Quia enim Sion et Jerusalem in excelso positae sunt, quicunque Sion detrahit et Jerusalem, et mittit in cam contumeliarum lapides, in suum eos caput jacit, et revertetur opprobrium ejus in caput suum: Et dolor ejus el iniquitas super verticem ejus descendet (Psal VII, 17). Quanti hodie exprobrant animae, Dei mysteria consectanti, volentique videre pacem ejus, et dicunt: Insanus est, et ebrius, et musto plenus; hominum coetus fugit; delicias aspernatur; aurum pro luto computat; solam diligit paupertatem. Qui autem infideles sunt, etiam crucem Christi exprobrant ei, et si quando eum in angustia viderint et in tentatione, dicunt: Ubi sunt misericordiae tuae, et justitiae quas operatus es? Quid loquar de infidelibus, cum Ecclesiarum nonnulli principes hujuscemodi hominibus exprobrent, et vitam ipsorum arbitrentur amentiam, et non praesentem laudent conversationem, sed vetera peccata exprobrent? nec audiunt esse praeceptum: Noli improperare homini qui convertitur a peccatis suis (Eccli. VIII, 6).
For because Zion and Jerusalem are set on high, whoever disparages Zion and Jerusalem and casts stones of insult at her, throws them upon his own head, and his reproach will return upon his own head: And his sorrow and his iniquity will descend upon his own crown. How many today reproach a soul that pursues the mysteries of God and wishes to see his peace, and say: He is insane, and drunk, and full of new wine; he flees the company of men; he spurns pleasures; he counts gold as mud; he loves only poverty. But those who are unbelievers even reproach him with the cross of Christ, and if ever they see him in distress and in temptation, they say: Where are your mercies, and the righteous deeds that you have done? Why should I speak of unbelievers, when some leaders of the churches reproach men of this kind, and judge their life to be madness, and do not praise their present manner of life, but reproach them for old sins? Nor do they hear that there is a commandment: Do not reproach a man who is turning from his sins.
Vae igitur ei, qui tulit opprobrium atque suscepit, et hujuscemodi se officio mancipavit, ut detraheret Sion, et civitati Dei; quia pro hac injuria urbis suae ultor est Dominus, et dicet ad Sion: Ecce ego faciam in te propter te, id est, faciam ultionem tuam, et salvabo afflictam, sive, ut in Graeco dicitur, expressam; ut sit sensus: Ego salvabo eam, quae in praesentiarum quasi uva et oliva 3, ita tentationibus atque pressuris, ut prelo et trabe pressa est et afflicta, ut vinum faceret et oleum, et de vino biberet Jesus in regno Patris sui; de oleo autem ungeretur prae participibus suis. Ego puto propter expressionem talis vini et olei, Job multa perpessum: postquam autem vinum, et oleum fecerat, audisse a Domino: Putas me aliter tibi respondisse, nisi ut appareres justus? (Job. XL, sec. LXX.) Quasi ad uvam et olivam loqueretur: Existimas me aliter te pressisse et afflixisse atque contrivisse, nisi ut vinum de te et oleum exprimerem? Sequitur: Et eam quae repulsa fuerat, suscipiam. Videtur nos Deus repellere quando relinquit tentationi. Unde et Job, Visitatio, inquit. Domini respexit me (Job X, 12).
Woe, therefore, to him who has borne and taken up reproach, and has bound himself to this kind of office, so as to disparage Zion and the city of God; because for this injury to His city the Lord is the avenger, and He will say to Zion: Behold, I will act in you for your sake—that is, I will execute your vengeance, and I will save the afflicted one, or, as it is said in Greek, the pressed-out one; so that the sense may be: I will save her who at present, like a grape and an olive, is thus pressed and afflicted by trials and pressures, as by a press and a beam, so that she may produce wine and oil, and Jesus may drink of the wine in the kingdom of His Father; but of the oil He may be anointed above His fellows. I think it was on account of the pressing out of such wine and oil that Job suffered many things; but after he had produced wine and oil, he heard from the Lord: Do you think I answered you otherwise than that you might appear righteous? (Job XL, according to the Septuagint.) As if He were speaking to the grape and the olive: Do you think I pressed and afflicted and crushed you otherwise than that I might express from you wine and oil? It follows: And her who had been cast off I will take up. God seems to cast us off when He abandons us to temptation. Hence Job also says: The visitation of the Lord has looked upon me (Job X, 12).
