Enarratio in prophetam Isaiam

It hints at the comprehension of things visible; but "to consider" presents the contemplation of invisible things through the mind. Since, then, the invisible things of God, understood from the creation of the world by the things that are made, are clearly seen, the one who does not look upon the works is not led even to the understanding through the mind. What, then, is it that is said? That drunkenness is the beginning of godlessness, being a darkening of the reasoning faculty, through which especially God is by nature known. And "the works of their hands" and the expected recompense—that fire and the punishment in Hades—a parched tongue longing for the comfort of a small drop; flame on every side, not even allowing the breath of air to cool the burning heat in their inward parts. In place of flute-players, groaning; in place of immoderate drunkenness, the desire for a drop, the flesh of the drunken being fried in the furnace; in place of lewd spectacles, deep darkness; in place of sleepless desire, the sleepless worm. Those, therefore, who have sunk their mind in drunkenness are unable to consider these works of the hands; and because they do not foresee what awaits them, the word rightly laments them as already in the midst of the terrors. Let those hear these things who, instead of the Gospels, keep harps and lyres in their houses, that the Prophet calls them back as already lost, bewailing their destruction out of loving compassion. "Woe," he says, "to those who drink wine with harp and pipes and timbrels and psalms." But for you, the lyre adorned with gold and ivory is set up on some high altar like some statue and image of demons.

And a certain wretched woman, instead of being taught to brace her hands against the spindle, was taught by you, because of the compulsion of slavery, to stretch them out to the lyre—perhaps with you even paying her wages, and perhaps even handing her over to some procuress, who, after she has contended through every licentiousness in her own body, sits before the young as a teacher of the like. On her account, on the day of judgment a double evil will meet you: both for the licentiousness you yourself commit, and because you have alienated a wretched soul from God through wicked teachings. Then she stands by the lyre and lays her hands upon the notes: the forearm bare, the face shameless. Then the whole banquet is turned toward her, and the eyes of all are carried there, and ears fall silent at her striking; and the clamor there is checked, and laughter is hushed, and the rivalry of licentious words. All those in the house keep quiet, charmed by the dissolute melody... but he who is silent there does not keep quiet in the church of God, nor does he fall silent at the voices of the Gospel. And rightly so. For the enemy who commands silence there is the same who here suggests the clamor. A pitiable sight for chaste eyes: a woman not weaving, but singing to the lyre; not recognized by her own husband, but gazed at by others; being public; not singing a psalm of confession, but the songs of a prostitute; not entreating God, but rushing toward Gehenna; not hastening to the church of God, but casting out others along with herself. Wool is hateful to her; and to draw down the warp, or to twist the woof, she neither knows nor wishes. But consorting with drunken women, she pursues their practices.

Truly they weave the spider's web, as it were casting their hands upon the strings stretched out like warp threads, and frequently carrying the center, like a shuttle, here and there, they show no end to their activity. For of the arts, as many as are necessary for life, the end is also set before the eyes, such as for carpentry the base, for building a house, for shipbuilding the ship, for weaving the cloak, for bronze-working the sword; but of the vain arts, such as cithara-playing, or dancing, or flute-playing, or others of the sort, when the activity ceases, the work vanishes along with it. And truly, according to the apostolic voice, the end of these things is destruction. These things have been necessarily examined by us for those who, through great relaxation of luxury, use them at dinner, whether continually, or on those occasions which they suppose to be times of gladness for marriages, or feasts, with flutes and citharas and dances, so that we, having learned from the divine word the condemnation against such pursuits, may out of fear of the dreadful things that hang over us, at least for the future, change the evil habit of your life to the better. But it is also possible, by testing the meaning of the sayings according to another interpretation, to find something else that benefits our souls. Woe (he says) to those who rise early in the morning and pursue strong drink.

That is to say, those who, as soon as the darkness of ignorance was dissolved for them through their introduction to the knowledge of God, when the sun of righteousness rose upon them (having been accounted God-fearing instead of their former lawless and impious selves, and enrolled in the Church of God), are so mastered by the passions of the flesh that they are beside themselves in their reasoning and are overturned equally with those darkened by drunkenness. Such people, then, the word pronounces wretched—those who, after God's teaching, give themselves over to the drunkenness of passions. For he knows those who are drunk even without wine, who says: Woe to those who are drunk without wine. For just as wine, when more than need or the capacity of the drinker flows in, is naturally disposed to bring darkness upon the reasoning, so also the passions of desire, or grief, or anger, when they have mastered the reasoning, make those held by them out of their minds. Wretched, then, and thrice-wretched are those who are not only drenched in drunkenness at the beginning of life, but also remain until late—that is, those who surrender themselves to passions until the sunsets of life. In one way, then, the illumination that comes to hearts from the knowledge of God is called morning; in another way, in that we begin the rational life when the word has been completed. For according to each, the former life was darkness and night—either because the word was not yet perfected and the soul was drenched in unreason, or because, through estrangement from God, the mind was covered with deep darkness.

Woe therefore to those who rise early in the morning—that is, those who have just now laid aside the folly of youth and, instead of strenuously wrestling down the passions through the power of the word, are overthrown by them and pursue the passions as though in a kind of drunkenness. For most wretched are those who, at the beginning of life and at its end, do not cease from such drunkenness. But there are many differences among the drunken: for some ceased from their drunkenness immediately after dawn, others went on a little while and then stopped, and others prolonged it further. It is good, then, as soon as one has awakened, to seek to live soberly and in a priestly manner, so that we may become worthy of entry into the holy places, not drinking wine and strong drink. For it is written: And the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying: You shall not drink wine and strong drink, you and your sons with you, whenever you enter into the tabernacle of witness. But since it is difficult for sinlessness to be achieved in human nature, the second voyage (he says) is to rise from drunkenness immediately after the morning. But for those who linger over wines and seek where drinking-bouts take place, the mind is occupied with the investigation of these things, so that it cannot look upon the works of the Lord, nor consider the works of his hands. But the harp and the psaltery intensify their drunkenness, the inventions of Jubal, who descends from the genealogy of Cain. For Lamech took for himself (he says) two wives: the name of the one was Adda, and the name of the second was Zillah. And Adda bore Jobel. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and keep cattle. And the name of his brother was Jubal; he was the one who first showed the psaltery and the harp.

Such was the kinship of Laban to the harp and music, with which he wished to send Jacob away. For if you had told me, I would have sent you away with gladness and with musical timbrels and a harp. But the patriarch fled from it, as being a hindrance to looking upon the works of the Lord and considering the works of his hands. But also in the case of Nebuchadnezzar at the dedication of the image, with the sound of trumpet and pipe and harp and sambuke and psaltery in concord, and every kind of music sounding together, the peoples and tribes and tongues fell down; but those who did not endure to drink the Babylonian wine from afar and who loathed the luxury of the royal table neither fell down and worshiped nor did they regard any human dominion, and they even quenched the very power of the fire. But if it is a sin not to see the works of the Lord and not to consider the works of his hands, let us lift up the eyes of our mind and see the creative principles of the works of God, and from the greatness of the beauty of created things, beholding the generator of the works in proportion to the things created. And since the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, the sensible apprehension of the works has perhaps been called sight, while the intelligible comprehension of supermundane things has been named thought. For this reason, the works of the Lord (he says) they do not look upon (that is, they do not look attentively upon sensible things through their eyes);

And they do not consider the works of his hands, that is, through the activity of the mind they do not seek out the comprehension of things invisible. But so that the name of morning may be made still clearer to us—that the return from darkness (whether from the irrationality belonging to youth, or from the ignorance of God arising in souls) is called morning, the first entrance into the truth. And you will gather the many passages of the Prophets concerning morning, or concerning dawn, so that by the comparison of the majority the matter at hand may become evident. For example, They sent forth the Prophets at dawn; and, In the morning you will hear my voice; and, In the morning I will stand before you and will look upon you; and, From the night my spirit rises early toward you, O God; and, O God, my God, I rise early toward you; and, In the mornings I killed all the sinners of the earth; and, In the evening weeping will lodge, and in the morning gladness. How then, in a manner fitting the beneficence of God that comes to men, are the Prophets sent at morning? Because every word that comes from God comes to us who are able to hear the divine will, not laying hold of those who are in childish folly, but of those who already possess the natural notions for the discernment of good and evil. Concerning these, then, the word says that as soon as they stoop into understanding and, as it were, lift the eyes of the soul from the ignorance that preceded, and receive some gleam with the eyes of the heart, the word of God fell in together with them, distinguishing what is to be done and what is honorable. To the same sense belongs also that of the psalm: In the morning you will hear my voice, in the morning I will stand before you.

For as long as it is night around our soul and the sun has not yet risen upon it, it is not possible to be heard by God; but when the soul, having been purified from ignorance concerning God, offers up petitions, being in the brightness of the rational and spiritual day, it has God listening to its voice. For this reason it says: In the morning I will present myself to you and I will look upon you. For if you intend to present yourself to God, present yourself to no evil thing, but do what was commanded to Moses: but you, stand before me, steadfast and unshaken and immovable, presenting yourself to him in faith, so that you may become worthy to behold the visions of truth. I will present myself to you, it says, and I will look upon you. For as long as someone is a beholder of the beauty that appears in visible things, he is called a natural philosopher or a physiologer; but when someone, having surpassed these things, presents himself to God himself, after knowing in what way all things are exceedingly beautiful, and after running back from the beauty in these things to the truly beautiful and lovely, whose vision is by nature to appear only to pure souls, then, having advanced to the things higher than physiology, the things called by some metaphysical, he is able to become one who has seen the mysteries. When, therefore, it says, I present myself to you and draw near through the mind to the very contemplation of you, then the epoptic

...I will receive the illumination through the knowledge that comes from the light. And what is said agrees with this: "The heavens declare the glory of God"—not that they send forth a perceptible voice to our ears, but that the one who has exercised himself in the accounts of the world's constitution and has come to know the arrangement of all things in heaven, through these, as it were, sending forth a voice, will be taught the greatness of the glory of the one who made them. The Prophet also stirs us up to this, saying: "Lift up your eyes and see who has appointed all these things." For to behold on high is to lift up the eyes, and to be brought through things seen to the thought of the Maker. And to rise at dawn from night toward God is this: when the night has advanced and the day draws near, and we begin to walk decently as in the day, having put off the works of darkness (revelings and drunkenness, beds and licentiousness), then we can say: "From the night my spirit rises at dawn toward you, O God." Then he also makes clear by what follows what it is that produces the dawn in him: "Because," he says, "your commandments are light upon the earth." For the commandments are light, dissolving the darkness of ignorance; therefore also "The commandment of the Lord is radiant, enlightening the eyes." And what is said in the hundredth Psalm—that "in the mornings I was killing all the sinners of the earth"—is surely clear to everyone, that it has been spoken in a riddle, in a veiled way. For the account does not say that at each beginning of the day I was defiling my hands with the blood of men. For this, besides being abominable, also has the incredible about it.

For how could one man have become the slayer of all the sinners of the earth each morning? For it was not possible for one man to prevail over all, since those who sin are many, as is likely; and if he had conquered them in war, he would certainly have killed them all in a single morning, but he did not become their slayer each morning as well. What then is the meaning of "In the mornings I killed all the sinners of the earth, to destroy out of the city of the Lord all those who work lawlessness"? Let us listen to what is said with greater understanding, so that we may not accuse the prophetic oracles, which is not lawful. The city of the Lord is the constitution of the human frame; and the sinners of the earth are none other than those of whom the Savior says: that from within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, envyings, murders, adulteries, thefts, false testimonies, and the like. These sinners of the earth, then, those that proceed from the earthly flesh, at each thought concerning God, the one who purifies himself destroys from his own constitution. Morning, then, and dawn in the soul come at each rising of a saving doctrine, in which all the thoughts that work lawlessness must be destroyed. For if the first impulses of the soul toward wickedness are not cut off, the deliberations must necessarily proceed to action. For example, a sinner of the earth is the thought that suggests adultery, which brings about the looking at a woman in order to desire her.

If, then, it is not killed from the soul, as it were by a sword—by the word that cuts and destroys the passions—and this happens in the morning, that is, at the revelation into the open, after the adultery in the heart, it will lead the man on to the greater sin than this, calling him forth to the working through the body. We consider the saying of Jeremiah to be in agreement with this: Cursed is he who does the works of the Lord carelessly, and withdraws his sword from blood. For it is necessary that the one who is about to escape the heavy curse never cease from the spiritual sword against the blood of such sinners. Such, then, is also what has now been said about the morning. Woe to him who, from darkness and the night of ignorance, after the first age, when the word has risen in him, at the very moment of rising from sleep, pursues strong drink. But those overcome by the passions—some remained in the drunkenness of the passion, but others, having purified their mind, look upon the world of things visible, and contemplate the substances and essences of things intelligible. For visible things need a looking upon; therefore, They look upon. But intelligible things require a discursive reason; therefore it is said, They contemplate. Except that one must first look upon the works of the Lord, and then proceed to contemplate them. Such was he who said concerning himself:

For he himself gave me unerring knowledge of things that exist, to know the constitution of the world and the activity of the elements, the beginning and end and middle of times, the changes of seasons and the alterations of times, the cycles of years and the positions of stars, the natures of living things and the tempers of wild beasts, the violence of winds and the reasonings of men, the differences of plants and the powers of roots. Therefore my people has become captive, because they did not know the Lord; and a multitude has become dead through famine of bread and thirst of water. These things, according to the historical sense, can obtain their explanation in the times of the final siege of the Jews, some being led away into captivity and others perishing by famine and thirst. And the cause is clear, for which they suffered these things: because they did not recognize the Lord when he came to them. So that the exhortation from the text may become familiar to us as well. We say those things, that those who pursue drunkenness and drink wine with forbidden music, and occupy their eyes with abominable spectacles, and do not endure to look upon the works of the Lord, because they are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, become captives and subject to their adversaries. But also a multitude of dead has arisen among them through famine and lack of water. For those who do not accept the food that falls to the lot of souls become dead in their transgressions; and those who are not nourished at the water of rest, nor seek to drink from that water about which the Lord says to the Samaritan woman, that Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst forever—these become dead.

