Commentariorum In Micheam Prophetam Libri Duo

The Two Books of the Commentaries of Saint Eusebius Hieronymus, Presbyter of Stridon, on the Prophet Micah.

PROLOGUE 1.

Micah, on whom I now wish to dictate commentaries, is third in the order of the twelve prophets according to the Seventy translators; according to the Hebrew, he is sixth, and he follows the prophet Jonah, who succeeds Obadiah, and thus it comes about that Amos is third, and Joel is second after Hosea, who is first among all. Therefore, as though placed in the heart of the volume, he ought to contain deep mysteries, and the word of God, which always descends to the prophets, descends also to Micah, whose name is interpreted as humility: to Micah of Moresheth, which to this day near Eleutheropolis, a city of Palestine, is a small village of no great size. But Moresheth in our language sounds as "heir." Rightly, then, humility, which is among the virtues perhaps the chief, is born from the hope of the Lord's inheritance. But this is not that humility which comes from the consciousness of sins, but the one which is counted among the virtues, according to which it is said: "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in the time of visitation" (1 Peter 5:6). And: "Whoever humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 18:14). And: "Before contrition the heart of man is lifted up, and before glory it is humbled" (Proverbs 16:18). Whence also the Lord says: "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart" (Matthew 11:29).

How, then, among us names are given as vows, and as it were under the auspices of virtue—for example, Victor, Cattus, Pius, Probus—and among the Greeks a name is also called and appellative nouns are turned into proper names, so among the Hebrews both Micah, and Obadiah, and Zechariah, and others similar to these, are imposed on children by their parents from the word of virtues.

BOOK ONE.

(Ch. I—Ver. 1.) "The word of the Lord which came to Micah the Morasthite, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah: which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem," or according to the Septuagint, "concerning which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem." The word of the Lord, therefore, came to Micah after Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah, who prophesied under Uzziah. From this we understand that Micah did not prophesy in the times of Uzziah, but of his son Jotham, after whom Ahaz reigned, Hezekiah succeeding to the rule of his father Ahaz, under whom the ten tribes were led into captivity by the Assyrians (2 Kings 18). As far, therefore, as pertains to history according to the order of captivity (because Samaria, the metropolis of Israel, was captured first, and afterward Jerusalem, the city of Judah), the title of the prophecy is set first concerning Samaria, second concerning Jerusalem. But as far as pertains to mystical understandings, because Samaria is always taken for heresies, Jerusalem for the Church, we say that the word of the Lord comes to the humble (Al.

and to the co-heir of Christ, concerning perverse doctrines and concerning the Church, if perchance she has committed any sins, and to weave together the order of the whole volume. But that Samaria and the ten tribes, which were torn away from the stock of David under King Jeroboam (1 Kings 13), are to be understood in the person of heretics, all Scripture indeed testifies, but most of all the prophet Hosea, and this very book, which calls heretics impious and churchmen sinners. For immediately it follows: What is the impiety of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the sin of the house of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? This, at least, according to the Seventy translators. But how it is read in the Hebrew, we shall set forth a little later. Yet also that which heretics always trust in for themselves, as it were, in the sublimity of their doctrines, and despise the simplicity of the Church, is said in another place: Woe to you who despise Zion and trust in the mountain of Samaria (Amos 6:1); for from Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isa. 2:3). Moreover, Samaria fashioned for itself golden calves out of its own understanding, having indeed beauty on the surface, but not having a living spirit: and it fashioned them in the house of God, which is interpreted Bethel. For the people of Israel could not look upon gods, except those which were fashioned from the Scriptures and in the house of God.

But although they call their assembly places Bethel, nevertheless after the making of idols it ceased to be Bethel and is called Bethaven, which means "house of the idol," for which the Seventy translated "house." This much concerning the title; now let us come to the beginning of the prophecy, and with the Lernaean beast, the Hydra, raging, let us invoke the coming of the Holy Spirit. You, O Paula and Eustochium, pour out prayers to the Lord Savior, that envy may not harm me, but that my mind, free, may think only of that which it strives to explain, and may not feel the blows of insults, which the Lord despised in his passion (Mark 14; John 18, 19).

(Verse 2.) "Hear, all you peoples, and let the earth and its fullness give heed, and let the Lord God be a witness to you, the Lord from his holy temple." The Seventy: "Hear, all you peoples, and let the earth listen, and all who are in it, and let the Lord God be to you as a testimony: the Lord from his holy house." Because according to the historical sense the meaning is manifest, I leave the understanding to the prudence of the reader. But according to the tropological sense, he summons the peoples to hear, that is, the Churches of the whole world, and the earth to listen, because in it the earthly dogmas of heretics have been built up. But that heresies are numbered among the works of the flesh, which is always referred to the earth, the Apostle does not keep silent to the Galatians (Gal. 5), and the Lord in the Gospel indicates to the prudent hearer: "He who is of the earth is of the earth and speaks of the earth" (John 3:31).

And again, to distinguish them, he speaks of the things of the church: "He who comes from heaven is above all"; and: "What he saw and heard, this he testifies." But if this that he says, "Hear, you peoples," on account of that dominical saying, "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear," sounds like something more than what is afterward added, "Let the earth attend," we will apply "Hear, all you peoples" to the Church. But to the heretics who have taken up an earthly doctrine, "Let the earth attend, and all who are in it," so that both these, if they hear, and those, if they attend, may not suffer the things which the word of the Lord afterward threatens. And let the Lord be to them as a witness, or, as it is read in Hebrew, as a testifier, or, as Symmachus translated more plainly, testifying—and testifying from no other source than from his own house, which is the Church, or certainly in the Son, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is truly the temple of the Father, and from whose mouth the Father speaks, penetrating the inmost parts and marrow of those who have wished to attend and to hear.

(Verse seq.) "For behold the Lord will go forth from his place, and will descend and tread upon the high places of the earth, and the mountains will be consumed beneath him, and the valleys will be split like wax before fire, like waters that run down headlong: all this is for the crime of Jacob, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the crime of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?" The LXX: "For behold the Lord will go forth from his place, and will descend, and will come down upon the high places of the earth, and the mountains will be moved beneath him, and the valleys will melt like wax before fire, and like water flowing down in a descent; because of the impiety of Jacob all these things, and because of the sin of the house of Israel. What is the impiety of the house of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the sin of the house of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?" O Samaria and Jerusalem, hear, and diligently attend to the Lord testifying to you from his temple, and foretelling whatever he is going to do. Behold, the Lord will go forth from his place. For he who is gentle and kind, and whose nature is mercy, for your sake is compelled to assume the role of cruelty, which he does not have. And he will descend and tread upon the high places of the earth. The descent of God, and the coming down of his majesty to lower things, is to tread the earth and to crush all the powerful. And there will be consumed, he says, or there will melt away, the mountains and the valleys beneath him—which we understand as the princes and the peoples.

And just as wax does not withstand the nearness of fire, and waters are borne headlong in a downward course, so all the pride of the impious, when the Lord comes, will be dissolved and flow away. But all this will happen because of the sins of the ten tribes, which he calls Jacob and Israel, and because of the transgression of Judah; since Samaria was the capital of the ten tribes, and in the kingdom of Judah Jerusalem fashioned idols of the high places: this according to the letter. But tropologically, the Lord will go forth from his place, whom we can understand either as the Son or as all the saints. For the Son himself says: I am in the Father, and the Father in me (John 14:10). And concerning the saints: I will dwell and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people (Leviticus 26:12). From these, therefore, he will go forth, not that he forsakes them, for the word of the Lord also went forth from the apostles to those who heard, and yet he did not leave them; and such places, that is, those which deserve to have God as a guest, as it were rising again with Christ and sitting with him in the heavenly places, are set on high. Hence he is also said to descend to those who cannot hear his teaching on the mountain. And when he has descended, he will not ascend in the humble and in those who are placed below; but those who are called the high places of the earth, and who understand the majesty of the coming Lord, will be shaken. And although they are mountains, yet they will tremble at the presence of such a charioteer and rider.

But the valleys, that is, souls inserted into earthly bodies and not rising again with the heavenly man, will not be able to bear his presence; but whatever in them is hard will be dissolved, and they will flow just as waters do when they have no level ground and are borne headlong into the deep. The Lord will therefore come terrible to teach, that is, to move the mountains and to dissolve the low places of the valleys, because Jacob has committed impiety and Israel sin. For the impiety of Jacob is the conventicles of heretics, which are called Samaria. And the sin of Judah, that is, of him who confesses the Lord, is nothing other than Jerusalem, in which many crimes are found. But that the house of Judah refers to Christ, whose Church it is, we have often said, and let us set down this for the present: Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hands shall be on the back of your enemies (Gen. 49:8). It can also be understood in this way: that because of the impieties of Samaria and the crimes of Judah, the Lord departed from what was once his place, and said to the Jews: Behold, your house is left to you desolate (Matt. 23:38; Luke 13:35).

And he descended from the heavens, and ascended over the high places of the earth, that is, over those who, believing from the lowliness of the nations, have merited to be high. And the mountains were moved—the dogmas of the philosophers, and lofty kingdoms—and those who remained humble were consumed and crushed by the Savior's coming, and as the Church grew and the mountains rose on high, the idols fell into the deep. Therefore the Lord went forth from his place, and the Church was built up from the nations, so that the mountains might be moved beneath his feet and the depths of the valleys dissolved, because Jacob acted impiously and Israel sinned, and all the tribes denied the Lord.

(Vers. seq.) "And I will make Samaria like a heap of stones in a field, when a vineyard is planted, and I will drag down her stones into the valley, and I will reveal her foundations, and all her carved images shall be cut down, and all her wages shall be burned with fire, and I will put all her idols to perdition, because they were gathered from the wages of a harlot, and unto the wage of a harlot shall they return. Over this I will lament and wail, I will go spoiled and naked, I will make a lamentation like dragons, and mourning like ostriches, because her plague is desperate, because it has come even to Judah, it has touched the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.

The Septuagint reads: "And I will make Samaria a place for the keeping of apples in the field, and a planting of a vineyard: and I will drag down her stones into the pit, and I will reveal her foundations, and all her carved images shall fall, and all her wages shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will put to destruction, because she gathered them from the wages of fornication, and from the wages of fornication she destroyed them. Therefore she shall wail and mourn, she shall go barefoot and naked, she shall make a lamentation like dragons, and a mourning like the daughter of the Sirens, because her plague has prevailed, because it has come even to Judah, and has touched even to the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem." According to the order of sins, the order of punishments is made. Samaria sinned first, and made idols, and instead of the Lord worshiped calves: therefore let her also perish first. I will destroy her, when the Assyrians come, and I will make her like a heap of stones when a vineyard is planted, so that she may be reduced to mounds: And I will drag down her stones into the valley. For she was situated on the mountains, where now Sebaste is, in which also the bones of Saint John the Baptist are buried, And I will reveal her foundations. For so great will be the ruin, and so great the overthrow of the city, that not only the walls and buildings will collapse, but the foundations also will be revealed all the way to the last stone. And all her carved images, and all the riches which various kings had brought together into her, shall be cut down and burned with fire, and reduced to nothing.

Indeed, the wealth and manifold furnishings that had been gathered from the fornication (as they thought) of idols will be led away to another harlot, that is, to Nineveh; so that just as in their own land they committed fornication with the idols that they made, so they may go to another land of idols and fornication, that is, to the Assyrians. Thus far concerning Samaria. And because the same plague is going to reach Jerusalem (for she too sinned with a similar error, forsaking her God and fashioning idols), therefore the prophet acts as it were in God's place, and in his own person introduces the feeling of one who laments, and says: "Over this I will lament and wail: I will go stripped and naked" (for I have lost the ten tribes) "and I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the ostriches." For just as dragons resound with a terrible hissing, according to the accounts of those who have written on natural history, at the time when they are overcome by elephants; and as ostriches are forgetful of their eggs, and, as though they had not laid them, leave their young on the sand to be trampled by the feet of beasts (Job 39), concerning which it is written more fully in Job: so I too will walk stripped and naked, without children. And I will do this, because her plague, that is, Samaria's, is desperate. And the same sin, or rather the same penalty of sin, which overthrew Samaria, will come even to Judah, and even to the gate of my city Jerusalem. For as Samaria was overthrown by the Assyrians, so Judah and Jerusalem will be overthrown by the Chaldeans.

But since we have once understood Samaria to be the church of the heretics, which, separated from God, has become a gathering-place of the people, the Lord himself threatens that he will make it a place for keeping fruit, into a field and a planting of a vineyard. For it is much better for a useless city to be overthrown, and for its stones, with which it had been built, to be dragged down headlong, and for it to be prepared as an orchard and a planting of vineyards, than for it to remain in the worst kind of building. For when it has been destroyed, and its foundations have been laid bare (the foundations by which it seemed to hide its mysteries, and to hold firm doctrines on which it stood, and all the idols that seemed to have an appearance, and a beauty composed by artificial speech), and they have been cut down by the ministers of God, that is, by ecclesiastical men, then in the place of the worst kind of building, various fruits of the Church will spring up, and not only spring up, but will also be guarded, and the vineyard of Sorec will be planted, from which may be made the wine that the Lord promised he would drink in the kingdom of his Father (Mark 14). But not only will its foundations, which were previously pressed down by the earth, be opened and brought forth into the open, and the idols that they had fashioned for themselves be cut down; but also the glory and riches that it seemed to have from fornication and from its error will be consumed by my fire, of which I said in the Gospel: I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled (Luke

and they will be burned and reduced to nothing, because the doctrines were not gathered from the truth, but from the fornication of the soul and from error collected here and there. For heretics do not have riches coming from the father's inheritance, but daily they find something to worship, and with a craftsman's hand and a curious mind they fashion idols for themselves. For this reason, when their field has been turned into a place for keeping fruit, and prepared for vineyards, and the stones with which the city had been built have been dragged into the depths, and their foundations have been laid bare, and all their carved images have been cut down and burned, and the wages which they promised themselves in vain hope, and whatever they seemed to worship as a god, have been reduced to nothing—because through the fornication of the soul they had purchased every advantage for themselves—then, understanding their former error, turning back upon themselves, they will lament over the things at which they once laughed, and they will mourn over the things in which previously, fornicating as it were, they rejoiced. And they will lay aside from their feet whatever deadly thing they had, and they will be barefoot, because the land in which they are to stand is a holy place, and they will cast off all the garments of their fornication; and they will be naked, so that they can be clothed with the garment of Christ, and they will make a lamentation like that of dragons. For at some time even dragons will lament, when they see the great dragon caught and hanging on the fisherman's hook, and the sea laid waste.

