Commentary on Habakkuk

(Verses 1, 2.) How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear? I will cry out to Thee, suffering violence, and Thou wilt not save? Why hast Thou shown me iniquity and grief, to see plunder and injustice against me? The Septuagint: How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear? Why hast Thou shown me toils and griefs, to see misery and impiety? Meanwhile, according to the letter, the prophet complains against God, why Nabuchodonosor devastates the temple and Judah; why Jerusalem, once the city of the Lord, is destroyed; why the people cry out and are not heard; why, oppressed by the Chaldeans, they cry out to the Lord and are not saved; why also the prophet himself, or the people in whose person he now speaks, has lived to this, and has been brought to this point, that he sees the iniquity of enemies and his own toil; why injustice should prevail against him.

And this he says out of the anguish of one hard pressed, not knowing that gold is refined in fire, and that the three boys came out of the furnace purer than they entered it. But we can also take it generally, that from the person of human impatience the prophet, seeing sinners abounding and possessing riches in the world, their sons like a new planting in their youth, and their daughters adorned like the likeness of a temple, their storehouses full, overflowing from this to that, their sheep fruitful and multiplied in their ways, and the other things that are written more fully in the hundred forty-third psalm, breaks forth into a complaining voice full of grief. Why dost Thou look upon those who scorn, and art silent, while the wicked tramples down one more just than himself; and Thou makest men like the fishes of the sea, and like creeping things having no ruler?

Something like this we also read in the seventy-second psalm: “But as for me, my feet were almost moved, my steps had well nigh slipped”, and so on. And again in the same psalm: “And is there knowledge in the Most High? For behold, the sinners and those abounding in the world have obtained riches,” and so on, up to “my hands.” But these things are spoken by those who do not know the unsearchable judgments of God, and the depth of the riches of His wisdom and knowledge, because God does not see as man sees. Man looks only at the present; God knows the future and the eternal. And it is as when a sick man, burning with fevers, asks for cold water, and says to the physician: I suffer violence, I am tortured, I burn, I am fainting: how long, physician, shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear?

And the most wise and most gentle physician answers him: I know at what time I ought to give what you ask; I do not have mercy now, because this mercy would be cruelty, and your own will asks against you. So also the Lord our God, knowing the weights and measures of His mercy, sometimes does not hear one who cries out, in order to test him, and to provoke him the more to ask, and to make him, as it were refined by fire, more just and more pure. Understanding this, the apostle, according to that mercy which he had obtained from the Lord, says: “Let us not faint in tribulations”; and he blesses God at all times; and he knows that he who perseveres to the end shall be saved. And he glories in toil and grief.

And with Jeremiah he says: “I will call upon tribulation and misery.” So that, as another calls upon God, so the holy man and unconquered warrior desires tribulation and misery to come, in order to exercise and test himself. (Verses 3, 4.) And judgment has been made, and contradiction more powerful: for this reason the law is torn apart, and judgment does not come through to the end: because the wicked prevails against the just, therefore perverse judgment goes forth. The Septuagint: Judgment has been made against me, and the judge takes bribes: therefore the law is torn apart, and judgment does not come through to the end: because the wicked prevails against the just, therefore perverse judgment goes forth. Still the prophet, or the people, speaks to the Lord, saying that judgment has been rendered not by truth against him, but by power, and that nothing of law and justice has been upheld. Whence the judgment itself has not reached its end. Now the end of judgment is to judge justly.

And why he dares to say this, he shows in what follows, saying: Because the wicked Nabuchodonosor prevailed against the just Judah, and that this was the reason he said judgment had not reached its end; because it was unjust and perverse that Josiah, a just king, should be slain by the king of Egypt; that Daniel, Ananias, Misael, and Azarias should serve; and that the Babylonian emperor should rule, and that among his harlots and concubines Balthasar should drink from the vials of God. These things the prophet speaks concerning the state of his own times (for we follow, since you once wished it, even the lowliness of the history). But according to the Seventy, it is the common complaint of the saints to God, why unjust judgment is made against them, and innocent blood is shed in persecutions; as if, whenever they have stood before the tribunal of secular judgments, the judge, having received bribes, condemns the innocent and frees the guilty.

Which indeed can be said not only of the judges of the world, but sometimes also of the leaders of the Churches, that on account of gifts they tear apart the law, and do not bring judgment through to the end, and the wicked prevails against the just: and in judgment the sin of the rich man is defended more than the truth of the poor. Whence the complaint is that judgment goes forth perverse: but we ought not to be troubled at this inequality of things, seeing that even at the beginning of the world the just Abel was slain by the wicked Cain, and afterward, while Jacob was in exile, Esau reigned in his father’s house, and the Egyptians afflict the sons of Israel with mud and brick: and the Lord, against whom the complaint is now directed, is crucified by the Jews, and Barabbas the robber is chosen.

The day would fail me, if I wished to enumerate how in this world, while the wicked prevail, the just are oppressed. (Verse 5.) Behold among the nations, and see, and wonder, and be astonished: for a work is done in your days, which no one will believe when it is told. The Septuagint: See, ye despisers, and look, and wonder at wonders, and be utterly destroyed: for I work a work in your days, which you will not believe, if anyone should tell it. Symmachus, instead of what we have said, “for a work is done in your days,” has interpreted, “for a work will be done in your days”: the rest similarly.

Again, at the beginning of the chapter, where in the Hebrew it is written Rau baggoim (ראו בגוים), and we have translated, “Behold among the nations,” while the Seventy have put, “See, ye despisers”—except for Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, who agree with our translation—I have found in another anonymous edition, “you shall see the calumniators,” and in another, likewise without the author’s name, “you shall see those turning aside.” Therefore, in answer to the prophet’s former complaints, saying: “How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear?” and so on to the end of this exordium, the voice of the Lord answering is introduced, so that he may see this iniquity, which he thought was happening only in Israel, occurring among the nations: and that not only Judah and Jerusalem, as the prophet supposed, were handed over to the Chaldeans, but all the nations round about; and that he would be so strong, and would afterward fall, that if anyone should foretell what is to come, it would seem, because of the greatness of the thing, unbelievable.

But also this, which the Seventy and the other interpreters have rendered, “See, ye despisers,” or “you shall see the calumniators and those turning aside,” agrees with the sense of this passage, and from the very word they are convicted of boldness and contempt toward the Lord: in whose person the prophet had cried out, why they dared to despise the majesty of God, and to speak rashly, and, as far as in them lay, to calumniate the providence of God, and to turn away from the Lord, charging Him with iniquity. You shall see, then, the despisers, and then you shall wonder, and shall count all your complaint as nothing, when you shall have seen me act in your days; lest perhaps you say: What does the future matter to us? A work that will be so great that it will overwhelm all your complaining: so that if anyone now foretells that it is to come, you will not easily give credence.

But what this work is, is shown in what follows. (Verses 6 and following.) For behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and swift nation, marching over the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling-places not their own: it is horrible and terrible; from itself shall its judgment and burden go forth. Its horses are swifter than leopards, and more fleet than evening wolves, and its horsemen shall be spread abroad: for its horsemen shall come from afar; they shall fly like an eagle hastening to devour: all shall come to the prey, their faces as a burning wind: and it shall gather captives as the sand, and it shall triumph over kings, and tyrants shall be its laughing-stock: it shall laugh at every stronghold, and shall cast up a mound, and shall take it: then its spirit shall be changed, and it shall pass through and fall: this is the strength of its god.

The Septuagint: For behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and swift nation, which marches over the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling-places not their own: it is terrible and glorious; its judgment shall be of itself, and its assumption shall go forth from itself: And its horses shall exult above leopards, and shall be swifter than the wolves of Arabia, and its horsemen shall ride, and shall come with a rush from afar; and they shall fly like an eagle eager to devour, destruction shall come upon the wicked who resist their faces from the opposite side, and it shall gather captivity as the sand: and it shall delight in kings, and tyrants shall be its playthings: and it shall mock at every stronghold, and shall send a mound, and shall obtain it: then it shall change its spirit, and shall pass through, and shall be propitiated: this is the strength of my God.

What I had said to you: Look among the nations, and see, and marvel, and be astonished: for a work shall be done in your days, which no one will believe when it is told—this is what the following discourse describes: Behold, I will raise up Nabuchodonosor and the Chaldeans, a most warlike and swift nation, of whose strength and boldness in war almost all the Greeks who have written barbarian histories are witnesses. This nation is not content with its own borders, but roams hither and thither, ranging over the breadth of the earth. And this is its work, not to till the earth with the plow, but to live by plunder and the sword, and to possess cities not its own: before it lifts its hand, before it breaks out into war, it carries terror in its countenance.

As for what is said: From itself shall its judgment and burden go forth, for which Symmachus translated: it shall judge itself, and shall go forth by its own decree; or it is to be understood thus, that it will appoint princes from its own nation, and its power and sword will have no auxiliaries from other nations; or certainly, as it has done, so shall be done to it, and it shall be laid waste as it laid waste others. The horses too and horsemen, who shall come from afar, shall be so swift in pursuing and ravaging everything that they shall surpass leopards and evening wolves. For wolves are said to be fiercer as evening approaches, and all day long roused to madness by hunger. The horsemen then shall fly not to fight, since none shall resist; but to range about like the eagle, to which all winged creatures lie subject, hastening to devour.

And as at the blast of a burning wind all green things wither, so at their glance everything shall be laid waste, and the number of captives and of plunder shall be so great that by hyperbole it may even be equaled to the sand. He too, that is, Nabuchodonosor, shall reign over the whole world, and triumphing over kings before his chariot, shall hold them up to derision, and count them among his amusements; and such shall be his power and pride that he will strive to overcome nature itself, and to take the most fortified cities by the strength of his army. For he shall come to Tyre, and by casting up a mound in the sea, shall make a peninsula out of an island, and shall provide, through the waves of the sea, a way of entry into the city by land.

For this reason he shall also laugh at every stronghold, and shall cast up a mound, and shall take it, that is, the stronghold, or Tyre; which indeed is clearly shown in Ezechiel, where it is said: Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, made his army labor with great toil against Tyre. Every head was made bald, and every shoulder was made bare, and no wages were given to him nor to his army against Tyre, for the labor which he performed against it. But when he shall have cast up the mound, and nothing has withstood his strength, then his spirit shall be changed into pride: and believing himself to be a god, he shall set up a golden image in Babylon, which he will compel all nations to worship.

When he has done this, he shall pass over into the form of a beast, and afterward shall fall: for which Aquila and Symmachus translated καὶ πλημμελήσει, that is, and he shall trespass; Holy Scripture having this custom, that it uses "vasham" (אשם), that is, "he shall trespass," for that which means, "he shall cease to be what he had been." We too have something like this in the idiom of our own tongue, saying: The army was beaten, for that which means, it was slain and cut down: and, The vineyard and the field sinned, for that which means, the vintage and the crops did not yield their increase. As for what is said at the end of the chapter: This is the strength of its god, it is to be read ironically, so that the sense is: This is the strength which Bel, its god, gave to it. To whose worship it compelled all nations, even through Scripture and the threat of death, by a most savage rule.