For hear, that a multitude of the dead has come to be, not only through famine, but also through thirst for water; since they drank from that water which the Samaritan woman also drank. For whoever drinks (he says) from that water will thirst again; but they did not drink from the water that springs up into eternal life. This is an exhortation to knowledge. For if because they did not know the Lord they are taken captive, we must be zealous for the gift of knowledge. Perhaps true death comes to the souls of the disobedient not through famine of bread, nor through thirst for this perceptible water, but through a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. For man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds through the mouth of God. For this reason the Lord will not starve the souls of the righteous; and I was younger (for I also grew old) and I did not see a righteous man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread. And the sons of the bridal chamber, as long as the bridegroom is with them, cannot fast. But where there is famine and thirst, there also is deadness. So that we may not be starved, let us seek the heavenly bread; and lest we be parched with thirst, let us seek the water of which the Lord said, If anyone drinks of the water that I will give him, he will never thirst forever. And Hades enlarged his soul and opened his mouth, so as not to cease. And the glorious and the great and the rich and the pestilent of her and the one who exults in her shall go down. And man shall be humbled and a man shall be dishonored, and the eyes that are lifted up shall be humbled.

In order that our account may set before us the bulk of those who are perishing, it said that Hades enlarged its mouth. For just as in the case of animals, as many as greedily snatch their food from great want and open wide their mouth as it is stretched around the food, so (it says) Hades too is said to make its own mouth more spacious. But perhaps the account indicates to us that there is a certain common place in the innermost part of the earth, overshadowed on every side and without light, the region of Hades; and a certain mouth leading down to the hollows, through which is the descent for the souls condemned to the worse; and this, because of the multitude of those who are perishing, so as to receive them all, it says has become more spacious. For Hades is not some living being, nor some power appointed over those who die, according to the myth-making of those outside. Those, then, who because they did not know the Lord have become captives and, wasted away by famine and thirst for spiritual food, descend into Hades, along with the glorious and great and rich and pestilent. And there are three things threatened against those who sin: captivity, death, and descent into Hades. For captivity is the fall from the former life, through the deception of the enemy, who leads us away from the blessedness in paradise; and death is the alienation from the life-giving commandment; and the descent into Hades is the separation from God, which comes about through the great outpouring of sin and the disposition contrary to the good.

For just as the righteous man has already been raised together with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly places, so the unrighteous man is already said to be a captive and dead and to have gone down into Hades through the sins that lead to death. And the account has enumerated the different ranks of those who go down into Hades: first the illustrious—and these would be those held in some favorable estimation, though they do not by any means have the testimony of their life following upon the outward appearance they display; then the great, those who surpass the many in some power and authority; and the rich, those who have wrapped themselves in a great abundance of unjust wealth, or who have an insatiable desire for more; and its plagues, as many as, like a destructive disease spreading by contagion, corrupt those who come near them, whether from corrupt teaching or from the provocation that comes through sin—these are rightly called plagues. These are they who go down into Hades. And he who exults in her, it says. And this would be the Jew in the flesh, exulting in the earthly Jerusalem, but not looking to the blessedness laid up for God's saints. And observe that the phrase "in her" is spoken according to common usage, just as in the case of private households it is customary for those who dwell in them to refer to the houses themselves by the name of those who are prominent in them. Of this sort is also the phrase, Her foundations are in the holy mountains. And so he who exults in her shall go down into Hades. And man, it says, shall be humbled, and a man shall be dishonored. The humiliation is not to be suffered in place, but rather in the will.

For the righteous man is exalted by his heavenly mindset, but the ungodly man is brought low by his sympathy for things below. For the common man, one puffed up by the common advantages of nature alone, not living according to the power that is in him from his first constitution, is brought low; but the one who has already come to some progress and is already worthy to be called a man, whenever, having been softened, he yields to the passions, will be dishonored. Therefore the man will be brought low, but the man will be dishonored; because the one did not guard what was common, but the other lost even the good that came to him from discipline through his turning to the worse. For the man is brought low; for the eyes of the Lord are lofty, but man is lowly. But the man is dishonored, as one who despises God through the transgression of the commandments. For those who despise him will be dishonored, as we heard in the first book of Kingdoms, when the Lord said: Those who glorify me I will glorify, and those who despise me will be dishonored. Therefore a man will be dishonored by his own sin; for sin is what makes one dishonored. For these will rise (it says) to eternal life, and these to reproach and eternal shame. Since honor is the rendering of a reward, and a reward is the prize of virtue, to the saints both honor and reward are apportioned, but to the ungodly the opposite. For God honors the worthy; for he himself is truly honorable and the bestower of honor; therefore the one who has been dishonored cannot procure honor. But he dishonors

each of the shameful passions, exposed before all creation. And the eyes, he says, that are lifted up shall be brought low. All who, having raised their mind to a height, saw him who made all these things—these, having their eyes lifted up by leading their mind above all bodies, then, through false opinion and great attachment to material things, could no longer endure to contemplate any of the great things, but becoming wholly given to bodily pleasure, are rightly said to be brought low. And the Lord Sabaoth shall be exalted in judgment. That is, in the just recompense upon those previously mentioned, the Lord God is exalted in judgment, so that it is one of the things that contribute to the glory of God that judgment upon the ungodly, coming about from the judge according to the worth of their deeds, should also be reckoned; so that even in judgment the height of the Lord's understanding and power is contemplated. For just as those who contemplate the wisdom of the ordering of the heavens—in the position and motion of the stars and the relation they have to one another—perceive the greatness of his understanding (so that one could say, His understanding is beyond number), so those who see the principles of judgment will no less marvel at what is wise and understanding in judgment, and at the recompense rendered to each according to his worth, down to the minutest details. Perhaps, then, by each right action we exalt God, so that he is exalted in our chastity and exalted in our righteousness.

But since these things are brought to pass through the cooperation of God, when he takes us up and sets us upright, supporting us by the cooperation that comes from himself, and establishing us, then we say: I will exalt you, O Lord, for you have taken me up. And many are the exaltations of God: both the one according to knowledge and understanding, and the one according to the unfolding of his great deeds and according to the contemplation of his judgments. Therefore it has been said concerning the righteous man, that The exaltations of God are in his throat. Then, since to the uprightness according to contemplation the vigor in action has been joined, And two-edged swords (he says) in their hands, that is, words that cut off from the soul and root out the passions. But since the Lord Sabaoth is called Lord of the armies, then the armies, which minister to him at the time of judgment, will exalt and glorify him for the righteous and unerring judgment. And we surmise something of this kind, that when the Lord is judged with men (for he himself, the Lord, will come to judgment with the people), the Lord alone will be exalted, since no one is justified before him. For who is the one who, when examined alongside the benefits from him who created us and the manifold economies that reach commonly to the whole race of men, will be able to render equal and worthy returns for what has come to him from the gift of the Lord? Therefore the saints are at a loss, saying, What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me? And God, the Holy One, shall be glorified in righteousness. There follows upon his being exalted in judgment the glorifying of the Holy One in righteousness.

Those who have seen him exalted in his judgments grasp the glory of his righteousness. And those who have been plundered shall be fed as bulls, and lambs shall eat the desolate places of those who have been taken captive. The people who become captive because they do not know the Lord and because they have sinned in the matter of drunkenness shall be fed in the manner of a herd. And these same are those who have been plundered, at the time of their being taken captive. It is clear that when we are defeated in war by the opposing energies, being taken captive by them, we are plundered like spoils after the victory. And having been plundered, we no longer receive what is proper to rational beings as our own food, but being carried about by irrational impulses (as it happens), we shall live in the manner of bulls in the wilderness of this life. And for this reason he did not say "of oxen" but "of bulls," because cows herd together with one another, but bulls, being angry toward one another because of their spiritedness, graze scattered apart from one another. And since after the captivity it is likely that many places are made desolate (because their inhabitants have been carried off by the enemies), for this reason he says: And lambs shall eat the desolate places of those who have been taken captive. For, as it were, according to the historical account, those who had been taken captive in Babylonia were held, having been deported from Judea in the campaign of Nabuchodonosor.

The region, then, that belonged to those who had been captured and held fast by the constraint of war, having become a pasture for flocks through great desolation—lambs, he says, shall graze upon it, because it bears no remnant of an old settlement, but nurtures deep and tender grass from the desolation of men. Perhaps, too, the word hints prophetically that, when those who transgressed the divine commandments were cast out of their former way of life among the holy, we—who by their transgression were ordered toward salvation—being called lambs because of our newborn state in the faith, graze upon the places of those who were captured, enjoying the spiritual and rational nourishment of the oracles of God, as though upon some tender grass. And the Lord also called those newborn in the faith lambs, when he said to Peter: Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? Feed my lambs. Woe to those who draw sins upon themselves as with a long rope, and iniquities as with the strap of a yoke for a heifer, who say, Let what he will do draw near quickly, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it. We who sin make for ourselves bonds and ropes with which we are bound, in proportion to the number or magnitude of our sins, weaving for our souls bonds either greater or smaller, by which, according to Jeremiah, we have become prisoners. Those, then, who are mastered by the mind of the flesh are held fast by earthly bonds, by which, after the just sentence of the judge, bound hand and foot, those condemned are cast out into the outer darkness.

of hands, because of the practical, and of feet, because of the locomotive. For in truth each one is bound fast by the cords of his own sins, so that each of the members that have committed sin is squeezed tight, punished by some bond of its own. Woe, then, he says, to those who draw their sins on as with a long rope—that is, those who link to their former transgression second and third and successive acts of impiety and injustice and licentiousness. For those who have been caught beforehand in sins ought, instead of heaping up and attaching other evils to the bad, to have at once, from the first entanglement of evils, dissolved their own sins. For it is impossible for human nature not to sin, since there is no one righteous on the earth who will do good and not sin; but it is possible, after sinning through rashness or through the snatching away of him who plots against us, to change at once and repent and not to heap evils upon evils. For just as those who plait ropes, when the twisted strand is about to be used up, insert another, lengthening and increasing it, so too do those who deepen themselves in evils: before the former sin is completed, they begin second ones, and to that again they attach another. And thus their whole life, proceeding through sins, resembles a certain long rope being plaited, holding the earlier part bound together with it, and the part always present being joined into the likeness of what goes before. For this reason, he says, Woe to those who draw their sins on as with a long rope. Let us understand what is said also from an example. Let someone be winged toward the sin of licentiousness—

Consider through how many intermediate steps he draws sin upon himself through licentiousness: first, by fashioning his own body in this way, by trimming his hair in this way, by putting on clothing in this way—and not just any clothing, but clothing carefully crafted for adornment—displaying the excessive refinement of his love of beauty down to his belt, down to his sandals. Then, by amassing money, so that through it he might buy the favor of his beloved; then, by contriving for himself matchmakers and procurers, cultivating corrupt words, preparing occasions for meetings, drinking bouts and banquets, long conversations... Through as many intermediate steps as these, bringing upon himself the evil of fornication—this is the one who draws sin upon himself as with a long rope. And, to speak simply, every wickedness against one's neighbor (not committed from chance circumstance, but from deliberate intent and ambush, accomplished through lengthy preparations) is a long rope, by which men drag sins upon themselves even from far away. And since these ropes are so long, they are hard to untie, because of the stubbornness of sinners in their evils, and because they entwine their sins upon themselves violently and densely. For this reason he says: And as with the strap of a yoke, of a heifer. For yoke-straps are not easily broken even by the strongest teams violently dragging their loads. The word has intensified the strength, saying that the strap of the yoke is from a heifer, that is, from the strongest animal, one that has grown weak neither through toils nor through time.

Woe therefore to those who pursue even elaborate preparations for sin, and these with intensity and vigor. It is possible, however, for one who has become a bound slave of sin to follow Christ, who says to those in bonds, "Come out," and to those in darkness, "Be revealed." And the prisoners, having come out of the prison and out of the darkness, having looked upon the true light through repentance, follow Christ, confessing, bound in chains, until by the transformation of their good deeds they become worthy to be released by him from the bonds that were until then considered inescapable. But these who draw sins upon themselves and despise the divine judgment often hasten by their words the threatened things, as though they would suffer nothing from them, and they say: "Let the swiftness draw near of what he will do, that we may see; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know." But this is a long rope, dragging along sin that lies far off. For it is clear that, disbelieving concerning the age to come and despising the threatened things, they say such things. For the one who fears the judgment seat of Christ and takes up in his memory the sins committed from his youth will not dare contemptuously to hasten the judgment. On the contrary, he seeks for himself even longer delays, so that in more time he may be able to wipe clean his own soul from the filth of sins. And proof of hastening unreasonably toward things to come is Ahithophel and Judas, who, because they judged present things heavier than those after them, and the reproach among men heavier than the punishment in Gehenna, preferred death by hanging over the spontaneous one.

For if they believed concerning the age to come, they would not have hanged themselves; but even if they were displeased with life, they would have added to the things here, judging the things to come more fearful than the present. Such a one was Job, saying: "Would that I had power to lay hands on myself, or that I might entreat another and he would do this for me." For from such things both the burdensomeness of the blow was shown and the caution concerning his own destruction was preserved. For upon those who violently remove themselves, the condemnation of murder rests. But since we have found it also said in Paul, as spoken by some, "Let us do evil, that good may come," we consider that practice too to be a rope that draws on a great sin. For it is said that from much perversity such an opinion also arose among the Jews, that, since corruption is expected to come (by the multitude of sin), "come, let us do evil and fill up the last measure of unrighteousness," so that the change of things present may come upon them, and all things may come into a better state. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness; who put sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet.

But it belongs to the perfect man, who through habit has his senses trained, to be able to distinguish the nature of the good from the evil. And it belongs to the approved money-changer to hold fast the good, and to abstain from every form of evil; but when the soul's faculty of judgment is corrupted, to give testimonies about the worth of each thing that are reversed. And there seems to be a great readiness in human nature toward holding opinions contrary to the truth concerning each thing. And would that this disagreement reached only those outside the faith according to the Scriptures, who, saying that the arguments about each matter are equally balanced and that every evidence is so, as far as lies in their power bring everything into doubt, saying that silver is black because of the rust it gives off, and that the sun is black because it blackens the bodies it associates with more closely. And from such considerations they construct the doctrine of suspension of judgment, as though sensation contained fallacies and did not grasp things as they are by nature, but the eyes are deceived by painting; and in the case of the dove's neck, the sight takes on different colors at different times according to the inclinations of the animal and its relations to the ray. For this reason, having applied themselves to apprehension through the eyes, they neither agree that it is day nor acknowledge that it is night; and consequently they fall into atheism, agreeing neither that the whole is governed by the providence of God nor that it is borne along spontaneously.