And they will mourn like the daughters of the Sirens, for the doctrines of the heretics are sweet, and with their soothing voice they deceive the peoples. Nor can anyone pass by their songs unless he has stopped up his ear and escaped like a deaf man. For this reason Samaria of this kind will wail and mourn, because, wounded by the arrow of the Lord and receiving the blow of the word, she will recognize her own error. But she did not sin alone; she also wished to bring her iniquity and error into Judah. Whence it is said of her: She has come even to Judah, and has touched even to the gates of my people, even to Jerusalem. The gates, he says, which we understand as the ears. Otherwise she could not enter the middle of the city; for if she had entered, she would have made Jerusalem into Samaria. Whenever we see some from the Church scandalized by the words of heretics and seeking how to answer their questions, and yet not withdrawing from the Church, let us say: Samaria has come, or the blow of Samaria, even to the confessing people, even to the ears of the people of God, even to the ears of Jerusalem. For what is said, she has touched even to the gates of my people, is to be understood thus, that there is implied also, she has touched even to the gates of Jerusalem. Thus far against Samaria and against Jerusalem; let us see also the rest that follows.

(In the following verse.) «In Geth do not announce, do not weep with tears; in the house of dust sprinkle your voice with dust; pass on for yourselves, O dwelling of Saphir, confounded with ignominy; she who dwells in Sennan has not gone out; she will receive from you; she who stood for herself, because she has been weakened in good, she who dwells in Maroth; because evil has come down from the Lord into the gate of Jerusalem. The tumult of the chariot of stupor to the inhabitant of Lachis, the beginning of the sin of the daughter of Sion: because in you the crimes of Israel have been found? Therefore he will give emissaries over the inheritance of Geth: houses of falsehood into the deception of the kings of Israel. Still I will bring an heir to you who dwell in Maresa; even to Odollam the glory of Israel will come.»: «You who are in Geth, do not magnify yourselves; you who are in Bachim, do not rebuild from the house of derision: sprinkle the earth with your derision, you who dwell well in its cities: the female inhabitant of Sennan has not gone out. Lament the house next to her: she will receive from you the blow of sorrow, who has taken in good, she who dwells in sorrows? because evils have come down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem. The sound of chariots and horsemen, the dwelling of Lachis: she is the chief of the sin of the daughter of Sion: because in you the iniquities of Israel have been found. Therefore he will give emissaries even to the inheritance of Geth: empty houses: they were in vain for the kings of Israel; until I bring heirs to you, who dwell in Lachis, the inheritance will come even to Odollam.

The Hebrew word "Mullum" disagrees with the interpretation of the Septuagint, and both my translation and theirs are involved in such great difficulties that if we have ever needed the Spirit of God (and we always need his coming when expounding the Holy Scriptures), now especially we should desire him to be present and to reveal what he has spoken in the prophets, so that what he himself deigns to promise elsewhere may be understood of us as well: "Open your mouth, and I will fill it" (Ps. 80:11). Geth, as the history of the Kingdoms also testifies (1 Kings 17), is one of the five cities of Palestine, near the border of Judea, and for those going from Eleutheropolis to Gaza, even to this day a very large village, from which came that Goliath the Gethite whom David killed in battle. Since therefore the prophet, or rather the Lord through the prophet, had said: "I will mourn and wail, I will go stripped and bare; I will make lamentation like the dragons, and mourning like the ostriches, because the plague of Samaria is desperate and incurable, and it has come even to Judah, and has touched the gate of my people Jerusalem," for this reason I command with the voice of one still weeping: "Do not announce in Geth, lest the enemies hear and rejoice. Do not weep with tears," that is, let not even grief burst forth into sobs: disguise your weeping, lest the adversaries rejoice; let your mouths have no tears, while your breast has grief; do not go outside, but in the house of dust, and with falling ashes sprinkle yourselves with ruins.

Pass through for yourselves, O habitation of Saphir ( ), which in Syriac and Hebrew speech is called beautiful—for Samaria, situated in the most beautiful and most fertile place of Judea, is even now shown. It is said to her, therefore: O you who dwell in a most fertile region, because you have been confounded with disgrace, so pass through, so be led away into captivity, that by reason of the magnitude of evils not even the neighboring foreigner may hear your voice. Furthermore, what follows: She who dwells in Sennam has not gone forth—which is interpreted as "going out," or, as Symmachus translates, "the abundant habitation has not gone forth"—is said of the same Samaria, which is at the very gates of the Assyrian captivity, and as soon as she has been moved from her borders, she enters hostile land. For "abundant habitation" is to be understood according to what we have already said above, namely "beautiful habitation." Therefore she who dwells in the going out or in her own abundance has not gone forth of her own will, but has been led by force into Assyria. Hence the neighboring house and at her side, which is interpreted as Asel ( ), namely the kingdom of Judah, will receive lamentation from you, which in the meantime, now that Samaria has been captured, has stood firm and has had God as its defender.

But she has received the lament and has been struck with dread, and has been weakened in her good—she who dwells in Maroth, that is, in bitterness, or, as Symmachus translates, a dwelling that provokes to bitterness, that is, what in Hebrew is called IOSEBETH MAROTH, because of the captivity of the neighboring tribes, since evil has come down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem. For the Assyrian, after Samaria was laid waste, came even to Jerusalem, at the time when Rabshakeh was sent to insult, concerning whom both the fourth book of Kings and Isaiah write more fully. There it is said that the king of Assyria sent from Lachish to Jerusalem, and afterward, when Lachish was taken, crossed over to attack Libnah. Therefore he will come, O Lachish, city given over to idols, and to you too the chariot and horsemen of the Assyrians, because in you also the crimes of Israel were found, and you were the beginning of idolatry in Judah; for through you, as through a gate, the impiety of the ten tribes passed over into Jerusalem. But not only will tumult and chariots come upon Lachish, but also upon Gath, the metropolis of Palestine, of which I had said above: Do not announce it in Gath; for the Assyrian will send his brigands, whom he calls emissaries, and he will possess the house of idolatry and the city of falsehood, which was in the supplanting of the kings of Israel.

But what follows: "I will yet bring an heir to you, who dwells in Maresa," he has cleverly alluded to the name; for since MARESA means "inheritance," he called the enemy's arrival upon her "for heirs," and MARESA, that is, "inheritance," will come even to Odollam, a city of Judah, which Odollam is glorious among its cities of Israel. Finally Symmachus too translated it thus: that is, "I will yet bring an heir even to you, dwelling of Maresa; the glory of Israel will come even to Odollam," that is, "you who are glorious among the cities of Israel." And where it says "of the glory," it is the genitive case, singular number—"of this glory"—and not the nominative plural, "these glories." Or certainly let us understand it thus: the captivity of Israel, which came to Lachis, and Geth, and Maresa, will come even to Odollam. And more precisely it should be read "of the glory of Israel," so that disgrace or devastation is meant. Furthermore, whereas above I interpreted the prophet's city Morasthi as "inheritance," let the reader know that in the same verse which we have set down: "Therefore he will give emissaries over the inheritance of Geth," in the Hebrew, in place of "the inheritance of Geth," MARASETH GETH is written. Up to this point, according to the Hebrew, as best we could and as it seemed to us—certainly as we have heard from the Hebrews—we have steered our little boat as it were among rocks and the sharpest crags; whether it has entered the harbor, or still tosses on the open sea, it will be for the reader's prudence to judge.

Now let us proceed, by your prayers, to other waves, and with the shipwreck of exposition threatening on every side, let us escape if we can. GETH is interpreted as "winepress"; those, therefore, who are in Geth, that is, in the winepress, thinking they have gathered the vintage of the fruit of life and have trodden the cluster from the vine of Sorec, are lifted up in pride, not knowing that the cluster of the land of Judea is not found in the territories of the Philistines. Do not, he says, be lifted up, you who are in the winepresses: because your vine is of the vine of Sodom, and your offspring is of Gomorrah: and your grape is of bitterness, and the cluster is of gall to you, and your wine is the fury of dragons, the incurable fury of asps. For even if you have produced fruit (since your vintage is not only from Sodom and Gomorrah, but also from Egypt and the other hostile nations), the Lord will give your fruit to blight, and your labors to the locust, and he will kill your vines with hail, and your mulberries with frost. Let not the likeness of wine deceive you, nor let you call bitter sweet: taste your wine carefully, and you will find, instead of the wine of Sorec, the fury of dragons and the venom of asps. Therefore do not be proud, but rather humble yourselves under the mighty hand of the Lord, and pass over to that winepress of which he who ascends from Edom, and is ruddy from Bosra, speaks in the prophet Isaiah: I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the nations there is no man with me.

Again, because there are others of the foreigners—for the province of the allophyloi has many regions and cities—who through evil works and thoughts contrary to God say: We are destroyed, but returning let us build what has been destroyed. Whence also they are called the boundaries of impiety, and the people with whom the Lord is angry. It is said to them: You who are in Bachim, do not build from the house of derision. Bachim in our language sounds as lamentation and weeping. Finally, apart from the Seventy, all translated it as weeping. You, therefore, who are in works and thoughts of this kind, which are worthy of weeping, do not restore the worst building, nor consider your thought to be God's construction, nor build upon sand, lest when the storm comes and your house falls, the vain labor provide laughter to those who see. Rather, understanding that your building is worthy of derision, sprinkle your heads with its ruins and dust, and do penance, because you wished to build a house that would fall without counsel. It follows: She who dwells well in her cities has not gone out, dwelling in Sennam. This seems to me to have this meaning: You who are proud in Geth and in Bachim, in vain you attempt to build a house worthy of laughter: sprinkle yourselves with dust, and do penance, because you wished to press detestable wine and to construct a building contrary to God.

But the Church of Christ, which dwells well and possesses churches throughout the whole world, is joined together in the unity of the Spirit, and has the cities of the Law, the Prophets, the Gospel, and the Apostles; she has not gone out from her borders, that is, from the Holy Scriptures, but keeps the possession she has begun, because she dwells in Sennam—which, as we said above, Symmachus translated as "abundance." For she has the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with whom are all the spiritual graces and the riches of virtues. Hence it is said to her: Let peace be in your strength, and abundance in your towers (Psalm 121:7). But you who dwell beside Sennam, that is, beside the abundant Church—O heretics, O contrary doctrines—lament, because you have built for yourselves a house for mockery, and you have trodden the winepress in pride; and you have built your house, not in the Scriptures but in the neighborhood of the Scriptures, now worthy not of laughter but of lamentation, and with tears. Hence it is added: Lament the house that is beside her, that is, beside Sennam. But also this which is added, she shall receive from you a blow of grief, is said to the same heretics, who are commanded to lament the house neighboring the Church, because the enemy and avenger, the devil, to whom they are to be handed over for punishment, himself inflicts blows upon them and wrings from them, in return for their most wicked building, the pain of blows. These things are brought upon them so that, feeling the sins they have committed, they may do penance, and the dwelling of griefs may become for them an occasion of good things.

Whether grief is being indicated for the Church, because she laments her sons of old, and she herself is the cause of salvation for heretics, if they wish to return to the mourning mother. Furthermore, as for what is added: For evils have come down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem; the Marcionites and Manichaeans also use this passage, on the grounds that the God of the Law is the creator of evils. Let us say that evils came down from the Lord in the same way as the Savior also says in the Gospel: I was seeing Satan falling like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18). For just as there Lucifer fell from heaven, who rose in the morning (Isa. 14), and he who sent to the nations was crushed upon the earth: so too these evils which fell from the Lord and came to the gates of Jerusalem were not evils before they fell; but because they fell from the Lord, for that reason they were made evils. And so that we may know the snares of evils: They came, he says, to the gates of Jerusalem, which, because they are firm and adamantine, are closed by the apostles, to whom the keys of Jerusalem were entrusted: before them the enemies prowl, and those whom they have seen go out, they kill. If anyone, therefore, is of Jerusalem, who dwells well in his cities, he does not go out, since he dwells in abundance: but he always remains within, nor does he go out through her gates, for whoever has gone out is killed: and he is killed by those who exalt themselves in Geth, and dwell in Bachim, and build a house in derision.

Finally, the evils that came down from the Lord to the gates of Jerusalem have only the noise of chariots and the tumult of horses, and a confused sound before the gates of Jerusalem, so that with the spear of their mouth they kill whomever they see wandering. After this it is written: You who dwell in Lachish; she is the chief of sin for the daughter of Zion. Lachish is interpreted as "walking." And so these who went up in their chariots and had horsemen, and had only noise and empty sound, to whom she spoke who dwells well in her cities—these in chariots and these in horses: but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God (Ps. 19)—because they moved their feet and were surrounded by every wind of false doctrine (Eph. 4), and wished to go out from the Church, which is interpreted as "watchtower," that is, Zion, they became the chiefs of sin for the daughter of Zion. And in her, that is, in the Latin churches, the impieties of Israel were found, which separated the people from the former kingdom of God. Therefore she who dwells in Lachish, that is, the worst kind of walking, with a step continually wavering, is the chief of sin for the daughter of Zion, and the impiety of Israel is in those who always move their feet and are said to dwell in Lachish. Emissaries will also be given as far as the inheritance of Geth: Geth the worst, and the winepress of poisons, which is built against the house of God, where there are vain houses that have been built for mockery. And these vain houses were made in vain among the kings of Israel.

