the soul's passible part is out of tune with the Logos, according to the proportion of the harmony present in them—may bring upon them the energy of the Holy Spirit. Nor is the calming of the passions alone necessary for the preparation of the reception of the Spirit, but also the measure of one's disposition regarding faith, and what is beneficial both for the one who receives the grace and for those who hear at the time, or who will later share in the benefit from the Prophets. For (it says) the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for what is beneficial; and again: According to the proportion of faith. Yet it is unattainable for human nature to comprehend the rationale of the different energy that comes from the Holy Spirit upon those who are worthy. According to this, one man is entrusted with prophecy, and that to such and such an extent; another receives gifts of healings, and these of such a magnitude; and another workings of powers, greater or lesser. For these things only he knows who looks upon the worth of each soul and divides to each according to worth by the unseen measures of his righteousness. How did the pure and translucent souls prophesy? Becoming, as it were, mirrors of the divine energy, they displayed the reflection clear and unmixed and in no way muddied by the passions of the flesh. For the Holy Spirit is present to all, but to those who are pure from the passions he shows his own power.

But for those who have their ruling faculty confused by the stains of sin, no longer. And besides purity, the evenness of a settled condition must also be displayed; for the one who is unevenly disposed concerning temperance is not pure, but the one who has subjected the mind of the flesh to the Spirit. For just as the impressions of faces do not occur in all materials, but in those that possess some smoothness and transparency, so the activity of the Spirit does not occur in all souls, but in those that have nothing crooked or twisted. Snow is bright, but it does not show images of things pressed into it, because it is rough, being composed of frozen foam. Milk is white, but it does not receive images, because even in it there are certain small bubbles. But in water and in ink, a form is reflected, because of smoothness. So then, the unevenness of life is unsuitable for the reception of divine activity. When, therefore, a soul has given itself over to every exercise of virtue, and by its vehement love toward God continually preserves the memory of God imprinted upon itself, and in this way prepares God, as it were, to dwell in it, being borne of God from the most vehement gazing toward God and from that ineffable love, it becomes worthy of the grace of prophecy, God giving divine power and opening the eyes of the soul to the understanding of the visions he wills. Therefore the Prophets were also called seers beforehand, from the fact that they foresaw future things as present. But we shall be led rather to see the prophetic motion from the visions that come in dreams.

For just as in the impressions that occur during sleep, when the ruling faculty of our soul is imprinted with cities or places that differ in size and beauty, or we become spectators of creatures beyond nature, or when the memory of certain words has entered through hearing, we often retain them (and although so many and such wondrous sights and sounds are around us, we neither saw anything in truth by bodily sense nor heard anything), so too the mind of the divine and blessed men, being imprinted sometimes while awake and at other times in sleep, is filled with divine words and visions; neither having traced the images of the things seen through the eyes, nor having received through the ears the impact of air that proceeded from the vocal organs. For there was no external object underlying it—neither a lofty and exalted throne, nor the one seated upon it, which Isaiah saw; nor was there the human-shaped figure, of amber from the loins upward and of fire from the loins downward, which appears in Ezekiel. But their mind, by a superior power, came to be in the contemplation of these things, the Spirit displaying the divine nature through riddles. And the prophets see not only things to come, but also the hidden things of the present, as Paul says: But if you all prophesy, and some unbeliever or unlearned person enters, the hidden things of the

his heart becomes manifest; or as Elisha said: Was not my heart going with you, when the man turned back with his chariot to meet you? Foreknowledge through dreams is also prophecy, as was shown to Joseph in Egypt and to Daniel in the land of Babylon. How then was it shown also to Pharaoh and to Nebuchadnezzar? Because it was necessary for rulers to foresee matters concerning the ordering of the world, so that they might be believed. How is it that Balaam also prophesies, and Caiaphas? Because they too had those who obeyed them; the one as high priest, the other as a diviner. For here there is no purity of soul, nor clarity of mind beholding God and drawing down the power from thence; but the word was in them by dispensation, not according to their worth, but according to the time. You might inquire whether the visions in Isaiah and in Ezekiel are visions seen through such phantasies, or are theologies declaring to us the properties of the Godhead through riddles of the Spirit. Some say that they prophesied in a state of ecstasy, the human mind being veiled by the Spirit. But this is contrary to the promise of the divine visitation—to make the one possessed by God out of his senses, and, when he has become full of the divine teachings, then also to depart from his own understanding, and while benefiting others through himself, to fall short of the benefit from his own words. In general, what reasonable account is there that from the Spirit of wisdom one should become like a madman, and from the Spirit of knowledge one should lose the faculty of following? But neither does the light produce blindness, rather it awakens the natural power of sight that is present within;

Neither does the Spirit produce confusion in souls, but rouses the mind that is pure from the stains of sin to the contemplation of intelligible things. That an evil power exists which confounds the understanding and plots against human nature is not implausible; but to say that the presence of the divine Spirit does this very thing is impious. Then, if the saints were wise, how did they not follow what was prophesied? For a wise man, it says, will understand the things from his own mouth, and on his lips he bears discretion. But if it is because Isaac was beside himself at the entry of his son, and David spoke in his ecstasy, that they falsely accuse the saints of derangement, let them know that amazement was called ecstasy, as in Heaven was amazed, and the earth shuddered. It is necessary, starting from common notions, to confess regarding God the things that are contrary, as far as the wording goes, but not to understand them so. For example, according to common preconceptions it is right to confess the divine nature to be good, and free from anger, and just. If, then, Scripture says that it is angry, or grieved, or repents, or does not deal with someone according to worth, it is fitting to seek the intent of the wording, and to take care in what way we may be able to restore the worthy conceptions about God, and not to overturn them. And so we shall approach the Scriptures without stumbling, being benefited by the easy passages, and not harmed by the less clear ones.

If anyone charges the divine Scripture with not being instructive or effective for those able to be benefited, let him thoroughly consider the whole ordering of human affairs—not only in spiritual matters, but also in the lower things and in the circumstances of life: that to irrational creatures the power that administers all things gave an easy starting point for living—foods self-produced and shelter self-grown, and garments from hair and feathers it bestowed; but man it brought forth naked, and gave him reason in place of all these things, through which the acquisitive arts came to be—building, weaving, farming, bronze-working—the soul, by the presence of reason, supplying what the bodies lack. Just as, then, in these matters our Creator did not, as though begrudging us the starting point for living, allow all things to be born together with us in the manner of irrational creatures, but contrived the lack of necessities as a training-ground for our understanding, so also the obscurity in the Scriptures, for the benefit of the mind, he des

He contrived to arouse his activity. First, so that by being occupied with these things he might be drawn away from worse things; then, because what is acquired by labor is somehow loved more, and what comes about over a long time remains more securely; whereas for things whose acquisition is easy, the enjoyment is not greatly prized. For the presence of things readily at hand is easily despised, and is deemed worthy of no guard at all by those who possess them. For this reason the nature of dreams is also unclear and oblique, and needs no small cleverness from the mind; and there is a great affinity between the riddles that come from dreams and the things indicated in Scripture by way of concealment. Hence both Joseph and Daniel discerned dreams by the prophetic gift, since the thoughts themselves are not sufficient for the hunting of the truth. For this, then, there is need of purity in life, so that what is veiled in the Scriptures may also be discerned with a view to the practice of moral virtue. And besides purity of life, there is need of diligence in the Scriptures, so that the reverent and mystical dignity of the divine oracles may be impressed upon the soul by continuous study. That the study of the divine words requires one's whole life, the life of Moses confirms: he was educated in the things of the Egyptians during the first forty years, and during the second forty years, having withdrawn into the deserts under the pretext of shepherding, he devoted himself to the contemplation of things that exist. And so at last, deemed worthy of the manifestation of God after the second forty years, he was brought down, unwillingly, by the philanthropy of God to the care of human beings.

And not even then did he remain continuously in the practical life, but he often returned to the contemplative life. Hence also the whole multitude was carried away into the Egyptian idolatry, while the holy man was with God on the mountain. Such a one was also Elijah, fleeing from the crowd of men and loving to dwell in the deserts. If, then, among the saints the search for truth was carried out with all steadfastness of the ruling faculty, how is it not unreasonable to seek the fruits of countless labors without any toil? For observe Elijah too: after how many withdrawals and periods of quiet and labors was he deemed worthy to see God. The subject of the book is plain and immediately graspable. Since the Prophet lived in times when wickedness abounded, he recounts the magnitude of the evils stored up for them and sets forth the cause of God's anger beforehand, in order to bring them to repentance. First he begins with the words against Judea. Since (according to Peter) the time had come for judgment to begin from the house of God. For by nature we are most angry with those closest to us when they sin against us. And in Ezekiel the Lord, commanding those who have sinned to be punished, says, Begin from my holy ones. For this reason he began from the chosen land of God, and from the city in which was the sanctuary, declaring the things that were coming: second, Babylon; then Moabitis; then Damascus; fifth, Egypt; then the desert; then Idumea; then the valley of Zion; then Tyre; then the four-footed beasts. Following these are the events that took place around the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah.

After these things there are prophecies without any superscription, foretelling the sufferings of Jerusalem and of Judea, and the matters concerning those in the dispersion, and concerning their return, after the penalty had been fulfilled; and the things concerning Christ, sown throughout the whole prophecy, with each of the things said according to history, and the mystical things interwoven together. 1. BEGINNING OF THE TEXT: The vision which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw, which he saw against Judea and against Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah and Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Of our senses, the most active, possessing the apprehension of sensible things, is sight. For neither is it possible to know fearful things through hearing as through sight; nor does any other power thus apprehend desirable things as sight does. Therefore the contemplation of true things (because of its clarity and freedom from doubt) has been called sight. Hence also the prophet was called "the one who sees," and "the one who sees beforehand." For in Amos we have learned that Amaziah said: "Seer, go and depart into the land of Judah, and there prophesy." And Samuel is called "the one who sees beforehand" in the Books of Kingdoms. For (he says) the prophet was called "the one who sees beforehand." For insofar as they were lookers upon the future, they were designated as "seeing beforehand"; but insofar as they were contemplators of the divine will, they were called "seers." Our task, then, is to take care of the mind, that it may become clear-sighted, being perfected through suitable exercises; but it is God's gift to illumine us with the Spirit for the understanding of his mysteries.

Having prefixed "vision," he added "the report of words," in order to show that he did not receive it by hearing, but declares the meaning of the word impressed upon his mind. For we indeed have need of voice in order to signify our thoughts; but God, touching the governing part of the worthy itself, impresses upon them the knowledge of his own will. What is the addition of "father"? To show that the gift of prophecy is akin to him. "Which he saw against Judea." What does the repetition intend? That through the first, the common aspect of the vision; but through the second, he now signifies the particular—who and of what sort and in what way the vision differs. "Words" therefore "visible," that is, contemplated by the mind, which the Prophet saw, according to what is said in Exodus, that "all the people saw the voice." Other prophets also made their prefaces in a similar manner. "The vision of Obadiah: thus says the Lord God to Idumea. I have heard a report from the Lord, and he has sent a message to the nations." And concerning Nahum: "The burden of Nineveh; the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite." And concerning Habakkuk: "The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw." And Malachi spoke of a "burden" without the "vision," saying thus: "The burden of the word of the Lord against Israel, by the hand of his angel." And they seem through the "burden" to indicate that they do not have the power of prophecy from themselves, but having received it; so that "burden" can mean the same as "gift from God." These, then, say that their books are of vision; but the remaining prophets say that they heard words from God.

For the word of the Lord (he says) which came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah and Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah; and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. The beginning of the word of the Lord to Hosea. And in Amos: The words of Amos, which came to be in Tekoa, which he saw concerning Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. The order here is reversed, as compared with Isaiah: there vision was placed first, and the words were added afterward: Hear, O heavens. But here, with the words set forth first, the vision followed. For it says "the words of Amos," not "the vision of Amos"; not those things which he heard, but which he saw. And in Micah: And the word of the Lord came to Micah the Morasthite, in the days of Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, concerning what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem. And: The word of the Lord, which came to Joel, the son of Pethuel. And: The word of the Lord came to Jonah. And: The word of the Lord, which came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah. And the marking out of the times and the receiving of the word are also described in a peculiar manner in Haggai: For in the second year (he says) of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. And it seems to me that what is said here, "by the hand," has the same force as what is said among the others

in the written oracle. And in Zechariah also: In the eighth month of the second year, in the days of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet. In the days of Uzziah and Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah. The observation of the times is necessary, so that it may be shown how long before the things foretold were spoken and after how much time they came to pass, and that when weakness abounded, the care from God overflowed all the more. For almost the majority concurred with one another in time: Hosea, in the days of Uzziah and in the days of Jeroboam; Micah, in the days of Jotham and Ahaz; Zephaniah, in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon. But of the rest, some recorded their prophecies without a time, while others noted the kingdoms of the barbarians, as being more recognizable because they were in power at that time. Haggai and Zechariah, Obadiah and Nahum and Habakkuk, Jonah and Malachi did not mention the times, nor indeed did most of the fathers. And perhaps those from notable fathers could be readily accepted. For the more recognizable are more credible; but those from obscure parents were passed over in silence. Yet this Amos, whom we have numbered among the twelve, is not the father of Isaiah; for neither is the pronunciation the same, nor what is signified by the sound. For the one is pronounced with a rougher breathing, the other with a smoother. And the meanings are different; for the name of Isaiah's father, even the peculiarity of the sound, displays firmness and power and strength; but by the prophet's name, a hard word is signified. And the prophecy of Hosea seems to be before Isaiah, because it is said: The beginning of the word of the Lord to Hosea.

One must know, however, that this same Uzziah is also called Azariah; for in the first book of Chronicles he is called Uzziah, but in the second book of Kings, Azariah, and moreover both his father and his mother. For his mother was Chaliah, and his father was Amasias. And the time of his reign was the same: fifty-two years. In the days of Uzziah, Isaiah prophesied, as did Hosea and Amos. But since it says, The beginning of the word of the Lord to Hosea, perhaps he was the first to begin prophesying? And since Amos prophesied two years before the earthquake, perhaps this was before the vision of Isaiah, in which he says: And the lintel was lifted up; Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. Since the prophecy came in a wicked generation, having no hearers among men, it is spoken to heaven and earth. For it was in the presence of these witnesses that the law was given, Moses saying: I call heaven and earth to witness against you today; and again: Give heed, O heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words from my mouth. It was fitting, then, that the same witnesses who were taken when the law was given should be summoned for the conviction of the transgression of the law. For he says: Assemble to me your tribal leaders and your elders and your judges and your scribes, that I may speak in their ears, and I call heaven and earth to witness against them. But it has been observed that the wording here stands in contrast to the song. For there it says: Give heed, O heaven (or according to the other editions, Give ear, O heaven), and let the earth hear. But here it says: Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth.