This is according to the Hebrew: now let us come to the Septuagint, that, having set forth each sentence, we may fit to it an allegorical interpretation. Behold, I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and swift nation, which walks over the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling-places not their own. God threatens against those who despise and slander His providence, that He will raise up the Chaldeans, which is interpreted as meaning "demons," as it were; or it signifies the most wicked angels, who minister to His fury and wrath, and to the tribulation which He brings upon sinners: or the souls of the most wicked men, through whom He torments the deserving. Now these Chaldeans are a bitter and swift nation, sparing none, and quickly accomplishing what has been commanded them. And it walks over the breadth of the earth.

For broad and spacious is the way that leads to death [Matt.:]: by which that rich man in the Gospel also walked, who was clothed in purple, and those of whom it is said: Who sleep upon beds of ivory, and abound in luxury on their couches. Who eat calves out of the flock, tender, and drink strained wine, and are anointed with the finest ointments: who, because they walk in the broad way, are called "the breadth of the earth," which is trodden by the footsteps of the Chaldeans. For they were unwilling to walk by the narrow and strait way, which leads to life, and by which Paul walked, glorifying God in tribulation and distress. Now the Chaldeans walk over the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling-places not their own. For every rational soul, although through its own vice and fault it has become a lodging of the Chaldeans, is nevertheless by nature the dwelling-place of God.

And although in the Gospel the most wicked demon says: I will go into my house from which I came out, he is not to be believed; since no rational creature was made for this purpose, that it should be the dwelling-place of a demon. There follows: It is terrible and glorious: its judgment shall be of itself, and its assumption shall go forth from it. The Chaldean is terrible on account of the many and various punishments which he inflicts upon those who despise him; glorious, because he assumes to himself the glory of divinity. And through his oracles and false responses, and cures of diseases which he himself had inflicted, he appears glorious among the ignorant and among the despisers of God. For the judgment and punishment of the despiser shall be from him, that is, from himself, or from the Chaldean.

For according to the Apostle, they shall be delivered over to punishment, that they may learn not to blaspheme: from whom he who shall have done penance, and been converted to God, shall go forth, whereas before he was held in his hands, and was the assumption of the Chaldean. If at any time we shall see someone who has served the devil for a long time, and afterward has been converted to God, let us say of him: And his assumption has gone forth from him.

For whoever shall have done penance, and the demons shall have offended, to whom, like horses, they formerly offered their backs to be sat upon; and with the swiftness of leopards and evening wolves shall have thrown off and dashed down their riders, and with backs empty and light shall have come to bear him who mounted, meek and poor, upon the colt of an ass, these, hastening as it were from afar, and not content with their course and impetus, shall take flight, and shall come as an eagle, that they may feed on the flesh of the word of God, and satisfy the hunger of so long a time. For in that which is said, καὶ ἐξιππάζονται οἱ ἱππεῖς αὐτοῦ, and the Septuagint translated: And his horsemen shall be ridden, according to the sense which we have set forth above, Symmachus interpreted: his horsemen shall be poured out, that is, they shall fall and be dashed upon the ground.

Now the wolves of Arabia, that is, of evening and of the West, are rightly so called, in whom the worst manner of life has set, and who, having formerly been established in darkness, leave the evening behind at full stride; and when they shall have left it, and shall have flown eagerly, that they may eat the flesh of the word of God, then destruction shall come upon the wicked, that is, upon the Chaldeans who resisted the faces of the penitent, lest they should return to their Lord. Wherefore destruction shall come upon the wicked, who resist their faces from the opposite side.

But when they shall have been destroyed, and the captivity snatched from their hands, then the divine word shall gather as the sand the captivity of the Chaldeans, and shall delight in kings, and tyrants shall be its playthings, seeing that the devil, once most powerful, and his kingdoms (which, showing also to the Savior, he said: All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt worship me) have been destroyed by His coming; for the delights of prudence and the pleasure of wisdom consist in this, that folly is destroyed, and the power of tyrants, once overcome and cast down, is turned into derision. Nor indeed was the dragon alone formed to be a plaything for the Lord, he who is the beginning of His handiwork, made a plaything for the angels. Nor will God give him alone, as a sparrow to a little boy; but if there be any other cruel one, and of tyrannical mind, he shall be delivered over to the word of God for derision.

And He Himself says, He shall mock at every stronghold. But what other stronghold is there, except that of which the Apostle speaks: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. If, then, there be any strongholds, whether in words which promise to have a height and greatness contrary to the truth, or in all the glory and riches and strength that are praised in the world, all shall be destroyed, and the word of God shall mock at every stronghold. And He shall send a mound, and shall obtain it by the mound, and shall convict the earthly things it produces of their frailty, in those matters in which it seemed to itself before to have some strength.

But when this shall have been accomplished, then the spirit shall be changed, and shall by no means punish as it had punished before, but passing through, shall intercede for sinners, and reconcile them to their former Lord: in all of which is shown the strength, which has accomplished such great things, of our God. You see how rugged these passages are, and how contrary to the truth of history. And how those things which we have interpreted according to the letter concerning the Chaldeans now seem, according to tropology, to sound the clemency and freedom of those who have escaped from the hands of the Chaldeans. History is strict, and has no license to wander. Tropology is free, and is bounded only by these laws, that it should follow the piety of the understanding and the coherence of the discourse, and not be violent in joining together things much at variance with one another. (Verse 12.) Art thou not from the beginning, O Lord my God, my Holy One? And we shall not die.

O Lord, thou hast appointed him for judgment; and, mighty one, thou hast founded him to chastise. The Septuagint: Art thou not from the beginning, O Lord my God, my Holy One? And we shall not die. O Lord, thou hast appointed him for judgment: and thou hast formed me, that I might reprove in his discipline. Symmachus more plainly: Art thou not from the beginning, O Lord my God, my Holy One, that we should not die? O Lord, thou hast appointed him for judging, thou hast established him mighty for chastising. To the prophet's complaint, saying: How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? God answers, saying: Look among the nations, and see: and after this preface he had added: Behold I will raise up the Chaldeans, a bitter and swift nation. And having completed the whole description, whether of Nabuchodonosor or of the devil, he recalls at the end: Then his spirit shall be changed, and he shall pass away, and shall fall down; this is the strength of his god.

Which the prophet hearing and understanding—that Nabuchodonosor against Judah, or the devil against believers, receives power to chastise them, and that after the chastisement he himself also is punished in the end—answered the Lord: Art thou then, O Lord my God, my Holy One (and this he speaks in the affection of one both soothing and repenting), who from the beginning didst create us? By whose mercy we subsist even until now? For I did not know that our adversaries could do so much, nor did I know that Nabuchodonosor, or the devil of this world, had received power over all the nations. As far, therefore, as concerns his strength, none of us can resist him. But as far as concerns thy mercy, it is thine that we live at all, that we have not been slain by him, and brought to the works of death. For thou, O Lord, hast appointed him for judging, that he himself might be the enemy and avenger, and that through him thou mightest chastise whoever has sinned against thee.

But since we have once interpreted the Chaldeans as referring to the demons, and Nabuchodonosor their king as referring to the devil, we ought briefly to touch upon the description of the devil and his power, so that the prophet may justly say: O Lord, thou hast appointed him for judgment, and, mighty one, thou hast founded him to chastise. There is raised up against the unbelieving and the scornful the nation of demons, bitter for punishing, and everywhere present. It walks also wherever there is breadth of lands, that it may possess the men in whom Christ ought to have dwelt. It is horrible and terrible, and can scarcely be overcome by anyone, nor is it broken before it comes to consummation, weighed down by the magnitude of sins and the burden of its own iniquity. Its horses and horsemen are like leopards and wolves, ever thirsting for blood, and they will desire prey, they will feign absence, and while they are not expected, they will come quickly from afar.

They will fly as an eagle, which, exalting its flight, wishes to set its nest among the stars of heaven, and ever hastens to its prey. And in Ezekiel, under the figure of Nabuchodonosor and the king of Egypt, the devil is described. There is no demon who spares: all will come swift to the prey: before their face a burning wind: whatever they shall look upon, whatever shall come before their face, they will desire to burn and destroy. But the king shall be most powerful in the midst of the captives, and shall receive their number as the sand of the sea from his satellites on this side and that, and he himself shall triumph over kings, and tyrants shall be his laughing-stock. For he will deceive many saints by his tripping them up, and those who seemed to themselves most powerful, and to exercise tyranny against demons, and to cast them out of possessed bodies, he will subject to his own servitude, and count as objects of ridicule.

But he, most mighty, having gathered a forced band and assembled an army of the lost, will laugh at every fortification, and whatever there may be, he will strive to overturn. For he will heap up a mound, that is, he will surround with earthly works: and when the earth has been heaped up, he will easily take every fortification. But after so great a victory his spirit shall be changed, and his mouth shall pass through even to heaven, and making himself God, he will begin to blaspheme his Creator. When he has done this, he shall fall, and his ruin will show how strong his divinity was, and the pretense of the idols under whose images he subjugated men to his worship.

The prophet, therefore, hearing that the king of this world is so great and of such a kind, that he gathers captivity like the sand of the sea, and triumphs over kings; and that tyrants are his laughing-stock, and that he laughs at every fortification, and first heaps up a mound and afterward takes it; and that he is of such pride that he dares to resist his own Creator, and to make himself as it were god—he who before spoke boldly to the Lord, and recalled himself, or his people, or those on whose behalf he complained, to be just—now bursts forth into words of flattery, and says: Art thou then from the beginning, O Lord my God, my Holy One? And that we do not die, nor are taken by so great an enemy, is of thy clemency. For thou, O Lord, hast appointed him as it were an executioner; and thou hast made him mighty, so that either no one, or scarcely anyone, can resist his strength.

Further, according to the Septuagint, what is said at the end: And thou hast formed me, that I might reprove in his discipline, can be referred to the person of the prophet, so that the sense is: But I have therefore been inspired as a prophet, that I might reprove those who transgress, and teach the discipline of the Lord. Some think it is said of the Lord, who was for this reason formed by the Father, and assumed a body, that by the doctrine of God the Father he might instruct men. But how much this discords with the context of what precedes, and with the tenor of the whole passage, shall be a matter not so much of my judgment as of the reader's. (Verses 13, 14.) Thy eyes are pure, that thou shouldst not see evil, and thou canst not look upon iniquity: why dost thou not look upon them that do unjust things, and holdest thy peace when the wicked devoureth the man that is more just than himself?

And thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the creeping thing that hath no ruler. The Septuagint: The pure eye, that it should not see evils: and thou wilt not be able to look upon sorrow. Why dost thou look upon the scornful, wilt thou keep silence when the wicked man devoureth him that is more just than himself? And thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as creeping things that have no leader. Something similar Jeremiah also speaks to God: Thou art just, O Lord, I confess it: nevertheless I will speak judgments to thee: Why is it that the way of the wicked prospereth, that all who transgress and do wrong abound? Thou hast planted them and they have taken root, they have begotten children, and made fruit: thou art near to their mouth, and far from their reins.

Therefore Abacuc too is in the same sentiment: Pure, he says, O Lord, are thy eyes; and I know that thou dost not willingly look upon evil and unjust things, nor can anyone doubt of thy justice. Nevertheless why dost thou suffer the Babylonians to be tossed about with such cruelty, and the just Israel to be oppressed by the impious Nabuchodonosor: not that he who is oppressed is perfectly just, but that he is more just than the one who oppresses him. And just as fishes, which have no ruler, and irrational beasts of burden, and a multitude of creeping things without providence, are subject to the stronger, and whoever prevails more in strength dominates over another: so among men, a rational animal, and made to thy likeness, reason will not prevail, nor merits; but the strength of the body, and irrational might.