As far as the historical sense is concerned, it refers to those kings whose sins are written in the books of Kings and Chronicles; but as far as the allegorical sense is concerned, it refers to the leaders of heretics and the captains of perverse doctrines; for their houses are vain and built in vain. And they persevere for so long until the heirs who are to be led in by the Lord take possession of them. After this it follows: You who dwell in Lachis, the inheritance will come as far as Odollam. Odollam is interpreted as the testimony of drinking, or of their drawing, which in Greek is expressed more significantly. We read in Proverbs: If you are evil, you alone will drink evils (Prov. 9:21). Therefore she who dwells in Lachis, that is, in the worst of journeys, will come as far as the testimony of her draining dry, which she will drain and drink up according to the measure of her works. Or certainly it must be punctuated thus, that what is said, you who dwell in Lachis, is referred to the preceding, and the order and sense is: I will bring heirs to you from the Church, you who dwell in Lachis, because you too will be of the inheritance of the Lord, when you have drunk and received what you deserve. I beseech the reader at the end of the chapter not to think necessity to be will, and not to consider a lengthy exposition to be wordiness, but rather to wonder that in such rough places I find something, than that I pass over anything of what must be said.

(Verse 16.) "Make yourself bald and shear yourself over the sons of your delights; widen your baldness like the eagle, because captives have been led away from you." The Septuagint: "Glory of the daughter of Israel, make yourself bald and shear yourself over your delicate sons; widen your baldness like the eagle, because captives have been led away from you." What was said by the Septuagint, "the glory of the daughter of Israel," with them adding "of the daughter," the Hebrews read at the end of the preceding chapter. But for us, who have so willed it and have once undertaken it, the necessity falls upon us to interpret the Scriptures in the way they are read in the Church, and nonetheless not to omit the Hebrew truth. It is said, then, to Israel for the time being according to the letter, so that we may understand either the ten tribes in Samaria, or in common all Israel; because the people has been led captive, and all Judea has been laid waste by the Assyrians and Babylonians, let them take up lamentation and weep for their sons. And just as the eagle, which is the queen of birds, at a certain time loses its feathers and remains plucked, so too let Israel lay aside all its glory, with which it had previously been surrounded, and mourn for its sons, subjected to the power of enemies. But that the eagle is accustomed at a certain time to lose its feathers, this is also written in the Psalter: "Your old age will be renewed like the eagle's" (Ps. 102:5). And the Comic poet in the Heautontimorumenos says: "It seemed truly, as the saying goes, the old age of the eagle" (Terence, loc. cit. Act III, scene II).

But if we wish to take this same thing also of the present time of the Jewish overthrow, we shall see that every grace by which it once flourished before God has wholly departed from them. For where is the prophet? where the teacher of the law? where the garrisons of angels? where the victory, unhoped for by few, against many? Jerusalem has been made bald, which has lost all the hair of its former glory, and her sons who cried out against the Lord, "Crucify, crucify him," have been led into captivity. I have read in someone's Commentary that what is said—"make yourself bald and shear yourself over the sons of your delights"—can be understood of the human condition, so that the utterance of God may be directed to Adam, or to the heavenly Jerusalem. O human soul? O city, once the mother of the saints, who were formerly in paradise, and were adorned with the delights of various trees, and had most beautiful hair: now, because you have been cast down from the heights and led down into Babylon, and have come into a place of captivity, and have lost your hair, shave yourself and take up the garb of a penitent, and you who formerly flew like an eagle on high, bewail your sons, bewail your offspring, which has been led captive from you.

(Cap. II.—Vers. seq.) "Woe to those who devise useless things, and work evil in your beds: in the morning light they do it, because their hand is against God, and they coveted fields, and violently took them, and seized houses, and slandered a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I devise evil against this family, from which you will not remove your necks, and you will not walk proudly: for the time is most wicked. In that day a parable will be taken up against you, and a song will be sung with sweetness by those saying: We have been laid waste by plundering; the portion of my people has been changed. How will he depart from me, when he who divides our regions returns? For this reason you will have no one to send a cord of lot in the assembly of the Lord." The Septuagint: "They have become those who devise labors and work evils in their beds, and together in the day they completed them; because they did not lift up their hands to God, and they desired fields, and they plundered orphans, and oppressed houses, and seized a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I devise evils against this tribe, from which you will not remove your necks, so that you may not walk upright: suddenly: because the time is most wicked. In that day a parable will be taken up against you, and a lament will be wailed in the song of those saying: We have been made the misery of the miserable; the portion of my people has been measured with a cord, and there was no one to forbid him, that he might be turned away.

Our fields have been divided: therefore you will have no one to cast a line in the inheritance. What we have placed at the end of the chapter according to the Hebrew, "in the assembly of the Lord," for which the Seventy translated "in the church of the Lord," is according to the Vulgate edition the beginning of the following chapter. And therefore, if the Lord commands, we will discuss it there. Woe, then, to you, assembly of the Jews, who both devise evil and carry it out in deed. And you defile with fornication the beds given for rest; and whatever iniquity you plot by night, as if it could not be deferred, you hasten to accomplish as soon as the day has dawned, not considering that your hand is against the mighty Lord. And that Scripture might teach what it was that they devised by night and did by day, it explains in detail. They coveted, it says, fields, and violently took them; and houses—understand, they coveted—and what they had coveted, they plundered; and not only did they slander men and their houses, but even their descendants, who by reason of their tender age deserved mercy, they ravaged with rabid mouth. Because, therefore, you have done these things and devised what is useless, I also, the Lord, will devise evil against this family—not that what I devise is evil, but that what I inflict seems evil to those who suffer it: which will so press you down that you cannot lift up your necks, nor walk proudly—namely, you whom the time of captivity had oppressed.

Then a parable will be spoken against you, and your miseries will be turned into a song: "We have been laid waste by devastation, the portion of my people; my temple," he says, "which alone I held in greater honor than the other nations, will be turned into ruin. How will the Assyrian depart from me, when he returns to distribute my fields to himself by lot?" Therefore, O family of Israel, against whom I am planning evil, you will have no part in the inheritance of the righteous. But this very thing can also be understood of the final captivity, namely that all these things happened to them because they crucified the Lord; yet in such a way that the edition of the Seventy interpreters is discussed. For the glory of the daughter of Israel has been shorn bald, and shaved close upon her once most delicate sons, and whatever hair grew again thereafter was in turn cut off by another shaving and shearing. Then all their plans were turned into toil, and the things they devised, while mind and soul slept, brought them labors; and whatever they accomplished, as soon as the light of Christ and his vengeance appeared, was thrown into confusion. For when they had read that Israel conquered when Moses raised his hands to the Lord, and that Amalec was overcome when Moses let down his weary arms (Exodus 17), they did not raise their hands to the Lord, but perpetrating every crime against the poor and the people of the Lord, they coveted fields and plundered the houses of orphans, and laid waste man and wife alike, together with their children and their substance.

Therefore the Lord has planned evils against that tribe: not at all the twelve tribes, but the tribe defiled by malice and wickedness, concerning which they could not lift up their head, nor walk uprightly. In short, even to the present day they are subject to the Roman empire, and are oppressed by the yoke of captivity, and they do not lift up their necks. But what follows, that is "suddenly," is not found in the Hebrew volumes, and yet it can so agree with the present passage that we say: Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am planning against this tribe evils suddenly, concerning which they cannot lift up their heads, and for this reason they will not be able to lift them up, because the time is evil. For just as they wrought evils against the Lord Jesus, so they will endure the evils of perpetual captivity, and they will come into such straits that all their songs and psalms will be turned into mourning. And the people will know how to speak nothing else but this: "We have been made the misery of the miserable." For the land of promise, which formerly had been divided by lot to two and a half tribes across the Jordan, when Moses cast the cord, and afterwards was distributed by Joshua son of Nun to the remaining tribes—this land has been divided among the nations by a Roman surveyor; and there was no one who would forbid it—rather, since he holds all the nations, there is no one among the Jews who possesses the ancient soil in its former liberty.

But if we wish to follow the third exposition—that the whole discourse I spoke of above is directed to the human soul, which, falling from paradise, came into the captivity of this world—we shall see that all our thought is labor and grief, and our beds are full of evils, and the very light that is seen is mixed with darkness; and whatever we ponder by night, we carry out in the gloom. For who among us raises holy hands to God without anger and anxious thought? Who does not desire the villas of this age, forgetful of the possessions of paradise? You may see some joining fields to fields and boundaries to boundaries, and the countryside of cities not sufficing for the little body of a man. Therefore the Lord plans evils against us, from which we cannot lift up our necks, nor walk upright, because the time is most wicked, according to the words of John, who says: The world is placed in the evil one (1 John 5:19). The same thing is signified also by that daughter of Abraham in the Gospel, a noble soul, whom Satan had bound and bent down, and who could not be raised on high before the coming of the Lord, nor look up to her Creator. Hence the Savior says: Ought not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound, to be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day (Luke 13:16)?

Therefore, because all our glory has been shorn, and we have spread out our razor, or our nakedness (for so it is found in certain manuscripts), those were sent who should lament us with Jeremiah, and take up a parable over us, and say with the Apostle: I will mourn for many who have sinned and have not repented (2 Cor 12:21). For who would not mourn, seeing human souls possessed by demons and various vices as though by a varied assortment of furniture? One of the demons sends the cord of fornication, another that of avarice; that one stretches out the lines of murder, this one of perjury; part of the people of God has been divided by a cord; and the fields of former holiness and of paradise, at whose fragrance Isaac delighted in his son Jacob (Gen 27), have been handed over to the Assyrians and to the king of Babylon. And while the foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests, the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head (Mt 8). I have expounded, according to what the narrow limits of my little talent allowed, both the first captivity of the people by the Assyrians and Babylonians, and the second by the Romans, because they crucified the Lord, and the third, spiritual captivity, in which each one of us fell with Adam from paradise and is held in the captivity of this world; when the Lord comes, he will raise up the fallen and loose the bound (Ps 144), and he will lead back the one-time captives of the devil into his own possession, and the word of the Psalmist will be fulfilled, saying: Ascending on high, he led captivity captive (Ps 67:19).

According to which exposition, a fourth captivity can also be understood concerning the Church, from which each person departs through sin, and afterward is led back into Jerusalem by Ezra, which is interpreted as helper, that is, by the word of God (1 Esdras 7). If anyone, however, meditating on the law of the Lord day and night, has had greater zeal, greater talent, leisure, and grace, and can say something more probable concerning the present chapter, I do not envy him, I do not scorn him; rather I desire to learn from him what I do not know, and I will gladly profess myself his disciple, provided that he teaches and does not disparage. For nothing is so easy as for an idle and sleeping man to dispute about the labor and vigils of others.

(Verses 6–8.) «Do not speak, you who speak; it shall not drop upon these; confusion shall not comprehend, says the house of Jacob. Is the Spirit of the Lord shortened, or are such his thoughts? Are not my words good with him who walks rightly? And on the contrary, my people has risen up against an adversary; you have taken away the cloak over the tunic, and those who were passing by simply you have turned into war.» The Septuagint: «In the Church of the Lord do not weep with tears, nor let them lament over these? For he will not cast away the reproaches which he says: The house of Jacob has provoked the Spirit of the Lord, if these are his inventions: are not his words good with him, and have they walked rightly? And first my people resisted hostilities against its own peace: they flayed his skin, so as to take away hope, the contrition of war.

Do not speak," he says, "speaking things"; for which Aquila translated: "Do not drip, dripping things," since in the Hebrew idiom "utterance" is called a "dripping" from the fact that it flows and reaches the ears of the hearers, like rain descending. Do not deceive yourselves, O house of Jacob, and say to one another for mutual consolation, "God is good; the captivity we fear will not come." Is his mercy, so generous, and his most clement spirit, which has risen widely and abundantly upon all, to be shortened and made severe only toward us? Or are his thoughts of such a kind as we see in men, that he should hold fast to ancient anger and be stirred to vengeance by sudden fury? To these things the Lord responds: I am indeed good, and my words sound of clemency—but toward those who walk in the right path. But the one who—I do not say long ago, but yesterday—reverenced idols to my insult, and, as far as in him lay, took up tyrannical arms against me, who despoiled the wretched people of God's help and, as it were, took away the cloak from over the tunic, who turned even the simple among the believers, and those who yielded to the authority of their elders, to war against me—shall the Lord not drip upon him, and shall confusion not seize him?

But what we have translated as "And on the contrary, my people have risen up against an adversary"—since the word MUL means both "contrary" and "the day of yesterday"—Symmachus translated more clearly, saying: "the day before, my people stood as an enemy," so as to resolve the question, namely that God was not imputing to the people former vices but recent ones, and those which seemed to have been committed, as it were, on the day of yesterday. These things are according to the Hebrew understanding; otherwise the Seventy interpreters in this place do not at all cohere with themselves. For to what was said before, "Do not weep in the church of the Lord," what consequence is it that there is added, "For he will not cast away the reproaches which he says, the house of Jacob provoked the spirit of the Lord"? But also that which follows: "If these are his devices, are not his words good with him, and they have gone and walked" (or "will walk")—to what latter things do they pertain, which are said: "And formerly my people stood as an adversary, against their peace they flayed his skin, to take away the breaking of war"? But it seems to me that in this most difficult place the sense can be rendered or expressed thus, if only the prudent reader will acquiesce in our reasoning. And so the Church is instructed not to have sadness and anxiety over the things of the world and the losses which are accustomed to happen in this world, and it is said to its inhabitants: O you who are in the church of the Lord, always rejoice, and whatever happens to you from judgments, rejoice.

I do not say this to mean that you ought not to weep—for "Blessed are those who weep, for they shall laugh" (Luke 6:21)—but I warn you not to mourn over the things that belong to this world. If one of your kin has died, if the treasury has seized your property, if gout or any other disease has afflicted your body, do not weep, do not pour out tears, and do not fix your eyes on the present but on the future, and be all the more burdened that you dwell longer in this tabernacle of death. Rather, beware of this: that you not mock those who fall, and reckon another's ruin to be your own edification. Let each one measure himself by his own strength, not by another's weakness. Otherwise, what sort of righteousness is it for the branches of the wild olive to mock the branches of the olive tree, which were broken off because of their unbelief (Rom. 11), and to say that the house of Jacob provoked the Spirit of the Lord to anger, killing the prophets, worshiping idols, crucifying the Son of God? Whoever does this will not be free from reproach, and by the measure with which he judged, judgment will be rendered concerning him; and just as he speaks of the sins of one who has fallen, so another will mock his ruin. It follows: "If these are his devices, are not his words good with him, and have they not walked uprightly?" What offended, he says, was that the Jewish people [offended], so that the fullness of the Gentiles might enter in; it is part of God's dispensation that afterward, when Israel believes, all might be saved and all might stand in need of God's mercy.