But you could see many even of those who have believed the legal and prophetic writings, by their insistence on each point, with plausibility contending against the evident truth, so that the truth in the doctrines is weakened and shaken. But some confess to believe in Christ Jesus, yet are found not to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment, but are split into the most opposed disagreements—some through lack of education, and not a few through love of rule and vainglory, wishing to display to the many that they are wise and have knowledge beyond others. For this reason everything is filled with those who fight against one another and hold opposing doctrines, each zealously standing by his own doctrine, and with the most vehement contention forcing himself to overturn and refute the other's. Would that those who boast of having kept the apostolic teaching and of having received the proclamation of the Gospel by succession from them, were showing through their agreement concerning the doctrines that they are parts of the one Church of Christ. Nor does this confusion reach only to knowledge, but also to actions—since There are ways of a man that seem to be right, but their ends look to the bottom of Hades. And There is a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and an ungodly man remaining in his wickedness. For if anything is hard to discern, the true righteousness would be of this kind. Therefore Solomon also, as reckoning these things of equal value with one another, says: To understand both parables and a dark saying, both the words of the wise and riddles.

to understand true righteousness and to direct judgment aright. Many, then, by a sudden impulse bring forth distorted judgments, before the comprehension that arises from an adequate account and from a matter investigated more fully, tossing off their assents about each doctrine without examination, out of rashness. But the nature of dialectic is especially believed to be able to furnish these things: to divide clearly the natures of things, and to recognize things of the same kind, and to distinguish contraries. Therefore, conscious in himself that he possessed the divine dialectic, he said, Let my disputation be sweet to you. For the dialectic of the contentious and of those who set upon matters in a factious spirit is not sweet, but is something embittering. But since there are three pairs (light and darkness, good and evil, bitter and sweet), are these one in their underlying subject, or have they been separated from one another according to kind? As regards the simpler understanding, then, it is clear that evil is assigned to the depravity of morals; and they define good as praiseworthy good; again, darkness is air deprived of light; and light is a substance that dissolves darkness. Again, sweet is a smoothness of juice or sap that pleases the sense of taste; and bitter is a taste that roughens the taste. According to the simpler conception, then, these things are as far apart from one another as this. Who, then, is so senseless as, standing in deep night, to call the darkness light, and, with his eyes confounded in the darkness, to be disposed as though illuminated by light? And who, being pained in his taste by bitter things, is disposed as though in the pleasure of sweetness? But sensible beauty—to which of those who have eyes is it not easily known?

For in the mutual commensurability of the parts, together with the good color that appears upon them, it draws those who encounter it to itself by a certain spontaneous and natural attraction; and indeed it also immediately produces aversion in those who see it because of the shamefulness. But the discourse seems not to be about things known by perception, but if indeed the commandment of the Lord is far-shining, enlightening the eyes, and a lamp for the feet of the righteous, the discourse is of God: the one not living according to virtue but wallowing in material passions—this would be the one who embraces the life in vice as if it were some light, and turns away from the life according to the commandment of the Lord as if it were darkness. And the one who turns away from the oracles of God—sweet to the throat of the righteous, being beyond honey to his intelligible taste—because of the toilsomeness of the commandments, and who assents to the smoothness of pleasure, this one would say that the bitter is sweet and the sweet is bitter. According to these things, then, one must also think about the beautiful, that the truly beautiful is the commensurate in the soul disposed according to virtue; for virtue is a kind of mean and commensurability; but the excesses and deficiencies that depart from virtue on either side are disproportion and shame. For example, courage is a mean; but excess in relation to it is recklessness, and deficiency of it is cowardice. Therefore the beauty of the soul is the commensurate according to virtue; but shame is the disproportions that arise from vice. These, then, the discourse calls wretched: those who choose vice as good, and flee from virtue as if it were wickedness.

One must also examine the reason why, in the case of the beautiful, the text says "those who say," but in the case of the light and the sweet it no longer says "those who say" but "those who place." For woe to those who say the beautiful is evil, and woe to those who place darkness as light; and woe to those who place the sweet as bitter. Perhaps, then, the passage indicates that in the first choices of life we go astray through word alone, but once we are in the midst of actions and do not depart from evil even after experience, we, as it were, set boundaries of works for ourselves, establishing the works of wickedness as immovable. For he who does not transfer from licentiousness and love of pleasure to temperance places the bitter as sweet for himself. And he who flees the life according to the Gospel and chooses the brutish and irrational life places light as darkness for himself. But he who advocates for these things and speaks boldly in defense of shameful deeds—this is the one who says the beautiful is evil, according to the Apostle, who censures those who not only do these things but also consent to those who practice them. And he places light as darkness who places the lamp under the bushel, or covers it with a vessel and does not place it on the lampstand. Now "to say" the beautiful is evil has been taken in the sense of "to dogmatize"; but "to place" light as darkness, in the sense of habituation through actions. Woe, then, to those who are wise in themselves, and knowledgeable before themselves. And these things touch not only those who go astray in actions, but also those who are held in unbelief and ignorance toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

For the one who does not believe in the true light, but makes himself a son of the devil, this one calls the light darkness, and the darkness light. Just as, therefore, the Lord is light, so also is He sweetness to those who taste Him with understanding, providing a pleasant and delight full of all gladness. For this reason, the one who has tasted Him and has come to experience the most pleasant and gentle delight says: Taste and see that the Lord is good. Therefore, the one who does not believe in the Lord Jesus calls the sweet bitter. And the one who does not believe in the Lord neither agrees with the nature of true beauty, nor accepts the contemplation of it. For the delight is not in the harmony of the limbs, nor in some good complexion blooming on the body; but by the mind alone, exceedingly purified, the truly beautiful in the divine nature is known, according to the Psalm that says: In your beauty and in your comeliness. Therefore, the one who does not receive the flashes of divine beauty with his own eye, this one calls the beautiful evil; and in his denial, he clearly agrees with the opposite. For if the Lord is light, the adversary is clearly darkness; if the nature of truth is sweet, falsehood is clearly bitter; in the denial of God, then, there is agreement with the opposite. Since, therefore, there is no participation of righteousness with unrighteousness, nor fellowship of light with darkness, nor harmony of Christ with Belial, these things must be separated from one another.

Great, therefore, and accurate attention is needed, so that we are not deceived into reckoning him who transforms himself into an angel of light as light, nor, delighting in the bitterness of evil, to testify the glory of sweetness to a pleasure-loving life; nor, having enslaved the soul to the beauty of bodies, to reckon that in this lies the nature of true beauty. Woe therefore to those who are wise in themselves and knowledgeable before themselves. These things can be said concerning those who have supposed of themselves that they are wise and knowledgeable, though they are not such; and it can also be said concerning those who truly possess the gift of understanding and knowledge, but do not share it with others. For hidden wisdom and an unseen treasure—what is the benefit in either? Such persons, then, are knowledgeable before themselves, but not also before others, like the one who hid the talent with himself. But neither is he knowledgeable before God, who has not used his knowledge for the glory of God. And a third such interpretation of the wise and knowledgeable seems possible: those who are such from God are those who perceive the gift that comes from Him; but those who do not refer the cause of their understanding to God, but ascribe their successes to themselves, are wise in themselves and knowledgeable before themselves. To whom it is timely to say: But what do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not receive it? And: Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have labored in vain.

Understanding, then, is spoken of as a kind of ready apprehension of the soul, gathering quickly into one the thoughts of things, which by nature comes to be established through the completion of the rational seeds within us. Or understanding is a nimbleness of mind that readily discovers what is proper and fitting for each thing. And knowledge is a state that has its firmness in itself, unchangeable by reason. And the knowledgeable man is the one who, in that he has encompassed the necessary contemplations pertaining to blessedness, in this respect already holds them in himself habitually and firmly. And he says that wisdom is the knowledge of divine and human things, and of their causes. Since Christ himself is Wisdom itself, we shall call wise the one perfected through participation in Christ, inasmuch as he is wisdom. And the understanding man is conceived according to the completion of the seeds of understanding within us. And the knowledgeable man, according to his having encompassed the necessary contemplations for blessedness, together with his already holding them in himself habitually and firmly. And we have found in Exodus the oracle speaking concerning the master craftsmen: I will fill them with a divine Spirit of understanding and knowledge. Therefore woe to the one who does not ascribe the cause of understanding and knowledge to God. Let no one, then, take such great things for himself, calling himself neither knowledgeable, nor understanding, nor wise. Since wisdom is the knowledge of divine

and human affairs, let him attribute the cause of these things to the Holy Spirit. For "There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of the root. And the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding," and so on. "Woe to you who are mighty, and you who drink wine, and you who are rulers who mix strong drink." And the law forbids the priests, when they enter the holy places, to use wine and strong drink, and also those called Nazirites, as it is said in Numbers, in this manner: For the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them: A man or a woman, whoever shall greatly vow a vow to purify themselves with purity to the Lord, shall be purified from wine and strong drink. And in Proverbs Solomon says: "Rulers are passionate; let them not drink wine, lest having drunk they forget wisdom." For it is fitting for those who serve the divine word and for those who have been entrusted with the care of men to abstain entirely from things that produce confusion in the governing faculty. For when much unmixed wine rushes in, like some tyrant running up to the acropolis, from the very summit it produces unceasing tumults in the soul, sparing no unlawful command, but having first enslaved the reasoning faculty itself, it confounds and dashes to pieces all the order that exists from education, stirring up unseemly laughter, a tumultuous voice, rash angers, unbridled desires, frenzy and madness toward every unlawful pleasure.

For this reason, let not the powerful drink wine—whether those entrusted with some office and the administration of public affairs, or those who by the prime of life are in bodily strength. For such people, being by nature easily provoked to anger, whenever they also take on the kindling of wine, raise it up to a great blaze, as it were a flame, with an abundant supply of burning fuel. Since, then: "The least is worthy of mercy, but the mighty shall be mightily examined." For this reason, woe to those who are strong from the harm of wine and strong drink. For to whom much has been entrusted, they will require more of him. If, then, the stewardship of mysteries has been entrusted to you, a word of wisdom, a power of knowledge, and you carry around a soul steeped in wine—how does the prophet not justly lament over you? Because, having spiritual strength, you make it weak by the excess of wine. And whoever is mastered by any passion of the soul whatsoever, being led as it were into drunkenness according to the ecstasy that has come upon him from the passion, is said to drink wine and to mix for himself strong drink, which we have learned is interpreted as "drink-offering"; for the failure to follow reason, alike from grief and from fear, and from pleasure and from desire, comes to be in the soul, when the reasoning is mastered by the passion. So that we who are powerful, who have been entrusted with the leadership of the people, even if we are to some extent mastered by passion and seem to be mixing it with our reasoning, to bridle and check it by the word, are not outside of being counted wretched for such things. For dreadful drunkenness is love of glory and love of rule; a dreadful drink-offering is envy, dreadful is hypocrisy, and the slander of one's neighbor.

—those whose soul, having become drunk, forgets wisdom. For nothing so confuses the contemplations that come from wisdom as this passion and every sin. But how is one who has wisdom prone to anger? (Because he is not yet speaking of the impassible man, but for now he is discussing the one who is moderately passionate.) In accordance with which he also says elsewhere: A fool declares his anger the same day, but a wise man stores it up in measure. He says, then, that the one who drives his passion with reason brings forth anger in a measured way, according to which it is said: Be angry and do not sin. But the Lord, ordaining the more perfect things, says to cut out the passion altogether, not to chastise it. Woe to those who justify the ungodly for the sake of gifts and take away the righteousness of the righteous. The saying is clear, condemning those in the courts who, through love of mammon, destroy the uprightness of judgment and add to bribe-taking, and who name the ungodly righteous, and condemn the righteous to injustice. For a reasoning faculty taken beforehand by love of money is a scale that brings its inclination down to the heavy side of the balance. But let us attend to ourselves more carefully, lest we justify some ungodly man or word, led by favor toward us to assent to them, lest we fall under the woe that lies therein. Therefore, just as stubble will be burned by a coal of fire and burned up by a flaming flame, their root will be like dust, and their flower will rise up like chaff. For they did not want the law of the Lord of Hosts, but they provoked the oracle of the Holy One of Israel.

The word threatens that the roots of the sinners will be burned up together and reduced to fine dust, and that their flower will rise up like dust. Let us understand what follows in accordance with what has been set out before. For having spoken earlier about those who use wine immoderately, and having reproached those who take gifts in judgments, now he says that their roots will be burned up together, like stubble by a coal of fire. Now a reed is a plant that stands on a weak root, smooth on its outer surface, hollow within, uneven in its growth, divided by frequent joints, because the power by which it grows is weak and cannot make the plant grow evenly, but it needs some rest in between. Therefore the joint is also produced by the resting of the power; for when it has advanced a little, then it stops, and thus by its longer persistence it produces the joint. Then again, as if using the joint as a kind of base and foundation, the power advances again, and thus always resting it completes the plant. Such are those who are known by the things of this world, standing on a rotten foundation, hollow in the inner man, living together with the unevenness of the things of this world. For this reason, in the way that stubble is burned by a coal of fire, so, he says, their roots will be set ablaze by a kindled flame. Now a coal is an earthy fire, which, after the passing of the flame, remains in the thicker material.

Since, then, those who live in passion have as their own the fire of the passions (as the rich man had within himself the cause that scorched him with thirst), for this reason he threatens those who drink wine, as drunkards, with destruction from burning. And since they also pervert justice for the sake of gifts, he says that their root will be burned up together by a kindled flame (calling the root, evidently, the love of money, concerning which the Apostle also declared, that the love of money is a root of all evils). And from such a root, what sort of flower is it likely to rise up, or what flower resembling dust, by its unstable nature and scattered into the air? Or perhaps, just as dust, obstructing our breathing, plots against our life, so also the flowers of the love of money—acts of greed, acts of injustice, falsehood, sycophancy, and all the other shoots of the evil root—are destructive of our life, obstructing the purity of the spirit. And very carefully he did not say "and their fruit," but "their flower." For the shoots of wickedness are incomplete, being destroyed in the very sprouting and first flower; for I saw the wicked exalted exceedingly, and I passed by, and behold, he was not. The righteous man, then, is as the tree planted by the streams of waters, watered by the continual flow of life; but the root of the sinner will be burned up, and his flower will rise up like dust. Because they did not want the law of the Lord Sabaoth, but provoked the oracle of the Holy One of Israel. He calls law and oracle different appellations of the Lord; therefore the Prophet speaks of the oracle as of a living thing:

They provoked the oracle of the Lord. For the living Law and the Word of God is the only-begotten Son, through whom are all things. And the Lord Sabaoth was angered with wrath against his people, and he laid his hand upon them and struck them. And the mountains were provoked, and their dead bodies became as dung in the midst of the way. And in all these things his wrath was not turned away, but still his hand is high. The sin of the strong and the mighty made a way for the wrath that is stirred by the Lord against the people. For this reason first comes the Woe to the strong among you and the mighty; then: And the Lord was angered with wrath against his people—clearly also against his own people, who, in imitation of their leaders, had fallen into sins and were worthy to suffer the things that come from the wrath and anger of the Lord. Now thumos is the boiling of the blood around the heart, named, as it were, from the exhalation of the humors, a swelling formed around the heart; while orgē is the desire for retaliation. So the one has a sharp movement of the passion, while the other displays a more abiding and prolonged fulfillment in grief. In the case of God, however, it is pious to accept that neither of these is said properly, but the expressions are figurative. For there is no passion of God, nor anything that happens to his very essence; but such an activity toward us is called thumos. And perhaps the painful chastisement is called orgē, while the reproof that produces disturbance in our reasonings is called thumos. For he disturbs by thumos those with whom God is angry, not yet deeming them worthy of reason, according to what is said: In his thumos he will disturb them.