But if we wish to understand this generally, concerning providence, with the prophet asking: Why does the devil prevail so much in the world, and, while God rules, does another exercise tyranny?—the sense will be of this kind, and this exposition will be joined with what precedes: I know, O Lord my God, my Holy One, that, thou providing and defending, we do not die; and I know that thou hast for this reason set up an adversary, that by him, as it were an executioner, thou mightest chastise and not kill sinners. I know that nothing unjust pleases thee, and that thy eyes are pure from all iniquity, nor canst thou see the sorrows of those who are subject to injustice. Nevertheless I cannot find the cause why the unjust Cain slays the just Abel, and thou art silent? Why, when the whale rages and devours all things, not only the lesser fishes, but even thy own Jonah is devoured? Why does the wicked man conquer, and the just man is conquered?

Nor do I say this as one who knows that anyone is justified in thy sight, and is without sin, and I am not ignorant of human frailty; but just as Sodom and Gomorrha are just in comparison with Jerusalem. And the Publican in the Gospel becomes more just in comparison with the Pharisee: so also he who is oppressed by the devil is indeed a sinner; but he is more just than the one who oppresses him. Why then is there no measure, nor weight, so that if once a just man is oppressed and subjected, he is subjected not to an impious man, but to one more just than himself? Shall I say that anything happens without thee, and that, thou being unwilling, the wicked man can do so much? To think this is blasphemy. Since, therefore, thou art the ruler and Lord of the universe, it must needs be that thou dost that which cannot be done without thee.

And he says these things not because the prophet himself so feels, as I have testified above; but because he expresses human impatience in his own person: just as we frequently see the Apostle take up in himself various sentiments of men, and now say: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. And as though he were a beginner: Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: and we know in part, and we prophesy in part. And again as though he were perfect: As many, therefore, as are perfect, let us be thus minded, when surely it is not of one and the same person, to say of himself that he knows in part, and to be perfect.

And lest perhaps you think that this is not of Apostolic custom, but of our own argument, what he himself says to the Corinthians: But these things, brethren, I have transferred to myself and to Apollo for your sakes, that in us you might learn. Otherwise how can God so make men as fishes of the sea, and as creeping things that have no leader: since the angels of each individual daily behold the face of the Father who is in heaven: and the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them? As, therefore, in the case of men the providence of God runs also through each individual, so in other animals we can understand a general dispensation and order, and course of things. For example, how the multitude of fishes is born, and lives in the waters, how creeping things and quadrupeds arise on the earth, and by what food they are nourished.

But it is absurd to bring down the majesty of God to this, that he should know moment by moment how many gnats are born, and how many die, what multitude of bugs and fleas and flies there is on the earth, how many fish swim in the water, and which of the smaller ones ought to fall as prey to the larger. Let us not be such foolish flatterers of God, that while we drag down his power even to the lowest things, we do injury to ourselves, saying that the providence over rational beings is the same as that over irrational ones. For which reason that apocryphal book is to be condemned for its folly, in which it is written that a certain angel named Tyri presides over creeping things: and in this same likeness, that fishes also, and trees, and all beasts, have their own angels assigned to their keeping.

(Verse 15. And following.) He has raised up the whole with a hook, he has drawn it into his dragnet, and gathered it into his net: over this he will rejoice and exult. Therefore he will sacrifice to his dragnet, and offer sacrifice to his net, because in them his portion is grown fat, and his food is choice: because of this therefore he spreads out his dragnet, and does not cease continually to slay the nations. The Septuagint: He has lifted up the completion with a hook, and drawn it in with his net, and gathered it in his dragnets: therefore he will rejoice and be glad: therefore he will sacrifice to his dragnet, and burn incense to his net, because in them he has made his portion fat, and his foods are choice: therefore he spreads out his net, and does not cease continually to slay the nations.

Because above he had named fish, saying: And you will make men like the fish of the sea, and like a creeping thing—which is more significantly expressed in the Hebrew REMES (רמש), that is, κινούμενον, namely, everything that is able to be moved—for this reason he preserves the metaphor of fish in what follows, so that just as a fisherman casts a hook, and a net, and a dragnet, so that what the hook could not catch, the net may seize, and what has escaped the net may be surrounded by the wider dragnets: so too the king of Babylon has laid waste all things, and has made the whole human race his prey. Moreover, what he says: He will rejoice and be glad, and will sacrifice to his dragnet, and offer sacrifice to his net, signifies the idol which he made in the plain of Dura, and the image of Bel, to which, as to a great dragnet, he sacrificed the fattest victims, compelling all the nations whom he had conquered to its worship.

For believing himself to have grown fat in these, that is, in his idols, and that his portion, that is, that he possessed all riches, like great fish he subjected also all the princes and kings to his rule, whom he calls choice foods. And because he was once sated by a most opulent catch of fish, and filled his dragnet, that is, his army, therefore he does not cease to slay the nations, that is, to fight continually and to slaughter. Moreover, according to the Septuagint, the impious devil (who oppresses the just man, and holds men as the fish of the sea, and lays waste all things like creeping things having no leader) cast his hook contrary to that hook by which, through the apostle Peter, the first fish was caught, in whose mouth the stater was found. And Adam adhered to his hook, and he drew him out of paradise with his net: and covered him with his dragnets, with various and manifold deceits and frauds.

Therefore he will rejoice, and will reckon his snares to be greater than the commandment of the Lord. And he will sacrifice not to the hook (which is understood as the perverse word, still at that time in its beginning), but to his net, because in it he caught the fattest victims. And: By one man many were made sinners, and in Adam we all died, and all the saints thereafter were cast out of paradise together with him. Whence also his foods are choice: that, according to the Psalmist, he might seek food for himself from God, wishing to overthrow the prophets and apostles. And because he first deceived man, he does not cease daily to slay the whole human race.

But this can also be understood of the perverse and manifold teaching of heretics, that they too with their hook, and their net, and their dragnets catch very many fish, and seize many creeping things, and therefore rejoice, and their speech by which they were able to deceive and persuade, as though they adored God, and worshipped him, they despoil him: they themselves serve with every art, through which they know that so many victims have been slain by them, and so many of the powerful and holy have been deceived, whom Scripture now calls the fat portion and the choice foods. Therefore, in the likeness of beasts, which having once tasted blood are ever thirsty for it, they spread out their net, and this is their whole zeal, that they may slay not few, as at the beginning, but more.

He does not doubt concerning the slaughter of many nations, who has seen so great a multitude of heresies and perverse doctrines caught by the devil's hook, net, and dragnets: and yet the end of their catch is destruction.

(Verse 1.) I will stand upon my watch, and fix my step upon the fortification, and will contemplate that I may see what may be said to me, and what I may answer to him who reproves me. The Septuagint: I will stand upon my watch, and will ascend upon the rock, and will contemplate that I may see what may speak in me, and what I may answer to my correction. Symmachus has followed more plainly: As a watchman I will stand upon the watchtower, and I will stand as one enclosed, and I will contemplate that I may see what may be said to me, and what I may answer, and what I may say against him who reproves me.

Instead of "fortification" and "rock," in whose place Symmachus has interpreted "enclosed," in the Hebrew is placed MASUR (מצור), which Theodotion translated as "circuit," and Aquila and the fifth edition as "circle." To the former complaint the Lord had answered: Look among the nations, and see, and wonder, and be astonished. In response to which the prophet, as it were doing penance for his former word, had tempered his question, saying: O Lord my God, my Holy One, and we shall not die (above I, 12). But nonetheless with veneration and praises of God he had inquired of him: Your eyes are pure so that you cannot see evil, and you know not how to look upon iniquity. Why do you not look upon those doing iniquity, and are silent, while the impious devours one more just than himself? And what the devouring of the just would be, he pursued in parts: that men would become like the fish of the sea, and like creeping things.

And that by his hook, and dragnet, and net all would be drawn to destruction, and there would be no end to their slaughter. Therefore, since he is a prophet, and for this reason he inquires, and doubts concerning himself. Jerome agrees in the following exposition, where he says, "And with this circuit and compass, as with a wall, I will follow, lest," he says, that what was answered to him might be answered to all: I will stand, he says, upon my watchtower, that is, upon the sublimity of my prophecy, and I will see after the captivity of the people, and the overthrow of the city and the temple, and thereafter what follows. Or certainly thus: I will guard my heart with all diligence, and I will stand upon Christ the rock.

And with this circuit and compass I will be hedged about as with a wall, lest the roaring lion be able to break in upon me, and I will see what God may answer me after my second question: and after he has answered me, and rebuked me for having complained wrongly, what I too ought to answer him. Elegantly, moreover, and with wonderful insight he describes human impatience, which we are accustomed always to have in disputes: that before anyone answers us from the opposite side, and we know in what he has accused us, we are already prepared to respond. From which it is shown that the response is not one of reason, but of contention. For if it were reason, the response ought to have been awaited, and thus one should see whether he ought to respond, or to consent to the reasonable response.

But this too should be noted from what he had said, "That I may see what may speak in me," that the prophetic vision and the word of God are not made to the prophets from without, but answer within, and to the inner man. Whence also Zechariah says: And the angel who spoke in me. And in the Psalms: I will hear what the Lord may speak in me. (Verse 2. And following.) And the Lord answered me, and said: Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets, that he who reads it may run through it, because the vision is yet for a distant time, and it will appear at the end, and will not lie: if it makes delay, wait for it: because coming it will come, and will not tarry: behold, he who is unbelieving, his soul shall not be right in himself. But the just shall live by his faith.

The Septuagint: And the Lord answered me, and said: Write the vision, and plainly upon boxwood, that he who reads it may pursue it: because the vision is yet for a time, and it will arise at the end, and not in vain. If it delays, wait for it, because coming it will come, and will not tarry: if it draws back, it will not please my soul in it. But the just shall live by my faith.

As happens with the man in Isaiah, who says: While you are still speaking, I will say, behold I am here, so now also the Lord answers the prophet, and commands him to write the vision, and to set it forth upon tablets, that is, to write it more plainly. But I think those tablets are the ones of which the apostle also speaks to the Corinthians: You are our epistle, written in our hearts: which is known and read by all men: being made manifest, that you are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, and written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart. But Solomon also signifies something similar in the Proverbs, saying: Write it upon the breadth of your heart. Moreover he is commanded to write more plainly, so that the reader may be able to run, and his speed and his eagerness for reading may be held back by no impediment.

And he commands this, because the vision is yet for a distant time, and for a fixed season. And when the end of things has come, then also it will come, and the prophecy will be proved true, fulfilled in deed. But if perhaps, out of your desire, O reader, and your ardor for seeing the vision, it should seem to you that what was promised is making a little delay, do not despair that it will come; but wait patiently: for you have me, who promise you and say: Coming it will come, and will not tarry. But if anyone is unbelieving of this my pledge, and when I say, coming it will come, and will not tarry, begins to doubt, and to waver silently within himself, thinking that what is delayed for a time will not come; this one will displease my soul, according to that word: My soul hates your new moons and your sabbaths.