Et non solum justi loquuntur, et dicunt, Nunc autem repulisti et confudisti nos, sicut in quadragesimo tertio psalmo scriptum est; sed ipse Dominus atque Salvator, ex persona hominis quem assumpserat, Tu autem, ait, repulisti et despexisti; distulisti Christum tuum; subvertisti testamentum servi tui. Quod autem justorum persona sit in quadragesimo tertio psalmo dicentium: Nunc autem repulisti et confudisti nos, ex sequentibus approbatur: Haec omnia venerunt super nos, nec obliti sumus te, neque inique egimus in testamento tuo: nec recessit retro cor nostrum. Eam quae in tentationibus videbatur abjecta, suscipiet Dominus in fine: et ponet eos in gloriam et nominatos in universa terra, filios videlicet expressae et repulsae, id est, Ecclesiae. Quos autem alios possumus intelligere filios Ecclesiae nominatos, nisi apostolos? Vide mihi Petrum et Paulum et Matthaeum et Joannem; et considera hoc quod ad Abraham repromissum est: Magnificabo nomen tuum, in illis opere perpetratum. Quotidie nominatur in Ecclesia, quotidie magnificatur nomen eorum: non quod ipsis prosit a nobis in Ecclesia nominari, sed quod nos magnificantes nomen eorum, et quae scripserunt lectitantes, consequamur salutem.
And not only do the righteous speak and say, "But now you have cast us off and put us to shame," as it is written in the forty-third psalm; but the Lord and Savior Himself also, in the person of the man whom He had assumed, says: "But you have cast off and despised; you have put off your Christ; you have overthrown the covenant of your servant." That it is the person of the righteous who speak in the forty-third psalm, saying, "But now you have cast us off and put us to shame," is confirmed by what follows: "All these things have come upon us, yet we have not forgotten you, nor have we dealt unjustly in your covenant; nor has our heart turned back." Those who seemed cast down in temptations the Lord will receive at the end, and He will set them in glory and make them named in all the earth—namely, the sons of her who was despised and cast off, that is, of the Church. But whom else can we understand as the sons of the Church who are named, except the apostles? Consider Peter and Paul and Matthew and John, and reflect on what was promised to Abraham: "I will magnify your name," fulfilled in them by deed. Daily their name is named in the Church, daily it is magnified—not that it profits them to be named by us in the Church, but that we, magnifying their name and reading what they wrote, may obtain salvation.
In tempore, inquit, illo, quaudo expressa et repulsa suscepta fuerit, et filii ejus positi in gloriam (gloriatur quippe Dominns in athletis suis, cum eos viderit coronari, sicut gloriatus est adversus diabolum de Job: unde et Apostolus in profectu discipulorum suorum exsultans, ait: Etiam per vestram gloriam), confundentur qui adversarii vestri fuerant, et tulerant contra vos opprobrium: et tunc videbunt eos quos miseros putaverant, esse felices, et quos pauperes existimabant atque dejectos, potentes fieri atque gloriosos. Tunc cernent captivitatem eorum per quam in hoc saeculo duro fuerant imperio subjugati, reduci in coelestem Jerusalem: seque resurgere in opprobrium et in confusionem aeternam. Tribue nobis, Jesu Christe, expressis et afflictis et repulsis in isto saeculo, ut nos recipias et ponas in gloriam: confundatur in tempore excetra 1, cessent sibila, venena torpeant, et confusio ejus proficiat ad salutem. Haec juxta Septuaginta. Hebraicum autem, quia excepto principio. de quo in fine superioris capituli diximus, non multum ab eorum translatione discordat, indigere expositione non arbitror.
In that time, he says, when the one who was pressed and rejected has been received, and her sons have been set in glory (for the Lord glories in his athletes, when he has seen them crowned, just as he gloried against the devil over Job; whence also the Apostle, exulting in the progress of his disciples, says: "Even through your glory"), those who had been your adversaries will be confounded, and had taken up reproach against you; and then they will see that those whom they had thought wretched are happy, and that those whom they considered poor and cast down are becoming powerful and glorious. Then they will perceive that their captivity, through which they had been subjected in this world to a harsh dominion, is being led back into the heavenly Jerusalem, and that they themselves are rising again unto reproach and eternal confusion. Grant to us, Jesus Christ, who are pressed and afflicted and rejected in this world, that you may receive us and set us in glory; let the serpent be confounded in that time, let its hissings cease, let its poisons grow numb, and let its confusion profit unto salvation. This is according to the Septuagint. But the Hebrew, since, except for the beginning, about which we spoke at the end of the previous chapter, it does not differ much from their translation, I do not think needs exposition.