Hence the Apostle too, when he comes to the question of this passage, proclaims that the deep abyss of the wisdom and knowledge and judgments of God is unsearchable. If, then, the inventions and thoughts of God are such that the former branches of the olive are broken off and others from the wild olive are grafted in, you ought not to insult but to fear lest you fall, nor should you think that you please God merely because you read His words, that is, the Scriptures. The Scriptures profit the reader only when what is read is fulfilled in deed. If, speaking of the Scriptures, you can say: "Do you seek a proof of Him who speaks in me, Christ?" For the Lord will give the word to those who preach the gospel with great power: and "Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good news to Zion, and lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good news to Jerusalem." And in this way the words of God are good if they are with Him, that is, if God does not forsake the preacher whose heart and lips are in agreement. But he who confesses with his lips while his heart is far from God, and recounts His righteous acts and takes up His covenant with his mouth, yet is defiled with the filth of sins—with such a man the good words of God are not present.

Nor is this to be said only of the sinner, but also of him who does not have a spiritual grace—that is, of prophecy, teaching, and interpretation, and of the greater charisms—namely, that a man of this kind, if he wishes to render an account of the causes of the elements and of his faith, and [to explain] why God, who is good and the Creator of all things, came to the Jews only, and in the last age has now called the nations, does not have with him the good words of God; but out of his own ignorance he even contaminates the good words of God, words which walk rightly and require right ears. And indeed the Lord commands this to the people who succeed them, and to the Church gathered from the nations, that it not insult the former generation, and that it not be a stranger to reproaches by insulting. But he himself, who is the true judge and speaks without disturbance, relates how in his passion Israel was contrary to him, and did this not because it could harm its Creator, but because it perpetrated all things against its own peace. Hence the word is also addressed to Jerusalem: If you knew the things that are for your peace (Luke 19:42). But with peace lost, they flayed off their own skin—that is, they took away from themselves the help of God by which they were protected—and had left themselves, as it were, bare flesh without skin and covering, so that whatever seemed beautiful, while the mercy of God covered it from above, when that mercy withdrew, would present its ugliness to those who saw it.

But when the peace and help of God had withdrawn, because they had resisted the Lord—of whom it is said, "The Lord who crushes wars, the Lord is his name" (Judith 16:3)—they could not resist their adversaries, but were defeated in every conflict, and there was no one to crush the wars rising against them, whether with respect to either party of the enemies—either the men who led them away captive, or the strength of the adversaries who were slaying their souls daily by blasphemy.

(Verses 9, 10.) "You have cast out the women of my people from the house of their delights: from their little ones you have taken away my praise forever. Arise and go, for you have no rest here; because of its uncleanness it shall be corrupted with the worst rottenness." The interpretation of the Septuagint (if indeed it is the Septuagint; for Josephus writes, and the Hebrews hand down, that only five books of the law of Moses were translated by them and delivered to King Ptolemy) differs so much in the present passage from the Hebrew truth that we can neither set the chapters side by side on equal footing nor explain their meanings together. Therefore let our own translation first be discussed, and afterwards we shall come to those others. The discourse is still against the people of God, to whom he had already said above: "On the contrary, my people has risen up as an adversary: you have taken away the cloak from above the tunic," because they not only did this, but also made the women—that is, the once delicate matrons—go into captivity, or under the metaphor, the cities of Judea, which he also calls the daughters of Zion in Isaiah (Isa.

because Zion was the capital city. And from their little ones, he says, you have taken my praise forever; no one remained among the people, all being either killed or captured, who might sing my psalms; but even the few who survived in Babylon testify that they could not sing. How, they say, shall we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land (Psalm 136:4)? Rise up therefore and go into captivity, because in this land you have no rest, which has been polluted because of your crimes, and cannot be cleansed unless they first celebrate a long sabbath. And for this reason I tell you that you have no rest here, because your land is polluted and will be corrupted with the worst rottenness—namely, by captivity, whether Babylonian or Roman—because it has drunk the Lord's blood; for it can be understood according to either historical truth.

LXX: "The leaders of my people shall be cast out from the houses of their delights; because of their evil devices they have been ejected." This can be taken both generally of the leaders, priests, and Pharisees of the Jewish people, who after the Lord's passion were cast out from the city of their delights, in which they had previously luxuriated because of their evil devices, and specifically of the stock of David, because as soon as the Lord was born, the prince failed from Judah, and the leader from his thighs (Genesis 49), when he came to whom it was reserved, and the expectation of the nations appeared.

But the prophetic word also describes the leaders of the Church who abound in pleasures and believe that they preserve their chastity amid feasts and wantonness: that they are to be cast out of their spacious houses and lavish banquets and meals procured with great labor, and cast out because of their evil thoughts and deeds. And if you wish to know where they are to be cast out, read the Gospel: into outer darkness, surely, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 22:13). Is it not a disgrace and a shame to preach Jesus crucified—the master, poor and hungry—to stuffed bodies, and to set forth the doctrine of fasting with ruddy cheeks and swollen mouths? If we stand in the place of the apostles, let us imitate not only their preaching but also their manner of life and abstinence. Holy indeed is the ministry of the apostles: to minister to widows and the poor (Acts 6:2). They say, It is not right that we, having left the word of God, should serve tables. But now—I do not speak of the poor, I do not speak of the brothers, and those who in turn cannot invite us back (from whom, apart from gratitude, the episcopal hand hopes for nothing else)—but the priest of Christ invites to dinner men who are soldiers and girded with the sword, and judges, with centurions and troops of soldiers keeping watch before their doors. The whole clergy runs about the city; they seek to present to the judges what those men cannot find in their own praetoria, or at any rate do not buy when they have found it.

Nor indeed should it be thought that this invective is directed generally at all, but that the prophetic word strikes those who are such, and threatens them with punishments and eternal darkness, so that those who are not held back by shame and modesty may at least do penance through the threat of penalties.

LXX: "Draw near to the eternal mountains." We can understand the eternal mountains either as angels or as prophets, of whom it is also written in the psalm: "His foundations are in the holy mountains" (Ps. 86:1). And in another place: "I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from where help will come to me" (Ps. 120:1). But he draws near to the eternal mountains who is not separated by his sins from the fellowship of the blessed, just as Moses was drawing near to God, not by place but by merit. And to those who were drawing near to the eternal mountains, the Lord himself was speaking: "I am a God who draws near, and not a God far off" (Jer. 23:23). But they are called eternal mountains to distinguish them from those that are not eternal—namely, the mountains of this world's beginning, which are dark; when they have been lifted up like the cedar of Lebanon, passing away with the world, their place will not be able to be found.

LXX: "Arise and walk, for you have no rest here." We are commanded to think that we have rest in none of the things of the world, but, as it were rising from the dead, to strive toward what is on high and to walk after the Lord our God, and to say: My soul has clung fast after you (Ps. LXII, 9). But if we have neglected this and have been unwilling to hear him who says: Arise, you who sleep, and lift yourself up, and Christ will enlighten you (Eph. V, 14), we shall indeed slumber, but we shall be deceived and shall not find rest, because where Christ does not enlighten the one who rises, what seems to be rest is tribulation.

LXX: "Because of uncleanness you have been consumed by corruption." In place of what we have said, "you have been consumed," according to the Greek understanding it can sound in the Latin tongue as "you have been corrupted," so that the order is: because of uncleanness you have been corrupted by corruption. But this is said to those who, serving the pleasure of the body and of lust, corrupt not only the soul but also their own body, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God. He could also have said, "because of uncleanness you have been corrupted," and the sense would have been completed even without "by corruption." But now, because he says, "you have been corrupted by corruption," it seems to me that he has spoken of a corruption distinct from saving corruption, according to which the Apostle also speaks: And if our outer man is corrupted, yet the inner man is renewed from day to day (II Cor. IV, 16).

Whoever always carries the mortification of Jesus in his body, and corrupts the outer man, and subjects the flesh to the command of the soul—such a one is indeed corrupted, but not by corruption, because his corruption is salutary.

"You have fled, with no one pursuing." This is said to those who have been corrupted by corruption because of uncleanness, because the consciousness of sins, even without punishments, makes them not dare to resist the enemy and to fight.

Hence also the fearful in the battle of the saints, lest they terrify the minds of their brothers, are cast out of the camp, as they are driven back from the battle line (Deut. 20), and in the curses of Leviticus the word is directed to men of this sort: The sound of a flying leaf will pursue you, and you will flee, with no one pursuing (Lev. 26:36). I know that I have read in the commentaries of a certain expositor of the beginning of John the Evangelist—"All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing" (John 1:3)—that he referred this word "nothing" to malice; and again he interpreted that malice itself as the devil, and by this, as it were, step, he understood the devil as that which was made without Christ, namely "nothing." If, therefore, malice, or the devil, is nothing, and those who were corrupted by corruption fled, with no one—that is, with nothing—pursuing, then the devil pursued them in the nothing. But if this seems to anyone too forced, and expounded against the simple artifice of Scripture rather by cleverness of speech than by true interpretation, let him follow either the former exposition or one that he himself has found.

(Verses 11, 12.) "Would that I were not a man having the spirit, and that I spoke falsehood rather! I will drip for you into wine and into drunkenness, and this people shall be dripped upon. In gathering I will gather Jacob, all of you; together I will bring in the remnant of Israel." And in this chapter the Seventy translators differ greatly from the Hebrew. Therefore let us first expound according to what has been handed down to us from the Hebrews, and afterwards, if the Lord wills, we shall treat of their translation. O Jewish people, to whom belong the promises, whose are the covenants and the law, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh (Rom. 9), to whom, when the Babylonians or the Romans were imminent, I said: "Arise and go into captivity, for you have no rest in this land," which because of its uncleanness shall be corrupted by a final devastation—do not think that I wish to speak and preach rejoicing at what I see coming. I would myself wish to be anathema for my brethren, who are Israelites (Rom. 9:3). Would that I spoke from my own mind, and did not have the Holy Spirit; and, counted rather among the false prophets, I alone might perish, and the things I say might not be true; and so great a multitude might believe in the household of God, and not be handed over to eternal captivity. But because I am a prophet, and I speak by the Spirit of God, and am sent by the Godhead, I preach the truth: therefore I will drip my word for you into pure wine, which shall make you drunk and cause you to fall.

But while I am dripping and singing of the evil of the coming captivity, this people will receive my rains—that is, whether they wish it or not, they must endure what I say. And do not think that I am only a prophet of evils: the foretold captivity will indeed come now; but behold, the word speaks in me, which comes to all the prophets. When the prophet is silent, it does not speak, and now it says: I will come, and I will take up a human body, I will be born of the Virgin. Or thus: Because I came in the lowliness of the flesh, and you did not believe me, I will come at the consummation of the world in my majesty with the angels and the other powers, and then I will gather you wholly, Jacob; then I will bring together the remnant of Israel into one, and I will join them together with the people of the nations in my sheepfold; then I will hedge you about with a most firm wall, and so great will be the multitude of believers, and the commotion of the flock placed among the folds, that the number of the sheep will be surpassed by the abundance. And lest perhaps you think that, because I said, I will place him as a flock in the sheepfold, and as a sheep in the midst of the folds, I am speaking of sheep, understand that these sheep are men. For it follows: They will be in commotion from the multitude of men.

The tumult is the voice of many, and the shout of an excessive multitude poured forth together; let us not reckon it the voice of one, but the common voice of all, praising the good shepherd, who has made level every steep place and smoothed it with his own foot, who is himself the guide of their journey, the gate of paradise, and says: I am the door; where the way divides and goes before, and the gate of the way, the believing flock shall pass through him. But this shepherd is King and Lord. Whence it follows: And their king shall pass before them, and the Lord at their head. But if we wish to take all these things of his first advent, and to refer the whole of Jacob and the remnant of Israel to the apostles, and that multitude which was saved from among the Jews in the Acts of the Apostles, the exposition of the commentator will not shrink from the truth. For these the Lord truly gathered into his own fold, and set them in the midst of the sheepfolds, and made a way before them, and led them into the Church, and was their king before them, and is the Lord at their head forever.

LXX: "The spirit has established a lie. It has distilled for you into wine and drunkenness, and there shall be of the distillation of this people, gathering he shall be gathered, Jacob." Not, as most suppose, "the spirit stood as a liar," but "the spirit has established a lie" is to be read, which in Greek is said thus. For just as in putrid wounds, lest the cancer spread and the dead flesh devour the living, physicians set a boundary to the wound and burn it with a cautery or with powder, so the Spirit of God has set an end to the lie, lest the people of God be further subverted by the voices of false prophets. But that "spirit," both in the New and in the Old Testament, wherever it is placed without an addition, is understood in a good sense, we have often said and now will set forth in part, lest it be doubtful to anyone. But the fruit of the spirit is charity, joy, peace (Gal. 5:22). And: If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit (ibid. 25). And elsewhere: But if by the spirit you mortify the works of the flesh, you shall live (Rom. 8:13). And in the Old Testament: Giving breath to the people who are in it, and spirit to those who tread it (Isa. 42:5)—doubtless from the preceding words it signifies the earth. For those who tread earthly works and subject them under their feet surely deserve to receive not an evil but a good spirit. On the contrary, an evil spirit is always read with an addition, as there: But when the unclean spirit has gone out from a man (Matt. 12:43). And in another place: He rebuked the unclean spirit (Luke 9:43).