But when God says "my soul," we ought to understand it as meaning mind and thought, so that the sense is: it will displease my understanding. But just as he who, though I promise, doubts that what I pledge will come, will displease me; so the just man who has believed my promise will live by his faith. By these lines, as it were, the picture of this chapter has been drawn. But what he says is of this kind, so far indeed that we may also admire the translation of the Septuagint. Write it on your heart, and, like little children who are learning the first elements of letters, and who are taught to trace crooked strokes and a trembling hand on boxwood, and accustom themselves by practice to write correctly: so you too, who have spoken in the person of a doubting people, write on the tablets of your heart and on the boxwood of your breast what I say.

For it is a vision which is promised and commanded to be described, and to be written more plainly, so that it be wrapped in no cloud, and obscured by no ambiguities of riddles: let manifest hope have a manifest pledge. But this, O prophet, I command, not because you do not know it (for you would not be a prophet, if you were ignorant), but so that what you have written more plainly, the reader may be able to read and run through without hindrance and difficulty; which the Septuagint translated: ὅπως διώκῃ ὁ ἀναγινώσκων, that is, "that he who reads may pursue," according to that sense, as he wished. Which is written to Timothy: Follow after justice, godliness and faith, charity, patience, meekness. And to the Romans: Given to hospitality. And to the Corinthians: Follow after charity.

But the vision itself of which I spoke to you: write the vision, and make it plain upon boxwood, so that he who reads may be able to run, is still set for an appointed time, concerning which the Saviour says: In an acceptable time I have heard thee, and in the day of salvation I have helped thee. And it shall arise at the consummation of the world, and at the extreme hour of the day, of which John also speaks: Little children, now it is the last hour. And it shall not come in vain: for it shall save many, and shall gather together, with the remnants of the Israelite people, a multitude of the Gentiles. But if it should withdraw itself a little, and, O reader, who art bidden to read upon the boxwood and upon the tablets which the prophet has described, the vision should begin to come more slowly to thy desires, wait for it: because coming it shall come, and shall not tarry.

But if thy faith should waver, and thou shouldst think that what I promise does not come to pass, thou shalt have, as a great penalty, that thou wilt displease my soul. But the just man who believes my words, and does not doubt concerning these things which I promise, shall have as a reward eternal life. Nor ought you at once to charge, either by putting yourself to death or by giving him life, that there is with me a respecting of persons, since he himself is the cause of his own being given life, who lives by his own faith: just as thou, because thou hast withdrawn thyself, and would not believe, hast displeased my soul. Manifestly, then, in these words there is a prophecy of the coming of Christ.

Whence also the question proposed is resolved, that until he comes, iniquity shall rule in the world, and judgment shall not come to its end: and the true Nebuchadnezzar shall catch men with his net and his dragnet like little fishes, and the rational animal like a creeping thing having no ruler. Further, as to what we have interpreted as "for the vision," because it is still seen from afar: and if it should make a delay, wait for it, that is, for the sight—let no one, deceived by error, think that in place of "vision," which is of feminine gender, he has put "sight," which is of masculine gender, and less usual in Latin. For indeed hazon (חזון), which Aquila translates ὁραματισμόν, is among the Hebrews called "sight" in the masculine gender, and even to the end, under the same gender of "vision," that is, "sight," the masculine declension is preserved.

But the Seventy, saying, write the vision: and afterward, if it should fail, wait for it: because coming it shall come, and shall not tarry: if it should withdraw itself, it shall not please my soul in it, first translated "vision" in the feminine gender, which among the Hebrews, as we have said, is masculine. Then, following the Hebrew gender, where it is declined in the masculine, "wait for him," and "it shall not please my soul in him," they themselves also declined in the masculine gender. Whereas indeed, according to what they had first translated as "vision," they ought also in the remaining places to put "vision" in the feminine gender, so as to say, wait for her: because coming she shall come: but if she should withdraw herself, she shall not please my soul in her, that is, in the vision. This I have said so that I might not seem to keep silent about what we knew.

But I am not unaware that, according to their interpretation, it can also be understood thus: Write the vision in which Christ is promised, and weave this discourse of thy prophecies either upon boxwood, or upon tablets, or, as Symmachus has translated, upon pages, that at the appointed time, and at the consummation of the world, my Son shall come, who shall save the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and shall join also other sheep to the ancient sheep, and, making one flock, shall unite the two rods, which Ezekiel—that is, the power of God—holds joined and clinging one to another in the prophetic hand. But if for a little while, O prophet, or thou, O people (in whose person also my prophet seems to have doubted), Christ should withdraw himself, and seem to delay, wait for him, for coming he shall come, and shall not tarry; and the rest which we have already explained above.

As for the fact that the Apostle made use rather of the testimony of the Seventy, writing to the Romans: But the just man shall live by my faith, and not according to what is found in the Hebrew, the reason is clear. For he was writing to the Romans, who did not know the Hebrew Scriptures: nor was he concerned about the words, since the sense was safe, and no present harm would come from that to the discussion. Otherwise, wherever the sense is different, and it is written one way in the Hebrew and another way in the Seventy, know that he uses those testimonies which he had learned from Gamaliel, the teacher of the law. (Verses 5 and following.) And as wine deceives him that drinks it, so shall the proud man be, and he shall not be adorned, who has enlarged his soul like hell, and he himself is like death, and is not satisfied. And he shall gather to himself all nations, and shall heap together to himself all peoples.

Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a dark speech concerning him, and it shall be said: Woe to him that heaps together that which is not his own: how long does he load himself with thick clay? Shall not they rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and they be stirred up that shall tear thee, and thou shalt be a spoil to them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all that remain of the peoples shall spoil thee, because of the blood of man, and the iniquity of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein. The Seventy: But he that is arrogant and a scorner, a proud man, brings nothing to an end: who has enlarged his soul like hell, and he himself is like death, is not satisfied.

And he shall gather to himself all nations, and shall take to himself all peoples: shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a proverb by way of narration concerning him, and shall say: Woe to him that multiplies to himself things that are not his own: how long does he heavily load his collar, because suddenly they shall rise up that bite him, and thy lurkers in wait shall awake, and thou shalt be a spoil to them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remaining peoples shall spoil thee because of the blood of men, and the impieties of the land, and of the city, and of all its inhabitants. Since these things are promised concerning the coming of Christ, or, as some prefer, concerning the end of the vision, and the completion of God's help: that whoever believes it is to come shall live by his faith; but whoever is unbelieving shall displease the soul of the Lord: Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, shall be deceived by his own pride.

And just as wine acts upon him that drinks it, and after he has risen, neither his foot nor his mind keeps its proper office; and all joy and exhilaration of mind is turned into ruin: so the proud man shall not be adorned, nor shall he bring his own will to its end, and, according to Symmachus, οὐκ εὐπορήσει, that is, he shall be in want of all things. He who, like death and hell, is not satisfied with those slain: and subjecting all nations and all peoples to his own rule, thought there was no end to his avarice. Shall not all men, when he shall have been made drunk with the cup of the Lord, and lulled to sleep by the unmixed cup, speak against him by way of comparison, a πρόβλημα?

Woe to him who, laying waste the whole world, is not satisfied with plunder, nor ceases to strip those already naked, and rages only to this end, that he may devour, and weighs himself down as with a most heavy collar under the burden of iniquity and of plunder. And consider at the same time how elegantly he has called multiplied riches "thick clay." Shall not the Medes and Persians rise up suddenly, who, destroying the empire of the Babylonians, shall bite him first, and afterward tear him; and shall Nebuchadnezzar become a spoil to them, and shall the ravager of the whole world be stripped by the remaining peoples, who were able to escape his hand and cruelty? But this shall happen to him because of the blood of man, that is, of Judah, and the iniquity of the land, namely of Israel, and of the city—doubtless meaning Jerusalem—and of all that dwell in it, signifying generally the people. Let us also examine the Seventy.

All the things that we have said concerning Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar can be referred to this world, and to the devil, who is truly arrogant and proud, and, believing himself to be something, will bring nothing to an end. For his endeavor and all his labor shall have destruction: who, in the likeness of hell and of death, is not satisfied with those slain, and rejoices in the deception of all nations, and gathers peoples to himself. Who, when they shall have seen him cast into the Abyss, and delivered to Tartarus, seeing that those things which they had read in the prophets in parables and αἰνιγματωδῶς are fulfilled, and interpreting concerning him, shall with one voice recall: Woe to the devil, who has multiplied to himself things not his own. Woe to the partridge, which has gathered together what she did not bring forth. How long? This is either the voice of those rebuking, or of those pointing to the day of judgment. And loading his collar with infinite weight.

And fittingly, because he is arrogant and proud (for pride is properly shown in the stretching out of the neck and the erecting of the head), let the collar be most heavy, so that it may bend down what had been erect. And this shall come to pass because suddenly they shall rise up who bite him—either the angels, with whom the devil shall be delivered to punishment, or those who had been held captive by him, afterward doing penance, and turned to the standards of Christ, shall bite him, according to what is said elsewhere: Thy peaceable men have laid snares for thee. Then follows: And thy lurkers in wait shall awake, that is, those whom before thou hadst lulled to sleep, whom thou hadst made drunk, thou shalt lie under their ambushes, as they lay waste thy kingdom, and reduce those who were captives into the ranks of Christ.

For thou didst plunder many nations, and didst strip the Jewish people of the ornament and garments which I had given them: therefore all the remaining peoples, who have not bent the neck to thy rule, shall spoil thee, and make thee naked. Because thou hast slain very many nations, and shed their blood. But the impiety of the land also, that is, of Judea, and of the city of Jerusalem, and of all its inhabitants (who said against their Creator: Crucify him, crucify him: his blood be upon us and upon our children), shall return upon thy head, and they shall be the causes of thy despoiling. This same thing can also be interpreted of Antichrist, who shall be so arrogant and proud that he shall sit in the temple of God, making himself God. And, like hell and death, he shall slay so many, and gather them to himself, that, if it were possible, he would deceive even the elect of God. He shall also gather to himself all nations, and shall lead all peoples into his error.

Who, when they shall afterward have seen him slain by the breath of the mouth of Christ, shall understand that the things foretold of him beforehand are true, and shall say all the things that follow, with the same understanding by which we have explained them concerning the devil. But as to what he says, all the remaining peoples shall spoil thee, because of the blood of men, and the impiety of the land, and of the city, and of all that dwell therein, let us understand the remaining holy peoples, who did not serve Antichrist, by whom the wicked one shall be despoiled because of the impiety which he exercised over all the earth, and the devastation of the city of the Church, and the persecution of all who dwelt in it.

For so great a devastation, and so great an impiety, shall, at the end of the age, with Antichrist raging, spread through the Churches, and, iniquity being multiplied among many, charity shall grow so cold that the Lord, who knows the secrets of the heart, and does not fail to know what is to come, has said: Shall the Son of man, when he comes, find faith on the earth, do you think? The Son of man, when he comes, find faith on the earth?