But those who are being disciplined are deemed worthy of teaching in wrath, according to what is said: Then he will speak to them in his wrath. For the one who is reproved for his sins has not yet been disciplined; but the one who is being disciplined already shows a certain nearness to knowledge. If, then, wrath disciplines, and anger reproves, wrath is more effective than anger. For this reason Jeremiah also says: Discipline us, O Lord, but in judgment and not in anger. For he did not say "and not in wrath," but the discipline that comes from judgment is better than that which comes from anger and wrath. For the one who has been disciplined in judgment, being enlightened by the Word, will be benefited by the judgments of God so as to do nothing without judgment, but to accomplish all things with sound judgment, so that he may even have his own reasonings judged, according to what is said: The reasonings of the righteous are judgments. However, at the time of judgment, when he lays his hand upon the people, the mountains too are said to be provoked, the Word showing that all creation joins in the vengeance upon sinners. For just as in the plagues of Egypt war came upon them from every side—from air, from earth, from water—so also now, when the Lord lays his hand upon the people to strike them, the mountains too will be provoked, and the corpses of the people, lying like dung in the middle of the road because of their dishonor, will be trampled underfoot.

Consider for me those who have fallen into sins, who have remained in the affairs of this life and are trampled down by the opposing powers, concerning whom, because of their unrepentant heart, the word of the Lord says that his wrath will not be turned away, but that his hand still remains exalted—that is, raised up for vengeance (calling the punitive power a "hand," according to Job: For the hand of the Lord is that which has touched me)—and in this the devil says "hand" in the time of punishment: "No indeed, but send forth your hand and touch his bones." Therefore he will raise a signal among the nations, both those far off and those near, and he will whistle to them from the end of the earth. And behold, they come swiftly and lightly. According to the literal sense, the word will seem to prophesy the Roman power that came upon Jerusalem in the final siege. For in that time the military levies were being filled up both from the nations far off and from those nearby—those around Syria and Arabia, and as many other nations as lie adjacent to Judea—and were being conscripted by the Romans. So then, the signal was raised among the nations, that is, the sign of the cross that was displayed. And the nations were called to the faith, but Jerusalem was handed over to destruction. And so swiftly and lightly they were coming, having so great a

...eagerness for battle, so as even to forget their food and not wait for their rations, nor need rest, nor lay aside the garb of those who fight. These were reckoned like solid rock, and their chariots like storms; like lions in strength, and like lion cubs in their onset; whose shout is like a tossing sea, when the people being warred upon saw nothing else but thick darkness upon the earth... 6. CHAPTER 6: And it came to pass in the year in which King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. And one of the Seraphim was sent to me. Divine powers are always sent to the Saints from the creation and foundation of the world, to repair the frailty of human nature. Therefore one was sent also to Isaiah, to take away his sins and to cleanse him. And he was sent because he heard him lamenting his own wretchedness and confessing the sin in his thoughts. For he said, Woe is me, for I am pricked to the heart, for being a man and having unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips. Paul also said these things: Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Then he too, as one who had obtained divine assistance, adds: I thank God through Jesus Christ. And he said, Woe is me, having come with clear sight to an understanding of the kingdom of God who sits upon a throne high and lifted up, and has filled with his glory so great a world. For before he conceived of God, he does not appear to have said, Woe is me.

For Abraham too, it is recorded that when God appeared to him, then he said, "I am but earth and ashes." So too Moses, while he was being educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and, as is likely, surpassing them all in natural ability and understanding, did not perceive himself to be weak-voiced or slow-tongued; but when he heard the one who spoke to him, then he perceived his own speechlessness and the slowness of his tongue. And in his hand he had a coal, which he took with the tongs from the altar, and it touched my mouth. The one who explains the literal text in a Jewish manner will say that the Lord was seen in the place at Jerusalem, seated on a high and exalted throne, and the Seraphim standing round about him; and that the fire taken from the altar of whole burnt offerings by the Seraph was brought to the mouth of the prophet, for the cleansing of his lips. But we who have believed that the things according to the law are a kind of pattern and shadow of heavenly things, call the whole system of the intelligible and sensible creation a house, and the exalted throne the rule and dominion of God over all things; and the Seraphim the supercosmic powers. For if (as some have imagined) the two hemispheres of heaven, appearing in turn above the earth, each using six parts, as it were certain wings, for their swift motion—how was the one of these sent, or how was it drawn apart from the other, since the nature of heaven is continuous? But, as I said, they are supercosmic powers, deemed worthy of the nearest station because of their preeminence in holiness; one of whom came to the prophet.

For just as the God who is over all does not disdain to look down from heaven upon the care of men, neither do the partial powers refuse the ministry for the beneficence of men. The Seraphim, then, took from the altar with the tongs. Consider how great the altar is, how inaccessible, so that the Seraphim does not dare to touch it with his hand, but through the tongs receives the fire into his hand. And he took a coal. He receives the fire into his hand. What sort of fire is this, which purifies sins? Or perhaps it is akin to that of which it is said, "He himself will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire"? Since the coal is fire, having remained in the thicker and more earthy matter (for after the bloom of the flame has run past, the fire's association with the thick matter is called coals), perhaps then it signifies the sojourn in the flesh of the Lord. For it says: "The Word became flesh"; and the flesh, having received the illumination from the divinity, was perceptible in respect of the bodily, but in respect of its union with God, translucent and radiant. And that flesh bore the sins of the world and cleansed our lawless deeds; which the prophecy set before us in a riddle. For Nadab and Abihu were burned up, having used strange fire; but the Seraphim took the coal from the holy fire that is on the noetic altar of the true whole-burnt offerings, not for himself, but with the tongs. And to show that the heavenly fire does not burn but purifies, having received it in his hand, he thus brings it to his lips.

To this fire was akin also that which was on the bush, which Moses saw resting upon the plant but not burning the bush. Perhaps the tongs are the fitness existing in each person for the reception of the good things given by God, in proportion to the affinity toward the good that exists in each. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Whom shall I send? And who will go? He does not ask Moses, but as having him ready he says: And now come, I will send you to Pharaoh, king of Egypt. To Isaiah, however, he says: Whom shall I send? And who will go? What then is the reason? That there Moses was sent for the good and beneficence of the people, but here the ministry of gloomy matters lies before us. For this reason to that one a command was given, but to this one the service was left to his own authority, because we men are by nature disposed to accept whatever we choose willingly, even if it be laborious. For this reason the Lord wishes him to accept the mission willingly. And that there was need of the mission, he showed; but he wishes the fitness for ministry to be displayed beforehand from the willingness itself. For this reason Moses, when called to a conspicuous life and the leadership of so great a people, declines: Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and bring the people out of the land of Egypt? And again: I beseech you, Lord, I am not sufficient, neither before yesterday nor before the third day, nor since you began to speak to your servant. And again: I beseech you, Lord, appoint another able man, whom you will send.

But Isaiah, having heard nothing of this kind, but having been taught only the need of the mission, willingly offered himself and entered into the midst of dangers by the excess of his love, reckoning nothing of what the people would bring upon him. Observe also the precision and circumspection of the prophet. For to two utterances he makes one answer: "Whom shall I send?" and "Who will go?" "Behold, I am here; send me." He no longer added, "and I will go." For to accept the mission is in our power; but to be strengthened for the journey belongs to the giver of grace, from the God who strengthens. So that what belonged to the will, he spoke: "Behold, I am here; send me"; but what belonged to grace, he left to the Lord. For he did not promise that he would go, because he perceived his own weakness. But he hears the voice of the Lord even though he was not struck in bodily hearing, when the governing part of the soul is impressed by God, in those in whom God wishes to make his will manifest. For being impressed by some ineffable power upon the mind, those who keep it undistracted and pure have, as it were, the word of God sounding within them, even if the air does not receive the impressions nor transmit them to the hearing. For as in a kind of book, God writes his own will in the soul of the prophet; and he is said to hear who has received the divine thoughts in his soul. For this reason the prophet, having said, "Behold, I am here; send me," kept silence as to what follows. For he did not say, "I will go," because

The promise was greater and beyond him. What he did not take for himself, the Lord granted him. For he said to him: Go and speak to this people. But he who says: Behold, I am here, now having taken courage, as one who has partaken of the One Who Is, dares to number himself among those that are; and he said this after his lips had been cleansed. But he who is found in lawlessness and is not deemed worthy of the knowledge of the One Who Is cannot bear witness to himself with the words: Behold, I am here. Since God appointed first apostles, second prophets, for this reason Isaiah also first receives the grace of apostleship. And Moses also is among the apostles; for he says: Come, I will send you to Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Jeremiah also hears: To all to whom I send you, you shall go. Go and speak to this people: Hearing you shall hear and not understand, and seeing you shall see and not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown dull, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and they have shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I heal them. Luke recorded this saying in the Acts. And one of the Seraphim was sent to me. That a certain supercosmic power, purifying from lawlessness, entrusted with a ministry, is what the written word presents as the Seraphim. These liturgical spirits have therefore been sent to us, who are to inherit salvation. But they come not by their own authority, nor of their own free will, visiting us; for their life is prior and by nature, to gaze upon the beauty of God and glorify him continually.

But the turning toward us humans and the care for us is a certain circumstantial activity. Therefore, he says, one of the Seraphim was sent to me. And it seems that the Prophet, when he saw the activity of the Seraphim, who were doing nothing other than sanctifying God, then came to a consciousness of the uncleanness on his own lips, because he too speaks human things, and had often defiled his own tongue with words about the vanity of the world. Being pricked to compunction, then, by comparison with those things—both because they utter nothing other than crying out the sanctification of the Godhead, while he himself has his voice occupied for the most part with human affairs—for this reason he said: Woe is me, that I am pricked to compunction, that I, being a man and having unclean lips, dwell in the midst of a people that has unclean lips. Thus also Moses for a time did not perceive that he was weak-voiced and slow of tongue, he who had been educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and surpassed them all in natural ability and understanding; but when he heard the one giving the oracle, then he saw his own weakness. And Abraham, when God appeared to him, then called himself earth and ashes. In like manner, then, to these, Isaiah also, after seeing the one seated on a high and lifted-up throne and beholding the glory that filled the whole house of the world and the Seraphim around him, uttering that voice with amazement, then called himself wretched, then recognized the uncleanness on his lips, and for this reason was deemed worthy of the purification through the Seraphim.

Observe, however, that his transgressions were not spread over every deed and activity, but were confined only as far as the lips and words. And he had a coal in his hand, which he took with the tongs from the altar and touched my mouth. As regards the literal sense, the passage seems to concern the altar in the temple, from which the Seraph took a coal from the altar of whole burnt offerings into his own hand; but as regards the truth, since the Jewish worship serves as a copy and shadow of the heavenly worship, one must conceive of a heavenly altar, that is, a place of purification for souls, from which the purifying fire is sent forth to the powers that are being sanctified. With such fire was the heart of Cleopas and Simon burned, when the Lord opened the Scriptures to them; with such fire are those warmed in heart who are boiling with the Spirit; such fire Jeremiah received, and therefore he said: And it became fire in my inward parts, and I am utterly weakened on every side. He shows also the great honor and reverence concerning the altar, in that the Seraph did not dare to touch it with his own hand, but used the tongs as a kind of mediator. Let us understand, then, the coal as a true word, which burns and refutes, purifying falsehood, in whomever it is brought near from the active power. For the hand of the Seraph must be understood as an activity that furnishes good things. And he said: Behold, this has touched your lips, and it will take away your iniquities and will thoroughly cleanse your sins.

It must not be thought that this was spoken only to Isaiah, but also to all those whom the fiery and true word lays hold of, removing the things done outside the divine law and cleansing away what is done sinfully. Let us too receive the visitation of the divine Word, so that, as it were, taking its seat upon our mouths and giving no place to falsehood, it may cleanse our lips and take away our sins. Not implausibly will the coal be understood as the nature of the Word, according to the testimony of the psalm, which says: Your oracle is exceedingly purified by fire, and your servant loved it. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people? And I said: Behold, here I am; send me. It is worth inquiring why Moses declines when sent and fights off the commission at great length, begging off the sending, while Isaiah so readily gives himself over. For Moses is not asked, Whom shall I send? but he receives the command directly in person: And now, it says, come, that I may send you to Pharaoh into Egypt, and you shall lead my people, the sons of Israel, out of the land of Egypt. But Isaiah, when the word indefinitely seeks out the one who is to serve the sending, offers himself. What then do we say? The dispositions of the saints in conflict over the same matter are not opposed to one another. But because Moses knew the task for the sake of which he was being sent, for this reason he hesitated, looking both at the unyieldingness of Pharaoh's heart and again at the disobedience and intractability of the people.

For he had experience of the Jews' stubbornness, that even when they had been benefited, they drove him into exile. Therefore, unable to bear their wickedness, he withdrew to the quiet of the desert, under the pretext of shepherding, fleeing the tumults of cities and of the many. For this reason he says: Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the people out of the land of Egypt? For neither does Pharaoh send the people out without great calamities, nor is the people easy to manage, always resisting those who care for their salvation. And he shows Moses' mind also in what follows. For when, after the making of the calf, God gave the favor to his servant for the forgiveness of the people's sin, he says at last: Go and lead this people, and I will send my Angel before you. What then does Moses say? I beseech you, Lord, if you yourself do not go before us, do not lead us up from here. What then is the man's meaning? That the people is sinful and needs the one who forgives sins, which is impossible for angels. Angels are avengers of sins committed, but no longer forgivers of transgressions. For this reason he seeks that he himself come, that is, what he also says now: Prepare another, whom you will send, that is, let the true Lawgiver come, the mighty Savior, the only one having authority to forgive sins. But since the fullness of the times had not yet come and it was necessary that humanity be accustomed beforehand in the types, for this reason the Prophet's request was not heard.