For when the people think lofty things and do not depart from God, He calls heaven to draw near, as it were, and exhorts them to put His words into their ears; for this is the meaning of "Give ear." But when they have been far removed from heavenly things, He speaks to them as to one far off: "Hear, O heaven." The same applies also to the earth. For this reason Moses, having heaven near because of the people's progress, says, "Attend, O heaven," or "Give ear," like the others. But Isaiah, when the people are in sins and mind earthly things, commands the earth, as being near, to receive the words into its ears. For this is what "give ear" means. Or, by metonymy, "heaven" means those who dwell in heaven, as we call a city those who are in the city, and "earth" all those in it, so that we are not led from this to suppose that heaven and earth are animate. For thus also heaven is called the throne of God, because the heavenly powers have the knowledge of God firmly established in themselves. And the earth is His footstool, because men on earth can scarcely grasp the last things concerning God. In this sense it is said: "A cunning man is a throne of perception; but a throne of dishonor is a woman who hates righteous things." Just as a throne of perception is the perceptive and prudent man, so a throne of God is he who has grasped the highest things concerning the narrative of God. "For the Lord has spoken." It is a fearful thing to disobey the words of God. "I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have rejected me." O the love of God for man! The Master defends Himself, so that after the proofs He may bring in what is according to their worth. "I have begotten sons and raised them up." Man is composite, of soul and body.

The flesh is from the earth; the soul is heavenly. Since therefore his kinship is toward both, He convicts them of sin on the charge of those most their own. "I have begotten sons and raised them up." There are two kinds of generation. The one is the formation according to God, accomplished through works and the acceptance of doctrines; as Paul begets through the Gospel, and labors in travail over those who have fallen away, and forms them anew, reshaping them into godliness. The other is entry into life, as "This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth." He therefore sets both before them, and reproaches them, that having been brought from non-being into generation, and having become according to the image of God (for this is both to be begotten and to be raised up), neither did you give thanks as to a Creator, nor did you make yourselves like a father; but through your turning toward the worse you rejected God, and made the devil your father. For everyone who commits sin has been begotten of the devil. And the Lord also says to those who do evil: "You are of your father the devil." Great indeed is the accusation, that a son, and one who has obtained bodily generation, should be ungrateful toward the one who begot him. But worthy of unbearable hatred is he who, though raised up by becoming a partaker of heavenly things, not even so persists in love toward his benefactor. "The ox knows its owner and the donkey the manger of its lord; but Israel did not know me, and the people did not understand me." He who rejected God is compared to an ox and a donkey. For since "being in honor, he did not understand; he was compared to the senseless beasts and was made like them.

Such are those who live not according to reason but according to passion, being carried down from unreason to a brutish life. But he took things familiar and well known to human beings for the image, so that we might be ashamed, being more senseless than these, and not even giving back to our Creator the goodwill we receive from irrational animals. For the ox, given over to us as a fellow worker in farming, both perceives the voice of the one who feeds it and recognizes the one who customarily brings it food. And the donkey of its own accord rushes to the places it is accustomed to for lodging. If, then, irrational animals have such great familiarity toward the one who cares for them, how much is the rational nature required to render the measure of love toward God? Observe also that the ox is testified to have greater understanding than the donkey: for the one recognized its owner, but the other only the manger, the passage showing that the gluttonous animal knows only the place of pleasure, while the other has some understanding even of what is noble and useful. Therefore, since the animals are unsuitable for one another, it is forbidden in Deuteronomy to plow with an ox and a donkey together—that is, do not yoke the proud and labor-loving part of the soul to the pleasure-loving and passionate part. For God does not care for oxen, but it was written entirely for our sake. But elsewhere again they are yoked together: "Blessed is he who sows upon all water, where ox and donkey tread"—that is, the one who, by the teaching word, both rouses the labor-loving part of the soul and cares for its pleasure-loving part. For just as the animal is burden-bearing, so also the desiring part of the soul, under the weight of sin

is burdened. And the ox knows its owner, but Israel does not know me, its Creator; and the donkey knows the manger of its lord, but Israel does not understand me. And there are many mangers, yet nevertheless the donkey does not miss the manger of the one who owns it. But God is one, and the senseless people wanders off to those who are not gods. It does not understand me, who am made known through heaven; who am shown through earth and sea; who am made known through the sun and the moon; who am declared through the stars; who am indicated through all creation. And fittingly, Israel is assigned to the image of the ox, but the ordinary people to that of the donkey. For as great as is the difference between an ox and a donkey, so great is the difference between Israel, which is interpreted as "the one who sees God," and the people who are simply called a people. Woe to a sinful nation, a people full of sins, an evil seed, lawless sons. "Nation" and "people" are often said in conjunction, as in "In a great nation is the glory of a king, but in the failure of a people is the crushing of a ruler." And, "Why did the nations rage and the peoples devise vain things?" But now, beginning from being a sinful nation, according to the increase in wickedness they become a people full of lawlessness, and from being an evil seed, they come to be lawless sons. For just as progress in virtue has its increase from lesser things to greater, so the outpouring of wickedness is carried from the more inferior beginnings to the incurable. And "seed" in relation to "sons" has much that follows even according to nature itself.

For from seed it advances to becoming sons—not only according to bodily generations, but also according to the growth in the soul, from the seeds of teaching, when those who have received the teachings advance toward likeness to those who taught them, and for this reason are called sons—either sons of the kingdom, when, having received the saving seeds, they are perfected according to them; or sons of Gehenna, if from evil teachings they become akin to destruction. And it is a great accusation that a whole nation is called sinful, so that no one in it does right; and a people full of sins, so that every kind of lawlessness is practiced by them, and even the contradictions of evil against itself are found, as it is said: "Filled with all unrighteousness"; and "For the sins of the Amorites are not yet filled up"; and from the Savior: "Fill up also you the measure of your fathers." An evil seed. The tares sown by the enemy man among the pure wheat, which, having come to completion, became a lawless son, being a son of perdition and a son of Gehenna. For this reason they are deemed worthy of lamentation—those who, instead of being sons of the Most High, have become lawless sons; and instead of remaining in the more divine birth, have become an evil seed. Except that their habitual wickedness is first destructive of those who possess it; for the last stage in wickedness is even inconsistent with itself. You abandoned the Lord and provoked the Holy One of Israel. What greater proof of evil is there than the abandonment of the good? And what excess of wickedness, than to provoke the good and gentle one? The same things are also charged against them by Jeremiah.

For they abandoned me, the fountain of living water. And according to the quantity of the abandonment, each person stores up for himself the measure of the wrath in the recompense. They were alienated backward. This was added from Theodotion, as it were an interpretation of "to abandon"—namely, to be alienated from God through the fall toward what is worse. For just as the one being perfected stretches forward to the things ahead, so the one sinning steps backward to what is behind, distancing himself from the Lord and for this reason perishing. For behold, he says, those who distance themselves from you perish. Let us therefore live in such a way that the things past are never better than the things to come, or than the things present. For Ecclesiastes also forbids this: Do not say that the former days were good beyond these, for you did not ask about this in wisdom. For if the days that go before are better than those after these things, it will be said to us: You suffered so many things in vain, the good things being obscured by the negligence in the things that come later. For Ezekiel says: When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and does injustice according to all the lawless deeds that the lawless man did, all the righteous deeds that he did shall surely not be remembered; in his transgression by which he transgressed, and in his sins by which he sinned, in them he shall die. Why are you still struck, adding lawlessness? What is said is of this sort: when I was disciplining you for your sins, I was scourging you. To those who do not repent but still go on sinning, I kept bringing on and adding the scourges, so that every part of the body was covered by the blows of admonition.

To those whose sins are curable, the word threatens: he will visit their lawless deeds with a rod and their injustices with scourges. But to those who are incurable it says: Why should you be struck any further? Having gone through all the plagues, you have despised all the corrective scourges. Crushing awaits you. The voice is that of one at a loss and despairing of correction, as in Ezekiel: My zeal will depart from you, and I will not be angry with you. Of the things that happen by circumstance, some come about because of sins, some for the correction of the character of those being tested, and others so that those who are given over may be utterly destroyed, as in the case of Pharaoh. To these, then, as those given over, no longer plagues nor scourges, but annihilation is threatened. Every head is for pain and every heart for grief. Why should you be struck any further, whose bodies and souls alike have been scourged and there is no correction anywhere, every head aching and every heart downcast? He does not at all mean the head as a member of the body, as though the pain were fixed upon it alone; but Every head, in place of each individual man, according to the custom of Scripture: For take a first-fruit of all the congregation of Israel, by families, by peoples, by fathers' houses, by number of names, by their head. For since the whole nation is sinful and all the people full of lawless deeds, for this reason the punishment has reached all, and every heart is grieved, the people being led into captivity because of their sins. From the feet to the head there is no soundness in it, neither wound, nor bruise, nor festering plague.

The phrase "the head" is applied to the whole man. From feet to head there is no soundness in him, neither wound, nor bruise, nor inflamed blow, because of the scourges brought upon each sin by him who cares for them. Then, since a wound is a breaking of the body's continuity, when a small part of the connection has been cut through, and as a bruise is a bloody trace of a blow, when the body has been crushed by the resistance of the striker, and this too consists in some part, and inflammation is a fiery swelling, when the humors flow together upon the weakened part and by the unnatural heat burn the affected part—what does the word say concerning those who are wholly seized throughout by weakness? That not as a wound (it says), nor as a bruise, nor as an inflamed blow, has your infirmity touched you, but the evil lies upon you in a unified way, so that all things are confounded, and it is wound, and bruise, and blow. There is no salve to apply, neither oil, nor bandages. Since the infirmity is beyond wound and bruise and inflamed blow, there is no salve to apply, as for the blow, nor oil, as for the wounds. There is no need (it says) of the help that comes from these; for the symptoms are greater than to yield to them. Wounds, then, are the schisms in the Church; bruises are the hidden hearts; inflammation is the swelling of the soul, puffed up by irrational conceit, and for this reason lifted up against the knowledge of Christ. A salve, then, is the word that humbles vain swellings with gentleness and reasonableness; oil is that which with compassion and

smoothing out the deceitful, festering, and rough character of those who speak falsely in hypocrisy; and a "bond" is a word that holds together things that are rushing toward division. Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire; strangers devour your country before your eyes, and it is laid waste, overthrown by foreign peoples. Because they have despaired of correction, he threatens destruction. But these things did not happen in the times of Isaiah; rather, it is customary for prophecy to speak of things that are going to happen as if they had already happened, as in "They gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." For because of the confidence in the fulfillment of what has been foretold, as though it will come to pass undeniably, what is going to be is joined to what has passed. And these things happened at the captivity in Babylon—both that the land was emptied of its inhabitants and that the cities were burned, and that the country was devoured by the settlers sent from Media, while those left behind looked on; at which time also the whole country became overthrown by foreign peoples. But according to the higher meanings, which bring the ancient things near to us, whenever we depart from our God and stretch out our hands to a foreign god, we are handed over to foreigners who desolate us and overthrow us. For it is possible to observe all the threatened things happening to those who sin. Your land is desolate.

The word often calls the soul "land," the land that receives the seeds of the word, as we have been taught in the Gospel through the Lord's parable—that some seeds fell on the good land, the land receptive of divine teachings and well-suited for bearing fruit. And "desolate" is the soul that has no wisdom, no reason, that does not live according to righteousness, nor walks in truth. Your cities are burned with fire. A city is an assemblage of people, compacted together from various pursuits for the common life; and because it has much vanity in its works—wood, hay, and stubble—it is burned up on the day of judgment, and the assemblies of the ungodly become burned with fire. Strangers devour your land before you, when, after a former life and a good conduct in which the soul was filled with the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness), alien thoughts fall upon it and consume what was labored for beforehand. But if in the practice of the affairs of life we also hand over the practical part of the soul to unclean demons, our land becomes laid waste by strangers. For we are God's field, God's building. As long as we are branches remaining in the vine, bearing in Christ the fruits that befit us, we have God as our vinedresser; but if we depart from the life-giving root, faith in Christ, we are dried up, cast outside, and burned. And our building that comes from teaching is overturned when we live contrary to what is fitting.

For if we do not remain on the foundation of the Apostles, building up the precious things, we are broken apart as those who have no foundation, and our fall becomes great. For, as it were, licentiousness devours chastity, and greed devours simplicity in giving, and contentiousness devours the loving disposition. It is pitiable, then, that a soul flourishing in the fruitfulness of good things becomes food for the adversaries, who are not satisfied with our desolation unless they also bring on our overthrow. For the overthrow comes about through evil teachings, as it were, when the soul of those who stumble is razed to the ground; and the desolation is the deprivation of what was formerly established. And this easily happens to the human soul. For observe for me a young man raised from childhood in a reverent life, diligently frequenting the houses of prayer, not neglecting good works according to his ability, mindful of the eternal judgment, holding fast to the word of teaching. Then, having slipped into fornication, how, after the destruction of chastity and the desolation of his fruits,

Thereafter, complete destruction follows upon him. His evil conscience does not lead him to the place of prayer, because he has not stood in the rank of the faithful; for he has fallen away. Nor does he stand in the place of those who weep, for he is ashamed. Hence comes reluctance toward prayer, as he invents fabricated pretexts against those who seek him out. "So-and-so is pressing me," he says, "and I cannot wait for the assembly." And for this reason again he slips away before the prayer of the faithful, having fabricated whatever pretext comes to hand. Then, from gradual habit, practice in apostasy arises in him, and he is led around into complete perdition. But it is altogether characteristic of the evil powers, after they have shown a person destitute of the fruits of righteousness, not to withdraw until they have also enveloped him in errors regarding knowledge. The daughter of Zion shall be left as a booth in a vineyard, and as a watchman's hut in a cucumber field. The requital of like for like provides proof of God's just judgment. She has forsaken the Lord; therefore the daughter of Zion shall be forsaken. Yet he still holds to his love for humanity, calling her "daughter," recalling her by her former name, which she had before she became estranged. She shall be left as a booth in a vineyard. Booths are pitched for the guarding of the fruits in the vineyards. When the vine is thriving with its own fruits, the booth is attended to and deemed worthy of all care, so that from it the watchman may look down, lest those who pass along the road pluck it; but when it is unfruitful, the watch-posts of the vineyard are necessarily neglected.