We can also, according to the apostle John (who writes: As you have heard that Antichrist is to come, now there are many Antichrists: whence also we know that it is the last hour), say that all heretics, and every perverse doctrine of those who arrogate to themselves knowledge, and despise the simplicity of the Church, who bring nothing to its end, but delight in the deaths of very many, are the arrogant and the proud, and apply the whole substance of this chapter to their understanding: who indeed multiply to themselves things not their own, and, gathering to themselves as it were the heaviest clay and a weighty collar by which they may be dragged to punishment, spoil many nations, and shed the blood of men, and exercise impiety against the Church and against all its inhabitants.

But the remaining peoples, namely the men of the Church, who have not been deceived by their error, shall rise up suddenly, and shall awake as from a heavy sleep, and shall bite them, and shall lie in ambush for them, and shall have them for a prey. Some think that what is said: Woe to them that multiply to themselves things that are not their own, and so forth, can be understood of the rich, who extend the boundaries of their possessions, and gather to themselves, thinking to be man's what is not man's, things by which they shall suddenly be abandoned. But that earthly possession is not man's, that is, of the rational animal, the Lord himself shows, saying: If you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? And they explain the whole text of the chapter concerning this person.

But I do not know whether they are able to preserve the order of the prophetic question and its solution. (Verse 9.) Woe to him who gathers evil covetousness for his house, that his nest may be on high, and thinks himself delivered from the hand of evil: thou hast devised confusion to thy house: thou hast cut off many peoples, and thy soul hath sinned. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the wood which is between the joints of the buildings shall answer. Septuagint: O who multiplies evil covetousness for his house, that he may set his nest on high, and be delivered from the hand of evils, thou hast devised confusion to thy house: thou hast consumed many peoples: and thy soul hath sinned; wherefore the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beetle shall speak these things from the wood.

The discourse is still directed to that same one, who heaps up evils for himself, and does not understand that a multitude of riches is the cause of his house’s ruin; and at the same time he is rebuked, by a metaphor of pride, for having set his nest on high after the likeness of birds, and for having thought himself delivered from the hand of evil, that is, that he would never come into the power of enemies: a plan of pride and an arrogant thought which had ignominy for its end. Thou hast slain many peoples, and in killing others thou hast raged against thine own soul, and hast run riot in such great cruelty at that time, that, if one may so speak, the stones of the city and the wood of the walls which thou hast overthrown cry out thy ferocity.

Something of this sort the Lord also said in the Gospel against the Pharisees who were rebuking him for not silencing the children crying out to him: Hosanna in the highest to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. Have you not read, he said, that it is written: Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? And if these should be silent, the stones will cry out. For although many think it should be understood thus: if the Jews should be silent, the multitude of the Gentiles will confess: yet this is the more express and truer understanding: even if men should be silent, and an envious tongue should not speak of the multitude of my signs; nevertheless the very stones, and the foundations of the walls, and the construction of the buildings, will be able to proclaim my greatness. That this may be made more evident, let us set forth examples also from secular literature.

Crispus (Sallust) speaks in his Histories: “The Saguntines, renowned above mortals for their fidelity and their sufferings, with zeal greater than their resources—among whom even then the half-ruined walls, the roofless houses, and the scorched walls of the temples displayed the hands of the Carthaginians.” Something similar also in Tully’s speech to Caesar for Marcellus: “The very walls, by heaven! (as it seems to me) of this senate-house long to give you thanks, because in a short time that authority is going to be established in these seats of its ancestors, and its own.” Now as for what we have translated: And the wood which is between the joints of the buildings shall answer, for which the Septuagint have put: And the beetle shall speak these things from the wood, Symmachus, in his usual manner, translated more clearly: καὶ σύνδεσμος οἰκοδομῆς ξύλινος ἀποφθέγξεται αὐτὰ, that is, and the wooden joint of the building shall speak these things.

Theodotion also has: καὶ σύνδεσμος ξύλου φθέγξεται αὐτά; and likewise the fifth edition: καὶ σύνδεσμος ξύλου φθέγξεται αὐτά: which interpretations themselves agree with that of Symmachus and with our own; for what is called in the Hebrew tongue CHAPHIS (כפיס) signifies the wood which is placed in the middle of the structure to hold the walls together, and is commonly called among the Greeks ἱμάντωσις. This, then, according to the historical sense, is what the prophetic word signifies: the stones of the walls which have been destroyed by thee, and their scorched wood, will resound with thy cruelty. I have found, besides the five editions—that is, of Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint, Theodotion, and the fifth—in the Twelve Prophets two other editions as well, in one of which it is written: For the stone shall cry out from the wall as a worm speaking in the wood; and in the other: For the stone shall cry out from the wall, and the σκώληξ shall speak these things from the wood. But Aquila also put something else than what we have said, καὶ μάζα, that is, and a lump shall answer from the wood.

What their interpretation means we shall say in the exposition of the Septuagint translators, in which, instead of woe, is put, and the discourse is directed either to the devil or to Antichrist, or to heretics, who multiply for themselves an evil covetousness. Now covetousness is called evil, in distinction from a good covetousness, so that there may be a good covetousness of the teacher of the Church, who is never satisfied with the number of his followers, and the more disciples he has gained, the more he is spurred on to the pursuit of doctrine. Woe, therefore, to him who multiplies for himself a most evil covetousness, so as to gather for his house perverse assemblies, and set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil men. For both the devil and Antichrist and heretics promise that those who look up to their dogma will possess the kingdoms of heaven among the celestial things, and will not feel the fires of hell.

And though they promise these things, their plan will not be able to come to fulfillment: but it will be a plan of confusion and ignominy for their house, after the very outcome of events shall have shown what had been promised to be false, when it shall be proved to be a plan of confusion, not of salvation. This teacher of perversity, as we have said, has consumed many peoples, and the more he had in his following, the more he sinned against his own soul. Finally the stones of his church, and the κάνθαρος, that is, the beetle, from the wood, will cry out against the covetousness of the proud man, because by his persuasion he has deceived all the nations. By the stones we may understand the foolish hearts of those who believe the teachings of heretics, and by the beetle from the wood, those perverse teachers who, for the sake of base gain, take up the preaching of the cross, yet speak from the belly.

For their god is their belly, and they do all things for the sake of food, being reduced to dung (since the beetle or dung-beetle is a worm of dung); and for this purpose alone do they take up the cross, that they may teach with viperous mouth the covetousness and pride of their master the devil. If ever you see some heretic speaking, as it were, hidden and secret mysteries against the Church, and preferring the house of the devil to the house of Christ, say: The stone cries out from the wall, and the beetle speaks from the wood. I have read in a certain volume that the beetle is understood in this sense concerning heretics, because their dogmas are to be compared to dung. Whence also the Apostle says that he counted the error of the old teaching as skybala, that is, as dung.

Not that the old Law, as the Manichaeans suppose, is to be reckoned as dung in comparison with the Gospel (which it is impious to say, since both Testaments belong to the one God), but that the teachings of the Pharisees, and the precepts of men, and the Deuterosis (δευτέρωσις) of the Jews are called dung by the Apostle. I know one of the brethren who understood the stone that cried out from the wall to be the Lord the Savior, and the beetle speaking from the wood to be the thief who blasphemed the Lord: which, although it can be understood piously, yet I do not find how it can be fitted with the whole context of the prophecy. There are some who think that the beetle speaking from the wood can also be referred to the person of the Savior, which appears from the very order of the discourse to be impious.

For the beetle shall speak these things from the wood is not to be understood in a good sense, but in a bad one, that is, it will speak of the most evil covetousness of him who multiplies evils against his own house, and of the confusion of the devil, and the other things that have preceded concerning his iniquity and crime. But as to what Aquila says, and a lump shall answer from the wood, we refer “lump” to that sense which the Lord set forth in the Gospel: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. And when the apostles were in doubt, and could not know what it meant, the Evangelist gave the interpretation, saying: But he had spoken to them of the doctrine of the Pharisees. Rightly, then, does the teaching of heretics speak from the wood: for they cannot persuade otherwise, unless they prefer the glory of wood to their own perversity.

And also as to what we had said: For the stone shall cry out from the wall, as a worm speaking in the wood, or the stone shall cry out from the wall, and the σκώληξ shall speak these things from the wood, certain of our own say that the worm speaking in the wood is he who says in the Psalm: But I am a worm, and no man; and they refer the vocal bird to the same person, who says: I have become like a sparrow alone upon the housetop, and other things of this kind. (Verses 12 and following.) Woe to him who builds a city with blood, and prepares a town with iniquity: are not these things from the Lord of hosts? For the peoples shall labor in much fire, and the nations in vain, and shall fail: for the earth shall be filled, that they may know the glory of the Lord, as waters covering the sea.

The Septuagint: Woe to him who builds a city with blood, and prepares a town with iniquities: are not these things from the Lord Almighty? And many peoples failed in fire, and many nations were straitened: for the earth shall be filled that it may know the glory of the Lord, as water to cover seas. There is no doubt that according to the letter the prophetic word still speaks against Nebuchadnezzar; and laments over him for building Babylon with blood, and constructing its walls with the ruin and deaths of so many. Because he did this to the city which he had constructed with blood, he now hears what shall afterward be brought upon it by the Lord. For it follows: Are not these things from the Lord of hosts? That is, the things which are spoken. The peoples shall labor in much fire, and the nations in vain, that is, once Babylon is burned, the peoples will labor in vain, and strive for nothing, and the peoples of the Chaldean nation shall fail.

For the earth shall be filled that it may know the glory of the Lord, that is, when Babylon has been overthrown, the power of God's might will be made manifest to all, as waters covering the sea: so shall the glory of the Lord fill the whole earth, just as waters cover the bed and depths of the sea. These things, as we said, according to the letter. But it is clear that the devil also, and Antichrist, and the perverse doctrine of heretics build a city with blood, that is, their church upon the ruin of those whom they have deceived, and prepare a town with iniquities, speaking iniquity against God, and setting their mouth on high. When they have done this, it is clearly shown that they build a city out of themselves with blood, and prepare it with iniquities. For it follows: Are not these things from the Lord Almighty?

That is, such a building is not from the Lord Sabaoth, whom the Seventy here have translated as "Almighty." For many peoples shall fail, and although infinite nations be led into their error, yet they shall either grow weary, which is better signified by ὀλιγοψύχησαν (to be faint of soul): or certainly they shall be straitened into narrowness, and shall not be comparable to the multitude of the Church.

For when they fail in that fire (which is understood either as consumed by the fire of the devil their prince, or certainly kindled with the fire of the Lord, of which he says: I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled), and when they are drawn back from their former course, and do penance, and abandon the journey they had begun (which is what ὀλιγοψυχία signifies), the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, when at the preaching of the apostles their sound shall go out into all the world, as waters covering the sea, that is, so that all the saltiness and bitterness of the age, which the earth had drunk in when the devil rained down upon it, the waters of the Lord may cover over; and cause the place of the sea and of the former bitterness to appear no more. Whence it is also said in the psalm: Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

It can also be understood—though this does not fit the order of the reading, nor apply to the present text of Scripture—of Jerusalem, the city full of the blood of the prophets, of which Scripture recalls that the blood of the saints overflowed in it from gate to gate. And of which it is said at the Lord's passion: His blood be upon us, and upon our children. And to which God speaks in Isaiah: When you lift up your hands to me, I will not hear you: for your hands are full of blood. This city was built in iniquities: in which, according to the same prophet, justice slept. Nor is its building from the Lord Sabaoth.