Isaiah, however, after his sins had been forgiven—since he had said, "I dwell in the midst of a people that has unclean lips," and then heard, "Who will go to this people?"—thinking that the one being sent was sought for the benefit of those others in like manner, out of great joy he offers himself, so that their sins too might be forgiven. "Behold," he says, "I am here; send me." So that both that man's refusal and this man's eagerness are reasonable. Yet the answer of the saint is sure, as one already benefited by the purification through the coals. For when the Lord said, "Whom shall I send, and who will go?" to the "I shall send" he said, "Behold, I am here"; but to the "Who will go?" he no longer said, "And I will go"; for he knows that the cooperation of God is needed for the working. Therefore what belonged to choice, this he offered; but what needed the one who perfects, this he kept silent about. How he hears the voice of the Lord has often been said: namely, that the governing faculty of the one deemed worthy of such grace is impressed by some ineffable power with the word of God, the divine power sounding in the ears of the worthy, not through bodily hearing, but imprinting upon the governing faculty itself of those whose mind has been purified, and as it were inscribing the thoughts in them in silence—which for us the hearing, struck by audible voice, transmits to the soul's perception. He heard, then, a noetic voice, arising in the heart, which also happens in dreams; for we seem to hear, though no one is speaking, and not an audible voice carried through the air to the passages of the ear.

Thus, then, God speaks and thus the saints hear. "Go," he says, "and say to this people: You will hear with your hearing and you will certainly not understand, and seeing you will see and you will certainly not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown dull, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and they have shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I will heal them." The blessed Paul, bringing this saying clearly and indisputably to the times of the Lord's coming, spoke it in the Acts, when discoursing to the Jews in Rome: "For well did the Holy Spirit speak through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers, saying: Go and say to this people," and the rest. And this saying especially prepares the prophet, as one speaking from God; since the people heard the word of Jesus and did not understand, and seeing the wonders done by him, did not see. For the saying, inclining toward a future time, shows the reference of the things prophesied to later times, and in this the reasonableness of God's judgment appears. For when Isaiah said, "I have unclean lips," and (joining also concerning the people) "I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips," to him was given the grace of forgiveness and purification through one of the Seraphim, but to the people no longer; since neither the prophet nor the people had a like disposition. For he saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting upon a throne, and believed what he beheld; but they, seeing the Lord present among them, did not believe.

And the one who heard the Seraphim understood their doxology; but those who heard the words of the Savior did not receive them. And his heart, pricked, was conscious of its own sin, wherefore he said: "Woe is me, for I am pricked to the heart"; but their heart was hardened, so as to receive no understanding of the things they had sinned in, nor to draw near to the one who is able to forgive them their sins. For this reason the one was cleansed, but the others were left in their sins, as the Lord also said to them: "You will die in your sins." But perhaps someone among you will object to the argument, because it was said, "Say to this people," not accepting that these things were prophesied for the times of the Savior. For if "this" is a demonstrative, and none of the people pointed to was going to hear the Savior or see his wonders, how does "to this people" fit those who are so much later than the prophet? But let us devise an easy solution to the problem from other prophetic words. For it is said in one of the Twelve: "The people

me, what have I done to you? Or in what have I grieved you? Or in what have I troubled you? Answer me. For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of slavery I redeemed you, and I sent before you Moses and Aaron and Miriam. For just as then it was not the people according to the Prophet who saw Egypt, or who were led by those previously mentioned, and yet he himself is reproached as being ungrateful for these labors, so also now the body of the people according to the Prophet is shown; and the things prophesied come to pass for it in the generation of the Lord's appearing. And custom is naturally accustomed to use such a word, which some are wont to call, when altered, a "changed" one. For example, understanding the same chorus, the one consisting of so many men; then, when one has withdrawn and another has filled that one's place, the same chorus is said to remain. And if a second withdraws and if a third, and this happens for a long time, and another is brought in in place of each, the chorus being gradually changed, those men were exchanged one by one, yet the designation of the chorus is preserved the same. So also a city is said to be the same, and an army the same, not because each individual remains, but because the same designation is preserved for the body. Thus nothing prevents the people seen demonstratively in Isaiah's time from being the same also in the Lord's time, not by the continuance of each individual, but by the common name of the nation. And I said: How long, O Lord? And he said: Until the cities are made desolate for lack of inhabitants, and the houses for lack of men, and the land shall be left desolate.

And after these things God will remove men far away, and those who are left will multiply on the earth. And still there is a tenth part in it, and again it will be for a spoil, as a terebinth and as an acorn, when it falls from its husk. A holy seed is its stump. Since the things recounted by the Lord were gloomy, he deeming the judgment inexorable, he asks to be taught at least how long the time is in which this condemnation will be laid upon them. These things are clearly referred from now on to the times of the Roman dominion. For after they did not hear the words of the Lord and did not wish to look with grateful eyes upon his wonders beyond human power, their cities were laid waste because they were not inhabited, and houses because there were no men, and the land was left desolate, the inhabitants having been put to death by famine and flights and captivity. And what follows, that after these things God will remove men far away, seems to me to be referred to the alienation of the Jews from God, to whom a hardening in part came about, so that the fullness of the Gentiles might enter in. But also those who are left, he says, will multiply. Who then are these? Or are they those of whom the Apostle said that a remnant according to the election of grace has come about, who will also multiply on the earth, since from now on those who are discipled to the Gospel of Christ are in all the earth? For even if all Israel did not obtain what it seeks, yet the election obtained it, concerning whom he says to Elijah: I have left for myself seven thousand men, who did not bow the knee to Baal. These then are those of whom it has been said:

And still there will be a tenth part in it. But the phrase And again it will be for a spoil, as a terebinth and as an acorn, when it falls from its husk, seems to me to make clear the gradual change from Jewish customs to the way of life according to the Gospel. For again these will be gathered for a spoil, as the fruit of the terebinth is gathered, and as the acorn, already ripe for collection. For then it is loosed from its bond to the husk, having already been ripened by time and brought to maturity. Perhaps also, because they have fallen from the Jewish land and come to be in the dispersion, it is likened to an acorn falling from its husk. But the phrase A holy seed is its stump has been added from the version of Theodotion, not being found in the Seventy, and it has a noteworthy meaning, as having reference to the sequence of what has been set forth above. For these are gathered as a terebinth and as an acorn, in that they become a holy seed in their own standing and firmness. And in accordance with what is set down in many places in Scripture, here too the good end of those who are chastised for their benefit is made evident. For I will smite, he says, and I will heal. And he himself causes pain and again restores. Those, then, who formerly heard with the ear and did not understand, and did the things that follow, to such an extent that cities were not inhabited and they came to be in the dispersion, so that the tenth part of the people was scarcely preserved—these will again be multiplied and again bear fruit, like a terebinth and an acorn, bearing a holy seed, in that they stand firm and are not moved and are rooted in love.

7. CHAPTER 7. And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin king of Aram went up, and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, against Jerusalem, to make war on it, and they could not besiege it. And it was reported to the house of David, saying, Aram has made an agreement with Ephraim. And his soul was astonished, and the soul of his people, in the manner of a tree in a thicket shaken by the wind. The sense of the passage is as follows: two kings, the one of Syria and the one of Israel, went up against Jerusalem for war, and they could not besiege it. The name of the king of Syria was Rezin, and of the king of Israel, Pekah. And messengers came, reporting to the royal house the agreement of the kings, both the Syrian and the Israelite. For the Syrian is called Aram in the dialect of the Hebrews; and Israel is named Ephraim, because from that tribe came Jeroboam, who from the beginning made the apostasy. The king, then, and all the people were struck with amazement at the report, and were so shaken and disturbed that their agitation was likened to a tree of the thicket shaken by the most violent wind of the winds. This, then, is the simple narrative of the words. But one who examines the text closely might find some affinity to us and to the edification of the Church from the things recorded. Let us then examine, as far as we are able, who these kings are who made an agreement with each other. I think, then, that the word which is exalted by the wisdom of this age against the knowledge of God is signified by Aram; for Aram is interpreted as "lofty.

Such is the word of the rulers of this age, attending to astronomies and the motions of stars and their conjunctions and configurations, and from there saying that the causes of human affairs hang. And it is lofty both because of its conceit and its boastful swelling, which the Holy One alone knows how to bring down by the words of truth, casting down by the power of the Spirit every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. But the knowledge that has come to be by the tradition of the divine Scriptures, yet has been turned aside from the straight way and is falsely named, we consider to be called Ephraim. Since from it sprang Jeroboam, the first who divided the ten tribes from the seed of David, who also, having once become a fugitive from Solomon, went away into Egypt, and took to wife the sister of Thekemina, the wife of Pharaoh. He also fashioned the golden calves and sent up feasts from his own heart. When, therefore, the gentile word, which is great-minded over dialectical arguments, is entangled with the heretical and perverted word, Aram is said to be in agreement with Ephraim, having the desire to tear down the buildings of David and to sack the place of true worship. Yet it does not prevail in its purpose. Not

For it will not be able to besiege it, because the Lord is its shield. Perhaps they cannot even agree unless our sin abounds; since those in the historical account who agreed, in the days of Ahaz, displayed their agreement with one another because of the sin of Ahaz, who did not do what was right before the Lord, but passed his son through the fire and burned incense on the high places. Nevertheless, the attempt of wicked kings against the churches troubles the house of David and distracts the soul of the people, so that it resembles a fruitless tree, because of the disturbance that arises from the turmoil. But nevertheless, the loving God, healing their turmoil, sends a prophetic word, driving out the fear from the hearts of the people, by saying: Do not fear, nor let your soul grow weak from these two smoking sticks. See whether you can also take occasion from the interpretation of the names to see the matters of this passage still more clearly. For Ahaz is interpreted as possession; Jotham, the completion of Iaō; and Uzziah, the strength of Iaō; and Ara, as we said before, lofty; and Pekah, opening; and the daughter of Remaliah, lofty of circumcision. So the lofty word agrees, and the word that promises to be an elucidator of the divine Scriptures. For Pekah makes this clear, being interpreted as opening, as it were promising through himself the elucidation of the closed testimonies of Scripture.

That the agreement of the two kings against Jerusalem (the one who thinks according to the wisdom of the world, and the one who promises to unfold the hidden things of Scripture) is made in opposing doctrines and words, while they expect to take captive those who have been taught the things of the Church, is demonstrated from what follows. For Aram and the son of Remaliah devised an evil plan, saying: Let us go up into Judea, and having conferred with them, we will turn them back to ourselves. For the account clearly shows that through the persuasiveness of their dialogue they hope to turn the house of David back to themselves. And they promise also to set up as king the son of Tabeel; and Tabeel is interpreted as "good God." But it is characteristic of those who attack the Church to promise that they will hand over the things concerning the Son of God, and through such fair speaking they deceive the more simple. That these things are riddles, leading through the history to the present condition of the Churches, the account clearly lays bare as it proceeds, saying: Unless you believe, you will not understand. And the Lord said to Isaiah: Go out to meet Ahaz, you and the remnant Jasub, your son, at the pool of the upper road of the fuller's field, and you shall say to him: Be careful to keep quiet and do not fear, nor let your soul grow weak because of these two sticks, these smoking firebrands. For when the anger of my wrath comes, I will heal again. And the son of Aram and the son of Remaliah, because they devised an evil plan concerning you, saying:

We shall go up into Judea, and having spoken with them we shall turn them to ourselves, and we shall make the son of Tabeel king over it. Thus says the Lord: This counsel shall not remain, nor shall it come to pass; but the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. But yet in sixty-five years, the kingdom of Ephraim shall fail from the people; and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. And if you do not believe, neither shall you understand. I consider, therefore, that the prophets understood the word of God not by the perceptible hearing when the air is struck, but since there are ears of the intelligible soul, the meanings reached those ears, bare of voice. And this happened to them when the radiance of the true light reached their governing faculty and ministered to the illumination of the prophets. And those who had come outside the corruptible senses laid hold of this voice, and those who hasten toward the departure from the body. For when the soul is engaged in the contemplation of divine things, gathering itself from its entanglement with the body, it is said to go out; but when it is occupied with human things, either by reason of the necessity of caring for the body, or because it cannot extend further toward the things that excel, they come as it were from outside to the things within, as into some house or into a city, turning back to the sympathy for the body. Since, then, the prophet had to hear words of God, for this reason it was said to him before all things, "Go out, you and your son." And such, in a way, is also what is said in Genesis at the first oracle to Abraham:

Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house. For the most perfect departure is the rising above all bodily things, which are called land; and the flight from the senses, which are named kindred; and the turning away from the blameworthy life, in which he had previously been at home with contrary pursuits, which are called his father's house. And a little later it is written concerning the same Abraham: that God brought him outside. For since he saw his eagerness to go out, he himself led him by the hand to the perfection of the deed. For by himself he was not able to do it; therefore, at the first command also, if he should go out, he receives the promise of enjoyment. But when God brought him out, he taught him to seek the things above, where Christ is. And Moses too, when he had come to be outside human affairs, withdrawing in his mind to the contemplation of the oracles, pitched his tent far outside the camp. Therefore also everyone who seeks the Lord would go out to the tent. So that he who has advanced further from human affairs will pitch his own tent outside, so that his life, fixed and established, may remain unshaken. Therefore also now, when he is about to prophesy and to speak the things commanded by God, the Lord orders him to go out—not only him, but also Jashub who was left, his son. And it is made clear, as far as the account goes, that out of many one son had been left to him, and the word wished that this one too should not be left behind the father's disposition, but should go out together with his father to the things to which God was calling him.