And: An evil spirit invaded Saul (1 Kings 16:14), and other things like these. Therefore the Spirit of God, who put an end to falsehood in the false prophets, he himself will distill for you into wine and drunkenness. Wine that gladdens the heart of man (Psalm 103); and drunkenness with which Noah was drunk, and of which it is said: Eat, my friends, and be drunk (Song 5:1). But all gladness and drunkenness, compared with the wisdom of God, which like a river waters the heavenly Jerusalem, is a drop and a very small droplet. Nor will those hesitate to call the drop of God's wisdom [a drop] among men, who have read of the stone cut from the mountain without hands (Daniel 2), and that the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and that the apostles themselves also knew in part and prophesied in part (1 Corinthians 13:9). From this wisdom, therefore, that is, from the drop of the Jewish people (for he did not come except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel), Jacob is gathered: everyone who supplants Esau, and snatches away his firstborn rights and blessing, and before he is born, still placed in the womb, seizes the heel of his hairy brother. LXX: "With all receiving I will receive the remnant of Israel." When, he says, the people of the Gentiles have believed, and the whole world has been brought to my faith, and the fullness of the Gentiles has entered, then also the remnant of Israel will be saved—not that remnant of which it is written in the book of Kings: I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bent their knees to Baal (3 Kings

(19:18); and of those about whom Paul says: So then also at this present time, the remnant according to the election of grace has been made safe (Rom 11:5); of whom the prophet here above bears witness: And there shall be of the drop of this people, gathering he shall be gathered, Jacob; but those remnants which, after all have been received, shall be received by God at the end; and of whom it is now said: With all receiving I shall receive the remnants of Israel, so that, according to what is written: God, shutting up all under sin, may have mercy on all (Rom 11:32).

LXX: "I shall make their turning away like sheep in tribulation." The remnants of Israel, which, after I have received all, I am to receive; for now in the meantime, because they have turned away from me, I shall place them in tribulation, and I shall straiten them, and make them sit without priest, without altar, and without prophet: so that those whom they did not perceive through benefits, they may understand through punishments.

LXX: "As a flock in the midst of their bed"; the word "I shall place" is understood. Not only, he says, shall their turning away, by which they have turned away from me, be placed like a flock in tribulation; but after they have been afflicted and have completed the time of distress, they shall be placed in rest, that is, in their own bed. And then they shall migrate from among men and pass beyond the condition of human nature, and fulfill what follows: They shall leap forth from among men.

But not only will those leap forth and depart; rather, all to whom the word of God comes, and who, forsaking human vices, imitate the conduct of the divine nature and hear: I said, you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High—they will leap forth from among men and, as it were, be carried to heaven.

The Septuagint: "Go up through the division." The present passage has, as it were, its own proper beginning and apostrophe of prophetic speech, directed to the one who desires to be saved, to whom it is commanded that he go up through the division. This will indeed become clearer if we take an example from Genesis, where twins are born from Tamar, with whom Judah the patriarch lay: It came to pass, it says, when she was giving birth, and had twins in her womb, at the very birth one put forth a hand, and the midwife took it and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying: This one will come out first. But when he had drawn back his hand, immediately his brother came out, and she said: Why has the wall been divided because of you? And she called his name Phares, which is interpreted as division. And after this his brother came out, in whose hand was the scarlet thread, and she called his name Zara, which in our language is called seed, or rising. The older people, then, in whom was the rising and the seed before the Church was born from the nations, showed his hand in works, and afterward drew it back, hearing through Isaiah: For your hands are full of blood. And when he had drawn it back [Al.

he withdrew his hand, and when he had ceased from the works of righteousness, his brother went forth as the people of the Gentiles. And for his sake the hedge was divided, and the Lord and Savior destroyed the wall that was in the middle, and the partition separating the two peoples, so that he might be able to walk through; and he made one flock, and created the two in himself into one new man, making peace. Hence the midwife also, speaking prophetically, says to Phares concerning the younger people: Why is the partition divided for your sake? If you have understood the example from Genesis, let him who desires to be saved ascend—not at all through the old people, who have a withered hand, but through the new, in whom the way is Christ, in whom the door is Jesus, through whom we walk to the Father. For he himself dissolved the middle wall and the partition, that is, the obscurity of the old prophets, and opened all the sacraments of the ancient law, and, with the difficulty of walking through scattered, he revealed the way to the eyes of all: so that whoever wishes to proceed may be entangled by no obstacle, nor terrified by the darkness of obscurity.

LXX: "Before their face they divided and passed through the gate, and went out through it. Their king went out before their face: but the Lord is their prince." Therefore I said to you: Ascend through the division, you who have risen with Christ and seek the things that are above: because the angels, or the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, divided what seemed to stand in the way, and made a path for those willing to enter, and because with the way opened they rushed upon the journey, they not only entered the gate, but also passed through it. They entered, moreover, because their king also entered the same gate, and opened the way for them, so that they might walk without any difficulty. For the Lord himself is both king and shepherd, and is both the way and the gate, and he says: I am the gate: through me whoever has entered shall be saved: he shall go in, and go out, and find pasture (John 10:9). Of this gate it is also prophesied elsewhere: This is the gate of the Lord, the righteous shall enter through it (Psalm 117:20). But whoever has entered ought not to remain in that state in which he entered; but let him go out to the pastures, so that in entering there may be a beginning, in going out and in finding pasture, the perfection of virtues. He who enters is still in the world, and from created things understands the Creator. But he who goes out transcends every creature, and reckoning all things that can be seen as nothing, he will find pasture above the heavens, and will feed on the word of God, and will say: The Lord feeds me, and nothing will be lacking to me (Psalm

XXII, 1). This is so that we might understand the Gospel testimony: "He shall go in and go out, and find pasture"; and what is now said through the Prophet: "And they passed through the gate, and went out through it"—yet that passing and going out cannot be attributed apart from Christ our king, who is king and Lord. For immediately it is connected: "But the Lord shall be their prince."

(Cap. III.—Vers. I seqq.) "And I said: Hear, you princes of Jacob, and you leaders of the house of Israel. Is it not yours to know judgment, you who hate good and love evil, who violently take their skins from off them, and their flesh from off their bones, who have eaten the flesh of my people, and have flayed their skins from off them, and broken their bones, and cut them in pieces as in a cauldron, and as flesh in the midst of a pot. Then they shall cry to the Lord, and he will not hear them, and he will hide his face from them in that time, just as they have acted wickedly in their own devices." The word is manifestly against the princes of Israel, and under the metaphor of lions or robbers their cruelty is described: that they have despoiled the poor, and killed them, and crushed their flesh and bones, and as it were in the midst of a pot, so in the city of Jerusalem they afflicted the wretched people; and because of these things punishment is afterward brought upon them in the day of captivity, either by Nebuchadnezzar, or by Vespasian and Titus.

And they will cry out to the Lord, and he will not hear them, and he will hide his face from them, because they have acted wickedly in their crimes.

LXX: "And he shall say: Hear these things, you princes of the house of Jacob, and the remnant of the house of Israel." The sentence coheres with what precedes. For above he had said: "But the Lord will be the prince, and he shall say: Hear, you princes of the house of Jacob, and the remnant of the house of Israel." In place of "the remnant of the house of Israel," all the translators except the Seventy have rendered "you leaders of the house of Israel." The Lord, then, who made a way for his people and went out before their face, is himself the prince of the simpler path of the people, whom he calls his flock; and to those who refuse to follow him as their forerunner, but are proud, and, as though they were judges of the people, do not follow his footsteps, he threatens and says: "Hear, you princes of the house of Jacob, and you leaders of the house of Israel." But what is it that compels them to hear? "It is not yours," he says, "to know judgment, you who hate good and seek evil"—that is, you do not deserve to know the judgment of God, which is a great deep; and a perverse mind does not find the depth of his justice. Or how can you know the judgment of God, you who hate good and seek evil, who detest the holy poor and honor the rich who are sinners? And at the same time let us consider the force of the words: not to love good is a sin; how great a crime is it even to hate it? And on the other hand, if not to flee evil is a fault, how great an impiety is it even to seek it out diligently?

After these things the savagery of the judges is described, and their cruelty toward their subjects.

LXX: "Tearing their skins from them, and their flesh from their bones. Just as they devoured the flesh of my people, and flayed the skins from them, and broke their bones, and cut them up like flesh in a cauldron, and like flesh in a pot; so shall they cry out to the Lord, and he will not hear them, and he will turn his face from them in that time, because they have acted most wickedly in their own devices." It was not enough to have despoiled the flock subject to them; but they also afflicted their bodies with harsh rule, and crushed their bones, so that whatever strength was in them they broke and ground down. Just as, then, those men despoiled my people, and stripped them of all beauty and comeliness, and cast their flesh and bones into the boiling pot, which the Assyrian king kindled, handing over my flock to the devil and his angels: so too they themselves, when the day of vengeance comes, shall cry out to the Lord, and shall not be heard, because not even when they themselves pleaded did they listen; and they shall stretch out their hands to the Lord, and God shall turn his face from them, because they too turned their face away from those who begged them. And they shall suffer all these things because they acted most wickedly in their own pursuits and pleasures; and they were not kings but tyrants; not overseers but lions; not teachers of disciples but wolves of sheep; and they satisfied themselves with flesh, and grew fat, and were prepared like the fattest victim of slaughter, and for the punishments of the Lord.

Up to this point the words were against wicked princes; the following discourse is against false prophets and the worst of teachers, who supplant the people of God by flattery, promising knowledge of the Scriptures.

(Next verse.) "These things says the Lord concerning the prophets who seduce my people: who bite with their teeth, and preach peace: and if anyone has not given something into their mouth, they sanctify war against him: therefore night will be to us instead of vision, and darkness to you instead of divination, and the sun will set upon the prophets, and the day will be darkened over them, and those who see visions will be confounded: and the diviners will be confounded, and all of them will cover their faces, because there is no answer from God. Nevertheless I am filled with the strength of the Spirit of the Lord, with judgment and power, to announce to Jacob his crime, and to Israel his sin." LXX: "These things says the Lord concerning the prophets who seduce my people, and bite with their teeth, and preach peace over him, and it has not been given into their mouth, they have sanctified war against him: therefore night will be to you instead of vision, and darkness will be to you from divination, and the sun will set upon the prophets, and the day will grow dark over them, and those who see dreams will be confounded, and the soothsayers will be mocked, and all these will speak against them, because there is no one who will hear them, unless I have filled strength in the Spirit of the Lord, and judgment and power, to announce to Jacob his impieties, and to Israel his sins.

We read that there were false prophets in Israel who preached peace in return for gifts, though no peace had been given, and if anyone did not give them gifts, even if he were holy, they announced that the wrath of God would come upon him. Hence it is now said to them that they speak lies, and that their speech is not prophecy but false divination; and that they have not light but darkness and error. And when the things they had promised turn out the opposite, then they will be covered with confusion, because, he says, there was no answer from God.

Now not even the demons will receive power to deceive them by their fraud. Their oracles will be mute, the unclean spirit will be silent, and it will not dare to mock. This is concerning the false prophets. Again the prophet himself is introduced as speaking, while they prophesy falsely and are covered with confusion and shame: what I speak, I speak instructed by the Holy Spirit, and I speak the judgment of the Lord and his power. And while the false prophets bite with their teeth and preach peace, I without any fear announce to Jacob his crime and to Israel his sin; because in place of God they have either worshiped idols or crucified the Son of God. But if, according to the Septuagint reading, we wish to understand this of heretics, who are truly false prophets and say, "Thus says the Lord," though the Lord did not send them, we shall not be mistaken.

For they deceive the people of God of old by error, and they do this so that they may devour them, either simply in receiving gifts, or mystically in the slaying of their souls, and they promise them peace and the heavenly kingdoms, and say: There is no need for you to live continently and holily; hold the faith that we teach, and you will obtain all the promises of the Lord. In speaking these things, they stir up the wrath of the Lord all the more against them, and I sanctify war against them. Wherefore, O heretics, who think that you have prophecy and imitate the Church of God: where you reckon there is vision, there will be night; and where you cast a prophecy, there an unclean spirit will speak. For the sun of righteousness will set upon prophets of this kind, and they will see their own darkness and be confounded. And since they will have been proved diviners rather than prophets, they will be laughed at for their dreams, and the peoples who had previously been deceived by them will speak against them. Then even those teachers themselves will repent, and no one will hear them except I, whom they had offended. And because I am merciful and do not will the death of the sinner (Ezek. XVIII), but desire that he turn back and live, when I have heard them, I will give them the power of my spirit, and I will fill them with my judgment and strength, so that those who previously deceived the people with flatteries may afterward terrify them by announcing the truth and recall them to the right way, and those who were the cause of error may begin to heal the wounds they had inflicted and to be an occasion of healing.

Observe in the present passage that someone can teach after sin, if only he has washed away his former vices by a repentance worthy of them. Hence also David, after adultery and homicide, speaks in the psalm: You shall sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be cleansed: you shall wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow (Ps. 50:9). Nor is he content with his own purity alone, but he adds: Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and confirm me with the principal spirit (Ibid. 14). And when you have done this, he says, I will teach the wicked your ways, and the impious shall be converted to you (Ibid. 15).

(Vera. seq.) "Hear these things, you princes of the house of Jacob, and you judges of the house of Israel: who abominate judgment, and pervert all things that are right, who build Sion in blood, and Jerusalem in iniquity. Her princes judged for gifts, and her priests taught for a fee, and her prophets divined for money, and they rested upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord in the midst of us? Evils shall not come upon us: for this cause, because of you, Sion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be like a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple in the high places of the forests." The Septuagint: "Hear these things, you leaders of the house of Jacob and the remnant of the house of Israel, who abominate judgment, and pervert all things that are right: who build Sion in blood, and Jerusalem in iniquities.

Her leaders were judging for bribes, and her priests were answering for a fee, and her prophets were divining for money, and they rested upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord in our midst? Evils will not come upon us. Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall be like a watchman's hut in an orchard, and the mountain of the Lord shall become a grove of the forest. No one doubts that Jerusalem was overthrown because of the crimes that are described in this chapter, and because the threat had already gone forth above, either against the judges or against the false prophets: Hear, you princes of the house of Jacob, and you leaders of the house of Israel. And after a few verses: Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who seduce my people, and the rest; now the prophetic discourse is woven generally both against the judges and against the false prophets, and against the priests, and against those who promised themselves knowledge of God, and it accuses them that because of their crimes Zion is to be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem is to fall like a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple is to become the high places of the forests. We see fulfilled what was spoken; the eyes prove the utterance of the mouth; sight is the witness of prophecy. This very testimony is also written in the volume of Jeremiah (Jer. 26), where mention is also made of the prophet Micah, and the devastation of Jerusalem is foretold.