Whence many peoples failed in fire, and many nations were wearied at that time when it was surrounded by the armies of Vespasian and Titus, and coming for the solemn day of the Passover, they were shut up in the city as in a prison; and they failed from hunger and want, and the siege brought them to their utter ruin under Hadrian. But when the city of blood, and the town of iniquities, was overthrown, and the peoples consumed by fire, and the nations that had come to their aid scattered here and there, and letting fall their weary hands, the whole earth was filled with the glory of Christ, and, as if with waters, the whole world was covered with his words and doctrine. (Verses 15 and following.) Woe to him who gives drink to his friend, mingling in his gall and making him drunk, that he may look upon his nakedness.

He is filled with ignominy instead of glory: drink you also, and fall into a stupor: the cup of the Lord's right hand shall surround you, and vomiting of ignominy upon your glory; for the iniquity of Lebanon shall cover you, and the devastation of beasts shall terrify them, because of the blood of men, and the iniquity of the land, and of the city, and of all who dwell in it. The Septuagint: Woe to him who gives his neighbor to drink a turbid overthrow, and makes him drunk, that he may look upon their caves: drink you also the fullness of ignominy instead of glory: and be shaken, the cup of the Lord's right hand has surrounded you, and ignominy has been gathered upon your glory; for the impiety of Lebanon shall cover you, and the misery of beasts shall terrify you: because of the blood of men, and the impieties of the land and of the city, and of all who dwell in it.

In place of "turbid overthrow," Symmachus translated: καὶ ἀφιὼν ἀκρίτως τὸν θυμὸν ἑαυτοῦ, that is, "and letting loose his fury without judgment." Theodotion has ἀπὸ χύσεώς σου, which is translated "from your outpouring." The fifth edition has ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτου ἀνατροπῆς τῆς ὀργῆς σου, which means "from the unexpected overthrow of your wrath." Aquila has ἐξ ἐπιτρέψεως χόλου σου, which we can render "from the release of your fury." In another edition I found: οὐαὶ τῷ ποτίζοντι τὸν ἑταῖρον αὐτοῦ ἀθόλην πετομένην, which in our tongue sounds thus: "Woe to him who gives his friend to drink a flying whirlwind." But elsewhere too I have read it translated: "Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor" ἔκστασιν ὀχλουμένην, that is, "turbid frenzy." This is set forth so that it may be known with how much variety among all the editions the Hebrew word MASPHA (מפחה), which the Seventy translated "overthrow," is rendered differently. Therefore the invective is still against Nebuchadnezzar, because forgetting his own condition, and as it were not knowing that he was a man, he gave gall and bitterness to drink to another man.

We can understand this either of the king of Judea, or generally of all men, whom he made drunk with evils, so that he might see the nakedness of Zedekiah and of all the captives. For which Symmachus and the fifth edition translated: "that he might see their ignominies." Now these things are spoken by the metaphor of a drunken man, disgraced by his nakedness, because Nebuchadnezzar made all drunk with the cup of his fury, and saw them all stripped and captive, and those who had once been glorious were reduced to the utmost servitude: for this is what is meant by: You are filled! Ignominy instead of glory—where "friend" and "neighbor" are to be understood, or one who shared the kingdom, who drank your cup, O Nebuchadnezzar.

Therefore, because you made many drunk, you too shall drink of the cup of the Lord, and fall into stupor: you shall be surrounded with the punishments of the Lord's right hand, and with the ignominy of your own vomit, all that you had swallowed you shall disgorge, and from lofty glory you shall be brought down to the utmost evils. For the iniquity of Lebanon shall cover you; your pride, he says, and the overthrow of the temple, and the plundering of the sanctuary shall lay you waste and devastate you. And because he had once named Mount Lebanon, under the same figure he compares the victims and sacrifices, or certainly the multitude of the peoples who were slain in Jerusalem, to animals or beasts, saying: And the devastation of animals shall oppress you. But all this you shall suffer, because you laid waste Judah, overthrew the land of promise, and the city of Jerusalem and all its inhabitants.

I heard at Lydda a certain one of the Hebrews, who was called among them a wise man and δευτερώτης (repeater of tradition), narrating a story of this kind: Zedekiah, he said, having been blinded by King Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, that is, at Antioch, and mocked in various ways, was led to Babylon. There, when Nebuchadnezzar was one day celebrating the festivities of a banquet, he ordered that a potion be given to him, which, once drunk, would loosen the drinker's bowels into flux; and suddenly he was brought in before the faces of the banqueters, and being compelled by the force of his bowels, was defiled with excrement, and that this is what Scripture now says here: Woe to him who gives drink to his friend, mixing in his gall and making him drunk, that he may look upon his nakedness, and ignominy instead of glory: namely that he who had been a most powerful king was brought by him to such disgrace.

Whence also God threatens him that he too shall drink a potion of this sort, and shall suffer all that Zedekiah suffered. How ridiculous this is, you may know without my saying so. For if what follows: Drink you too, and fall into stupor, and the cup of the Lord's right hand shall surround you, and the vomiting of ignominy upon your glory, is not understood of a literal cup, but of the evils which Nebuchadnezzar is to drink: then also that cup with which Zedekiah was made to drink must be understood as evils, not, as they wish, as a καθαρτικόν (purgative). But if they say it truly happened, and that such a potion was mixed, as I related above: then also this cup which Nebuchadnezzar is to drink must be reckoned as full of a καθαρτικόν, so that the God Sabaoth and Lord Almighty, in great vengeance, gives Nebuchadnezzar a purgative to drink, and makes him defiled with his own excrement. This against the Jewish tradition. But let us come to the spiritual understanding.

Woe to you, O devil, or Antichrist, or perverse heretical dogma, who by your teachings and turbid potion make drunk the peoples of the deceived, and overturn their former faith, giving them drink not from Siloam, not from the Jordan, not from the fountains of Israel, but from the torrent Kidron, and from the river of Egypt, of which Jeremiah says: What have you to do with the way of Egypt, that you should drink the water of Gihon? For which in the Hebrew it is written SIOR (שחור), that is, turbid and muddy: for although the rivers of Egypt are believed to flow out from the Scriptures of paradise, yet because they are trodden by the feet of Pharaoh, they have lost their splendor, and defiled by the mud of Egypt, are turned into torrents, from which the saint rejoices to have escaped, saying: Our soul has passed through the torrent.

But if anyone should object with the torrent Cherith, from which Elijah drank, and another torrent, from which the Lord drank on the way (for so it is written: He shall drink of the torrent in the way), this must be said, that whoever is in Egypt, and on the way of this age, though he be Moses and Aaron, though he be Jeremiah and Elijah, must nevertheless drink of the trials of Egypt and of the wilderness, whence also the word of the Lord, who for this reason had assumed flesh, that he might drink of the torrent, considering his majesty, said: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Again seeing himself to be in Egypt, and that the waters could not be purified unless he himself had drunk, he said: Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

This is because the devil, by overthrow and a turbid cup and by whatever perverse teachings, makes drunk his neighbors, that is, the rational creature, and causes those whom he has deceived to look toward his caves. For the doctrines of the Church are free: they rejoice in day and in light. But those who are made drunk, are made drunk in the night: and those who make them drunk do not lead them into the courts of the Lord, which are pressed by no shadow of roofs, but into caves. For they have made the house of the Father, which had been a house of prayer, into caves of robbers, promising certain initiations and mysteries, and secrets hidden and known only to heretics, of which Isaiah also speaks: And all the handmade things they shall hide, bringing them into caves and into the clefts of the rocks and the holes of the earth.

Let us therefore not enter into the caves of heretics, nor be hidden there, where impious Saul was accustomed to relieve himself of the excrement of his teachings: but rather let us ascend to the lofty cave of Mount Sinai, where Elijah also saw the Lord, and Moses beheld his back parts before. And Isaiah, crying out concerning the Lord, says: He shall dwell in a lofty cave. But if anyone does not have the turbid cup and heretical teaching, and is a teacher of the Church, yet does everything for the sake of base gain, and sells doves in the temple, that is, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and from the priestly chair suffocates free birds, he does not indeed make the house of prayer a cave of robbers, but makes the house of the Father a house of trading.

After this follows: Drink you the fullness of ignominy instead of glory, and be shaken, that is, O devil, O perverse dogma, O heretic, who thought yourself to be a golden cup, with which all nations are made drunk, so that they might see your caves and secrets, instead of the greatness of glory be filled with the fullness of ignominy, and be reckoned as an earthen vessel, the work of the potter's hands: drink you also of the cup of the Lord, of which it is said in the psalm: The cup is in the hand of the Lord, full of pure wine mixed, and he has poured out from this into that: nevertheless its dregs are not emptied out. And from the former sentence, "be shaken," and do not think firm and stable those things on which you first desired to stand: for the cup of the Lord's right hand has surrounded you.

Moreover, because you gave your neighbor to drink a turbid overthrow, ignominy shall be gathered upon you, and upon your glory, which you first believed you had: and this you shall suffer, because the impiety of Lebanon shall cover you, according to that which is said: And let his prayer become sin. For Lebanon, according to the Greek tongue, is ὁμώνυμος (a homonym) of frankincense: and frankincense is σύμβολον of spiritual incense, which is the worship of God. Therefore the perverse prayer of the heretics, not directed by evangelical simplicity, will be turned to them into sin, and the impiety of the worship of God shall cover them. Whence it follows: And the misery of beasts shall terrify you because of the blood of men, and the impieties of the land, and of the city, and of all who dwell in it.

And the sense is: those whom you deceived by your frauds, and made into your beasts instead of sheep of Christ, when you see them in misery, and enduring punishments for their error, then you shall be terrified, then you shall lie low. And lest you think that, because I have named Lebanon and its beasts, I am speaking of brute animals, and not of men, I say to you more clearly: You shall suffer these things, because you have shed the blood of many men, whom you made to perish before God. And you have exercised impiety in the land of the living, in the land of the meek, and your impiety has raged also in the city of the Lord, that is, in his Church; and you have made many who dwelt in it partakers of your impiety. This let it be said under the person of the heretics.

But if we wish to understand it of Antichrist; or of the devil who is to work in Antichrist, he too with his cup, by which he shall desire to overthrow the discipline of Christ, shall make many drunk, so that being drunk they enter his caves: but after the end shall come, instead of that glory in which he had magnified himself, he shall be filled with ignominy. And he shall be filled, because he shall drink the cup of punishments, and shall be shaken, no longer firm in his malice, but trembling, and repenting too late. For the cup of the Lord's right hand shall surround him, who is the Lord and Savior, when he shall slay him with the breath of his mouth, and destroy him with the brightness of his coming. Then all the ignominy which he gathered to himself by thoughts, deeds, and words, shall come upon his glory: so that as much as he was before thought renowned, so much afterward shall he be full of ignominy.

For he blasphemed against God, and the impiety which he exercised in Lebanon shall cover him, and the fury of many men, who raged against the Church of God, shall be imputed to him: nor shall he be able to lift up his neck, but shall be pressed down to the earth by terror. For he slew many men, and laid waste the whole world, that is, the Church of Christ and its inhabitants, by his impiety.