For this reason he threatens the abandonment of the Israelite people, since they do not bear the fruits that are due. Let us therefore fear to be unfruitful, lest we be abandoned by the visitation of God. That which guards us is the Holy Spirit. Whenever, then, the soul bears fruits worthy of the eternal storehouses, he remains and guards and keeps off from afar the plots of the wild boar. But whenever it cultivates a cluster of gall and brings forth a bunch of bitterness, he abandons the unfruitful soul, and then it is trampled by every brutish thought and every irrational desire. In many places the word figuratively calls Israel a vineyard, as in “You brought a vine out of Egypt”; and “My beloved had a vineyard”; and “But I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true.” And if Israel is a vineyard, perhaps the tent of this vineyard is the house of the temple. For it was called the tabernacle of glory, and the tabernacle in which he tabernacled among men. As long, then, as it produced much fruit, the tabernacle also stood for the keeping of the fruits. But since he who planted it waited for it to produce a cluster, but it produced thorns (with which they crowned the Lord) and all was turned to bitterness—for it produced a cluster of gall and a bunch of bitterness (wherefore they also gave the Lord gall for food)—for this reason the tabernacle of the vineyard was abandoned. For behold (he says), your house is left to you desolate. Then this threat was fulfilled; for it was abandoned as a booth in a vineyard; from that time forth he also commanded the clouds not to rain upon the vineyard.

For this reason there are no longer prophets among them, no longer heavenly grace, but it has become a dry land and a trampling ground. For the fences of that people were torn down, the protection of the holy Powers; and even if they perform anything according to the law, it is unto destruction. For this reason now those who pass along the road pluck them, and a boar from the thicket has ravaged them, and a wild beast has devoured them, and now the invisible powers trample them underfoot. And as a watchman's hut in a cucumber field. For the guarding of cucumbers, the watch-huts of the fruit are constructed. A cucumber field, then, is a place that bears temporary and short-lived fruits, providing a certain delight rather than benefit. Such also is the law, having a short-lived use. For its service is temporary and flourished only for a little while; then it handed over its commonwealth to the true and more solid nourishment, to the teaching according to the Gospel. Zion, then, will be abandoned, and like a watchman's hut, the guard-post of the fruit. But the fruit is not solid and lasting nourishment, but tender and temporary. Such is the law, having a imitation of service, not the truth itself; for it is a pattern and shadow of heavenly things. Since also each individual soul is likened to a vine, as in the psalm: Your wife is like a flourishing vine; and the Lord says, I am the vine, you are the branches—lest perhaps the threatened things reach even us, when we do not render the fruits that are due from us. For perhaps the body is a tent, in which the Holy Spirit dwells. Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?

The soul is a vineyard, required to bear fruit worthy of its original planting and of God's cultivation. For it was planted as a true vine, having been made in the image of the true God; and it is cultivated by the particular cares of the Creator, who prunes what bears fruit, so that it may bear more fruit. For if we give ourselves over to purity of life, God cooperates with us for the cleansing from the passions, perfecting our zeal and eagerness for the good. Therefore, just as a vine is pruned when it is hindered by bearing in superfluous things, so too we cut back the soul's zeal for vain things, storing up all its power for the fruit-bearing of worthy works, lest, having grown wild in the ostentatious world, it empty out its whole strength for the pleasing of men, being occupied, as it were, with leaves and tendrils, the outward show of the world. But the soul is also dug around, making everything its own for its own nourishment, appropriating what lies near, and thus preparing itself for the reception of the teachings of the Spirit. For just as a vine that has not been dug around is without ventilation and, because of the density of the surrounding earth, is unable to receive the benefit of the water, so the soul that has not cleared away bodily things and breathed freely from their weight remains unfruitful, compressed by the weight of material things, and for this reason, not partaking of help from above, remains without fruit. But from the unfruitful soul the Holy Spirit departs; and the fences fall, the helps of the Angels;

Strangers fall upon it—those who pass through us, the powers that activate sins against knowledge. And the passions, seizing it beforehand, ravage it, like a pig rushing senselessly and wallowing in filth. And then there is fulfilled upon such a soul the saying, The daughter of Zion shall be left as a booth in a vineyard. But also As a lodge for fruit in a cucumber field. Those who do not bear fruit worthy of the divine storehouse, but exult in the corruptible fruits of this world—those who trust in wealth, who are puffed up by glory, who pride themselves greatly on the nobility of ancestors or on bodily vigor—are like a cucumber field, cultivating a fruit without nourishment, filling one with boastful swelling and disposing the soul to swell and be inflated with empty bulk. Desiring these things, the lustful people was buried in the wilderness. For they wept, it says, remembering the cucumbers and the melons, the foods of Egypt, which an Israelite would not eat—the one fed on the heavenly bread, the manna—which those of that time, despising, longed for the onions. May we not suffer this too, preferring the life of pleasure to that of the rational soul. For bodily pleasures are truly like onions and garlic, providing much that is sharp and irritating, but leaving behind a harsh and hard-to-wash-off stench in the depths of those in whom they arise, and bringing upon those who receive them an abundance of tears. And among the threats is also this: that it shall be left like a city under siege. Our enemies encamp around us, watching for our ease, so that they may attack us when we are unguarded.

Just as, then, a city that has been stormed, its wealth plundered that was stored up in it, no longer has gates shut, nor guards keeping watch on the walls, so a soul emptied of the treasures that were present in it from the divine gift, as now unworthy of the divine guard, is disregarded. For this reason it has been said: With all watchfulness keep your heart. Therefore we pray to watch and be sober in this way, so that even by our own keeping watch over our guard we may seek that the one who guards Israel may neither slumber nor sleep. For unless the Lord guards a city, the guard has watched in vain. But when, because of the desolation of good works, he abandons our guard, we lie exposed to the enemies for plundering and captivities and abductions. And unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we would have become as Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah. If the whole nation is sinful and the whole people full of lawlessness and all sons lawless, what seed was left to Israel that prevented it from undergoing the sufferings of Sodom and Gomorrah? For the seed present in Israel was an evil seed, not a cause of salvation but worthy of destruction. What, then, was this? Perhaps it is the one about whom it was said in the promises to Abraham: To you I will give, and to your seed? For he did not say, it says, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one: And to your seed, who is Christ. This seed, then, prevented by its own presence those who, as far as the worth of their lives is concerned, deserved to suffer the things of Sodom and to be destroyed by fire and brimstone because of their wickedness reaching the measure of Sodom.

But nevertheless, even after the sin against Christ, the remnant was saved according to the election of grace; but the rest were hardened, and they were handed over to destruction, as Amos says: For I overthrew you, as the Lord overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah; and not even so did you turn to me, says the Lord. And yet, though he threatened many times, he spared many times; but later he brought upon the unrepentant heart the sufferings that were worthy of its deeds. For in a certain Prophet he rushes toward vengeance because of the injustice of the people, but he holds back because of his own love for humanity: How shall I deal with you, Ephraim? What shall I do to you, Judah? I will make you like Admah and like Zeboiim. And these are of the Sodomite Pentapolis. Then, by an excess of love for humanity, he immediately adds: My heart is turned within me, my repentance is disturbed. I will not do according to the anger of my wrath. But nevertheless, when they fell into the ultimate transgression, the temple was burned down, and the whole city became consumed by fire, and they were utterly consumed by famine and plague and sedition and plots against one another. However, the portion of those who believed in Christ was preserved from the whole of Israel, the election having been found in a few; and this, having become like leaven for the nations, drew all people to its own likeness, so that from that time both Israel should be called and the people of the Lord, and that the one who is a Jew in secret should be an heir of the spiritual promises—the one who has believed from among the nations.

Since Sodom is interpreted as "turning away" and Gomorrah as "sedition," and the interpretation of the names suggests to us some such meaning as this—that unless the seed that was promised had come, nothing would have prevented us from falling into utter destruction, having turned away from God. And unless peace had shone upon us from on high, "the peace that surpasses all understanding," each of us would have been consumed by his own sedition and the war dwelling within him; for the passions of sin and all irrational impulses are by nature wont to produce unceasing tumults and irreconcilable sedition in souls. Perceiving, then, the benefit from the Savior's coming—who, as a small seed through human flesh, fell into our life—the Church says these things in the form of thanksgiving: Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of God, you people of Gomorrah—in order to show that the coming of the seed left to her by the Lord Sabaoth became for them the cause of salvation. For, as far as it depended on them, they were liable to the sufferings of Sodom,

He calls them rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah, because of the wickedness of the rulers, since Sodom is, as it were, the metropolis of evil, and the rulers surpass this very city in excess of wickedness. But why rulers of Sodom? Because just as those men rejected Lot, who judged what was just, when he was eager to rescue those who had been received as guests in his house, saying, "You came in to sojourn, and will you also judge judgment?" so too these men rejected the just Judge, crying out, "Crucify, crucify; take such a one from the earth." And here the wickedness is far greater: for those men raged against strangers who had done them no wrong, but these against the One who had benefited them exceedingly with great benefits; and those against strangers, but these against the One who came to his own; and those against angels, but these against God. For this reason they are justly deemed worthy of the title of rulers of the Sodomites. Nevertheless, God, in benefiting them, summons them to the hearing of his profitable words, and the people ruled by them, who are called the people of Gomorrah because of their wicked teachings, he turns to attention to the law, commanding the more learned to hear, and the unintelligent to attend, or to give ear, as others have rendered it. And as great as is the difference between reason and law, so great is that between hearing and giving ear; for the law is a rule of just and unjust things, commanding what must be done and forbidding what must not be done, and the many are its guardians, even if they do not know the benefit in it.

But the word is also able to give the reason according to which these things have been ordained. And especially the word according to us, interpreting the law in a lofty and spiritual manner, is more honorable than the bare observance according to the letter. But how does hearing differ from giving ear? Because hearing belongs to the mind, as the Lord makes clear, rousing us to understand intelligently the intent of what is said: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." But giving ear is merely to place the sound in the ears. Therefore also the people in Exodus says: "All things whatsoever God shall say, we will do and we will hear." (And yet it would have been more consistent to say, "We will hear and we will do.") But to do belongs to everyone whose mind is very dull, such as to keep the Sabbath bodily and to abstain from foods and to circumcise on the eighth day and to appear three times a year in the temple; but to apply oneself to the words of these things belongs to the one who is already perfect and has advanced far in knowledge. And they say that this one cause was what stirred those men at that time to plot against the prophet. But were the rulers of Sodom called this because they ruled over wicked men, or because they were wicked? For one who rules over the wicked can himself be free from the wickedness of those he rules. But if the matter had been passed over in silence concerning the people, perhaps the ambiguity would have had some place; but as it is, by the people being called Gomorrah, the less blameworthy status of the people compared with their rulers is made clear by the word, because Sodom presides over the Pentapolis and holds, as it were, the chief seat of wickedness, and has been deemed worthy of preeminence in all evils.

The history has not handed down the names of the rulers of Sodom, except for the kings who were defeated. Nevertheless, because of the bold rebuke of those who do wrong, the Apostle says concerning Isaiah: "He is very bold and says." And one who is found in sound doctrines and a blameless life will at some time use these words against rulers of the Churches who live lawlessly, and against a people that turns aside and conducts itself unprofitably. "What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?" says the Lord. One of the things that ought to be heard by the rulers and guarded by the people is, "What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?" "The sacrifices of the impious are an abomination to the Lord." But how do you hope, through sacrifices brought in multitude without notable repentance, to find any redemption for your souls? For God is propitiated not by the blood of animals, nor by slaughters at the altar, but by a contrite heart. For the sacrifice to God is a broken spirit. The same words will also fittingly be spoken to those who are lavish in expense but do not repent through their deeds. For this reason the word does not reject sacrifices altogether, but the Jewish ones: "For what is the multitude," it says, "of your sacrifices to me?" And the multitude is dismissed; but it seeks one sacrifice. Let each person offer himself to God, presenting himself as a living sacrifice, well-pleasing to God, sacrificing to God through rational worship a sacrifice of praise. Since, then, the multitude of sacrifices according to the law has been cast out as useless, one sacrifice was accepted, offered in the last times for the putting away of sin; for the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world, offering himself as an offering and sacrifice for a sweet-smelling odor. I am full.

Here it is fitting to end the reading and to begin the following from another starting point. For to be filled with his own blessedness and to have no need of anything is most fitting for God; but to say that he is filled with the fat-smoke of burnt offerings and the blood of slaughtered victims is unworthy of God. He is full, then, from whose fullness we all have received, and in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. For sacrifices bring some pleasure and use to the demons, because of their love of pleasure and their passibility, being burned as incense, with the blood evaporated through the burning, and thus through such refinement taken up into their constitution. For they are nourished wholly through and through by vapors, not by chewing and a stomach, but as the hairs of animals and nails and all such things receive nourishment into their whole substance. For this reason they flutter greedily around the fat-smoke and eagerly welcome the smoke from frankincense as suitable for their nourishment. And perhaps there is in animals some affinity toward the peculiarities of demonic bodies. And those who have received their will bring this or that as more suitable for nourishment. But the voice fitting for God is: I am full. I desire nothing, then, but all things are my own. For the good is that which all things desire. And God is truly good. I am a fountain of fullness. For do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord. And: The earth is the Lord's, and its fullness. For this reason I am myself without need, and to whomever I am joined, I bring fullness. From me the saints are filled.

Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. And Paul, after the knowledge, full of the Holy Spirit, returned to Jerusalem. From this fullness Abraham also was an elder and full of days. And in the people who return, full days will be found. The whole burnt offerings of rams and the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats, I do not will. And these things belong to the word that is heard and to the law that ought to be received by the ears. Consider whether these things do not legislate against and set themselves in opposition to the things given through Moses—if indeed there he requires them, but here he turns away from them. And how shall one iota or one tittle not pass from the law until all things come to be? Or perhaps the word presents this: that he sets aside the bodily element of the law, but that it is fitting to expound it spiritually and loftily with greatness of mind. For not the ram, the animal, altogether (he says) did I require, but the governing mind of the soul, not divided among earthly cares, as if purified through fire and shown to be approved, I require to be sent up whole to me. Nor the fat of lambs to be made fat with fire to the finest degree, but the simplicity of manners from the guileless soul to be dedicated to me. And not the blood of bulls and goats to be poured out at the base of the altar, but the desiring and spirited part of the soul to be consumed through laborious prayer and attendance upon the holy things. Observe also that he did not say he does not will all blood, but this blood, the blood from these animals. For the blood poured out at the last of the ages for the forgiveness of sins (which also

(he speaks better than Abel) he would not have said "I do not wish," but he transfers the sacrifices to the spiritual, since there is also to be a change of priesthood. For if he rejects bodily sacrifices, he clearly rejects the high priest according to the law. For how shall the high priests according to the law have their hands consecrated, when the ram of the burnt offering, on which they laid their hands, is no longer brought? And how shall they be sprinkled, who are no longer sprinkled through the blood? Thus then both stand, both the law according to Moses and the introduction of the better. Therefore those from the seed of Aaron are cast out, so that the one according to the order of Melchisedek may enter in his place. No longer the sacrifices of the continual offering; no longer those on the day of atonement; no longer the ashes of the heifer cleansing those who have been defiled. For one sacrifice, Christ, and the mortification of the Saints according to him; one sprinkling, the bath of regeneration; one release of sin, the blood poured out for the salvation of the world. Therefore he sets aside the first things, that he may establish the second. Nor would you come to be seen by me. The "I do not wish" is understood in common. He sets aside not only the law concerning sacrifices, but also that concerning the necessity of every male being seen three times a year before the Lord. Since then they were not changed from being unjust and having crooked designs, he cast them out from his own eyes. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his face has seen uprightness. But he shows the anger of a master against servants, in taking away their boldness of entreaty.

But the stretching out three times of the contemplation concerning God indicates the knowledge of theology in the Trinity. And for this reason he preferred males as worthy of the divine eyes, showing that the word seeks intense souls that fulfill the doctrines firmly and strongly, and not soft and easy and enervated ones. For this reason, "Three times in the year," he says, "every male shall be seen before me"; which very thing, when it is brought bodily by fleshly Israel, he rejects. For "who has sought these things from your hands?" He showed what these things are—the bodily things of the law: the ram wholly burned, and the fat of the lambs, and the blood of bulls and goats, and the meeting with the body at the temple, as though the divine eyes needed an approach in order to see, but otherwise could not reach those far off. These things, he says, so lowly and earthly, who has sought from your hands? Do you see how much force and necessity he applies to receive the will of the law in a spiritual way? For if it is acknowledged that the words of the law were given by God, but God now says he does not seek these things when they are done, he clearly and incontrovertibly compels us to lead our mind up to the spiritual contemplation of the law, all but crying out and protesting: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God rather than whole burnt offerings." And that saying, "It has been announced to you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord seeks from you: but to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to be ready to walk with the Lord your God." And that, "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise.

And the whole discourse concerning sacrifices and burnt offerings seems to be encompassed within the discourse concerning mercy and love, since even the whole law is summed up in "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." And the passage concerning the feasts will also be brought under the same form of interpretation, so that we should not celebrate the Passover "in the leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." When the true Lamb, Christ, is sacrificed toward evening—that is, at the consummation of the age—whose flesh is truly food, and we are to dwell in tents not for a fixed number of days, but for the whole time of our sojourning, awaiting the true homeland, whose craftsman and creator is God, and to keep Pentecost when the seven weeks are completed—that is, as those who are in the last day have despaired of this life. "You shall not continue to tread my court." A fearful threat to those who have perception. But some of those from the Church are insensible to this loss, and those who are able to meet it are negligent; while those condemned on account of sins are indifferent. And the word indicates the insolent entrance of the accused, as those trampling on the holy things. The perfect man, then, reaches the very Holy of Holies within the veil—that is, having passed beyond bodily things, he will converse with the divine meanings by naked contemplation. But the one of lesser rank, in the house of God, will attain to the ministry that consists in the service of bodily things. And the one just now being introduced into piety is permitted to encounter only the court; but the one who has been driven away even from this is outside the places of piety.

How great, then, is the danger, and that which one seems to have is also taken away. The saint, however, who loves God exceedingly, embraces beyond measure all the symbols of God, saying: My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord. For he knows that otherwise it is impossible to flourish and to make a beginning toward fruitfulness, unless one has come into the courts of the Lord. But God, doing them good, removes them from the Jewish court, so that they may flee for refuge to the court of Christ's sheep, and there may be one flock, one shepherd. If you bring me fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination to me. Your new moons and your sabbaths, and the great day, I cannot endure. My soul hates your fasting and idleness and your feasts. He clearly rejects the bodily interpretation, having promised the law of God and roused both the rulers and the people to attention with great reproaches. For he announces nothing of himself, but cancels the old things, saying that this is the law of God and the ordinance of God—that none of the things now being abolished should take place. If you bring me fine flour, it is vain. In many places he uses fine flour for sacrifices: sometimes unprepared, with only oil poured on it; sometimes without oil, as in the case of jealousy; at other times cakes, at other times unleavened bread, at other times only dough, the fine flour having been mixed with oil. Now, having made its use vain, he has cancelled the greatest part of the sacrifices. What then is it that he says? That, while the word hints at other things, you have abandoned the will of the lawgiver and display all your activity around the vanity of bodily things.

For it was necessary for the wheat to be taken up into the word (sown, as it were, in your souls) and, once stripped of every worldly notion, to be used by itself in the immaterial and pure worship of God. And this is the spiritual fine flour: a word about God separated from bodily conception. The fine flour, then, that is understood and offered in a bodily manner according to the Jewish custom is vain. But the incense is already an abomination to the Lord. For it is truly abominable to think that God, hunting the pleasures that come through smell, commanded the composition of incense, and not to understand that the incense to the Lord is holiness in the body, accomplished by sobriety of soul, when the parts of the soul are held in equal balance and without faction toward one another. For take for yourself (it says) sweet spices: stacte, onycha, galbanum of sweet odor, and shining frankincense. These four correspond to the four elements of which bodies are composed: the stacte to water; the onycha, because of its dryness, to earth; the galbanum, because of its heat, to fire; the frankincense, because of its transparency, to air. Equal shall be to equal, that is, you shall make level the impulses that arise from bad temperament (toward improper desires) by restraining them. And you shall beat some of it very fine, that is, you shall take pains to make it spiritual, obliterating from the soul the thick and material element of the flesh. And so you shall place it before the testimony in the tent, from where I will be known to you. For when it comes to be in exact communion and is made fine, then it is worthy to be brought into the holy place and to draw near to the knowledge of God.

For he says, You shall place them before the testimony, from there I will make myself known to you. But such a thing is forbidden for a person to do for his own enjoyment—that is, to inscribe his own successes upon himself, but rather to refer the cause of good things to God. Such was Paul as a fragrant offering, who says: We are the aroma of Christ. And again: Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph, and makes manifest in us the odor of his knowledge. But bodily incense, which also falls into the passages of the nostrils and stirs the senses, is reasonably regarded as an abomination to the incorporeal God. But the new moons that are fitting for eternal years—the word wishes this to be understood by the discerning, not the restoration through the thirty days of the moon, when it overtakes the sun and again withdraws from it. But since the fool is changed like the moon, the return to the light which the fool abandoned, and the restoration through repentance to the original state, the word wishes the lover of brother and the compassionate to consider a festival—as it were, keeping new moon, the beginning of life in the light; since the light was abandoned through the turning to the worse, but returned again to it through conversion. Next it would be for us to speak about the hated sabbaths—the not lifting a burden and not going out from his place, and not kindling a fire in all their dwelling. These things, showing forth from themselves the impossibility of observance and exact keeping, make the one who hears them bodily liable to the curse. For it is impossible not to move from one's place.

And every thing that is lifted up, even if it be most trifling, is called a burden, such as a garment, or bread, or any of the necessities. But he does not command to kindle a fire either, that is, not to be inflamed by the passions of the flesh; and not to lift up a burden, that is, not to be weighed down by the weight of sin, and not to depart from the abiding in God, remaining steadfast and immovable in the faith. But those who thus complete the sabbaths, not in idleness from evil things, but in abstinence from things that are due, he rightly turns away from and does not endure them, as false. For such are the sabbaths lamented in the Prophet: Woe to those who draw near and lay hold of false sabbaths. But the true sabbaths are the rest laid up for the people of God; which, because they are true, God endures. And he arrives at those sabbaths of rest, for whom the world has been crucified, having plainly departed from worldly things and come to his own place of spiritual rest, in which he who has come to be there shall no longer be moved from his own place, quietness and freedom from disturbance existing around that state. And he shall not kindle a fire in his eternal dwelling, because no material that kindles fire is brought in—wood, hay, stubble. And he shall not lift up a burden who does not have the heavy load of lawlessness lying upon him, but shall truly rest in delicate sabbaths. But instead of the great day, the rest have given Kletē. Theodotion, however: I do not endure Kletē, an invoked assembly; and Symmachus: I will not endure Kletē, an invocation. Whence we reckon that not one exceptional great day has been spoken of, but every day that has been foretold as kletē.

For concerning the unleavened bread he says: "The first day shall be a convocation, because it shall be holy to you." And: "The seventh day shall be a holy convocation to you." And: "On the seventh day of the new produce, when you offer the sacrifice of the weeks, it shall be a holy convocation to you." And again: "On the twenty-third day of this seventh month, it shall be a holy convocation to you." He seems, then, by one word to set aside many days, those that use the same name, and almost all the notable feasts in the law. These, then, he sets aside; which one does he accept? The one of which it is said: "The great day of the Lord," which this perceptible sun will not make, but the rising of the Sun of righteousness will illumine, which shall be one and continuous, having no succeeding night, but extending alongside the whole age. Truly, then, and properly, great is that day. But the carnal Jew seeks the great day among these, concerning which the blessed Jacob declared that they are small and evil. And there are four differences among those mentioned: some are vain, of things done in a Jewish manner; some are abominable; some are intolerable; the fourth is the hateful, among which is also the fasting of the Jews. Just as, then, in the case of other things, it was shown that there is something to be rejected and something acceptable to God, so also in the case of fasting: the abstinence from foods done for display (in the words "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle") has its end, and the soul of the Lord hates it; but the fasting taken up for the enslaving of the mind of the flesh he loves, accomplishing sanctification through the buffeting of the flesh.

Abstinence from foods by itself is not sufficient to make fasting praiseworthy, but the rest of one's conduct must also be present—in words and in manner of life, and in association with those able to benefit others—so that abstinence from foods is a mere accompaniment of the discipline. For the earnest man, while for the most part working with his mind and devoting himself to the pursuit of truth, rarely descends to the care of the flesh; then, after ministering what is necessary to the body, living without fuss on whatever comes to hand, he immediately springs away from unprofitable occupation and runs back to his former life. For such a conduct removes every occasion by which the mind of the flesh is nourished, so that it no longer dominates the spirit, nor does the flesh perform its own works: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire. Having therefore put to death our members that are upon the earth, and having checked the passions through words of rebuke and through abstinence from foods, let us fast a fast acceptable and well-pleasing to the Lord. Abstinence from foods is indeed a hindrance to the appetites of the belly and of what is beneath the belly. And the diligent man will profitably occupy himself with these things, having as examples the life of Elijah, of Moses, of Daniel, of John, and of the other saints, of whom the world was not worthy, who went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated. But the rigor in abstinence from foods is not yet sufficient for perfection, unless the soul also is in complete abstinence from the things that nourish vice.

For just as man is twofold, composed of soul and body, so too foods are twofold, being suited to the constitution of each part, and they render what is nourished more vigorous for its proper activities. For just as in athletic training the foods of athletes, when applied to bodies along with the appropriate exercises, to the extent that they are mastered by the power of those being nourished, to that same extent they raise the body to greater fitness and become an addition to it, through being taken up into the constitution of the body, so also in the practice of piety the doctrines of faith and the corrective words concerning morals, being continually applied to the soul and increasing it by their additions little by little, prepare it to be stronger and more industrious in striving after greater and more perfect teachings in doctrines. From the fasting, then, that is in secret we must guard ourselves—the fasting that is said by the Lord to be hated according to righteous judgment, about which the Prophet also prays against, saying: The Lord will not starve the souls of the righteous. For he is not speaking about bodily hunger (otherwise he would have said, the bodies of the righteous) but about that of the soul; for he will not starve the souls of the righteous. For thus there would also be a contradiction with the life of the Blessed Ones, if indeed Paul counts among his boasts, In fastings often, and, In hunger and thirst. But he prays against hunger for the righteous. Rather, it is better to understand each of these according to the higher sense concerning want. Such also is the saying, I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread.

For we remember that Elijah asked for bread from the Sidonian woman, but also the seed of Jacob, the righteous man, was seeking loaves in Egypt. But if we flee the lowly meaning, the absurdity in the contradictions will also be dissolved. These fasts, then, the Jews were fasting, starving their inner man, because the threat that says had come upon them: Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will bring upon this land a famine, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. These fasts, then, the Lord says he hates—of those who have melted away their own mind in the malnutrition of saving and life-giving teachings, but who over-fatten and flesh out the outer man. For just as in the tilt of a balance, when one side is weighed down, the opposite is somehow raised up, so one might see it happening also in man: for when the flesh is multiplied, the mind somehow becomes weaker; but when the mind is again in good condition, the flesh is often made thin. And this is what the Apostle says: that as much as the outer man is corrupted, so much the inner man is renewed. And, When I am weak, then I am strong. For certain sooty exhalations sent up from abundant and thick nourishment, like a dense cloud, cut off the illuminations of the Holy Spirit that arise in the mind. Therefore Moses also, ascending through the mind to the vision of God, remained without food and drink for forty days, managing to keep his governing faculty unclouded.

Elijah likewise, when he was about to seek God, disregarded food for an equal period of time, so that no obscuring of the mind should come from food. The Lord, however, acted contrariwise: having risen from the dead and returning to the heavens, he partook of food, confirming the nature of the body of the one who rises; but condescending to men, he fasted, showing that training is necessary for the one who is about to strip for the contests of temptations. For, as it were, the bruising of the body trains one for victory like a gymnastic master. Yet one must not use the flesh in such a way as to relax its natural tension through want, nor to force the mind into complete inactivity, or even into inconsiderateness, by excessive slackening. But since we were commanded, while the bridegroom is present, not to fast the fast that comes from the Word (as though not being nourished by the bread that came down from heaven and turning away from the food of the Lord's flesh, which is the cause of life), the Lord says that such a fast is to be hated. One of the things hated by the Lord is also idleness, which is a certain inactivity from what is fitting. And idleness seems to be the accompaniment of every feast, because it is added to those who are called, "You shall not do any servile work," and because those who, during the feasts, keep leisure from the affairs of life perform every impropriety, they were rightly said to keep a hateful idleness. And how is idleness not hateful, since it makes man worse than the ant and the bee, when from the beginning he was formed and placed in paradise to work and to keep it?