Since Iasoub is interpreted as "returning," Scripture shows to all of us who wish to depart from the passions of the flesh through repentance that, having been with the Prophet, we are able to accomplish the exodus rightly. And he is commanded to go up to the upper road, the one that leads to the pool of the fuller's field. Now this place is also notable according to the historical account; for it is written that the king of the Assyrians sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem with a great force, and he stood at the conduit of the upper pool, on the road of the fuller's field. Perhaps the passage also has something instructive for the training of character: that one must stand away from lowly and earth-bound things and press on toward the things above; for when we arrive there, water for purification and a fuller's field will be found—the field of him who cleanses away filth—which serves us in relation to the precept of Ecclesiastes, who says: At all times let your garments be bright. And he who gives oracles to Moses commands the one who is about to hear God to wash his garments: Go down, testify to the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments, and let them be ready for the third day. And the one who arrives there will also have the wedding garment ready, so as not to be bound hand and foot and cast from the bridal chamber into the outer darkness. Say then (he says) to Ahaz: Be careful to keep quiet. This is also useful for us, so that with all vigilance we may guard our own heart.

For if a strong man guards his own courtyard vigilantly, all his possessions are in peace, and he himself is at rest, shaking off the crowd and the tumult and not fearing the passionate fear, no longer weak in soul but armed in the spirit of strength. And do not be afraid of the two pieces of wood, these firebrands that are smoking. It is a command to us not to be afraid of the Greek plausibilities and of the blasphemies among the heterodox, which are two pieces of wood—or rather two firebrands—having lost the vital power of the plant and the strength of the wood, and not having the brightness of fire, but smoking firebrands, blackening those who touch them and staining them, and causing the eyes of those who come near to weep. But if you wish to understand the harm that comes from the smoking firebrands, produced by the smoke within them, remember Solomon, who says: As a sour grape is harmful to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is lawlessness to those who use it. For I think that the sour grape refers to the sin that comes from the deeds of wickedness, and the smoke to the harm that comes from falsely so-called knowledge, confounding the discerning faculty of our soul. But when (he says) the anger of my wrath comes to be, I will heal again—that is, after the corrective blows, when I see that the correction is sufficiently complete, I will not leave them in the more sullen conditions, just as a physician might say to the sick: when I cut and when I cauterize, I will leave neither the incision nor the wounds from the cautery uncared for.

For when this is accomplished, for the sake of which the painful measures are undertaken, then, applying the remaining treatment, I will restore him to health. And the son of Aram and the son of Romelias, because they devised an evil plan, saying: Let us go up against Judea and, having conferred with them, we will turn them to ourselves, and we will make the son of Tabeel king over it. Thus says the Lord of Hosts: This plan shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass. Since, then, two words agree together, those outside the truth, against the Church, when the son of Aram (the lofty word, the one exalted against the knowledge of God) and the son of Romelias (the word from the lofty cutting) who, under the pretext of knowledge and the suggestion of teaching about loftier things, draws away from the truth that is according to the Church of God—these, then, have devised an evil plan, in that, having conversed with those in Judea, that is, with those in the soul that makes confession (for Judea is renamed as the confession of God), we might turn it to ourselves through the persuasiveness of dialectic, promising to give no other king than the son of Tabeel, that is, of the good God; whom they call the son of the good God, but do not name him good, having used the voice of the Gospel mockingly: Why do you call me good? No one is good except one, God. Whenever, then, you see the heterodox promising knowledge, bringing in the wisdom from the nations, waging war against the Church of God, consider that even now the son of Aram and the son of Romelias are devising an evil plan.

But to the evil counsel of the son of Aram and the son of Romelias (as we have set forth), the Lord says these things: that the counsel of God stands and remains, but the counsel of those who strive against the truth shall not stand, but shall lie fallen and overturned. For he says: The head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rasin; that is, the head of the lofty things is polluted and full of blood (since Damascus is interpreted as blood of a sack). Now a sack is a symbol of repentance; but he who is defiled in blood is not clean. It can therefore be taken to mean the supposed repentance, which is not true repentance, because it has not come to be in sound doctrines. And again the head of Damascus, of the repentance that is not pure but defiled in sins unto death, is called Rasin, being himself a symbol of nothing sound nor of any pure doctrine. But yet sixty and five years (he says) the kingdom of Ephraim shall fail from the people; and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of

of Romelias. The kingdom of Ephraim, then, is a certain dominion of the heterodox, because it was from such a tribe that the one who separated Israel from Judah came. The head of Ephraim, then, is Somoron, that is, Samaria. And Samaria is the country of certain enemies, of those who have falsified the sound word, because the Samaritans turned away from Judaism. And just as Damascus was the head of Syria, and Rasin the head of Damascus, so Samaria is the head of Ephraim, and the son of Romelias is the head of Samaria. Certain intensifications and excesses of evils are handed down to us through the word, so that it is not possible for the agreement of such men to prevail, nor to have any strength against those whom they attempt to plot against. And if you do not believe, neither shall you understand. One must, however, believe the Scriptures, that they contain a divine meaning, and so come to the understanding of what is written. For one must pass beyond the types, and thus grasp the truth of the things shown to us. For first one must believe with a simple faith the Scriptures, that they are God-inspired and profitable; then subtly and searchingly investigate the meaning stored up in them. And the Lord added to speak to Achaz, saying: Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord, into the depth, or into the height. In the earlier passages Achaz is taught through Isaiah what he ought to do, to beware of being quiet and not to be cowardly before the two smoking firebrands. But now, as having obediently received the teaching through the Prophet, he himself is deemed worthy of the divine oracles; for the Lord added to speak to him, to Achaz.

And perhaps we are taught that one who has been instructed through some servant ministering to the divine will, advancing later, will himself also be able to receive the oracles of the Lord. There are, however, some who, not having been instructed in God beforehand through men, were capable from the beginning, as being pure, to receive the impressions of the Spirit. Such was Abraham and Moses and Elijah and Jeremiah, and any who were like them. And the Lord proceeded to speak. The addition joins the account to what precedes. And it was fitting that after the prophecy concerning the fact that Ephraim, that is, the apostate Israel, would fail, it should then be prophesied in what manner Emmanuel would come among them through the undefiled Virgin. What then is it that the word commands Ahaz? Ask (it says) for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, into the depth, or into the height. A sign, then, is a manifest thing, having the declaration of something hidden and unseen within itself, as the sign of Jonah presents both the descent into Hades and again the ascent from the dead to those able to grasp the mystical account of what happens. It is always necessary that the sign be present and be observed in the present, while the thing signified by it is often distributed among the three times; for there are signs of present things that are present, as the smoke issuing from the house is of the fire burning within. There are also present signs of future things, as the observed gathering of the clouds is of the rain that will come upon the earth. And further, present signs of past things, as the remnants of the embers are of the fire having burned upon them.

Scripture, however, calls the paradoxical and striking signs of some mystical word. But what hearing or sight could be more paradoxical or more divine than the birth of our God through a Virgin? For this reason, Ask of the Lord your God (as though no other could give it) a sign either in the depth or in the height. In the arrangement of the world, then, the earth is what has by nature obtained the lower region, and the heaven is the highest of all things visible. Since, therefore, the Word became flesh, the prophecy signifies by "in the depth" the earth and the Flesh taken from it, and by "in the height" the super-heavenly Word, who is above every principality and authority, who was in the beginning with the Father, and who is God the Word. Or perhaps "depth" signifies the lowest parts of Hades, and "height" the super-heavenly region, as the Apostle sets before us, saying: Do not say in your heart, "Who will ascend into heaven?" — that is, to bring Christ down — or "Who will descend into the abyss?" — that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. Since, therefore, He who descended is Himself also He who ascended, the sign "in the depth and in the height" would be spoken concerning the descent of the Lord; and He who ascended is Himself above all the heavens. And Ahaz said: I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord. The gift of God is great and rich and abundant. But Ahaz, as not yet taught to ask for great and heavenly things, declines to seek a sign, as being greater than human nature, or as about to act contrary to the commandment that said: You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

Necessarily, the words concerning such great matters are addressed to the king who then held power, so that through him the things prophesied might be spread abroad to all. For perhaps Isaiah would have been disbelieved (either through the envy of the men of his time, or through the remaining lowliness of his life), as though he had not received from the Lord the oracle concerning the coming of Emmanuel, but had fashioned the word from his own heart. But Ahaz received the prophecy concerning things to come in such a way as Laban, as Abimelech, as Nebuchadnezzar, as Pharaoh, as Caiaphas finally—not because of the worth of his life, but insofar as the credibility that came to him from his rank. For certainly Ahaz did not decline the request for the sign out of any reverence; for if it had not been beneficial to him, God would not have commanded it in the first place. For this reason the words that follow also contain a reproach against Ahaz; for turning the word back to David, he says, Hear now, O house of David: is it a small thing for you to give men a contest? And how do you give one to the Lord? For through these words he seems to be displeased with the disobedience of Ahaz. But another version makes this thought somewhat clearer, saying: Is it a small thing from you to weary men, that you weary even God? But how does a man give a contest to God, if indeed a contest is a fear of falling? But this does not speak of a passion concerning God, but presents the opposition of those who set themselves against his commandments, through the term "contest." For this reason the Lord himself will give you a sign. And he will give it, he says, even to those who do not ask.

And even if he does not find one worthy of receiving it, nevertheless, because of the foreordained economy of the Lord's birth through the flesh, he says, the Lord God himself will give a sign. For Achaz ought to have understood that human affairs admit of no other correction except through the sojourn of the Word of God among men alone, and to have asked for a sign either in the depth or in the height. But since he judged himself unworthy—being uneducated in the asking of great and heavenly signs—for this reason he says: The Lord himself will give you a sign; he gives it not through some servant or minister or attendant, but himself through himself, so that from this the greatness of what is given might be made clear. For the law he arranged through angels, in the hand of a mediator, Moses; but the sign he himself gave to the house of David. And it is given no longer to Achaz, but to the whole house of David, because the Lord is from the seed of David according to the flesh; and for this reason the gospel concerning the sojourn of Christ pertained to the whole kindred of David. Behold, the Virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel. The Jews oppose the translation of the Seventy, saying that the Hebrew does not have "the Virgin," but "the young woman," since one who is in the prime of life can be called a young woman, but not a woman who has not known marriage. Against them the refutation is easy, even from this very point. For if a sign is the display of something wondrous and contrary to the common custom of men, what was wonderful in one woman among many, living with a husband, becoming the mother of a child?

But how could Emmanuel, who was born of the will of the flesh, have been given that name? So that, if what is given is a sign, the birth also must be extraordinary. But if the manner of the child's birth is ordinary, let it be called neither a sign nor named Emmanuel. So if the mother who gave birth was not a virgin, what kind of sign is this? And if the birth was not more divine than that of the many, how is it the coming of Emmanuel? That the young woman was specifically named for virgins is clear from what is said in Deuteronomy: But if in the field a man finds the girl who is betrothed, and forces her and lies with her, you shall kill the man only, and to the young woman you shall do nothing, because there is no sin deserving of death in the young woman; because as if a man should rise up against his neighbor and murder him, so is this matter. In the field he found her; the young woman cried out, and there was no one to help. The one who cried out, therefore, before her violation, was evidently a virgin. So it is equivalent to say, the virgin cried out, and the young woman cried out. And in the third book of Kingdoms, the Shunammite woman who warmed David, being a virgin and untouched by a man, is called a young woman. For they found (he says) Abishag and brought her to the king; and the young woman was exceedingly beautiful and she ministered to the king, and the king did not know her. From a holy virgin, therefore, comes Emmanuel, of her who said: How shall this be for me, since I do not know a man? To whom the Angel said: The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. She is not subject to the law concerning purification.

For it is written in Deuteronomy: A woman who has conceived seed and borne a male child shall be unclean seven days. But she, since she became the mother of Emmanuel without having conceived seed, is pure and holy and undefiled, and even after becoming a mother she remains still a virgin. For since the first Adam did not come into being through the union of man and woman, but was formed from the earth, so too the last Adam, renewing that corruption, received a body formed in the virgin's womb, so that in the likeness he might become that of sin through the flesh. And so that this extraordinary birth might not be entirely unbelievable to those who are disposed in a way that makes the divine economy hard for them to accept, the Creator made certain of the animals able to give birth from the female alone, without the coupling of males. For those who have written treatises on animals report such things about vultures. He shall eat butter and honey; before he knows or chooses evil, he shall choose the good. Emmanuel uses childish food because of the flesh—butter and honey. And yet, being in the state of an infant, because of the power of goodness dwelling in him, before the completion that comes with age, he will disobey wickedness and choose the good. For our nature has an equal inclination toward both sides, and often inclines toward evil, and often also toward good, as on a balance, now sinking down toward the passions of the soul, now again drawn up by reason toward the better. But the Lord is not so.

But his affinity for the good was evident immediately from his very first birth. For what is written? That before he knew or chose evil, he will choose the good. And running back to what is written in Genesis concerning the knowledge of good and evil, you will find there that Adam's condition before sin was very similar to what is now described: that he was in ignorance of evil by experience. Therefore the Lord also, in his childish disposition, imitated what was still unblemished and unwounded in Adam; and in rejecting wickedness, he corrected the lawlessness that came from disobedience. But, he says, God will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house days that have not yet come, since the time he removed Ephraim from Judah—the king of the Assyrians. The passage seems to hint at the last days, after the Passion of the Lord, when the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans came upon it. For after the coming of Emmanuel, the Lord will bring upon Ahaz

and his people and his father's house, days that have not yet come, since he was separated from Judah, carried away captive by the king of the Assyrians. But Ephraim revolted from Judah in the days of Jeroboam the son of Nabat, who caused Israel to sin, who first began the revolt, saying: We have no portion in David, nor inheritance in the son of Jesse. For this reason Ephraim drew the king of the Assyrians away from Judah to himself, walking about and not allowing him to press hard upon the siege of Jerusalem. And it shall be in that day: the Lord will whistle with flies, which rule a part of the river of Egypt; and with the bee, which is in the country of the Assyrians. And they shall come and all shall rest in the valleys of the country and in the holes of the rocks and in the caves and in every cleft and in every tree. Into Egypt (he says) my people went down to sojourn there; and they were brought by force to the Assyrians. For this reason he prophesies concerning the birth of Emmanuel, whether one of the people be in Egypt or among the Assyrians, that they shall come out and, having come into the country of Judea, shall rest in the natural and untroubled recesses. Flies, however, he says rule a part of the river of Egypt, and bees are in the country of the Assyrians, indicating the cheapness of the opposing powers. For a fly is a creature that has its origin from dung, a race troublesome to men and abominable, whose life is troublesome and whose death is loathsome. Then they rule a part of the river of Egypt.