It should be known, therefore, that this chapter which we have now expounded, that is: Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor a turbid overthrow; and the previous three, in which it is said: Woe to him who multiplies to himself what is not his own, and: Woe to him who gathers evil gain to his house, and: Woe to him who builds a city with blood—both according to the history, and according to the anagogical sense, may equally be received either against Nebuchadnezzar, or against the devil and Antichrist and the heretics. (Verse 18.) What profiteth the graven image, in that its maker hath graven it, the molten image and the false image? Because the maker thereof hath trusted in his own figment, to make dumb idols. The Septuagint: What profiteth the graven image, in that they have graven it; they have fashioned the molten thing, a false image? Because the maker trusted in his own figment, to make dumb idols.

Consequently to what was said above, it is said concerning Nabuchodonosor, that he made a statue of the idol Bel, and set it up in the plain of Dura: or, as it is written in the Hebrew, Dora, concerning which we read more fully in Daniel. The Scripture, therefore, marvels at the madness and folly of the king, in that he himself commanded a golden statue to be made, and yet the maker trusts in the image which he has fashioned: which indeed we can also take in a general sense against all worshippers of idols. Nor let us think that the thing carved and the thing molten are one and the same. For we can understand carving to apply to stones and marbles: but molten work is understood in those metals which can be melted and cast; for example, gold, silver, brass, lead, and tin. This has been said, that according to the tropology we may be able to know the difference between the graven and the molten thing.

We read in Deuteronomy: Cursed be every one who shall make a graven and a molten thing, the work of the hands of a craftsman, and shall set it up in a secret place. The graven and the molten thing I consider to be perverse doctrines, which are worshipped by those by whom they are made. See how Arius carved for himself an idol of the creature, and worshipped what he carved. Behold how Eunomius cast a false image, and bows his neck to his own casting. And significantly Scripture says: And he shall set it up in a secret place. For they too have their own mysteries, and hand down, as it were to certain of their perfected disciples, hidden sacraments, which, if they should come forth into the light, would at once be shown to be fabricated. Nothing, therefore, shall their carving and casting profit them. The carving, which pertains to stones, is to be understood of those doctrines which show their folly at first glance.

The casting is present where there seems to be some semblance of worldly wisdom, and an idol has been cast, as it were of gold, out of the disciplines of the philosophers and the splendor of eloquence. Nothing, therefore, shall the figment profit its maker. And the dumb and deaf image will not be able to hear its worshipper. If ever you see someone unwilling to believe the truth, and, though the falsity of his doctrines has been shown, persisting in his undertaken pursuit, you may fittingly say: He trusts in his own figment, and makes dumb or deaf idols: for κωφά among the Greeks signifies both; although Symmachus, translating ἄλαλα, seems to have understood "mute" rather than "deaf." Nor let anyone be troubled by that idiom of Scripture, of which we have often spoken: Who, thinkest thou, is the faithful and wise steward?

And in another place: Who is wise, and will understand these things?—since "who" or "what" is taken for "rare"; whereas we can also take this same expression in another passage for "impossible": Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ: shall tribulation, or distress? And so forth. And concerning the present chapter: What profiteth the graven image, in that its maker hath graven it? For in both cases an impossibility is shown, namely, that neither can any tribulation or distress divide the Apostle's charity from Christ, nor is there any usefulness in idols. (Verses 19, 20). Woe to him that saith to wood, Awake; arise, to the silent (or, lying) stone: shall it indeed be able to teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in its inward parts. But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before his face.

The Septuagint: Woe to him that saith to wood, Awake and arise: and to the stone, Be thou raised up; and it is itself an image, and it is a production of gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth be in awe before his face. This too can be understood either as against Nabuchodonosor, or against all who venerate idols. And human error is here described, in that men, because of the splendor of the material—silver, gold, gems, and silk, with which the idols are either wrapped or covered—esteem them as gods, though indeed the craftsman was able to give them form, but was unable to give them the soul by which limbs are quickened.

And by contrast the Lord is said to be in his holy temple: not in a temple made by hands, but either in the heavens, or in each one of the saints, according to the Apostle who says: Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? And elsewhere: Your bodies are the temple of God; or in the Son, as he himself says: The Father abiding in me, he doeth the works. Or certainly according to that which says that the heavens and the earth, the seas and the whole world (Virgil, Aeneid VI):

A spirit within nourishes them; and mind, infused through the limbs,
Stirs the whole mass, and mingles itself with the vast body:

the whole world, which consists of heaven and earth, and is enclosed by the circles of the heavens, is said to be the house of God. Whence also the Apostle confidently says: For in him, he says, we live, and move, and have our being. But if anyone should object, how it can be said that there is no spirit in idols, when unclean spirits attend upon all images, let him learn the custom of Holy Scripture, that a perverse spirit is never named absolutely, but always with some addition; as in that passage: They were seduced by the spirit of fornication. And in the Gospel: But when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, and other similar passages. But wherever "spirit" is read alone and absolutely, without any addition, it always refers to the good side, that is, to the Holy Spirit, as in that saying of the Apostle: He that soweth in the Spirit, of the Spirit shall reap life everlasting.

And elsewhere: But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace; and in another place: Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. Nor do we say this, as though the Holy Spirit is not also sometimes set down with an addition: for he is called both the Holy Spirit, and the principal spirit, and the right spirit, and the Spirit of God, and other similar names; but that the Holy Spirit is often set down both with an addition and alone; whereas the perverse spirit is nowhere read except with some addition. But this too can be said (if anyone should contentiously wish to take "spirit" in this passage as the perverse spirit), that it is one thing to say: There is no spirit at all in it; another, if it had said: There is no spirit at all about it: for a spirit can attend upon images; but it cannot be within them.

Whence also Aquila translates the Hebrew more significantly, saying: And its spirit is not in its inward parts, or in the midst of it. Therefore it should be known that in certain Hebrew manuscripts "all" is not added; but "spirit" is read absolutely. But if anyone, overcome by reason, should take "spirit" in the good sense, and should ask why, if it is said of the Holy Spirit, it is read with the addition: And there is no spirit at all in it—let him know that "all spirit" is understood as the various graces of the Holy Spirit: so that the sense is: It can have in itself nothing of grace, nothing of power. This indeed is also better understood according to the tropology, that in all the idols of heretics and the figments of the devil, there is no grace of the Holy Spirit; but they seem to display an image of divinity and the beauty of doctrines, while in them there is nothing living and vital.

Let us also say this, lest we seem to have hidden from the reader what we know, that "spirit" and "wind" are called among the Hebrews by the same word, that is, RUA (רוח), and according to the sense of the passage, it is customarily taken either as spirit or as wind. Therefore in this passage too, we can take "spirit" either for "wind," meaning that nothing breathes in idols; or for "soul," meaning that the images are inanimate. But that "spirit" is taken for "soul" is clearly shown by the prayer of the Savior: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. For Jesus could not have commended to the Father either a perverse spirit (which it is even wicked to think), or the Holy Spirit, who is himself God, but rather his own soul, of which he had said: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. And: No man can take away my soul from me: but I lay down my soul of my own will, and of my own will I take it up again.

The second, my venerable pope Chromatius, we write on the book of Habacuc, dedicating a work of our own to his Canticle, and attacking with all our strength an epic discourse composed in the manner of the Psalter, that is, in lyric fashion. Let the serpent hiss, then, and let Sardanapalus mock—more shameful in his vices than in his name (from Cicero)—we shall carry on the journey we have begun; and by your prayers, you who have overcome the flesh by virtue, let us discuss the most manifest prophecy concerning Christ in the eighth prophet, that is, in the number of the Lord's resurrection. Prayer of the prophet Habacuc for ignorances. LXX: Prayer of the prophet Habacuc with a canticle. Aquila and Symmachus and the fifth edition, like us, translated "for ignorances": only Theodotion has ὑπὲρ τῶν ἑκουσιασμῶν, that is, "for voluntary sins," and for those who sin willingly.

This is so that we may understand that none (except the Seventy) translated "a prayer with a canticle." For in the Hebrew it has Al segionoth (עַל שִׁגְיֹנוֹת), which is called ἐπὶ ἀγνοημάτων, and we have translated "for ignorances." Now the sense is this: because above he had rashly said: How long, Lord, shall I cry out, and thou wilt not hear? I will cry out to thee suffering violence, and thou wilt not save? And then in the second complaint: Why dost thou not look upon them that do unjust things, and hold thy peace when the wicked devoureth the man that is more just than himself? To this he had heard: Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables. And afterward: Behold, he that is unbelieving, his soul shall not be right in himself: but the just shall live in (or: by) his faith.

And he had learned that either Nabuchodonosor, or the devil, or Antichrist, set for the judgment of sinners and mighty for the chastising of nations, is now doing penance and lamenting that he had spoken rashly; and he begs pardon that he may obtain mercy, because he acted in ignorance. Whence David also says: Remember not the sins of my youth, and my ignorances. There are those who think that this is the prayer of the prophet, that at the coming of Christ the error of men might be taken away: whence also the prophet's name is prefixed in the title, because in the prophetic spirit he prays that the darkness be removed, and light be restored; that the image be taken away, and the truth granted. That it is indeed prophecy, the whole text of the Canticle shows, and especially this: In the midst of the two living creatures thou shalt be known. And: When the years shall draw nigh, thou shalt be known.

And concerning judgment: When my soul shall be troubled in wrath, thou wilt remember mercy. And again concerning the coming of Christ: God will come from Theman, and the Holy One from the mount, shady and thickly wooded. And also concerning the future: The tents of the land of Madian shall tremble, and thou mounting upon thy horses, and stretching, thou wilt stretch thy bow over the kingdoms. But if anyone should ask why Theodotion alone translated "for the voluntary," we may say either that it is the prophet's confession that he sinned not out of any necessity but willingly, thinking ill of God's judgment; or certainly that the future faith of the nations is being shown, because, willingly abandoning their former error, they will believe in him who is promised in the Canticle. We read in Psalm sixteen: A prayer of David. And likewise in another: A prayer of David. And in the eighty-ninth: A prayer of Moses the man of God.

And in the hundred and first: A prayer of the poor man, when he was anxious, and poured out his supplication before the Lord. And wherever else the name "prayer" is used, nevertheless nowhere is it read together with a canticle. And I do not know whether it is fitting to pray with a canticle, unless perhaps, following the Seventy, we say that the prophet prays for the coming of Christ, and that this very thing is prophesied with delight, both in psalms and in a canticle, so that in the part which is prayer, he entreats the Father, and in the part which is canticle, praise is spoken of the Father who sent the Son, and of the Son who has come. This concerning the title of the Canticle. Let us now see what is said in the Canticle.

(Verse 1.) O Lord, I have heard thy hearing, and was afraid: O Lord, thy work, in the midst of the years bring it to life.

LXX: O Lord, I have heard thy report, and was afraid: O Lord, I have considered thy works, and was astonished: in the midst of two living creatures thou shalt be known. Where we, and Aquila and Theodotion, translated "bring it to life," Symmachus rendered "revive it." But what the Seventy said, "I have considered and was astonished," is found neither in the Hebrew, nor in any of the other Interpreters, so that, once these words not found in the Hebrew are removed, it can be read according to the Seventy: O Lord, thy works, in the midst of two living creatures thou shalt be known: which, because it seemed ἀδιανόητον (unintelligible), the preceding words were joined to it. Now we read in the Hebrew ADONAI, that is, Lord, PHALACH, thy work, BACEREB, in the midst, SANIM, of years, HEIEU, bring it to life. This is so that we may clearly recognize what is superfluous, added in the Seventy. The Hebrews, following the historical sense, explain this passage thus: O Lord, I have heard thy hearing, and was afraid.