Judges and leaders of the house of Jacob and of the house of Israel, that is, of both the two and the ten tribes, not only did not render judgment, but abhorred it and perverted all things that were right, so that not even a small measure of justice remained in the city. They built Zion in blood and Jerusalem in iniquity, by plundering the poor, slaughtering the innocent, and killing the holy. And if any of the leaders seemed to judge what was right, he rather sold his verdict and judged for bribes. The priests also did not teach the people unless they received payment; and although it is said to the saints, "Freely you have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8), they, bringing forth God's answer for money received, sold the grace of the Lord for a greedy wage. And after these evils, not understanding their own sin—as though they would redeem God's love by their crimes—they recalled that they were judges and priests and prophets of God, and according to their impenitent heart they said: The Lord is in our midst, and evils will not come upon us. Therefore, because they did not repent, and all the people followed the vices of the leaders, priests, and prophets, Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall be like a heap of stones, and the temple that formerly shone with gold and silver shall collapse into final ruins. These things are spoken against the people of the Jews, whose true captivity and final threats were brought upon them indeed because of their earlier crimes, but most of all because of the shedding of the Lord's blood.

Hence Zion also has been plowed like a field, and Jerusalem has been turned into heaps of stones, and that temple once noble and lofty has been crushed into utter ashes. But if anyone transfers these things that are said of Jerusalem and of Zion to the Church (for she is the house of Jacob and the house of Israel, according to that which is written in Isaiah: Jacob my servant, I will uphold him (Isa. 41:8); and that to Timothy: That you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church (1 Tim. 3:15)), he will clearly perceive that the princes of the house of Jacob and the rest of the house of Israel (or, as it is better written in Hebrew, the judges of the house of Israel) are none other than bishops, presbyters, and deacons, who, unless they have kept their heart with all watchfulness, abhor judgment and pervert all things that are right. For when they judge according to the person, and in the disputing of a matter the merit of the case does not prevail, but the power of the accused, do they not abhor judgment and pervert all things that are right? But it can also be taken in another way, that the princes of the house of Jacob and the judges of the house of Israel abhor and detest judgment, turning aside from the sentence of God the judge, and depraving every rule of the Scriptures by evil interpretations; these build Zion in blood and Jerusalem in iniquity. For since the Scripture commands: Do not bring the wicked into the tabernacle of the just (Prov. 24:15), and the Lord abhors the man of blood and the deceitful (Ps.

and they ordain as clerics whomever they choose from among their followers, and by exposing their life as a scandal to the peoples, they are guilty of the unbelief of those who are scandalized (Matt. 18). Hence it is said that it were better for a man that a millstone be tied about his neck and that he be cast into the deep, than that he scandalize one of the least of the Church. And although the prophet Malachi calls priests angels (Mal. 2), and their mouth is the oracle of the Lord, they do not judge without the taking of gifts, reading: Gifts blind the eyes even of the wise, and as a bridle in the mouth they turn them aside (Deut. 16:19; Sir. 20:31); and although it is said to the apostles: Do not possess gold or silver, nor let there be money in your belts (Matt. 10:9), and even money acquired by labor is to be shaken from the hand of a holy man, they peddle the words of the Lord and buy doves in the temple. But the prophets of Jerusalem also divined for money, not knowing that prophecy is one thing and divination another; for divination is never taken in a good sense in the Scriptures. There shall not be, it says, an augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel (Num. 23:23). They seemed indeed to themselves to be prophets, but because they took money, their prophecy was made divination. The apostle Peter says: Silver and gold I have not (Acts

He could certainly have sold to Simon Magus what he was seeking—indeed, he could have pretended to sell it (for the Holy Spirit can neither be sold nor bought)—but he condemned the money that was offered together with the one offering it (Acts 8). Now you may see that the prophets of Jerusalem have no prophecy in their mouth; they rest in the Lord and say, "No evil will come upon us"; for their sake the watchtower of God is divided by the enemy's plow, and the place that was once of peace is filled with ruins, and the temple of the Lord is turned into briars and thorns, and becomes a dwelling place of beasts. Nor let anyone be disturbed by what we read in the first book of Kings: that Saul, wishing to go to Samuel, said to his servant that he could not go to him because he did not have the price to offer for a prophecy, and the servant replied, "Behold, a fourth part of a shekel of money has been found in my hand, and I will give it to the man of God, and he will announce our way to us" (1 Kings 9:8). For it is not written that Samuel accepted it or that they offered it to him; rather, they are fed by the prophet and invited to lunch. But suppose he did accept it: such provisions are to be reckoned as belonging to the tabernacle rather than as gifts for prophecy. For a shekel has twenty obols, and a fourth part of a shekel is five obols. And so let our priests too, if they wish to sell prophecy and to set out doves in their seats, which the Lord overturned with a whip (John 2), receive five obols, not the prices of villas.

The same thing is meant in the third book of Kings, where Jeroboam's wife, when her son was sick, goes to Ahijah the man of God and brings him loaves and dried grapes and a jar of honey (1 Kings 14). For it is stated what she carried with her, and yet the prophet is not recorded to have accepted it—since indeed he both rebuked her and foretold the mourning that was to come; although those who were accustomed to go to idol-priests (for there were many diviners and soothsayers in Israel) could have supposed, from evil custom, the same thing even about the prophets, and wished to offer to holy men what they had been accustomed to offer to divine beings, and Scripture has merely narrated what they intended, and has not added that they themselves dared to offer it or that the prophets received it. The apostle Paul says: Those who serve at the altar partake of the altar and live by it (1 Cor. 9:13). It is permitted to you, O priest, to live from the altar, not to live in luxury. You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain (ibid. 9). We know these things, and yet the apostle does not abuse this license: and having food and clothing, he is content; night and day he labors with his own hands, so as not to be a burden to anyone (2 Thess. 3). And he swears in his letters that he conducted himself holily and without greed in the Gospel of Christ, and he asserts this not only of himself but also of his disciples: that he sent no one to ask anything of the churches, or even to be willing to receive it.

But if he rejoices in certain Epistles, and calls the gifts of those who send them the benevolence of God, he is gathering not so much for himself as for the poor of the saints who were in Jerusalem. Now the holy poor were those in Jerusalem who had first believed in Christ from among the Jews, and, cast out by their parents, relatives, and kin, had lost both their possessions and their entire household goods, the priests of the temple and the people plundering them. If such are the poor, let them receive. But if under the pretext of the poor a few houses are enriched, and we eat gold from glass and earthenware vessels, or exchange our treasures and garments, or a poor habit does not seek the wealth of senators—what does it profit to have no little linen cloth around the neck for wiping away sweat? What does it avail to be, and to display poverty in dress, when our purse makes the whole crowd of the poor sigh? For this reason, on our account—we who are such as this, who build Zion in blood and Jerusalem in iniquity, who judge for bribes, who give answers for fees, who divine for money, and on top of this, claiming for ourselves a feigned sanctity, say: Misfortunes will not come upon us.

Let us hear the judgment of the Lord that follows: Zion and Jerusalem, and the mountain of the temple, the watchtower, and the vision of peace, and the temple of Christ at the consummation, and at the end, when charity has grown cold and faith has become rare, it shall be plowed like a field and reduced to mounds, and it shall become a place in the heights of the woods or a keeping of fruits: so that where once there were spacious houses and countless heaps of grain, there a small hut may scarcely remain, preserving the appearance of foods, but having no refreshment for the soul.

(Cap. IV.—Vers. seq.) "And it shall be in the last days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills, and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall hasten, and shall say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths, because the law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he shall judge among many peoples, and shall rebuke strong nations even to afar off: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall learn war no more, but a man shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and there shall be none to terrify him; because the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken: for all peoples shall walk, each one in the name of his own god: but we shall walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and beyond.

In that day, says the Lord, I will gather the lame, and I will collect her whom I had cast out, and her whom I had afflicted: and I will place the lame as a remnant, and her who had labored as a strong nation, and the Lord reigned over them on the mountain of Zion, from this time now and forever. The Septuagint: "And it shall be in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, prepared above the summit of the mountains: and it shall be raised above the hills, and peoples shall hasten to it, and many nations shall go and say: Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will show us his way, and we will walk in his paths, because from Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he shall judge among many peoples, and he shall reprove strong nations even to afar, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles: and no longer shall nation lift up sword against nation, and they shall by no means learn to wage war, and each one shall rest under his vine, and each one under his fig tree, and there shall be none who terrifies, because the mouth of the Lord almighty has spoken these things, because all peoples shall go, each one his own way. But we shall go in the name of the Lord our God forever and beyond. In that day, says the Lord, I will gather her who is crushed, and her who had been cast out I will receive, and those whom I had rejected: and I will place the crushed as remnants, and the rejected as a strong nation. And the Lord shall reign over them on the mountain of Zion, from this time now and forever.

Because the princes of the Jews abominated judgment, and had perverted all that was right, and had built Zion in blood and Jerusalem in iniquity; and not only had they done these things, but they had also judged for gifts, and the priests of Jerusalem had answered for a fee, and its prophets had divined for money, and because of them Zion was like a plowed field, and Jerusalem had fallen into heaps of stones, and the mountain of God's temple was laid desolate among the heights of the forests—for this reason now, their house being abandoned and deserted, when the Son of God, going out from the temple, said, Arise, let us go hence, and, Your house shall be left to you desolate. The angels also, as Joseph relates, said, Let us pass over from our seats; in place of Mount Zion the mountain of the Lord has been raised up, of which it is said to the prince of Tyre: And you were wounded on the mountain of the Lord. But this mountain of the Lord was shown in the last days, when the kingdom of heaven drew near. Indeed, in the consummation of the ages, for the reprobation of sins, our Savior appeared through his own sacrifice, and at the eleventh hour he came to hire workers. And when his passion was completed, John says: It is the last hour; for in six thousand years, if five hundred years are divided for each of the hours of the day, the last hour will consequently be called the time of the faith of the Gentiles.

And he says, the mountain of the Lord, prepared above the peaks of the mountains, will be manifest. He will be manifest who before had been hidden and prepared not only in the mountains, but above the peaks of the mountains—Moses and the prophets, who prophesied of him. For although they wrote all holy things, nevertheless in comparison with the prophecy in which they foretold the coming of the Savior, the rest are lowly and by no means reaching all the way to the peak of the mountains. And he says, he will be exalted above the hills. Indeed a man appeared and took the form of a servant; he humbled himself even to death, even death on a cross; but the Father exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name (Philippians 2:7–9), and compared with his conduct the whole life of men is called fields and valleys. Therefore to this mountain, which has been prepared above the peaks of the mountains and exalted above the hills, all peoples will hasten—or, as it is in the Hebrew, will flow—that is, countless multitudes will gather like rivers. But the peoples will hasten (Acts 2) when the Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya which is near Cyrene, and the visiting Romans, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, have believed in him together. Do they not seem to you to have hastened to the mountain, to whom it was said: Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men (Matthew

and immediately followed the Savior? And again Scripture reports of James and John that, leaving behind the boat and their father and the waves of the world, they hastened to the mountain, and Matthew the tax collector, hearing Follow me (Matt. 9), ran at once. But also that passage in the Gospel, when many crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and beyond the Jordan, and he healed them, proves the peoples to be hastening. But while the peoples hasten, very many nations also will go to the mountain—namely, the whole world believing in him—and they will say, spurring one another on to the standard of the cross, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. Ascension is needed, so that one may be able to reach Christ, and to the house of the God of Jacob, the Church, which is the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Moreover, that Jacob signifies the Savior, we have also said above: Jacob my servant, I will uphold him (Isa. 41:8; 42:1). But they will also say this to those to whom they had spoken: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and they will add: That he may show us his way—which understand either in the angels, the Churches dining, or in the holy Scriptures, which point out beforehand the way of the Lord, and him who says: I am the way (John 14:6). And let us walk in his paths—in the Apostles, that is, through whom we have believed in Christ.

For out of Sion has gone forth the spiritual law, and the word of God passed over to the nations from Jerusalem, which will judge among many peoples. For the Father has given all judgment to the Son (John 5:22). And he will rebuke many nations even to a distant land; for the Lord catches the wise in their craftiness, and has known the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain (Psalm 93:11). But he judges between the peoples which are worthy of salvation and which are unworthy, and at his coming every zeal for war will be turned to peace. Swords will be changed into plowshares, spears will be forged into sickles, nation will cease to war against nation (Isaiah 2:4). No one will learn to fight, the necessity of fighting being laid aside. And so great will be the rest that not only in cities but also in villages and fields each one will be secure: and this will come to pass because the mouth of the Lord has spoken. And first indeed according to the letter, before the child was born to us whose government is upon his shoulder, the whole world was full of blood, peoples against peoples, kings against kings, nations were fighting against nations. Then indeed even the Roman Republic itself was torn apart by civil wars, with Cinna and Octavius and Carbo fighting: Sulla and Marius, Antony and Catiline, Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey, Augustus and Brutus, and the same Augustus and Antony: in whose battles all kingdoms poured out blood.

But after the empire of Christ, Rome obtained a singular empire; the world was made passable for the journey of the apostles, and the gates of cities were opened to them, and for the preaching of the one God a singular empire was established. What is said can also be taken tropologically: They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks (Joel 3:10)—so that we may say that at the faith of Christ anger and unbridled abuse have been laid aside, so that each one may put his hand to the plow and not look back, and breaking the darts and spears of insults, may desire to reap spiritual fruits, so that while others labor, we may enter into their labors, and it may be said of us: But coming they shall come with exultation, carrying their sheaves (Ps. 125:6). Now no one fights against another, because we read: Blessed are the peacemakers (Matt. 5:9). No one learns to contend for the subversion of hearers, but puts silence to his mouth and is silent, because the time is evil. And each one shall rest under his vine, to press the wine that gladdens the heart of man (Ps. 103), under that vine whose husbandman is the Father (John 15), and under his fig tree plucking the sweet fruits of the Holy Spirit: charity, joy, peace, and the rest. But all these things will happen according to both interpretations, because the words of the Lord are true, and for him to have said is to have done.