So the first and most proper thing for man is diligence in works, and idleness is, as it were, contrary to his nature, which the Lord said he hates. But how does he wish us to be idle? Not working for the food that perishes, not lifting up the eyes to vain things, not receiving vain hearing with the ears, shaking the hands free from gifts, not having swift feet to shed blood, and, in a word, not putting into effect all the pursuits that concern the body. I will no longer release your sins. This is the voice of one who has grown weary of the constant relapses into evil of the one who is being benefited. I will no longer release. Many times I called to repentance; you seemed to obey, and then you turned back again. Despairing of your unrepentant heart, I will no longer release you from the condemnation that is owed to you. For the one who says "I have sinned" and then persists in the sin—this man does not confess; but rather the one who, according to the Psalm, has found out his sin and hated it. For what benefit is the physician's care to the sick man, when the one who is ill pursues the things that destroy life? So there is no benefit in sins being forgiven to the one who still does wrong, and in acts of intemperance being remitted to the one who is still intemperate. But how are the sins of the soul forgiven? When virtue, having gained mastery over the soul and having taken possession of the whole of it by its own principles, implants in it a detestation of the opposite disposition; so that in a time of greed it willingly rushes toward the honor of equality, and even if doing wrong is easy, even if unwitnessed, it flees from it as the greatest evil; being so disposed by the habit within itself, it is possible for it to be released from its former wrongdoings.

Accordingly, self-control too, when it has taken on a settled state and firmness in the soul, releases one from acts of intemperance. And we call a person self-controlled, not the one in whom the desires of intemperance have withered away through old age, or disease, or some other affliction (for in such a one the vice is still present, but its activity is hampered by the weakness of the instruments), but self-control is true scientific power, impressed deeply upon the soul and obliterating the traces of shameful impulses that remain within. For the one who thus purifies himself, by taking up the disposition contrary to the sinful one, the grace that comes from forgiveness is also beneficial. But the word here threatens that those who have often risen from many falls through the hand-leading that comes of loving-kindness toward man, and then later have been overcome by their weaknesses, will be completely abandoned. Here the phrase "no longer" gives us the indication that he has already forgiven them many times before for similar things. For apart from the forgiveness that comes from God, it is impossible for a person to give himself over to the life of virtue. Therefore he who wisely orders our life wishes to set a limit to past things for the one who has been tested in certain sins and then promises to run back to a sound life, and to make a kind of beginning after his sins, as it were coming back to life through repentance; but the one who continually makes these promises and continually falls away from them, he excludes as one utterly despaired of, cut off from his loving-kindness toward man. When you stretch out your hands, I will turn my eyes away from you.

Those who pray only in posture stretch out their hands, but they do not have their divine eyes fixed on their own prayer. Yet this posture of prayer is again customary among the saints, as we have learned from David, who says: I have spread out my hands to you; and, The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice; and from Moses, when Israel was at war until the setting of the sun, holding his hands in an outstretched position. And to these things belongs also the apostolic saying, that men should pray in every place, lifting up holy hands. But perhaps the word also hints at something deeper: that the one who does great, heavenly, and lofty things, having, as it were, his practical power raised aloft, is said to lift up his hands; while the one who does lowly, earthly things subject to corruption has his hands hanging down and cast down. The history according to Moses also gives this exhortation, that because those who are advancing do not keep their actions level, but sometimes live better and sometimes are slackened by weakness and act more feebly, the events that then took place were symbols of the human condition: for if he lifted up his hands, Israel prevailed; but when he let his hands down, Amalek prevailed. That is, when our active power falls, those who wrestle against us prevail; but when it is exalted and raised aloft, the discerning faculty in us, which is called Israel, becomes stronger. And observe that here it is not said, "when you lift up your hands," but, "When you stretch them out." For the one who seeks the things above lifts up, but the one who needs help for bodily things stretches out.

But since the stretching out of hands is often done from a certain disposition by infants toward their nurses or mothers, showing the dispositionlessness of those who pray, he did not say, "When you stretch out toward me," but simply: "When you stretch out," he says, "your hands, I will turn away my eyes." And he adds the reason: "Because your hands are full of blood. And if you multiply your supplication, I will not hear." Let those who accomplish nothing in their life, but think they are justified in the stretching out of prayer, hear these words. For it is not simply the words of prayer that profit, but their being sent up with a earnest disposition. Since even the Pharisee seemed to multiply his supplication; but what does the word say? "The Pharisee stood and prayed these things to himself" (not to God); for he was returning to himself, since he was in the sin of pride. For this reason also the Savior says: "And when you pray, do not babble, as also the Gentiles; for they think that in their much speaking they will be heard. Do not therefore be like them." And also: "From much speaking you will not escape sin." It is necessary, then, to ask for the kingdom of God and righteousness, but not for bodily and earthly things. For this reason the Psalm says: "One thing I asked of the Lord, this I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord." For your hands are full of blood. This is the cause of God's turning away his eyes, when the hands are stretched out, because the symbols of supplication are occasions of provocation.

Suppose someone, having murdered someone's beloved son, still has his hands stained with blood from the murder, and stretches them out to the father who is enraged, asking for the right hand of friendship and begging to be forgiven—would not the blood of the child, appearing on the hand of the child-killer, rather stir the wronged man to anger? Such now are the prayers of the Jews, when they stretch out their hands, reminding God and Father of the sin against the only-begotten Son, and at each stretching out displaying their hands full of the blood of Christ. For those who persist in their hardening are heirs of the paternal murder. For his blood, he says, be on us and on our children. Wash yourselves, become clean. There seems somehow to be a contradiction, as though the statement stands opposed to the literal text and, so to speak, accuses God of some falsehood. For he said, I will no longer forgive your sins. And, Even if you multiply your prayer, I will not listen to you. Now, as though those things were curable, he says, Wash yourselves, become clean. Because in the earlier passages the impossibility of the law for salvation is refuted for those who wish to live according to it; but in these, another way to salvation is shown. And that passage sets aside the perceptible way of life according to the law of Moses; but this one indicates the beginnings of the evangelical life: If you bring fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination; the fat of lambs, the blood of bulls I do not want. What then shall we do? What shall we offer? Perhaps, because he has turned away from material forms of service, we should turn to the festivals, and through these serve?

Your new moons and your sabbaths and the great day I will not accept. Shall we then fast? But my soul hates your fasts. Is what remains, then, to supplicate in the Jewish manner and to pray according to the law? But if you multiply your supplication, I will not hear you; and if you stretch out your hands, I am not moved by the supplication, but I am provoked by the blood. What then shall we do? How shall we propitiate you? How shall we wash away the blood? Wash yourselves, become clean. Yes, he says; for we remember what Moses said about washing. For he who has touched any unclean thing, he says, and has been defiled, shall wash his garments and bathe his body in water and shall be clean. But he did not say, "Wash yourselves for each defilement," but only, "Wash yourselves." One baptism, one purification. There he shall wash his garments and bathe his body in water; here, "remove the wickednesses" — not the filth — "from your souls," not from your garments. No longer busy yourself with frankincense and galbanum and onycha and stacte; no longer seek out a heifer precisely red, so as to have no other color at all, which the whole time of the legal worship scarcely produced three times. Do not fast in the Jewish manner. Do not be hindered

in your idlenesses. There is need of one thing for you, simple and brief, of which you yourselves are masters. What then is this? Learn to do good. In this you are now altogether disobedient and untaught. Since, then, the good is teachable, but the law did not teach you (for its teachings have been cast out as not good), there is every necessity remaining to flee to the evangelical school. Understand for me the method of the economy of the word from a clear example. Let there be someone among the wealthy and rich, and let the things prepared for him for his manner of life be varied; and let this man be displeased with the rest, but suited to one thing only; then, as each of the unwanted things is sent away, let him compel his servants by necessity to come to that which is secretly sought after according to nature; so also now, when all the legal things have been cast out in order, the reception of the Gospel is necessarily prepared. Wash yourselves. And what is the gain? That you may become clean. And for what need is cleanliness? That you may see God. Is it enough, then, for me to wash and receive forgiveness for my former sins and be at rest? Or is there need of something else too? Remove the wickednesses from your souls from before my eyes. For the cleansing through washing depends on the loving-kindness of the Master; but the putting away of wickedness is the work of our own care. But so that we, hoping only in the grace from the washing, may not remain idle from the Commandments, for this reason he adds the whole gathering of life: Remove the wickednesses from your hearts.

As it were, root out the evil thoughts from the ruling faculty, so that neither word nor any deed of wickedness be begotten from them. Before my eyes. Since many things pertaining to the earnest life are practiced by those outside the faith (for instance, abstinence from pleasures in associations and foods, and constancy and calmness in character), he was not satisfied with saying, Remove the wickednesses, but added, Before my eyes, as though no action can be duly performed unless it be done with piety toward Christ. Or, since the Father sees in secret, he says, Before my eyes, with reference to the places seen by God, so that we may remove it not only from actions but also from reasonings. And this is achieved through perfect love, because love (according to Paul) does not reckon the evil. Learn to do good. For the ethical discourse is not clear, nor is it set out plainly for all from the start, if indeed doing good things is teachable. For rightly (he says) you shall pursue the just thing; that is, along with the discourses about righteousness you shall perform the righteous action. For just as it is possible to do something medical, but not medically, so it is possible to do something just, and not justly. For instance, the medical thing is the very use of the herb; but the medical manner is the account that has examined both the power of the herb and the peculiar nature of the disease and the time and the measure and the manner of use. And what is done by knowledge differs from what is done automatically; for the one who acts according to the art will always do the same things, as long as he has the account; but the one who acts automatically will not always have the helpful things running together.

But if today he saved, at the same time he also once destroyed the same things. So also the pursuit of the good, when carried out according to knowledge, is rendered evenly, as long as this word, dwelling within, presides over each of the things that come to be. And elsewhere he shows the necessity of learning what must be done, saying: Everyone who does not learn righteousness upon the earth will not do the truth. And David also places the divine fear among things taught, saying: Come, children, hear me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Seek judgment—that is, the judgment of Christ, according to which, judging us, he renders to us according to worth; and if we do not seek it, nor keep it before our eyes, we cannot persevere in the doing of good things. For the understanding of the things proclaimed, which are fearful to us in the judgment, is a guide toward piety. Or because all things will have been examined and judged, nothing being done without judgment, nor as it happens by chance. For with counsel (he says) do all things. And: The thoughts of the righteous are judgments. It is necessary, then, that the reason, having obtained the highest place among us as a judge, judge and examine each thing—both what is to be said and what is to be done—and indeed that it entrust both the assents to matters and the impulses of the soul with precise discernment. For this is what Paul says: For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. Rescue the one being wronged. Since being wronged is twofold: for either people are wronged in bodily things (as it were, in money and the rest of external things) or in the soul itself. And we have been commanded without distinction to rescue the one being wronged. It must be known that we owe greater zeal to those who are harmed in the most vital matters.

To take back captive in every earnestness those tyrannized by the devil and held captive by him, and to lead their thoughts into the obedience of Christ. But one must also endeavor to rescue the weaker from bodily injustices, whenever, having fallen in with robbers and violent men, they are swept along as by a torrent of their violence; and when we are not sufficient to lift them out, let us prepare for them endurance of hardships by words of exhortation, sparing nothing of what lies in our power, and when we fail of our purpose, at least showing compassion through brotherly love. Judge the orphan, because of the contemptibleness of his age, nor is it easy to bring those who wrong orphans to judgment. Judge, then, for the orphans who are deprived of advocates; fill up for them from yourselves what is lacking because of their age, so as to have the boast of Job: I was a father to the helpless. But perhaps it is more spiritual to expound the meaning of the passage: since God is called the Father of those who have believed in Christ and embrace the way of life according to the Gospel, if anyone, having been estranged from God through transgression of the law, has been as it were orphaned of his providence, hasten with just and knowledgeable judgment to restore him to intimacy with God, neither conceding without judgment nor treating him with unsympathetic severity, but also judge for him by suggesting the beneficial ways of repentance.

And since everyone who commits sin has been born of the devil, if anyone has willingly estranged himself from that kinship of the evil father and comes to the teaching according to godliness, so as to be reborn in Christ Jesus through the Gospel, then as one blessedly orphaned, let him receive the care that is due from those who administer the common affairs. For that there is a kind of profitable orphanhood, the Psalm shows, invoking upon the children of Judah deprivation from the evil one; for thus the prayer will appear to have its reasonable sense, which says: Let his sons be made orphans, so that they may not have the evil one as a teacher of life, having accepted through the disease of love of money the reproaches of the thief and the traitor. And do justice to the widow. And this too is a person who is diminished in many of life's circumstances through weakness. For widowhood is easily assailed by those who wish to do injustice; which you must take up in every way, rendering to her the justice that is owed, and especially if she is truly a widow, isolated from the help of men, and has all her hope in God and persists in supplications, so as even in her heart to be pure from every stain through discipline. And since God in many places of Scripture speaks of the human soul as of his own bride, a widow would also be she who through apostasy from Christ has spiritually played the harlot through idolatry, and has been deprived of union with the bridegroom Word, whom it is necessary to be justified through the righteousness of repentance, being disciplined.

Or else, because the Israel according to the flesh is a widow (having been freed from the yoke of bondage under the law, so as no longer to be accounted an adulteress, having become the wife of another man, of Christ, who purifies her unto salvation), this widow too must be justified by us, learning the righteousness according to the Gospel of Christ. And come, and let us reason together, says the Lord. And if your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and if they be as crimson, I will make them white as wool. In many places of the Scripture we have such expressions, as God condescending to men for judgment on equal terms. For such is also that saying, The Lord himself will come for judgment with the elders of his people, and with his rulers; and that in Micah, which runs thus: Hear now the word of the Lord. The Lord has said: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, for the Lord has a judgment against his people, and he will reason with his people. My people, what have I done to you? Or wherein have I grieved you? Or wherein have I troubled you? Answer me. And it is fitting that the divine judgment be not tyrannical, but rather after the manner of human judges in society, granting a place of defense to those who are judged, so that one who sees the sentence made clear to him, and also the punishment, may give assent to the irrefutable judgments of God, as agreeing with all the righteousness that has been brought before him, so that he may also behold the remission of the things that are forgiven, taking place in him in word and order. But the Scripture represents these things in personified form, not as though the judge were about to bring questions to each one of us and to add answers to the one being judged.