For from the beginning the Nile, starting from the Ethiopians, has Egypt dwelling about a small part of itself, the part toward the mouths of the sea. In which place all the four-footed beasts and wild beasts and reptiles and birds, being made gods, are worshipped. These flies, then, the weakness of the opposing power, the Lord will destroy by his own hissing, that is, he will destroy by the spirit of his mouth. And in the land of the Assyrians by the bee. But the bee is also a small and weak creature, dying in that by which it defends itself. For at once it has driven in its sting, and it has died together with the blow; and it has harmed the one wounded but slightly, but has deprived itself of life. Such is the nature of bitter men and fighters against the Spirit, who harm themselves more by their wickedness than those who may fall in with their anger. And in that day the Lord will shave with the hired razor beyond the river of the king of the Assyrians the head, and will take away the hairs of the feet and the beard. After the birth of Christ, when all the opposing power, like flies and a bee, has been scattered by the spirit of the mouth of the Lord, the sons of Israel will be gathered together and will rest in the natural shelters, valleys and lands and the clefts and such things.

But "the Lord will shave with the hired razor of the king of the Assyrians the head, and the hairs of the feet, and will take away his beard." The word seems to hint through the hired razor at a certain mercenary force, which will make the kingdom of the Assyrians bare, and which will also strip away its glories, that is, the hairs of its head, and will destroy the great and common people, whom the word figuratively delivered as hairs of the feet. Then, moreover, it threatens that the most honored things themselves, and the symbols of manhood, which it called the beard, will be stripped away by the hired razor. And perhaps those who attend to the history will find that these things were done to the Assyrians by the Roman power, which take place at the birth of Emmanuel. "And it shall be in that day, a man shall nourish a heifer of oxen and two sheep, and it shall be from the abundance of milk, butter and honey shall everyone be eaten who is left on the earth." When rest comes to Israel, having been delivered from captivity, and the king who plotted against him is dishonored, stripped bare by the hired razor, then

(He says) such great prosperity will come about in the land that one heifer and two sheep will supply abundant milk to their owner, so that he will have a surplus of butter, because all the inhabitants of the land will be fed on butter and honey. But perhaps it is more fitting to understand the teachings about the animals in loftier thoughts. For instead of saying that each person will nourish the toilsome and agricultural part of the soul, he mentioned the heifer, the animal that is agricultural and cooperative with us; and instead of the gentle and reasonable and generous disposition, he figuratively called them sheep. For just as from this animal the material for our covering comes, so from the clothing of virtue the life of the diligent is naturally adorned. Since, then, he is both spiritually fed and adorned, for this reason he will feed a heifer and two sheep. Butter and honey he calls the introductory teachings that lead into divine instruction; for the first food devised for man was butter and honey. But when he has been sufficiently fed on these, after being grounded in the elements, then, transcending the things on earth, he will partake of firmer and greater food, such as befits men, giving himself over to spiritual lessons. And it will come to pass in that day, every place where there are a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels will become a dry waste and thorns. They will enter there with arrow and bow, because all the land will be dry waste and thorns, and every mountain that is plowed will be plowed. Fear will surely not come upon it there; for from the dry waste and thorns there will be pasture for sheep and a trampling-ground for oxen.

As in places hard to see clearly, we think we have found an account not entirely out of tune. Consider, then, whether you can grasp such a meaning concerning the literal words: that the thousand vines at a thousand shekels were those of the circumcision. For he brought a vine out of Egypt and, having cast out the nations, he planted it; which, having flourished before, was afterward neglected because it turned to bitterness; and its hedge was taken away, and it became a prey to those who passed by. Those vines, then, that were once fruitful became a dry land and a place of thorns, when the hostile army came upon them with countless missiles and arrows, bringing desolation. And the mountains being plowed are the souls that have believed in Christ: formerly desert and untilled, and for this reason they were dry and bore thorns before the coming of Christ; but since he came for the fall and rising of many and called the things that are not, in order that he might bring to nothing the things that are, for this reason those in circumcision, having lost their flourishing and their fruitfulness, turned into a dry land. But the company from the Gentiles, which is called a mountain being plowed, is plowed, having been freed from all cowardice and from fear of enemies. A mountain, then, is the soul exalted by the teaching of Christ. Since, therefore, the Lord came, Israel was broken off, but the Gentiles were planted, so that by their transgression salvation might be dispensed to all, and that sheep and cattle, grazing without fear on these mountains, might provide from themselves an abundant benefit. Clearly the sheep are those more gentle in character, and the cattle are those more industrious toward the working of necessities.

8. CHAPTER 8 And the Lord said to me: Take for yourself a large new scroll, and write on it with a man's pen, for the swift taking of spoils. For it is at hand. And make faithful men as witnesses, Uriah and Zechariah, the son of Barachiah. And I went in to the prophetess, and she conceived in the womb and bore a son. And the Lord said to me: Call his name, Swiftly despoil, Quickly plunder. For before the child knows to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians. The prophet, having been commanded one thing, will seem to have done another; for what has "Take for yourself a large new scroll" in common with what follows, that "And I went in to the prophetess, and she conceived in the womb"? Someone might say, then, that what follows is not a continuation of what precedes, but is delivered from its own beginning, that matter having been concluded. For even if it is not added that he took the new and large scroll, yet it is understood that he did what was commanded. But "And I went in to the prophetess, and she conceived in the womb" is understood from another beginning. For if the prophet had contradicted the command, the contradiction would have been written, as in the case of Ezekiel, who declined to eat bread baked on human dung. For there he refuses, saying: By no means, Lord, God of heaven, if my soul has not been defiled in uncleanness, neither has any defiled flesh entered into my mouth. Therefore it was permitted him to make his bread on cow dung.

Here, however, since there is no prohibition, the silence clearly indicates consent; but it is not attested that he did what was commanded. Just as with Hosea: Go (he says) take for yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry; then the word, testifying to him as having done what was commanded, adds: And he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. But elsewhere we shall find commandments uttered, while the deed is not attested to have occurred, yet is understood by us, because of the obedience of those commanded, as in the case of Ezekiel: And you shall sleep on your left side; and again: You shall sleep on your right side. For it has not been added that he slept on the right side or the left, but it has been passed over in silence; yet the prophet's obedience is understood by us. So then here too it is possible to defend ourselves concerning the question raised by us, that he did not, when commanded one thing, do another; but having completed that, he speaks to us from another beginning about the prophetess. Perhaps the volume of the New and great [covenant] is a type of the New and great Testament, written with a man's pen, because the words of the Gospel have been written in human language and one able to be heard by the many. In which it is written that he should swiftly make spoil of spoils, because the teaching of the Gospel has become swift and sharper than any lightning, reaching to the ends of the inhabited world, and despoiling the ruler of this age, and transferring those taken captive to obedience to Christ.

Prenomination is the distribution of spoils, which God has given to the Angels who are the overseers of the human race, for guardianship and salvation. For this reason it is written, to make a prenomination of spoils swiftly. For the Gospel is present: the one long awaited from heaven, this one present among us, it proclaims as good news. And let the witnesses of the things written in the Gospel be (he says) Uriah and Zechariah. Now Uriah is a priest, symbolically representing the law handed down through Moses; and Zechariah, a Prophet. And the Gospel is established as attested by the law and the Prophets. And Uriah is interpreted as the illumination of God; and Zechariah, the memory of God; and the son of Barachiah, of the blessing of God. What kind of faithful men, then, ought the witnesses to be? If anyone has been illuminated by God, and has a continual memory of God. What then is the phrase And they came near to the Prophetess? That is: I drew near, in spirit and by foreknowledge of things to come, to the Prophetess. For I grasped and, as it were, drew close in prophetic understanding, and I saw her conception from afar, having looked ahead by the grace of prophecy, that she bore a son, concerning whom the Lord said, that You shall call his name Speedily Spoil, Swiftly Plunder. Swiftly he spoiled the strong one, the one guarding his own

possessions, those sold under sin and held in the bonds of death. He despoiled him, and made him a prey for his own powers, distributing the faithful for guarding and protection to the holy Angels, about whom he himself also says, that Your Angels always behold the face of my Father who is in the heavens. For this is the one who swiftly took spoil, about whom it is written: Having ascended on high, he led captivity captive, he received gifts among men. And that Mary was a Prophetess, to whom Isaiah approached in the approach through knowledge, no one will deny, remembering her words, which she uttered prophetically. For what does she say? My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoiced in God my Savior, because he looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. And indeed, having attended to all her words, you will not hesitate to call her also a Prophetess. For the Spirit of the Lord came upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowed her. What therefore was commanded to be written in this book, having drawn near to the Prophetess, he saw accomplished. For there it is said: Write with a pen of a man, to make swiftly a prey of spoils; but here, after saying, that She conceived in the womb and bore a son, it is written: And the Lord said: Call his name, Quickly despoil, Swiftly take spoil. So that by different words and conceptions the same thing is said: in Take for yourself a book, and in I drew near to the Prophetess. And the introduction has nothing incongruous in relation to what is set before us.

This one also took the power of Damascus, the one born of the Prophetess, and the spoils of Samaria. The power of Damascus: those from the Gentiles who believe; the spoils of Samaria: those from the circumcision who have believed. For Damascus is the metropolis of Syria, and Samaria of Israel. Moreover, the commands and the valiant deeds of the one born of the Prophetess are set upon him by the Lord in place of names, just as the name Jesus was fitted to the Lord from the salvation given to us by God: For you shall call (he says) his name Jesus; for he himself will save his people from their sins. And the Lord added to speak to me further: Because this people did not want the water of Siloam, which goes quietly, but wanted to have Rezin and the son of Remaliah as king over you, for this reason behold, the Lord brings up against you the water of the river, the strong and the great, the king of the Assyrians and his glory; and he shall go up over every valley of yours and shall walk over every wall of yours and shall remove from Judea a man who is able to lift up his head, or is able to accomplish anything. And his camp shall be such as to fill the breadth of your land. What reason is there for the God of all, on account of the water in Siloam, to threaten the people with such things? And how is it that the people do not want the water of Siloam, which is reported neither to cause sickness nor to provide any other harm to those who use it? Then, what is the connection, that the one who does not want the water of Siloam should want Rezin and the son of Remaliah?

For what fellowship has water without soul with a king, who rules and governs his subjects? But Siloam must be understood figuratively, being interpreted according to the teaching of the Gospel as "sent." For thus it is interpreted in the Gospel according to John: "Go, wash in Siloam, which is translated 'sent.'" Who, then, is the one sent, and flowing without noise, but he of whom it is said: "The Lord has sent me and his Spirit"? And again: "He will not strive, nor cry out, nor will his voice be heard in the streets." Those, therefore, who do not receive the One sent from heaven, despising his gentleness, but drawing to themselves the son of Romelios—that is, a word containing false opinion, and promising to be proved according to the divine Scriptures—and Rasis, which is interpreted "lofty," and lifting the hearer on high outside the faith according to the divine Scriptures, and puffing him up and leading him away from the foundation of the faith. For Aram is interpreted "lofty." Those, then, who are contemptuous toward the steadfast word, and do not accept what is stable and calm and serene, but entwine the things from outside the faith with the mishearings from the Scriptures—to these the word threatens to bring upon them the water, great and strong, the king of the Assyrians, that is, the ruler of this age. For that Scripture often takes the adversary to mean the Assyrian is shown in what follows in this same Prophet.

For he says, "And it shall be, when the Lord has finished doing all things on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he will bring upon the great mind, the ruler of the Assyrians, and upon the height of the glory of his eyes." For he said: "In my strength I will do it, and in the wisdom of my understanding I will remove the boundaries of the nations, and I will plunder their strength and shake inhabited cities, and I will seize the whole world with my hand, as a nest, and as forsaken eggs I will take them up; and there is no one who will escape me, or contradict me." Such, then, does he seem to call even now the ruler of the Assyrians, being much water, in the manner of a torrent, violently and rushing headlong carrying away those who fall in its path; those who have been deemed worthy to pass through its temptations unharmed say: "Our soul passed through the torrent, the water that cannot be withstood." And the Gospel also makes mention of the same water in the parable, when it compares the one who hears the words and does not do them to a man who built his own house without a foundation; and when the flood came, he says, it did not withstand, but the house fell, and the fall of that house was great. And this much water, he says, shall come up upon every valley of yours. And the valleys are hollows of the earth. How then is the water said not to go down, but to come up? Because all the lowliness among men according to sin is higher than the chief sources and, as it were, the principalities of wickedness.

When, however, they have been handed over to the opposing powers, they will walk upon every wall of the apostates, that is, upon all their fortified doctrines and upon all their supposed strongholds. But because of the apostasy from Siloam and the inclination toward the destructive kings, the word threatens that every man will be taken away from Judea—every man able to lift up his head and every man able to accomplish something, that is, both the one exalted in the contemplation of the mind and the one who by practical virtue powerfully accomplishes what has been decided—and further, that the opposing power will encamp against the breadth of the land of those who do not receive Siloam. For because they have given themselves over to the broad and spacious way, they become worthy to be a camp for the opposing power, not condemned by necessity but choosing for themselves the worse portion. For insofar as they did not see fit to have God in their knowledge, God handed them over to a reprobate mind, to do things that are not fitting. God is with us. Know, you nations, and be defeated; hear, even to the ends of the earth. Therefore "God is with us" is referred to the Savior; for thus was the one born of the Virgin named in what came before, in the Hebrew tongue Emmanuel, which, when translated, is "God with us." Know, you nations, and be defeated. It seems to me that the utterance is spoken out of great joy by those who have come to know the presence of Christ and have understood that the power of the cross is fearful to the nations.

Therefore know, it says, O nations, and be defeated, so that, having been defeated with that noble and advantageous defeat, you may be taken captive into obedience to Christ and, through slavery to Christ, become free from the law of sin. How, then, are the nations defeated? If they come to know God. For darkness is defeated by the presence of light, and disease is conquered by the arrival of health. Only, then, know the truth, O nations, and at once you will be defeated with the defeat that saves you. Listen until the end of the earth. Listen to whom? To those who proclaim the Gospel to you; for, it says, their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the inhabited world. Having been strong, be defeated; put off the strength of the body, take up the weakness of the flesh, so that the power of God may be perfected in weakness. For if you become strong again, you will again be defeated. If ever the mind of the flesh rises up against you, be eager to enslave it and wrestle it down and subject it to the spirit. And whatever counsel you may deliberate, the Lord will scatter; and whatever word you may speak, it shall not remain among you, because God is with us. For he will destroy the wisdom of the wise and set aside the understanding of the prudent. The Angel of great counsel, then, abolishes human counsel, and the Word of God sets aside the human word. None of these, it says, shall remain among you, because God is with us. And it is useful in time of persecution, when you are of good courage, to say to the nations: For if you become strong again, you will again be defeated. For often, having risen up against the Church of Christ, they have often fallen.