All peoples will go, each in his own way: but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and beyond. With all the nations, they say, going according to their own error, we have hastened to the mountain of the Lord, and we have said: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob (Isa. 2:3), and we will walk in the name of Christ our Lord, because he is the mountain which is God. In that day in which the sun of justice shall shine, that which had been crushed before will be gathered, and that which had been cast out will be received, and for this purpose the crushed will be gathered, that it may be set among the remnant, and the forsaken among a strong nation. For unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we would have been as Sodom, and we would have been like Gomorrah (Rom. 9:20). But according to the Hebrew, it is beautifully put. I will gather, he says, the lame, and her who had walked badly, and to whom Elijah had said: How long will you limp (3 Kings 18:21)? Whose foot, having been scandalized, had been cut off (Mark 9). Her whom I had cast out, and to whom I had given a bill of divorce, I will gather: and her whom I had afflicted with various captivities, or had handed over to the devil and his angels. And lest the diligent reader immediately object to us, how do you assert that the lame has been gathered, and that she who had been cast out has been collected, when the Jews remain in unbelief?

Let the Church of the first day of Christ hear this—the Church that believed from among the Jews, from whom the apostles also came, concerning which Luke describes in the Acts of the Apostles that three thousand believed in one day (Acts 2:41), and concerning whom James speaks to Paul: You see, brother Paul, how many thousands there are among the Jews who have believed, and all these are zealous for the Law (Acts 21:20). But consider also the prophetic significance: he did not say, I will make the whole lame one saved; but I will make the lame one into a remnant, so that the remnant and the election may be saved, and her who had labored, into a strong nation—into the name, that is, of Christian, which neither sword, nor fires, nor torments will overcome. See the faith and passion of the martyrs, and you will not doubt concerning the strong nation. And the Lord will reign over them, that is, over many nations, and over the lame remnants on Mount Zion, in the Church, on the watchtower, in the contemplation of the virtues, from the present age and even into the future. But if anyone wishes to understand what is said—I will gather her who was crushed, and I will receive the cast-out one, and the rest—as concerning the human soul, that before the coming of Christ it served various passions and vices, and like a wandering and diseased sheep was torn by the bites of wolves, he will not err: provided that we know that she who had been crushed and afflicted will afterward be under the reign of the Lord, and will live in Zion, and be carried back to the former mountain on the shoulders of the good shepherd (Luke 15).

It must also be known that both this chapter which we have now expounded and the similar passage from Isaiah, the Jews and the heirs of their error refer to the thousand-year reign of Christ and the saints; and that what is said, "All peoples shall walk, each one in the name of the Lord his God," they interpret thus: that each nation is tormented with its own idol and is sent into the fire of eternal punishment. But from what follows they are refuted: this is not said of the end of the ages, but of the first coming of Christ, in which the remnant of the halting is gathered, and the nations are saved beforehand. Therefore Isaiah set forth a testimony of this kind: The word which was made to Isaiah the son of Amos concerning Judah and Jerusalem: because in the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God above the summit of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills. And all nations shall come to it, and many peoples shall go and say: Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will announce to us his way, and we will walk in it: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem: and he shall judge among many nations, and shall rebuke a very great people, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall learn war no more (Isa. 2:1–4). Here it is significantly said that the word of God going forth from Jerusalem judges among many nations, and rebukes specifically the people of the Jews.

For he will judge us, as it were, as sinners according to the measure of our works; but those he will not judge as impious and deniers, but will convict them as already condemned.

BOOK TWO.

We always answer the envious, because envy does not cease, and the beginnings of our books are refuted by the curses of rivals: who commonly boast that I write certain absurdities of a barren and jejune discourse, and that when I do not know how to speak, I cannot keep silent. Therefore I beseech you, O Paula and Eustochium, that you close your ears to this kind of barking, and adjuring my infancy, as they call it, with your prayers, obtain for me according to the Apostle the opening of my mouth, so that it may be fittingly applied to me when I speak of the Scriptures: The Lord will give the word to those who proclaim good tidings with great power. But I warn the fat bulls that have surrounded me to be quiet and cease to curse, lest they come to know their own evil deeds, which will be brought forth afterward if they continue to wound. For as to what they say, that I compile the volumes of Origen, and that the writings of the ancients ought not to be contaminated: what they consider a vehement reproach, I deem the greatest praise, since I wish to imitate him whom I do not doubt pleases all prudent men and you. For if it is a crime to translate the good sayings of the Greeks, then Ennius and Maro, Plautus, Caecilius and Terentius, and Cicero too and the other eloquent men should be accused, who translated not only verses, but many chapters and very long books and entire plays.

But let our Hilary also be accused of theft, because he translated into Latin, according to the sense, nearly forty thousand lines of the aforementioned Origen on the Psalms. I desire to imitate the negligence of all these men rather than the obscure diligence of those others. But now it is time to forge the second book against Micah and to crush the reborn heads of the hydra with the prophetic hammer.

(Verses 8, 9.) "And you, tower of the flock, cloudy daughter of Zion, unto you shall it come, and the first power shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. Now why are you contracted with grief? Is there no king for you, or has your counselor perished? Because pain has seized you like a woman in labor." The Septuagint: "And you, tower of the flock, dark daughter of Zion, unto you shall it come, and the first principality shall enter, the kingdom from Babylon to the daughter of Jerusalem. And now why have you known evils? Was there no king for you, or has your counsel perished, because pains have taken hold of you like a woman in labor?" By the cloudy or squalid tower of the flock, which in Hebrew is called OPHEL, we ought to understand no other than that of which Isaiah says: And I built a tower in the midst of it, that is, of the vineyard. But the vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel (Isa. 5:2). As long as this tower has the winepress, that is, the altar, and around it a wall, namely the aids of angels, and the boar, the devil, does not enter the vineyard, it is not squalid, it is not dark, but having obtained its name from the Lord who shines, it is called a city, which, situated on a mountain, cannot be hidden.

Therefore the tower that once belonged to the flock and people of God (because the worst tenants killed the son of the householder (Luke 20)), is now squalid and forsaken, and under the name Ariel (Isa. 29) Isaiah cries out from the earth: And this tower belongs to the daughter of Zion, or, as Symmachus translated into Greek: She herself is the daughter of Zion: and God will come even to this one, or the first power, which power is the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. But the first power, or the first principality, came to this tower—he who had said: I am the alpha and the beginning and the end, the first and the last (Rev. 22:13). And he who, in the person of the man he assumed, says in Proverbs: The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways, in his works (Prov. 8:22), or, as it is written in Hebrew: The Lord possessed me: for QANANI does not mean "he created me," but "he possessed me and had me." And the first power came, and the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem, so that after the first there might also be a second; for just as he himself speaks confidently: I am the light of the world (John 8:12), so he also grants to his disciples that they too be called the light of the world, and says to them: You are the light of the world (Matt. 5:14). But also, calling himself the true vine in the Gospel, he speaks through Jeremiah concerning believers: But I planted you as a whole true fruitful vine (Jer. 2:21). And since he is the living bread descending from heaven, he gave to his disciples that they be called bread. Whence also the apostle Paul speaks confidently: For we all are one bread (1 Cor.

(Micah 10:17). In this manner, then, the first power and the kingdom enter Jerusalem, so that it may make those who believe in it a power and a kingdom. But as for what is read in certain books, "And the first principality shall enter the kingdom of the daughter of Zion," and "from Babylon," we should know that it has been added, because it is found neither in the Hebrew nor in the other translators. And indeed he seems to have understood it of the Babylonian captivity, that the people, going out from there, came to Jerusalem. It follows: "And now, why are you drawn together in grief?" or, as it is written in the Septuagint: "And now, why have you known evils?" To what, he says, is the Lord and the first power and the kingdom going to come? Why now are you drawn together in grief, or why have you known evils? Immediately it is answered and said: "Because you have no king, and your counselor has perished, because pain has seized you like a woman in labor." Or certainly, since you have all these things, by your own fault you do not deserve the help of either a king or a counselor. But what he says, "Why have you known evils?" must be understood in this sense, that everyone who deserves and suffers evils is said to know evils and to be ignorant of good things. According to that which is also written in the first book of Kings: "The sons of Eli, sons of pestilence, did not know God" (1 Kings 2:12). And elsewhere: "He who keeps the commandment will not know an evil word" (Eccles. 8:5). And to sinners: "Depart from me," says the Lord, "you who work iniquity, because I do not know you" (Matt. 7:23).

On the contrary, concerning the Lord: "Who, though he had not known sin, was made sin for us" (2 Cor. 5:21)—the subject understood is God the Father. But the King and Angel of great counsel is understood to be the Savior, who perished for an unbelieving people, whom pains seized like a woman in labor; for while Israel thought it would obtain dominion, it was suddenly laid waste. And just as a woman giving birth cannot escape pain, so that people could not avoid or postpone the imminent captivity and the army encircling the city. Let us read the Scriptures, and we shall never find that holy women gave birth in pain, except Rachel—who, because she was on the road, and in the hippodrome, that is, the course of horses, which are sold in Egypt, gave birth to a son of pain, whom his father afterward called the son of the right hand (Gen. 35). Eve, cast out of paradise and hearing, "In pain you shall bring forth" (Gen. 3:16), is described as having given birth in pain. The wife of Phinehas, stricken and unable to raise herself, like that woman whom the devil bound in the Gospel (Luke 13), gave birth after she had learned that the ark of God had been captured and the people's ruin had come (2 Kings 4). But Sarah, who was holy and whose womanly functions had ceased, said of Isaac: "The Lord has made laughter for me; for whoever hears of it will rejoice with me" (Gen. 21:6).

Therefore the pains that seized the tower of the flock are the pains of hell and the pains of death, which indeed surrounded and even walled in the Savior, but could by no means seize him, as he himself says in the seventeenth Psalm: "The pains of death surrounded me, and the torrents of iniquity troubled me, and the pains of hell walled me in." Some think that the desolate tower, or dark tower, and the daughter of Jerusalem are to be understood of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of the saints, of which the Apostle also says: "You have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Heb. 12:22), which is desolate as long as her sons are not brought back to her, and the king and counselor is not in her, and pains seize her like a woman in labor, because she has given birth in vain, seeing so many of her sons slain.

(Verse 10.) "Grieve and strive, daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor: for now you will go out of the city, and you will dwell in the region, and you will come even to Babylon; there you will be freed, there the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies." The Septuagint: "Grieve, and act manfully, daughter of Zion, like a woman giving birth, for now you will go out of the city, and you will dwell in the field, and you will come even to Babylon: from there he will free you, and from there the Lord your God will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

To whom it is commanded to grieve, or to be in labor, and afterwards it is added, "act manfully"—not without reason is it commanded; but so that, bearing her pains patiently, she may go out from the city and dwell in the field or in the region, and come all the way to Babylon, and when, enduring captivity for her sin, she has bravely borne what was inflicted, then the Lord will free her, and her God will redeem her from the hand of her enemies, so that after she has been freed she may say to those who taunt her: Do not taunt me, my enemy, for I have fallen; I shall rise again; for even if I have walked in darkness, the Lord is my light: I will endure the anger of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he justifies my cause and executes my judgment and brings me out into the light, and I shall see his justice, and my enemy shall look on and be covered with shame (Mic. 8:9). Hence also in the Psalms it is sung with fitting voice: The Lord will not be angry forever, nor will he threaten for eternity (Ps. 102:9). But that "Grieve" and "act manfully" pertain to the salvation of the one grieving and acting manfully, Jesus the son of Nave is also a witness, to whom the Lord says: Be strong and act manfully (Josh. 1:18). But the daughter of Zion grieves and acts manfully, because she has gone out of the city barefoot and naked, and is to be led captive into the field of Shinar, and is to be in Babylon until Zorobabel comes, and Ezra, which is interpreted as "helper," and frees her from the hand of the Chaldeans.

Since this is clear according to the letter, I seem to understand that the soul, driven out of the Church because of sin and handed over to the enemy and avenger unto the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved, goes out from the city which the rush of the river gladdens, and dwells not on the mountain where it previously was, but in the plain, in which the army of the Assyrians wanders, and is in the confusion of its own vices; and after it has worn shackles and drawn the mill and made flour for the Babylonians, returning to itself it says: "How many hired servants of my father are filled with bread, and I perish here with hunger!" and afterward, returning to the father's house, it is received by the most merciful father and redeemed from the hand of the harshest master. Let us set forth an example, so that what is commanded to the daughter of Zion, and what is said—"Grieve, and act manfully as one in labor"—we may refer not to her punishment but to her benefit. Paul speaks to the Galatians: "My little children, for whom I am again in labor, until Christ is formed in you." And for so long he grieved, for so long he was in labor, until he might again through repentance give birth to those who had perished through sin. Consider a physician saying to one who is feverish or wounded: "Grieve, and act manfully, endure thirst, bear the cautery, so that a more certain health may follow.

(verses 11–13) “And now many nations are gathered against you, who say: Let her be stoned, and let our eye look upon Zion. But they themselves have not known the thoughts of the Lord, and have not understood his counsel: because he has gathered them like sheaves on the threshing floor. Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hooves bronze, and you shall crush many peoples: and you shall slay for the Lord their spoils, and their strength for the Lord of the whole earth.” The Septuagint: “And now many nations are gathered against you, saying: Let us insult, and let our eyes look upon Zion. But they themselves have not known the thoughts of the Lord, and have not understood his counsel, because he has gathered them like sheaves of the threshing floor. Arise and thresh them, daughter of Zion: for I will make your horns iron, and I will make your hooves bronze, and you shall crush many peoples, and you shall vow to the Lord their multitude, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth.” O Jerusalem, O daughter of Zion, who will come even to Babylon, and there you will be freed, and the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies: now in the meantime many nations are gathered against you, who speak as of an adulteress, and say: Let her be stoned, and let our eye look upon her.