But so that he may make us careful and we may not be negligent in our defense. It is likely that by some ineffable power, in a moment of time, our whole conduct of life will be imprinted, as it were on some tablet, on the memory of our soul. And so we shall hear this even now: Their own counsels surrounded them; they became before my face. And what else do the books borne in Daniel make clear, than that the Lord stirs up in the memory of men the impressions of things done, so that each may remember his own, in order that we may see the things for which we are punished? After, then, washing and being cleansed from the filth of sins, and removing wickedness from the soul before the eyes of God, and ceasing from wickedness, and taking up the knowledge of good works, and seeking judgment, and rescuing the wronged, and judging for the orphan and vindicating the widow, then he is called to be convicted, receiving the promise that he shall be made white either as snow or as wool. Thus the washing by itself is not sufficient to bring the one washed to the whiteness of snow or wool, but there is also need of actions and of no ordinary diligence. So that the washing is productive of purity from filth; but the judgment of the orphan and the vindication of the widow also procure the whiteness equal to snow or wool. For it is possible that even something purple, while being clean, has not been deemed worthy of whitening.

Since, then, the purple dye has been made a watery red, while the crimson is deeper and intensely red, the one was judged to have its proportion toward snow, the other toward white wool. Our sins, then, are likened to a red color, because they are murderous of souls. And just as in dyes, that which has been dyed many times and with diligence receives a somewhat more permanent and indelible dye, while that which has been colored superficially and by chance has a dye that is easily moved and easily washed out, so too a soul that has been made of a certain quality by sin and has come into a state of evil has absorbed the stain from its sins as something hard to wash out and, as it were, burnt in. But if it has lingered over evil to a lesser degree and, as it were, more superficially, it has been colored more faintly and stained by sin, in proportion to the sins, the color having come upon it to a greater or lesser degree. But why were snow and wool taken as the image of white things? Because wool, being naturally white, becomes whiter than itself by care. And

The life of man, then, perfecting its natural starting points through practice, can advance far in virtue. And so snow, being water in its underlying substance, becomes white by the addition of air, when the moisture in the clouds, driven back by the violence of the wind, swells into foam under the vehement motion, and being congealed by the cold in the air, having received a certain consistency and weight, is carried downward by its natural inclination. So too the soul, having increased its natural starting points by its own practice and by the help of the Spirit, becomes worthy in the righteous judgment of God of the grace of God, the brightness having been given to the saints. And if you are willing and listen to me, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you are not willing, nor listen to me, a sword shall devour you. Here he especially sets forth the free will of human nature. For we think this introduction fits all the things set before us. For if you depart, he says, from the service of the letter that kills, if you wash and become clean, and thereafter render the conduct set forth to you, you will come to judgment, you will be in this or that abundance and will enjoy the delight promised, and you will not be food for the punitive and destructive sword. To those who hear in a lowly manner, earthly promises are given as the reward of obedience; but to those who hear the will of the Scripture spiritually, the good things of the land are spoken of—the spiritual land, which those who are called blessed, the meek, are said to inherit. Likewise also the sword is understood as living, concerning which it has been said that it was made drunk with the blood of the wounded.

And in heaven they shall eat flesh, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things. Perhaps the Holy Spirit, who brought it about that these things were written, is now called the mouth, from the fact that it is also said that what proceeds from the mouth of God is spoken. So that you may not hear the threats contemptuously, the word of the Lord, which spoke these things, has testified to us by its mouth that cannot lie. But who is so lowly and fleshly in mind as to think that the things stored up by the good God for men as a recompense for their obedience are foods—fruits of the earth given over to corruption by their use? But clearly, according to the parable of the Gospel, the seed sown in the good ground is a good and noble heart, which hears the word and holds it fast and bears fruit with patience. Worthy, then, of God's promise is the enjoyment of the sweetest fruits of the heart. And the fruits of the heart are the delight found in the contemplation of the divine beauty. These fruits are cultivated from the sowing that is directed toward the spirit, reaped unto eternal life; and he who gathers the sheaves with gladness revels in the Lord, receiving from him his petitions. First, however, one must will, and then be heard, so that what depends on us may be free from compulsion. And again: If you are not willing, neither will you hear me. From not willing comes not hearing. Thus every blessedness, and also the conduct of punishment amid hardships, depends on what is in our power. How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot, full of judgment? In her, righteousness slept; but now, murderers.

The question is one of wonder, displaying much that is striking in its paradox, concerning how the faithful city, full of judgment, in which righteousness rested, became a harlot and a dwelling-place of murderers. For how is it not worthy of sorrowful wonder that a whole city fell from purity in faith into the impurity of fornication, when even for a single soul to be overturned from firm belief into the fornication of unbelief is among the paradoxical things? And when are these things charged, except when the generation, having become evil and adulterous, killed the righteousness that looked down from heaven and rested in it, our Christ and Lord? This also intensifies the wonder and makes the paradox greater, if when righteousness was present, unrighteousness overflowed. And it did these things, not being ignorant of the sound words concerning judgment. For this is what "full of judgment" means. And it should be noted that unbelief is the mother of fornication. For who, believing that God is everywhere and is present with what comes to be and stands by each deed and looks into the counsels of hearts, either accepts the evil thought or carries out the evil? But either supposing that God does not look upon them, or that what comes to be is no concern of his, men rush thus toward impious deeds. And sometimes it is said also of the Church (which may it not be said of our own) "How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot?

When, having cast off the word of faith (with which from the beginning, according to the tradition of the fathers, she was joined in marriage, those who presented her as a chaste virgin to one Husband), she accepts many and varied seeds of the word from those who have prostituted the dignity of the mysteries and who, for the corruption of souls, scatter abroad the doctrines of impiety. Justly will it be said also of her: How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot? For the holy Angels, who have been entrusted with the guardianship of the Churches, knowing the things of old and looking also to the present, will say to these in wonder: How has the faithful city become a harlot? From her harlotry she has also gathered together murderers—murderers not of bodies but of souls—who in guile and deceit take away the life of the simpler sort; sharpened, as it were, with a sword—the word—through the wisdom of the world into plausibility, they inflict deadly wounds upon souls. Then comes the assigning of the cause, for which reason she who was formerly faithful became a harlot. Your silver is become reprobate. That is, the word of faith has been stamped falsely and is counterfeit, not preserving the exact impress of the royal image. For that the riddle leads to this, and names the word of faith silver, is shown from many places, and especially from: The oracles of the Lord, oracles pure, silver tried, approved for the earth. Search, therefore, the treasuries of your hearts.

Examine everything for me in the hidden storehouses, lest perhaps the drachma be counterfeit—that is, lest perhaps a doctrine be falsified, not stamped by the Spirit with his own marks of truth, which he granted to us through the Prophets and Apostles, but secretly and with difficulty detected, cut away by treacherous men out of their own invention—men who, bringing in foreign coins, bearing the form of the enemy, into the royal treasuries, have both corrupted the great wealth and produced doubt concerning the election for the many. For few are the approved money-changers. Few are those able to test all things and to hold fast the good, and to abstain from every form of evil. Your merchants mix wine with water. Hear, even at the bare word, you who sell wine, and do not adulterate the creation. For the matter is no game, but an evil worthy of the greatest accusation. Nevertheless, the word hastens to the spiritual meaning. Wine is that which gladdens the heart of man—that is, the mind and the ruling faculty of the soul—the teachings of the Scriptures, through the holy Apostles and Prophets, the Spirit pouring them out for us unto eternal gladness. These things the many, playing the merchant, water down, mixing their own mind harmfully for their hearers; for by gratifying them in their pleasures and flattering them through smooth speech, they feed their passions unto destruction.

By relaxing the stern and intense and profitably astringent quality of the Scriptures, and by retailing certain undisciplined notions of philanthropy and indiscriminate remissions of sins, and other such things pleasing to the many, to the ruin of their hearers, they enervate the souls of the pleasure-loving still more. Your rulers are disobedient. We are the hucksters, we are also the rulers, who because of disobedience and unbelief are the first to cause the faithful cities to fall away into fornication. For, as a rule, the ruled is naturally molded to the character of those who hold power; so that whatever sort the leaders may be, such of necessity must the led be also. Since, then, at one time the rulers of the faithful city were disobedient, the city too, having been made like them and having put off its being faithful, fell away into fornication. Let us not also become disobedient, and let not unbelief rule over us. Your rulers are disobedient. Clearly they are disobedient to God, turning away from him and not abiding by what has been appointed by him. Now among the commandments was this: to shake the hands free from gifts, not to run along with thieves; but they, from love of money, for the sake of shameful gain, became partners with thieves. By no means are we to understand as thieves these purse-cutters, or those who strip people in the baths; but even if some, having been entrusted with the command of armies, or having received the rule of cities and nations, secretly pilfer some things and violently seize others openly.

But when the man who is considered the head of the Church receives from such people—either for his own enjoyment, on the pretext of the honor due to him through his position of leadership, or under the name of administering the affairs of the poor in the Church—he is a partner in theft. Instead of rebuking and admonishing and turning the thieves away from injustice, he readily extends his hand to the proceeds and calls the man blessed, when he ought to hate him all the more, the greater the theft he commits. And the one who praises him, escorting him and attending him and hovering about his doors and taking hold of those hands by which everything alike, privately and publicly, has been stolen away. In truth, by doing these things, we are called partners of thieves. We ought to trample underfoot the disorder of the whole world and the illusions within it. When we see in the courts the small thieves punished by the great, we hate the servants for this reason, but we admire those others. For we turn away from the former because they are thieves, but we are struck with amazement at the latter because they grow rich from theft. What else are the rulers accused of? Loving gifts. Very precisely has it been said: "Those who love gifts," not "those who receive gifts." For in that way even the things given as due in the common dealings of life would have been brought into disrepute; but "Those who love gifts," that is, those who are wholly attached to the desire of receiving. And it is an accusation against the rulers that they have their sacred love poured out upon corruptible and earthly things.

For it is necessary to love the Lord God with all the power that exists in us for loving, and to love one's neighbor, and to love one's enemies as well, so that we may be perfect, imitating the goodness of the Father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the evil and the good. But to squander the power of loving on other things is not permitted. And if it is evil to love anything at all besides what has been said—the one who loves silver in such a way as he ought to love the Lord God, with his whole heart and his whole soul and his whole mind—such a person, instead of serving the Lord, serves Mammon, transferring to silver the measure of love owed to God. For this reason greed becomes idolatry, whenever one transfers to earthly things the gifts offered to the Lord God. We have been commanded, then, not to love gifts, so as to permit many of the forbidden things to those who approach for their sake. And in general, the word does not permit us to love even such gifts, nor to be disposed toward them with passion, but to accept their service as necessary. For it is impossible for "with one's whole heart" to admit of any division toward something else. For just as in a vessel filled with some liquid, however much flows out, by that much the fullness must necessarily fall short, so too with the soul: however much of its love is emptied out onto things it ought not, by that much it must necessarily be lacking toward God. And the one who has once set out to love silver empties all his love there. For the one who loves silver will not be filled with silver, pursuing repayment.

The greatest accusation against a ruler is to be ready for retaliation and to devise by every means against those who have caused him pain the repayment of like for like. For how will he teach another not to repay evil for evil, when he does everything to avenge himself and to grieve in return the one who has harmed him, not imitating the gentleness of David, who says: "If I have repaid those who repaid me with evils"; nor remembering Jeremiah, that "It is good for a man, when he bears the yoke from his youth: he shall sit alone and be silent, because he has taken it upon himself. He shall give his cheek to the one who strikes him, he shall be filled with reproaches." But why is it necessary to speak of the teachings of the Lord, how those who pursue repayment despise them, when the Lord says: "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also"? So then, for everyone it is an accusation to pursue repayment, but especially when one does this from the authority of a ruler, when he ought by deed to become a teacher of the good things that come from endurance for the people. For what a spectacle it is, how august and wonderful and almost beyond human nature, that one who has been greatly reviled and perhaps even received a blow on the cheek and suffered countless other things, with both word and deed leading to the utmost dishonor, should not boil over with anger nor rise up for retaliation, but should rise meekly and without anger and pray for the one who insults him, so that both the sin committed against him may be forgiven and he may be deemed worthy of the fitting care from God for what follows, so as to cease from his wantonness.

But now we who are rulers, along with the other evils, sin especially in this: that we pursue repayment, and do not even repay with an equal measure, but defend ourselves with excess—provoked not only if we are insulted, but even if we are not honored, counting as enemies those who honor us less than we have supposed ourselves worthy of. You do not judge for orphans, and you do not attend to the judgment of widows. The rest has been said also in what follows, the matters concerning orphans and widows; but here consider the phrase "you do not attend"—how great an arrogance of the ruler it reveals, how it shows him even more savage than the unjust judge. For the latter, after many entreaties, even if he was otherwise without compassion, yet because of the widow's persistence, attended to the judgment, avoiding being worn out by her any further. But concerning these it has been said that, in general, they do not deign to attend to the judgment of a widow. Therefore the Lord, the Master of Hosts, says these things: Woe to those who are strong, Israel. It is a peculiarity of Scripture to form the expression thus: instead of "to those who are strong," it says "Woe to those who are strong," declaring that this utterance, sent forth upon unbearable pains, is fitting for those who will shortly be in the most grievous torment, those who are strong of Israel. And this has been said by the prophet not conjecturally, but as a declaration, proceeding from the truthful mouth. And the strong must be understood as the same as the rulers, who, in addition to disobeying God, also love gifts and pursue repayment and the rest of the things of which they are accused. Woe to those who are strong and disobedient. For to the weaker there is perhaps pardon.