For just as those who increase the flame by adding fuel to the fire raise it higher, so too those who have always been eager to destroy the Church have through persecutions advanced her to greater glory and power. Thus says the Lord: With a strong hand they disobey, in the course of the way of this people, saying: Never say, "It is hard"; for whatever this people says is hard. Do not fear their fear, nor be troubled. Sanctify the Lord himself, and he shall be your fear; and even if you have trusted in him, he shall be to you a sanctuary; and you shall not meet him as a stumbling-stone, nor as a fall of rock. After the word concerning the coming of Emmanuel has been proclaimed as good news, and, as it were, upon the victory over the nations that voice has been uttered ("Know, O nations, and be defeated; God is with us"), the word adds this, condemning the nations, that "they disobey with a strong hand." And the strong hand is the creative power of beings, from which the whole creation of things visible and things above the visible has come into being. For there are two ways by which we can be led to the knowledge of God and to care for ourselves: either from natural concepts, ascending through visible things to the Maker, or from the teaching given to us through the law. But these appear to disobey the strong hand as well—that is, they are not led from created things to the understanding of the one who made them—and to disobey the course, that is, the way. And the way is either the Lord, who said, "I am the way." The same is also the hand of God and the right hand. For your right hand, O Lord, it says, has been glorified in strength.

And I with my hand established the heaven. Therefore those who do not believe in the Lord are accused. Or he now calls "way" the journey of this life, the one appointed for us according to the law. For that teaching is called a way is evident from many places, since the Lord calls the teachers of the law blind guides. And "In the way of your testimonies I delighted." And "In your way I shall live." And "Blessed are the blameless in the way." And simply, Scripture is full of this, naming as a journey a certain progress through the law toward the perfection of the soul. And he adds the cause of their disobedience: they do not accept (he says) the commandments of the way which the word employs, but they disobey them, not bearing the harshness of what has been appointed. As also in the Gospel the Jews, not enduring the Lord's teachings, said: "This word is hard; who can hear it?" Hard for the fornicator is chastity, hard for the drunkard is self-control, hard for the reviler is blessing; and in general, to every neck desiring to live freely the yoke of the law appears hard. For this reason many (those being carried to destruction, because of the smooth and broad way) but few,

those who are set upon the kingdom, not enduring the rough and toilsome nature of the life according to virtue. For vice entices by the smoothness of pleasure; but virtue makes the life of those who practice it rough through hardships and toils. Because of the words of your lips, I kept hard ways. He calls "hard ways" the commandments given to us for the perfecting of our souls. What is harder than, when struck on the cheek, to turn to him the other also? Than for one being robbed, not to demand it back? Than for one dragged into court... to strip off and give up even the cloak? To bless when reviled? To entreat when blasphemed? To hate no one? To pray for those who persecute? But these hard things prepare for us the tender bosom of our father Abraham for rest. For blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. And almost all hardship here is the procurer of eternal goods. Therefore going they went and wept, casting their seeds. For the afflictions that now come upon us because of the law of God will be the seed of the good things to come. But coming they shall come with exultation, carrying their sheaves. The nations, then, are disobedient to the journey of the people, saying: Never say "hard." For whatever this people says is hard. Examine, then, those who sit at idols, for what reason they do not come to the teaching of the proclamation. For their more fair-minded ones confess that they cannot endure the severity. Then he adds: But do not fear his fear.

This is understood in two ways. For he speaks to the nations: Do not fear the fear that they now fear without instruction, not giving themselves over to the practice of better things—as if he were saying: Do not fear self-control, do not fear courage; do not fear piety; fear none of the virtues. They are gentle, easily approached, productive of good things, causes of life. Or, turning the statement around, he directs his words to the people: that those nations have supposed these things about you, not accepting union with you through the path of the law. But do not fear the plots of the nations against you; rather, having understood the Lord, sanctify him. And he himself will be your fear. It is the greatest thing for perfection, to fear in a disciplined way and not to be terrified at everything, nor to be frightened by every sound, fearing things that are not to be feared. For the psalm condemns such people, saying: There they will fear with fear, where there was no fear. Sanctify the Lord, therefore. And he himself will be your fear. Await his coming; fear his judgment. Fearful is he who repays each according to his works; fearful is he who is about to be revealed from heaven with a voice of a trumpet with holy angels; fearful is he whose sentence is eternal punishment. If, then, you are confident in the Lord, you will not encounter him as a stone of stumbling, nor as a rock of falling. The word clearly calls us to faith in our Lord Jesus. For it has been said concerning him: Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. The blind, who cannot see the things at their feet, stumble over the stones; and those whose steps are not secured slip on the rocks.

He, then, who has taken no care for the discerning faculty of the soul, nor recognized the coming of the Lord through the teaching of the Scriptures, stumbles at the proclamation of the Gospel; and he who is easily turned aside in faith is scandalized at the rock, which is Christ. But you (he says), the people, if you are trusting and firmly established upon the Lord with perfect faith, will not encounter the word concerning him as a stumbling-stone, nor will you fall over it as by the fall of a rock. Perhaps the foolishness of the proclamation is a stumbling-stone to the Greeks, who seek wisdom; and it is a rock of scandal to the Jews, who ask for signs. For this reason Paul said that the proclamation is to the Jews a scandal, and to the nations foolishness. But to those who trust in the Lord and do not subject the simplicity of the proclamation to rational demonstrations, nor test the truth by signs, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Then those who seal the law will be made manifest, so as not to learn. And he will say: I will wait for God, who has turned his face away from the house of Jacob, and I will trust in him. The word depends on the sequence of what precedes. Behold, the Virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. And again, coming after, he says: God with us; know, you nations, and be defeated. Then, against those who do not accept what is announced by Emmanuel, but turn aside from the laboriousness of what has been appointed by him, he directs the word.

Then, he says, those who seal the law so that it cannot be learned will be exposed. For when the word of teaching is sown into all, some set their hearts upright to receive the teachings; and they are like good soil, receiving the word and rooting it deep and not choking it with thorns, nor keeping it unguarded so as to be easily plundered by the devil, but bearing fruit in thirty and sixty and a hundred. But there are also those who shut their soul entirely so as not to receive the word, but as it were binding themselves and sealing themselves, so that the word of truth may not enter. Those are said to be sealed who have made themselves like the form of the adversary and do not allow Christ to be formed in them, who have falsified the image of the heavenly one and rejoice only in the image of the earthly one. The law has been sealed by obscurity and by not being easy for just anyone to grasp, because of the training in the law that is necessarily sought out. Therefore, he who does not give himself to study, nor desires to loose the bond of ignorance, is said to seal the law, which will be made manifest on the day of revelation. For those who seal the law so that it cannot be learned will be exposed. How, then, do the Jews seal the law, concerning whom it has been said, You have taken away the keys, and you neither enter yourselves, and you hinder those who are able to enter? He seals it so that it cannot be learned, who, on the pretext, to be sure, of keeping according to the letter, does not reveal the mysteries that are in the depth; and consider what he says, whether the expressions are not plainly Jewish.

I will wait for God, who has turned his face away from the house of Jacob. These things the Jews say: I do not believe in God; I do not receive Emmanuel; even if I have now been forsaken, yet at some time I will wait for the visitation of God, who has turned his face away from the house of Jacob. Behold, I and the children whom God has given me. And they shall be for signs and wonders in the house of Jacob, from the Lord Sabaoth, who dwells on Mount Zion. After those who disobey have been reproved, then at last the Lord himself speaks in his own person. Those men, then, he says, disobey with a strong hand, and by the conduct of the way of this people, and they pretend to wait for the Lord, who has turned his face away from the house of Jacob. But I, taking to myself those who have believed in me, who have just now been born again by putting off the old man and taking up the new, as it were newly born children, tender in manner and inexperienced in evil, and who have now been weaned from the introductory words and are advancing to the more perfect food of the mysteries—these I take to myself and warm in the bosom of my compassion, and I bring them to the Father. For through me is the way of the knowledge of him. And that these words are spoken in the person of Christ, no one who remembers the Epistle to the Hebrews will deny. For it was fitting, he says, that he for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, should perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies, he says, and those who are sanctified, are from

...all of one. For which reason he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying: I will declare your name to my brothers. And again: Behold, I and the children whom God has given me. And there shall be (he says) signs and wonders in the house of Jacob. By these children who have been reborn by Christ, mighty signs and wonders shall be accomplished in the house of Jacob. The Apostles were children, infants in malice; who first, speaking in tongues—uneducated men and Galileans—made manifest to all the coming of the Spirit, and the distribution of the gifts that came upon them, and the division of tongues. Then a known sign: the lame man who sat at the Beautiful Gate, made sound in his feet by Peter and John through the invocation of the name of Christ, his feet being made firm. On which account also the ancient prophecy was fulfilled: Then shall the lame man leap as a deer. A sign was Dorcas, raised from the dead. A sign was the iron gates of the prison, opening of their own accord at Peter's exit, the bonds being loosed, and whatever else was done through the Apostles for the manifestation of the divinity of the Only-Begotten. But all these signs and wonders are from God Sabaoth, who dwells in Mount Zion. It is fitting to understand God Sabaoth as the God of hosts. And who else is Lord of the hosts than he who is called the commander-in-chief of the power of God, by whom the signs have been given to the children? And that those who have believed in Christ are children is clear both from the Lord's having said (concerning those who praise him and say—

Hosanna in the highest, against the Jews who said to him: Do you not hear what these are saying? Because out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have prepared praise. For he called infants there those who cut the branches of palm trees and spread their garments in the way, and those who cried out and glorified him. But also elsewhere: I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and have revealed them to infants—calling infants those who were discipled by the word and were deemed worthy through the Spirit of the revelation of the mysteries. Behold, then, I and the children—he shows his elect, because God has chosen the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame the wise. Therefore everyone who has put off the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of deceit, and has put on the new, who is renewed according to the image of the one who created him, is a child according to the mystery of Christ. And if they say to you: Seek those who speak from the belly and those who speak from the voice, those who babble emptily, who speak from the belly—will not a nation inquire of its God? Why do they inquire of the dead concerning the living? For he gave the law for help, that they might say: Not as this word, concerning which there are no gifts to give concerning it. And a hard famine will come upon you, and it will be, whenever you are hungry, you will be grieved and will speak evil of the ruler and the ancestral customs. And they will look up to heaven above, and they will look down to the earth below. And behold, narrow perplexity and darkness, affliction and constraint, and darkness, so that one cannot see.

And he who is in straits shall not be at a loss, until the time. Those who do not receive the word of the Gospel, who despise the preaching as foolishness, and who are scandalized at the cross, when we advise them to return to the knowledge of the truth, set before us in return the counsels that come from their own error, saying: Seek not the Lord, but the ventriloquists, and those who speak from the belly, those who babble empty things. And experience is the witness of this. For those who are devoted to idols, who give heed to dreams and omens and the divinations of demons, both despise the truth themselves and advise us to consult such things. For workings of error are wrought by the demons for the destruction of those who have been persuaded by them: now, in sleep, sending round certain phantasms, either containing a suggestion of bodily passion, or foretelling the future. And such things the demons are able to discern: concerning the passions of the body, because they are more sharp-sighted than material natures, and because they have examined the qualities of plants and the suitability that comes from them for the passions. And concerning future things, they often foretell what has already happened, but is not yet known to us, announcing it to us as if it were going to happen to us. For example, if someone, having heard from us of the arrival of someone, should announce this to one who is expecting it as something about to happen, hunting through deceit the reputation of being a prophet from the mere appearance of it. So also the demons have often announced the things that have been determined, the things published by the decree of God, to those who are easily disposed to deception. As also the ventriloquist announced to Saul through the demons the coming defeat.

For they were demons who fashioned themselves into the person of Samuel, who, because they had heard the condemnation pronounced against Saul, recount the sentence issued by God as if it were their own. The nations, then, often urge us on to the deceits of the demons, saying: Seek out the ventriloquists, those who speak from the earth. For they do not dare to say that their words are from the heavens. As also that woman in the Books of Kingdoms who conversed with Saul said, "I see gods ascending from the earth." For such is the notion of ventriloquists: they promise to bring up the souls of the dead into manifestation of the things sought after; then he adds his own opinion, which he holds concerning such notions, and declares them to be babblers, saying: "Those who utter empty words, who speak from the belly," that is, speaking from their own will. For he does not speak having been taught from elsewhere, but having molded the lie in his own heart, guessing at the will of those who see, he says what is useful to him for the deception of the foolish. Or perhaps they speak from the belly, "whose god is the belly," those who do everything for the sake of pleasure in eating and drinking. So that one would not err in saying that ventriloquists and those who speak from the belly are those who fashion a teaching for themselves in order to fill the stomach, and wrap themselves in the form of piety; who, because they do not bring forth words from a disposition, utter empty words. And reasonably so; for he who does not do, and yet teaches, is untrustworthy for benefit.

But the phrase "Shall not a nation inquire of its own god?" is of this sort: that each nation brings to its own god the inquiry it wishes to learn about. And the reading must be punctuated as a question, for the clarity of the saying: "Shall not a nation inquire of its own god?" So that those outside our worship, in accordance with the gods they supposed to be gods, also bring their questions to them. For having supposed dead gods, they inquire of them concerning the living. And he calls them dead, either the lifeless idols—stones and wood, bronze and gold—or he calls dead those who have cast off true life through apostasy. Or perhaps the whole business of those called ventriloquists is also turned toward tombs, and from there has the power of its sorcery. Then, impatient at the folly of the idolaters, the word says: Why do they inquire of the dead concerning the living? Why do you worship the stone, you who are alive? Why do you question the dumb, you who are rational? For the sake of your living child you entreat one that has no life, one deprived of life, one without breath? Even if you go to an oracle, even if you go around purifications, you have gone to the dead, and those who have themselves lost life and are about to produce death in you through disobedience. He has given a law for help, that they may say: "Not as this word, concerning which there are no gifts to give concerning it." Do not be busy about the future, but arrange the present for what is useful. For what is the benefit of your foreknowledge? If what is to come will be good, it will come even if you do not foreknow it; but if it is painful, why