Or as it is written in the Septuagint: Let us insult and rejoice, and let our eyes look down upon Zion; and they did not know the will and counsel of the Lord; because for this reason the nations have gathered against you, so that you may crush them like hay or stubble of the threshing floor. Rise therefore, daughter of Zion, and with iron horns, which I promise to give you, and with bronze hooves, which you are to receive, winnow and crush the peoples, and kill them for the Lord of the whole earth. For he delights in such a victim and such a sacrifice. The Jews, seeing these things not yet fulfilled, promise them to themselves in the future coming of Christ, and say that all nations will serve the Jewish people, and that the very empire of the Romans, which they interpret under the name Edom, must be crushed by their hooves and winnowed by their horns. How foolish this is is easily proved from all the Scriptures; but this belongs to another time. We therefore who follow not the killing letter but the life-giving spirit say that against the daughter of Zion, which is interpreted as the Church, many nations of demons are gathered, and in the present age, which is placed in the evil one, they insult and rejoice in the slaughter of her children, not knowing the thoughts of the Lord nor recognizing his counsel. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty (1 Cor. 2:8).

Therefore he will gather them like sheaves of the threshing floor, so that whatever they seemed to have that was thorny and scattered, empty and light, he may tread down with his hooves and winnow with his horns, and the wheat that remains pure may be offered as gifts to the Lord. But what does he signify in this, where he says: And you shall crush many peoples, and you shall consecrate to the Lord their multitude, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth. Let us read Numbers, and Joshua son of Nun, and the first book of Kings, and we shall see how, from the nations made subject, when all had perished at the edge of the sword, gold and silver, and a fixed number of the spoil both from men and from beasts, was consecrated to the Lord. Finally, even Achor, who stole something from the anathema of Jericho, threw the people into confusion, and from the sin the valley received its name, EMEC ACHOR, that is, the valley of tumult or of disorders (Joshua 7). But so that you may know, according to the Septuagint translators, who said: You shall consecrate to the Lord their multitude, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth, that consecration ought to be taken in a good sense: Theodotion rendered for "multitude" "gifts"; the Fifth Edition, "profit," that is; Symmachus, "gain," that is.

(Chapter 5, verse 1.) "Now you will be laid waste, daughter of the robber: they have set a siege against us: with a rod they will strike the cheek of the judge of Israel." The Septuagint: "Now the daughter will be shut up in a shutting up: he has set distress upon us: with a rod they will strike the cheek of the tribe of Israel." Not that one tribe strikes the cheek of another, but that others strike the cheek of the tribe of Israel. I indeed promised you, O daughter of Zion, that the time would come when I would make your horn iron and your hooves bronze, and when the multitude of demons had been crushed, you would offer to the Lord of the whole earth whatever they had previously possessed. But because this will happen then, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and all Israel has been saved (Romans 11), meanwhile, for the present, according to your deserts, you are to be laid waste, or, as it is in the Hebrew, cut down. For in no way, according to the Apostle (Philippians 3), are you called Circumcision, but Concision; nor do I call you my daughter, but the daughter of the robber, which in Hebrew is called BATH GEDUD, that is, of the devil, always girded for plundering. For you have made my house a den of robbers, you have fought against me, and your sons have set a siege against me, and against my Son and my Spirit. Is it not an insult to the Trinity, when with a rod and a reed, by your doing, the Romans struck the head of the judge of Israel, saying: "Prophesy to us, Christ, who is it that struck you" (Matthew 26:68)?

or when one of your servants struck him on the cheek, saying: "Is this how you answer the high priest" (John 18:22)? This is according to the Hebrew, with which Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion and the fifth edition agree. According to the Septuagint, however, the sense is much deeper, and it is understood, as it were, from its own opening. Now the synagogue is shut up with a shutting; and those who have been enclosed in it will say: "He has placed distress upon us"; and, subjected to the Roman powers, they will be struck on the cheek, the tribes of Israel. For the Lord has taken away from Judea and from Jerusalem the mighty and the strong, and the wise architect, and the understanding hearer (Isaiah 3:1-2), and its ways are closed and blocked up to this day, nor can it go out from captivity, but it is pressed by a most harsh dominion. But if, according to the earlier sense, we wish to take it as said of the Church: "Now the daughter will be shut up with a shutting," let us bring forward that example from Hosea, in which the adulteress says: "I will go after my lovers, who gave me my breads, and my water, and my garments, and my linens, my oil, and all things that are profitable to me" (Hosea 2:5). And afterward God, wishing to hinder the worst thought, does not bring it about that she accomplish what she desires; but he blocks up her ways, so that she not obtain her lovers and fornicate further. For he says: "Therefore behold, I will block up her ways with thorns, and I will hedge in her ways: and she will not find her path, and she will pursue her lovers

he adds his own], and she will not grasp them, and she will seek them, and will not find them, and she will say: I will go and return to my former husband, because it was well with me then (Hosea 6, according to the Septuagint). Notice that the Lord's work has advanced. For the adulteress, not finding her way, and unable to proceed where she wished, constrained by necessity returns to her former husband, and confesses that it was better for her in the house of her former husband than it once was among her lovers, and Israel is instructed by tribulations and blows. Hence also to David, in a mystical figure of Christ, it is said: If his sons forsake my law, and do not walk in my judgments, if they profane my statutes, and do not keep my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with scourges: but my mercy I will not scatter from him (Psalm 88 and following). God therefore placed tribulation upon the daughter of Israel, and the angels who are set over plagues will strike her on the cheek. And lest perhaps you not know who the daughter is who is shut up with a shutting-up, and is placed in distress, it is immediately added and said, the tribe of Israel. But we are Israel, who perceive God with the mind, in distinction from whom the Apostle speaks: Behold Israel according to the flesh (1 Corinthians 10:18). For he would never call Israel fleshly, unless he knew that there is also a spiritual one.

(Verse 2.) "And you, Bethlehem Ephratha, are little among the thousands of Judah: from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity." The Septuagint: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephratha, are the least, that you may be among the thousands of Judah: from you shall come forth for me one who is to be a prince in Israel, and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of the age." In the Gospel according to Matthew (Matt. 2), when the magi had come from the East and Herod was asking the scribes where the Lord Christ would be born, they are reported to have answered: "In Bethlehem of the land of Judah," and, adding the prophet's testimony, they said: "And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah; for from you shall come forth a leader who will rule my people Israel." That this testimony agrees neither with the Hebrew nor with the translators of the Septuagint is clear even if I say nothing, and I think that Matthew, wishing to convict the scribes and priests of negligence in the reading of the divine Scripture, set it down just as it was spoken by them. There are, however, those who assert that in almost all the testimonies taken from the Old Testament there is an error of this kind, so that either the order is changed, or the words, and sometimes even the sense itself, is different—because the apostles or evangelists did not take the testimonies from the book, but trusted to memory, which is sometimes mistaken.

Let us therefore expound the Hebrew: "And you, Bethlehem," that is, house of bread, who are called Ephratha, you are indeed the least among the cities of Judah, and compared to so many thousands, you are scarcely a small village; but from this small village shall go forth Christ, who is the ruler in Israel. And lest you think that he is only of the lineage of David, to whom I promised, saying: "Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon my throne" (Ps. 131:11), the assumption of flesh does not hinder the divine majesty; for he was born of me before all ages, and the founder of times is not confined within time. He is the one to whom I also said in another psalm: "Before the morning star I begot you" (Ps. 109:3). For "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God" (John 1:1). And therefore his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity. But that Bethlehem itself is Ephratha, the book of Genesis shows, in which the Scripture records: "Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephratha, this is Bethlehem" (Gen. 35:19). And in each name it signifies a mystery: for it is called the house of bread, on account of the living bread, which came down from heaven (John 6).

And Ephratha, which is interpreted as "he sees fury," on account of Herod's madness, because, mocked by the magi, he was exceedingly angry, and sending men, he killed all the infants in Bethlehem and in all its borders, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had inquired of the magi, and because of the great shedding of blood a voice was heard on high, lamentation and wailing, of Rachel weeping for her children. We read according to the Septuagint translators only, in Joshua, where the cities and towns of the tribe of Judah are described, among others this also is written: Thaeco, and this is Bethlehem, and Phagor, and Aetham, and Culon, and Tami, and Soris, and Caraem, and Gallim, and Baether, and Manocho, eleven cities, and their villages, which is found neither in the Hebrew nor in any other translator, and whether it was erased from the old books by the malice of the Jews, lest Christ seem to have arisen from the tribe of Judah, or added by the Septuagint, not clearly knowing, we know for certain what is certain. Nevertheless, we can also prove this same point from the book of Judges, that Bethlehem is in the tribe of Judah, for it is written: And there was a certain Levite dwelling on the sides of mount Ephraim, and he took to himself a woman, a concubine from Bethlehem of Judah, and his concubine was angry with him, and she went away into her father's house in Bethlehem of Judah. And it is well said, "in Bethlehem of Judah," to distinguish it from that Bethlehem which is situated in Galilee, as I have found in the same volume of Joshua.

Ephratha can mean in our language "abundant and fruitful," and this very thing shows forth in mystery, that it is also the house of bread.

(Verse 3.) "Therefore he will give them up until the time when she who is in labor gives birth, and the remnant of his brothers will turn to the children of Israel." The Septuagint: "Therefore he will give them up until the time of her who gives birth: she will give birth, and the remnant of the brothers will return to the children of Israel." Because from Bethlehem, which is Ephratha, Christ the ruler in Israel went forth, and his going forth was not only at that time when he was seen in the flesh, but from the beginning of eternity, or from the beginning of the world. Because he himself always spoke through the prophets, and the word of God was made in their hand [variant: in the hand of the saints]: therefore he will give up the Jews, and permit them to reign until the time of her who gives birth, when that is fulfilled: "Rejoice, O barren one who does not give birth; break forth and cry out, you who do not labor, for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband" (Isa. 54, according to the Septuagint). For when the barren one has given birth to seven, and she who had many children has become weak, and by the offense of the Jewish people the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel will be saved, and the remnant of his brothers will turn to the children of Israel; and when Elijah the prophet comes—which is interpreted "God the Lord"—he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers (Luke.

and the newest people will be joined to the ancient, so that they may truly be called sons of Abraham, when they have believed in him whom Abraham saw and rejoiced (John 8). But what is the time in which the barren woman will give birth? As I think, it is that of which Isaiah speaks: In an acceptable time I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you (Isa. 49:8). Understanding this too as foretold of the time of Christ, Paul says: Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2). I think this very thing is also mystically shown by what is written in Ecclesiastes: A time to be born, and a time to die (Eccles. 3:2), namely that at the time when the people of the Gentiles was born from the barren woman, the synagogue lost its sons. But it can also be understood otherwise: the Lord will give the temple and Jerusalem, and the Jews, until that time when the virgin gives birth; and after she has given birth, and the child born has received the spoils of Samaria and the power of Damascus, with the people of the Jews slain, the remnant of Israel will be saved. And the brothers of Christ, that is, the apostles, will be converted to the faith of the prophets and patriarchs, who announced Christ who was to come, and the prophecy of the psalm will be fulfilled: Instead of your fathers, sons are born to you, and the rest that follows (Ps. 44:17).

(Verse 4.) "And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and they shall be converted, because now he shall be magnified to the ends of the earth." The Septuagint: "And he shall stand, and shall see, and the Lord shall feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, and they shall be in the glory of the name of the Lord his God, because now they shall be magnified to the ends of the earth." After the sun of righteousness has gone forth from the height of the heavens and has reached even to their ends, and she who gives birth has given birth, and the remnant of his brothers has been converted to the sons of Israel, then the Lord himself, who previously walked and was with those who were placed on the journey and did not yet have a fixed step, shall stand and feed them in the strength of the Lord, so that they can say: The Lord feeds me, and nothing shall be lacking to me; in the place of pasture, there he has placed me, he has nourished me upon the waters of refreshment; he has converted my soul (Psalm 22:1). But he feeds them not only in the strength of the Lord, but also in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, when he says to the Father: Holy Father, keep them in your name, whom you have given me, that they may be one as we also are; when I was with them, I kept them in your name; those whom you have given me I have guarded, and none of them has perished (John 17:11–13). And they shall be converted, or, as Symmachus translated better, they shall dwell. For the Hebrew word JASUBU signifies both.

But they shall dwell in the Church of the Lord, because Christ has been magnified to the end of the earth. Or, according to the Septuagint, because they themselves shall be magnified with their shepherd to the farthest end of the earth, so that their sound may go out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world (Ps. 18). (Verse 5.) "And this shall be peace: when the Assyrian comes into our land, and when he has trodden in our houses." The Septuagint: "And this shall be peace: when the Assyrian comes upon your land, and when he has gone up over your region." When the devil—who is interpreted as "the accuser," that is, the one who argues and rebukes—has come upon the land and region of believers, and of those whom the Lord will feed in strength and in the sublimity of the name of the Lord his God, and has trodden them underfoot with various tribulations, and has gone up as if in pride over the houses of our souls, that is, our bodies, and pressed them down, and yet has separated us in nothing from the love of Christ: then the peace of Christ, or Christ himself, will be in us, and it shall be said of the saint, "The enemy shall profit nothing in him." Let us set forth an example, so that what we say may be made clearer.

The Assyrian has come upon the land of Paul—once—and has gone up upon his region, when he was in labors beyond measure; in stripes more abundantly, in prisons more exceedingly, in deaths often; when from the Jews five times he received forty stripes save one, three times he was beaten with rods, once he was stoned, three times he suffered shipwreck, a night and a day he was in the deep sea, in perils of robbers, in perils from false brethren, in perils from his own kindred, in perils from the Gentiles (II Cor. 11): but in all these things he was conquering because of him who had loved him. And therefore he was filled with peace, because he had been filled with reproaches. The Jews contend that in the coming of Christ, whom they falsely imagine for themselves, all these things will come to pass according to the letter.

(Verse 6.) "And we shall raise up upon him seven shepherds, and eight chief men, and they shall feed the land of Assur with the sword, and the land of Nimrod with its spears, and he shall deliver from Assur when he comes into our land, and when he has trodden in our borders." The Septuagint: "And there shall rise up upon him seven shepherds, and eight bites of men, and they shall feed Assur with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in its pit, and he shall deliver from Assur, when he comes upon your land, and when he has gone up upon your borders." Where we have placed "chief men," and in the Hebrew it is written NESICHE ADAM, Symmachus translated it as "anointed ones of men"; Theodotion and the fifth edition, "princes of men"; Aquila, "grave," or "appointed men," that is,