For the least is forgiven for mercy's sake; but the mighty shall be examined mightily. And to whom much was entrusted, they will demand more of him. For this reason woe also to the rich, because, being strong enough to deceive the poor, they have not used the power of their wealth for the purposes for which they received it. And if anyone is more discerning than another in understanding, and does not use the strength of his nature for the investigation of divine things, woe also to him, when the work is demanded of him in proportion to what was given. And if any who have taken up the leadership of the church do not adorn the work with a conduct befitting their profession, woe also to these. For my wrath will not cease against those who oppose. Those who oppose God are those who resist his commandments; and as long as they are opposed, the so-called wrath of God will not cease against them. For by persisting in wickedness we kindle the wrath of God against ourselves, setting our sins before it like fuel for fire, according to what is said: Fire has been kindled from my wrath. But when we have ceased from sin: I will execute judgment from my enemies. He who believes in me, he says, will not be judged; but he who does not believe has already been judged. The enemies, then, are the cause of judgment, according to what is said: For these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. And since he said, My wrath will not cease against those who oppose, it is so that we should not think that God's anger against those who provoke him is without judgment. For even if I am angry with those who oppose, nevertheless I will not bring punishments upon them without judgment, but judged according to the worth and measure of their offenses.

This is the meaning of "I will execute judgment from my enemies." And enemies of God are those who practice unrighteousness. Evil is hostile to the good; injustice is hostile to the just; uncleanness is hostile to the holy; falsehood is hostile to the truth. Against these, then, his wrath will not cease so long as they remain opposed; nor, he says, will he bring punishment upon them without judgment. "And I will bring my hand upon you, and I will purge you into purity." Observe the good end of the righteous judgment and of the punishments brought in accordance with the judgment. "My wrath will not cease; I will execute judgment; I will bring my hand; I will burn." And for what purpose? That I may show you pure. Thus God is angry in order to benefit sinners. For he does not punish for destruction, but disciplines for correction. And he brings this fire to obliterate what has been cast into the soul through the fiery darts of the devil—into the soul that does not have the shield of faith—upon which, when it falls, it quenches the evil one's arrows; and the divine fire becomes a purifier of the other fire, the one that kindles us into foolish and harmful desires. For this reason the Lord himself says: "He enters in like the fire of a refiner's furnace and like the fullers' soap. And he will sit refining and purifying, like silver and like gold." And what is the benefit from this? "They shall be" (he says) "to the Lord, offering sacrifice in righteousness. And I will remove all the lawless from you." It is a great benefit to a soul that has fallen into alienation from God because of the leaders of evils, that the lawless be taken away from it.

For this reason, the types in the Church also separate from the rest of the body those found in forbidden transgressions, so that a little leaven may not corrupt the whole lump. So it is in accordance with the good God to remove the lawless from the people. For the lawless will not enter together with the saints into the holy places, since the winnowing fan is in the hand of the Lord. But those now separated from the people as lawless bear what is happening meekly, not understanding that these things are a type of what will come to pass in the fearful judgments of God. And how great is the harm of not removing the lawless from fellowship with the holy members of Christ, the Apostle made clear when he rebuked the Corinthians, because they did not mourn, so that the one who did the evil thing might be removed from among them. And I will establish your judges, as before. Why, passing over the kings, did he mention the judges? And yet there were some even among the kings who ruled the people praiseworthily. Or is it because the polity under the judges was more free, existing for them according to nature, the people governing themselves autonomously and recognizing God alone as king; whereas the establishment of kings came later from their own foolish counsel? It was necessary, then, that those who had been benefited should return to the blessed state. For this reason he promised to establish not kings but judges, granting them freedom; for there was no king in Israel, but each did what was right in his own eyes.

Or, since it was no longer the time of kings, after the coming of the true King, he promised to provide judges similar to those of former times—the disciples of the Lord, concerning whom it is said, "You shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." And your counselors, as from the beginning. Here again, preserving their free will, he said he would provide not one who commands them but one who counsels them. For it is proper to a king to give orders to his subjects, but to a counselor to persuade those deliberating of what is advantageous. For each person is not sufficient of himself to discover what is needed. For this reason God, in his beneficence, gives counselors, not rulers with authority. So let each of us consider himself not as a ruler but as a counselor given by the Lord to the people. All the prophets, then, who advised what was advantageous, were counselors—and before all, Moses. The Lord therefore promises, in his beneficence to the people, that he will raise up those similar to the counselors from the beginning: the apostles and evangelists, such as Paul was, a counselor, a minister of the New Covenant, saying, "I give my opinion, as one who has received mercy from the Lord." Great is the beneficence of the presence of a wise and well-disposed counselor, supplying what is lacking in understanding among those who deliberate. How great the benefit that comes from counsel Moses especially shows—he who was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who spoke with God, as when a friend speaks to a friend. He received counsel from his father-in-law Jethro, so as to appoint commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds and commanders of tens to judge the people.

And David also used Hushai as a counselor, through whom he scattered the strategic counsel of Ahithophel. And in general, counsel is a sacred thing—a union of mind, the fruit of love, a proof of humility. For arrogance is a terrible thing—to think that one needs no one, but to attend to oneself, as though one alone were able to deliberate the best courses. But we hesitate to give ourselves over to those who suggest what is needful, and we are ashamed to acknowledge those wiser than ourselves in life. Then, the one who waits for a counselor also gives time to his own reasonings, to track down what is needful in greater time with examination and attention. And after these things you shall be called a city of righteousness, a mother city, faithful Zion. He showed to what end the individual benefactions lead. For instead of being a city of murderers, a city of righteousness; and instead of a harlot city, a mother city—that is, one that leads others also to chastity. And again, faithful, which it was before being defiled by fornication. Therefore the Church in Christ, adorned with the ornaments fitting to herself—with counselors and judges—would be styled a mother city, as it were sending out from herself certain colonies of the life according to God. For her captivity shall be saved with judgment, and with mercy.

Having said nothing above about enemies or about captives, but calling the restoration of her captivity a remission of captivity, he suggests to us to understand that each of us, when we come under sin, is mastered by the enemy—becoming, as it were, captives of sin and being led away by the evil one to present our members as slaves to lawlessness for lawlessness. For this reason there are judges who save, like Barak and Samson and Gideon and Jephthah, fighting on behalf of the people, rescuing them from their enemies. For this reason there are counselors who suggest what leads to salvation, so that her captivity may become worthy to be saved. For this is what it means to be saved with judgment—that is, in a judged and examined manner. Then, since if he should mark iniquities, no one will stand, he joined almsgiving to judgment, so that the exactness of judgment might be softened by the prevailing of mercy. Therefore, on account of judgment she was handed over to captivity, but on account of mercy she was recalled. And the lawless and the sinners shall be crushed together. After those worthy of restoration have been saved with judgment and with mercy to their original state, the wholly lawless and those who persist in sin shall be crushed together—the one group because they were made vain in their reasonings, the other because through transgression of the law they dishonor God. Now the lawless are those who are utterly disobedient to the divine laws, or who have fallen away from them, or who never even approached them at the beginning; but sinners are those who sin willingly after receiving the knowledge of the truth. Perhaps also those whom God benefits, wishing

to walk in newness of life, he crushes their old man. Therefore, A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit. For the spirit of the world, which worked sin, is crushed, so that what is upright may be renewed in the inner parts. And the arm of the sinner is crushed—that is, the practical power of sin—so that his sin may be sought, and shall not be found. Such is also the saying, I will kill and make alive; I will strike, and I will heal. For he will kill the one living badly, so that after the cleansing of the worse life, he may grant him the new. Therefore, The lawless and the sinners shall be crushed together, so that they may cease to be insubordinate and disobedient. And those who have forsaken the Lord shall be brought to an end, meaning that the sin of forsaking the Lord will no longer be active. Such is also what is in the Psalm: Let the wickedness of sinners be brought to an end. As if one were to entreat a physician that the disease of the sick be brought to an end, or that the spread of putrefaction be checked by his art. But the bringing to an end does not altogether signify complete destruction, but the checking of the activity of those who are active in this or that. For Paul also, prophesying to the Thessalonians about the son of perdition, said: Whom the Lord Jesus will consume with the spirit of his mouth and will bring to nought by the manifestation of his coming. For if the consuming is complete destruction, how is he who no longer exists brought to nought? But evidently the falsehood in the lawless one is made to vanish by the spirit of the mouth of truth, and thus he will be brought to nought by the manifestation of the coming of Christ.

We have observed in many places that evils are obliterated, not the essences themselves to which they have attached, as in the passage And he will destroy the way of sinners; and The way of the ungodly shall perish. For they shall be ashamed of their idols, which they themselves chose. It is a great benefit even to be ashamed of a thing in which one previously exulted, when through insensitivity one was unable to perceive the shameful thing within himself, but held his glory in his shame. Therefore, being ashamed of idols works for the good of those who are ashamed. This happens in no other way than when those who until then were worshiping idols come to a conception of the true God. For then he is covered with shame, having come to a sense of the absurdity—the one who prays to lifeless things as though they had power to save. And every lover of pleasure, whatever forbidden thing he has been enslaved to, having made it a god, has, as it were, some idol established in a profane temple, his own heart, always present with him through imagination and carrying within himself the images of what he desires. For example, the lover of wealth, having his heart where his treasure is, serves the idol that comes from greed. The glutton, enslaved to desires for foods, has his own belly as a god. Cursed is the man who makes a carved or molten image, an abomination to the Lord. But blessed are those who, according to the counsel of Jacob, remove from themselves the foreign gods and change their garments, going up to Bethel, that is, to the house of God, to make there an altar to God. Let us therefore cast away the idols foreign to God and change our garments, having put off the old man.

And even before that, let us put away the earrings that are in our ears, that is, the old teachings with which we adorned ourselves. These things are because They shall be ashamed of their idols, which they themselves desired. For no one has the idols that were previously set before us unless he wishes it; because by desiring the passions, we thus make them gods. And they were ashamed of their gardens, which they desired. We find the name "garden" used in both senses. In Genesis, according to Aquila: And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden. Again, the land of Egypt, when it is disparaged, is called a garden of vegetables. Again, the memory of a garden is blameworthy, when Ahab desired the lot of Naboth the Jezreelite to make it a garden of vegetables. But the Ecclesiastes mentions it with praise, saying: I made for myself gardens and parks. And blessed is the garden in which the tomb was, which received the temporary dispensation of death in the body of the Lord. Here, however, it is disparaged as procuring shame for those who desired it. And it seems that now he means the groves planted round about by the deceived for the adornment of idols, which must be understood as the wandering pursuits and the outward appearances with which we overshadow our passions. For example, if someone wallowing in pleasures should put on a show of dignity; and if someone enslaved to money should endeavor to seem magnanimous; of these those who desired them shall be ashamed, when the counsels of our hearts are revealed. For they shall be as a terebinth that has cast off its leaves, and as a garden that has no water.

As regards the literal sense, it seems to speak of the gardens desired by the idolaters, that they will be more unpleasant than a terebinth stripped bare and a paradise dried up by drought. But as regards the ethical sense, that those who hunt after the glory that comes from men by outward appearance, after the revelation of hidden things, when all things have become naked and laid bare and no creature is any longer invisible, will be a sight more untimely, the deception now surrounding them having vanished, so that their condition is likened to an oak. For thus the others have rendered terebinth, since in Genesis too we have learned that the same thing is both oak and terebinth. They shall be, then, like a terebinth, that is, an oak, after the removal of its foliage, displaying beforehand the things that were for a time covered by the leaves. For it is adorned with the denser foliage of leaves, and by their fair color the roughness of its branches is overshadowed. And they shall be more unpleasant than this (he says), with the conviction of their past life. And as a paradise without water. Such would Israel also be, having leaves like an oak, the shadow of the law, which it cast off from itself in the fullness of the times. And as a paradise planted by the Lord, because of the creation from the beginning, but dried up, because it has lost the life-giving power in its doctrines. We must therefore strive to believe truly in Christ, so that rivers of the Spirit may flow from our belly, allowing us to become neither unpleasant nor unfruitful. And their strength shall be as stubble of tow, and their works as sparks of fire.

From this it is clear that each person's works will become the causes of the pains in his punishment, since we ourselves prepare things that are fit for burning, and the passions of the soul, like sparks of fire, are brought in to kindle the flame in Gehenna, just as the rich man being dried up in the flame was being reduced to ashes by his own pleasures. For according to the proportion of the arrows we receive from the evil one, we shall partake of burning to a greater or lesser degree. And the lawless and the sinners shall be burned up together, and there shall be no one to quench it. Twice already the prophecy has joined the lawless and the sinners together: above, "And the lawless and the sinners shall be crushed"; and here, "And they shall be burned up." Let no one deceive himself with unlearned words, saying: "Even if I am a sinner, yet I am a Christian. I shall not therefore fall into Gehenna, where the idolaters are; the very name of Christian will help me, even if I have transgressed his commandments." For hear that "the lawless and the sinners shall be burned up together." In both cases the causes of burning are present. In both there is stubble of tow, that is, a life easily set on fire and receptive of flame. A spark justly sets the soul ablaze in this one and in that one alike: now, as it were, covered in ashes, insofar as it is concealed by the coverings of the flesh; but it will be kindled by the divine judgment, on the day of vengeance, being fanned into flame and set alight by the reproofs.

2. CHAPTER 2. The word that came to Isaiah, the son of Amoz, concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem. After the description of the former vision, this word came to Isaiah, the son of Amoz. Why is it there a Vision, but here a Word? Because the power from God, given to his saints according to the grace of the Spirit, is one. (For it is knowledge of things unknown, arising in the hearts of the saints through revelation and illumination); but according to the difference of the matters about which the knowledge is, what is revealed is called either a vision or a word. For there, present things were shown: the wickedness of the people, their estrangement from God, their ingratitude toward their benefactor; but here the future is foretold. For this reason it is a Word. Because it shall be in the last days. Yet neither is the vision there through the eyes, nor the knowledge here through the ears; but it is an illumination in the heart from the Spirit, either showing present things or foretelling the future. Once again, however, here too it is concerning Judea and concerning Jerusalem. For he is about to relate something also concerning the other nations; for God is not of the Jews only, but also of the nations; since there is one God, who will justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith; but primarily and in the first rank of his own portion he makes mention of it. But you might inquire whether, unless it requires some sense of testing, in some places the word "of the Lord" is added to the phrase, and in others without the addition "of the Lord"; for example, "The word of the Lord that came to Hosea the son of Beeri"; and here: "The word that came to Isaiah.

And concerning the vision, in Ezekiel: The heavens were opened, and I saw a vision of God; but in Isaiah: The vision which Isaiah saw. And in Jeremiah: The word that came to Jeremiah. Because, since they were speaking to a people disobedient and gainsaying and utterly apostate from God, they kept silent the name of the Lord, managing that their words be received. For because they supposed that God did not care about human affairs, they mocked those who spoke to them as from the person of the Lord, as Jeremiah shows, saying: I was mocked all the day long. That in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God upon the tops of the mountains. The last days are those drawing near to the consummation of this time. For the nature of time that flows past is brought to its end together with this corruptible world. For it is akin and closely related to the things that are seen: passing away together with things that are corrupted, subsisting together with things that come to be, and expected and hoped for together with things still to come. Since, then, days and nights, and months and years—the intervals of time—have their origin from the sun and the moon and the motion of the firmament, the end of time must necessarily follow upon their corruption. Therefore, at the consummation of this world, the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God upon the tops of the mountains. And he who does not serve the mere wording nor stand by the bare letter will be compelled not to remain among things perceptible to the senses. For how then shall the mountain of the Lord be manifest?

But how will the house of God be on the tops of the mountains? For fleshly Israel does not expect either the coming-into-being of another mountain, nor the construction of a second house that will be on other peaks. But Mount Zion and the temple were visible even in the times of Isaiah's prophecy. What then is being said? Not that these things will become manifest in the last days; but in the last days, for the setting aside of sin, the great and lofty economy concerning the salvation of men will appear. For the mystery, which was hidden from the ages, was revealed at the consummation of the times. And the Lord's descent to earth is likened to a mountain, because a mountain is high ground. And the flesh (of the Lord), being earth according to its common nature, was raised on high through its union with God. And the house of God, on the tops of the mountains, is the Church, according to the voice of the Apostle. For he says one must know how to conduct oneself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, whose foundations are in the holy mountains; for it has been built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets. Peter was one of the mountains, and upon this rock the Lord promised that he would build his Church. For lofty and exalted thoughts, and those standing above earthly things, are reasonably called mountains. And the soul of the blessed Peter was named a high rock, because it was firmly rooted in the faith, and stood steadfast and unyielding against the blows brought on by temptations.

All, then, who have room for the knowledge of the Godhead, because of the greatness of their mind and of the deeds that proceed from the mind, being perfected by a sound life, are the peaks of the mountains, on which the house of God is built. And it shall be exalted above the hills. And the hills are certain mounds, having a readily circumscribed rising from the earth, surpassing the lowly but falling short of the highest. Since, then, the pre-eminence of the Lord according to the human is beyond comparison, in relation to all together who have shone forth in whatever kind of achievements, for this reason it was said that the mountain of the Lord that shall become manifest is above the hills. For he has been deemed worthy of greater glory than Moses, inasmuch as the one who built it has greater honor than the house. And how much greater than Abraham? Abraham, he says, rejoiced that he might see the day of his becoming human; and he saw and was glad. And Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek; and Melchizedek was a type of the Lord. These things are said so that we may set forth the bodily pre-eminence. May it not be that we glorify the Godhead from its pre-eminence over servants. For the economy according to the human is above the righteous among men; for he alone did not commit sin; but the magnificence of the Godhead has been raised above the heavens. And all the nations shall come to it. As the word proceeds, it reveals the prophecy more nakedly, indicating the concourse of the nations that shall be unto the knowledge of Christ. For all the nations shall come, called through the proclamation unto the faith; for this Gospel shall be proclaimed in the whole world.

And to all the earth went out the gospel sound of the Apostles. And many nations shall go, he says. Do not pass over the exactness of the wording without examination. How is it that in "They shall come" all is said, but in "They shall go" no longer all, but many? Because "They shall come" is appointed for believing, but "to go" for conducting oneself. Since, then, we all confess the faith, but no longer do we all conduct ourselves according to the commandments, for this reason all the nations shall come, but many shall go. And that "to go" is taken for living according to the law: Blessed, he says, are those blameless in the way, who go in the law of the Lord. But how, when the Lord said that few are those who find the way, do we say that many nations shall go? Because all the nations according to their own number of nations are easily counted; but the men among the nations are many. Here, then, the word says that many nations according to the Gospel accept to live, not all, even if all name themselves by the name of Christ. Yet not because many nations are counted, already also the individual men, as many as are included under the common designation of the nation, altogether follow the number. For it is possible for nations to be counted—the Cappadocians and Galatians and Armenians, or Syrians, or Egyptians—so that it be said that so many are the nations that go in the law of the Lord; yet not in each nation do the men contained in it concordantly accept the aim of conduct. As, then, in relation to the seventy-two nations (or

however many are counted throughout the whole inhabited world, many are those who travel the journey in life; but compared to the whole number of men on earth, few are those who are saved. Thus the Gospel is true, and the prophecy does not conflict. All the nations shall serve him, but of the many, few shall worship him: All (he says) the kings of the earth. And Sophonias: They shall come to serve him under one yoke. And they shall say: Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob. Those who are advancing in knowledge, as it were having already anticipated the things above, summon to a like ascent with themselves those who still linger among things below and tarry amid the lowly cares of life. Let him who has been raised with Christ and seeks the things above call those who mind earthly things, and lead their thoughts by the hand toward things above. Since there is a twofold relation of the body to the mountain—now of those ascending from the foothills to the summit, now of those descending from the ridge to the base—according to the different position of the body, the activity on our part is also performed in different ways. Perhaps this twofold notion will also apply to the economy of humanity, so that we understand the mountain as the incarnation, now the flesh being exalted to heaven through its union with God, now the divinity descending to things here through its fellowship with the human. Come, and let us go up. Let us approach the height of theology, beginning from the Passion. And to the house of the God of Jacob.

Above, "the house of God" was spoken of simply, but here it is "the house of the God of Jacob." What, then, is the reason? Either it is lacking there, or it is superfluous here. But nothing in the Spirit's words is idle. For the passage shows that the first assents come about according to the common preconceptions about God; but the exactness of faith is perfected when the distinctness of God's own nature is already made clear in the hearts of those advancing toward the knowledge of it. For this reason, to those being introduced into knowledge it was said simply, "house of God," but to those already instructed in the elements, it is added of whom he is God—that he is the God of Jacob, to whom he granted kinship with himself. For he says, "I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. This is my name forever." For in order to make the honor always remembered by the saints, he joined the names of his servants to himself, so that as often as there is remembrance of God, so often the remembrance of those men is brought up along with it. To those, then, who have already come near, he added, as it were, the identifying mark of God, saying, "And into the house of the God of Jacob." But since "Jacob" is still the name of a supplanter and a wrestler (for Jacob is called a supplanter because of his struggle against opposing things, but later, after the victory, he received as his prize to be named Israel)—the one still advancing learns for the time being of "the house of the God of Jacob," the lower things and those attainable by himself; but later at some point he will also be taught of "the God of Israel," the more perfect traditions being administered to him in the way and order proper to him. "And he will declare to us his way, and we will walk in it." Unless we go up to the mountain, he will not declare to us his way.

If he does not announce it to us, how shall we go? That is: if we do not receive the Gospel, how shall we live according to it? But those seeking to learn the way evidently did not know it. How, then, do we go up to the mountain, not knowing the way? Or does "Come, let us go up" express the resolve and zeal of those who are hastening—yet it does not as yet set before us the attainment of the things desired. For let us suppose that some of those now hastening to the faith are calling out to one another and urging one another on: "Come, let us withdraw from earthly things; come, let us set our minds on heavenly things; let us enter into the house of God." There we shall learn the way by which, through perfection, we shall arrive at the end that is set before all in common. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Ask the man of the circumcision, the Jew according to the flesh, of what law and of what word he speaks. Of the law given through Moses? But let them show how this is from Zion. For Moses did not enter into the land of possession, and Zion is in Judea. Therefore, according to them, the Scripture has erred, saying one name instead of another; for instead of Sinai or Horeb, it has said Zion. But it speaks of a holy law. Of what law? Given when? Written where? And "a word from Jerusalem." It speaks of the prophetic word. But it came to pass everywhere in Judea, and not only in Jerusalem, and among Israel; but also in the captivity, and in Nineveh, and in many places of the earth.

Let them therefore be brought near by the truth and receive the lawgiving of the Lord, which comes from the watchtower, from the Flesh that bears God, from which he surveyed the affairs of men. And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. For from there, having begun, the preaching was scattered abroad into the whole world. And he shall judge between the nations. God, standing in the assembly of gods, shall distinguish gods; but among the nations, He shall judge between the nations. For to the saints, being distinguished belongs, for the recognition of his worth; but to those who have lived in vain, being judged. Perhaps, then, it is shown from this that the punishment of the nations outside of piety is different, and not one and the same; for insofar as they have fallen away from the knowledge of God, all are worthy of torments and punishments; but insofar as their pursuits in life are different, both in the passions of dishonor and in the wickednesses against their neighbors, there is need of a judgment against the nations that decides concerning the offenses committed against neighbors. And he shall convict a great people. In order to show us the just and irrefutable character of the righteous judgment, he added, And he shall convict a great people. For I will convict you (he says) and set you before your face. Here, then, the accuser sets forth witnesses for the conviction of the charges against the accused, but in the tribunal of hidden things, the very deeds stand before us in their own form, each sin standing before those who have sinned. There, then, conviction is taken up for the establishment of the righteous judgment, but here for the correction of those things for which one is convicted.

On which account the Apostle exhorts Timothy to make use of it. Every reproof, however, when it lays hold of the one reproved with vividness, severely torments him, setting before him the shame of his sin, so that it greatly benefits the one who is insensible to his own trespasses, leading him to awareness and true repentance. For what bodily wound produces so sharp a pain as the torment that a striking word produces in the soul, reaching the conscience of those held fast by the shame of things evilly done? And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. This is the useful end of reproofs, to turn to a peaceful condition those who are fond of war and turbulent. It is clear to everyone that the law and word of Christ, having a peacemaking and reconciling character, proclaimed peace to those far off and those near; so that both Jews and those from the Gentiles, having laid aside their instruments of war—both those for close combat in the struggles that take place hand to hand (which he called a sword) and those prepared for defense at a distance (which he says are spears and lances)—these things the word from Jerusalem transforms into the tools of farming; so that the destructive sword, by giving life to seeds, of those that arise from wisdom in rational souls, becomes preparatory; having become a plowshare, it softens what has been hardened, overturns thorns, and makes a safeguard of heavenly grace. And the lance, which hurls from afar and is thrust back, becomes that which gathers from close at hand and binds together in fellowship.

For such are the sickles: they gather what has been scattered and bind the ears of grain together into a shared sheaf. There is, then, also a rational harvest, for which there is need of suitable instruments, concerning which it has been said: Lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white. No maker of war, then, is suitable for the harvest. But he sent his own disciples to this harvest, concerning whom he also said: The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. To these reapers, then, because they had no instrument of war in their hearts, he gave power to bestow peace upon the houses into which they might enter. And nation shall not take up sword against nation. For as long as the word of the world's wisdom was at work with burning intensity, the nations rose up against one another, wielding against each other the sword of argument, sharply whetted by study and gleaming with persuasiveness. But when our peace came, and glory was proclaimed to God in the highest and peace on earth, all falsehood together fell silent before the truth. Just as the many-voiced chatter of talkative birds was suddenly hushed when an eagle appeared to them from on high, they no longer cast down one another's arguments—one saying that there is no Providence at all, another that it extends only as far as the moon. No longer do they dispute about the soul—one declaring it mortal, another immortal. And concerning fate, one saying that it rules all things, another that it does not exist at all.

But since the foolishness of the preaching has come, and the Crucified One is glorified, and resurrection is believed, and judgment is hoped for, the nations, having put an end to the war against one another, keep quiet. But I fear lest they become spectators of our war... And since before this their whole life was consumed in the learning of vain words, as though dialectic were a war of words, "They shall not" (he says) "learn to war any more," meaning that they will no longer spend their time with the teachers of word-strife. And now, house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. A second calling, inviting those who are being benefited to the more perfect things. For after going up to the mountain of the Lord and looking beyond earthly things, as having partaken of a purer radiance, it is to meet with the divine light, which enlightens the eyes of the soul for the understanding of the blessed and intelligible visions and divine contemplations. Similar to this is what is in the Psalmist: Draw near to him, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be put to shame. For they are not put to shame on whom the light of the face of the Lord is marked. But he who practices base things hates the light. And since the house of Jacob supposed, in its error, that the teaching from the law was a self-sufficient light and that it itself was a guide of the blind, a light of those in darkness, the Word, correcting their ignorance, says: Come and let us walk (not by the prophetic light, not by the light of the law, but) by the light of the Lord. For lamps too are useful, but before the sun; stars are delightful, but in the night.

But if it is ridiculous, when the sun is shining, for a man to light a lamp for himself, far more ridiculous is he who, when the Gospel is being proclaimed, remains in the legal shadow. For he released his people, the house of Israel. The most grievous loss is abandonment by God. As when, from a strong grip of the hands, by the loosening of the fingers with which someone had hitherto clasped the one held, he let it fall out of his own keeping, so the word indicates that the people were no longer held fast by God. And for what causes someone is let go from the hands of God, the following teaches: Because their land was filled as from the beginning with divinations, as was that of the foreigners. You see how great an evil divination is. It places the one who attends to it outside God's care. But many Christians are indifferent to listening to rumors and hunting after sayings and paying attention to omens. Someone sneezed, he says, at the word, and this means such-and-such. Someone called me back from behind, and this is a hindrance. The foot stumbled as one went out; the cloak was caught. And some even of the very well-known and of those who await the Judge from the heavens fall indifferently into these harmful things. But hear that the people who do these things has been cast off

For long ago, even from the law of Moses, rumors and divinations and auguries and bird-watching have been condemned as inventions of demons. For you shall not practice augury (it says) nor observe birds. For the nations (it says) whom the Lord God will destroy before his face, these will listen to rumors and divinations; but to you the Lord your God has not given so. For it is absurd that one who has counsel from the ordinances of God should take to himself irrational creatures as counselors for the consideration of things not to be done—or rather not even counselors, but should use them as teachers and lawgivers. And the bird did not see its own danger lying before it and in its eyes; but for you it foretells the future; and having flown away from its nest to procure food for its nestlings, it often returned unsuccessful; but for you it has become an unerring oracle, and the vain movement of the bird is a revelation of the future. But if deceptive things flit about from the activity of demons, do not sit gaping at the deceits of demons, nor become exposed to diabolical activities; for once he takes a soul easily led to destruction, exploiting it in every way, he does not let it go. But even croaking ravens and eagles wandering about for lack of prey terrify the superstitious heart. And so great is the enemy's insolence toward man that even a weasel appearing, and a dog peeping out, and a man appearing at dawn—even if he be among the most well-disposed—but having struck the right eye or leg, one often leaps away and turns back and covers his eyes.