I have heard, he says, the punishments which thou hast prepared for Nabuchodonosor and for the devil, to whom thou didst say: Woe to him that heapeth together what is not his own (above, ii, 6). And secondly: Woe to him that gathereth evil covetousness to his house (ver. 9). And thirdly: Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and prepareth a city by iniquity (ver. 12). And fourthly: Woe to him that giveth drink to his friend, casting in his gall, and making him drunk. And fifthly: Woe to him that saith to wood: Awake; to the dumb stone: Arise. And just as I have been terrified with fear that the great dragon must be pierced with so many wounds, so I beg, O Lord, that what thou hast promised thou wilt fulfill, and, the time being completed, restore thy Christ. For thou hast said that though he yet seems far off, he will appear at the end, and will not lie.

Bring to life, then, what thou hast promised, that is, fulfill thy promise; let not thy word remain void and unfulfilled, but let it be accomplished in deed. This indeed, according to us, can also be understood of the resurrection of the Savior: that he who died for us should rise from the dead, and be brought to life. According to the Seventy, however, the sense is quite different, and we must also give the explanation of the Vulgate edition. O Lord, I have heard in the Scriptures thy word, and, thou giving me an ear, according to that which Isaiah says: He hath added to me an ear to hear; so have I heard, as thou wishest thy word to be heard.

And having contemplated thy works more diligently (lest it be said to me: But they regard not the works of the Lord, and consider not the works of his hands), I have understood the Creator from his creatures, and through each thing which thou hast made, and which thou dost work daily throughout the whole world, I was utterly astonished, and, having lost the sense of my humanity, was turned into a holy madness. Or certainly, disturbed by wonder, I burst forth trembling into thy praises, saying: In the midst of two living creatures thou shalt be known. This many think is to be understood of the Son and the Holy Spirit, because the Father is understood through the Son and the Spirit.

These indeed are also interpreted as the two Seraphim in Isaiah, and the two Cherubim written of in Exodus, which look toward one another, and have the oracle in their midst; and in Isaiah, veiling the head and feet of the Lord, they fly only in the present age, and cry out one to another the mystery of the Trinity: and one of the seraphim, which is interpreted "burning," is sent, and comes to the earth and cleanses the prophet's lips, and says: I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled? This is what some think, and for this interpretation they use many testimonies of the Scriptures. But the simple interpretation, and the common opinion, understands it of the Savior, because he was recognized as crucified between two thieves. But those who explain it better say this, that in the first Church, which was gathered from circumcision and from the uncircumcision, the two peoples surrounding him on either side, the Savior was understood and believed.

There are those who understand the two living creatures as the two Testaments, the New and the Old, which are truly living and vital, which breathe, and in the midst of which the Lord is known.

In the midst of the years thou shalt make it known. The Septuagint: When the years shall have drawn near, thou shalt be known. When the time comes, he says, and thou hast fulfilled thy promises by the work, thou wilt show that what thou hast promised is true. Or, when the consummation shall draw near, and thy Son shall come in the last hour to destroy sins, thou wilt be more manifestly known. There follows: When the time shall have come, thou wilt be shown forth, when my soul shall have been troubled. This, apart from the Seventy, is found neither in the Hebrew, nor in any of the other translators. And the sense is: When the time shall come, of which it is said: In an acceptable time I have heard thee, the time of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ: then, O God the Father, thy name will be known, which before was hidden from men, of which the Lord says in the Gospel: Father, I have revealed thy name to men.

But as for what follows: When my soul shall have been troubled, in the edition of the Seventy interpreters it is joined with what comes after, so that it may be read: When my soul shall have been troubled in wrath, and here the pause; then let it follow, thou shalt remember mercy; that is, that for the prophet the disturbance alone may suffice as punishment, and that his soul, disturbed at the wrath of God, may by no means bring on chastisement, but that mercy may exclude wrath. Now the wrath of God also has its measures: how much, and for how long, and for what causes, and upon whom it is imposed. According to that which is written: Thou shalt feed us with the bread of tears, and give us tears to drink in measure. But if the prophet is troubled at the wrath of God, and he who was troubled obtains mercy, what ought we to hope, or rather to fear, whose every work is worthy of the wrath of God?

But as for what follows according to the Hebrew: When thou shalt be angry, thou wilt remember mercy. We ought not to think that God forgets, and after wrath remembers his mercy; but rather that we, being placed under punishment, think that he forgets, according to that saying: How long, O Lord, wilt thou forget me unto the end? For even when we are overwhelmed as by waves of temptations, and the swift storm of demons rages fiercely against us, we speak as to one sleeping: Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord? And at the same time observe the clemency of God: he did not say, when thou hast inflicted punishments, thou wilt remember mercy; but when thou shalt be angry. Now he who is angry sometimes does not strike, but only threatens. This too the Apostle perceived when he said: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and injustice of men.

But where it is revealed, it is not inflicted, it does not strike; but it is revealed in order to terrify, and is not inflicted upon those who are terrified. (Verse 3.) God will come from the South, and the Holy One from Mount Pharan. Always. The Septuagint: God will come from Theman, and the Holy One from the shadowy and dense mountain. Diapsalma. Aquila and Symmachus, and the fifth edition, set down the Hebrew word itself, THEMAN (תימן): Theodotion alone interpreted what Theman means, saying, "The God" will come from the South, and the Holy One from Mount Pharan, unto the end. From this we understand that "from the shadowy and dense mountain" was put by the Seventy alone. But also this word which the Seventy translated, διάψαλμα, and which we have rendered "always"; Symmachus interpreted as "for ever"; Theodotion, "unto the end"; the fifth edition kept the Hebrew word itself, SELA (סלה). God, then, will come from the South, that is, from the midday, from clear light, and from those who are called sons of the day.

Whence also in the Song of Songs, the bridegroom drives away the north wind, and calls the south wind, saying: Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, blow through my garden, and let my spices flow. God is always in the noonday: Where, he says, dost thou feed thy flock? Where dost thou lie down at noon? And to Abraham, when he was under the oak, God did not come except at noon (—for xviii). And Joseph, who in a type went before the Savior, makes a feast for his brothers at noon. The knowledge, then, of God the Father comes, for those who are worthy, in full light. And the knowledge of the Holy One, that is, of the Son of God, comes from the shadowy and dense mountain.

The shadowy and dense mountain is understood either as the Father himself, full of virtues and of all wisdom, and covering all things with his majesty, and spreading his wings, and cherishing his young: or certainly as paradise and the heavenly places, full of angels, full of virtues, full of most fruitful trees. And would that it might fall to me also, that at my word and at my exposition God might come in clear light, and his Son, of whom it is written: Be ye holy, because I am holy, from the sublimity of speech, shadowy and dense, and woven together on all sides with the testimonies of the Scriptures, and with the Father and the Son coming together, that the hearer may become their dwelling place, and the Scripture be fulfilled, which says: I and my Father will come to him, and will make our abode with him.

But since instead of "the shadowy and dense mountain," in the Hebrew it is written "Mount Pharan," and Pharan is interpreted "the mouth of the seer": fittingly, according to our interpretation, the knowledge of the Son comes from the speech of a learned man, and not from just any speech, but from that which is full of light, full of eyes, so that it may be brought pure and manifest to the ears of those who hear. But when he says "from the mountain," understand lofty doctrines. I have heard this Hebrew explain the passage thus: that Bethlehem is situated to the south, in which the Lord and Savior was born, and that it is he of whom it is now said: The Lord will come from the South, that is, he will be born in Bethlehem, and thence will arise. And because he who was born in Bethlehem once gave the Law on Mount Sinai, he is the Holy One who comes from Mount Pharan: for Pharan is indeed a place near Mount Sinai.

And as to what follows, "diapsalma," that is, "always," it has this sense: that he who was born in Bethlehem, and who gave the Law in Sinai, that is, in Mount Pharan, is always, in all benefits, past, present, and future, both author and giver. Concerning the diapsalma, which in Hebrew is called SELA, a fuller discussion has been made in the Psalter. And observe likewise, according to the Seventy, that "diapsalma" is not placed anywhere except in the Psalter, and in the present passage. From which we understand that the Song was rightly entitled by the Seventy as a prayer. (Verse 4.) His glory covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise. His brightness shall be as the light: horns are in his hands. There is his strength hidden. The Septuagint: His power covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise, and his brightness shall be as the light: horns are in his hands, and he set the strong love of his strength.

For what the Seventy translated, and he set the strong love of his strength, we said, there is his strength hidden: Aquila translated, and he set the hiding place of his strength; Symmachus, and he set his hidden strength; only Theodotion, agreeing with our translation, says: and there is the hiding place of his strength. For the word SAM (שם) is understood both for the quality of place, and he set, and there: and in the present place there ought rather to be read there than he set, so that the sense and order of the sentence be: Horns are in his hands, and let there be understood, there, that is, in the horns his strength is hidden. Now it is manifest according to the Hebrew that at the coming of Christ all things were filled with glory, according to that which is said in the Gospel: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.

And elsewhere: He made peace in heaven and on earth through the blood of the cross, and sat at the right hand of majesty: for his word runs swiftly. And elsewhere: O Lord our Lord, how admirable is thy name in all the earth! And again in the eighteenth Psalm: Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. His brightness also, like the sun of righteousness, shone with clear light; and horns are in his hands, the standards and trophies of the cross, and in those very horns his strength is hidden: For though he was in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant: he became obedient to the Father unto death, even the death of the cross. On the cross, therefore, his strength was for a little while hidden, when he said to the Father: My soul is sorrowful even unto death: And: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

And on the cross itself: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Furthermore, according to the Septuagint, in that it is said: His power covered the heavens, we ought to know that what is covered is less than that which covers, provided that what is covered is covered wholly and not in part. Since, then, the power of God covers the heavens, his power, by which the heavens are covered, is greater than the heavens. Now we often read that the heavens are those who bear the image of the heavenly one, and who declare the glory of God. The apostle also proves that the power of God is the Lord the Savior: Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. This power is, as it were, the mother of all the special virtues: for instance, it is called power, wisdom, strength, justice, temperance, truth, holiness, redemption: for Christ was made unto us by God wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption.

These special virtues, therefore, in which Christ is shown forth (according to the advancement of those who receive him either as wisdom, or strength, or justice, and the rest of this kind), are contained in the general power of God, that is, in the Lord the Savior: and in this manner we also understand concerning the earth, that those who at first, because of the image of the earthly man, were called earth, and it was said to them: Earth thou art, and unto earth thou shalt return, at the coming of the Savior are filled with the praise of the Lord. But when the heavens also shall have been covered by the power of God (that is, protected and clothed on every side), and the whole earth filled with the praise of God, then his brightness shall be as the light. Now that the image of God and the brightness of his glory is God the Savior, the apostle does not conceal: Who, after the brightness of the glory of God appeared to us, returned to his former majesty.

For although we had known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him no longer according to the flesh, but according to the spirit; because what was made, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. Which the Savior also shows more plainly in the Gospel, saying: Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made; that after the ascension into heaven, the brightness may become the light, that is, that the Son may begin to be that which the Father is. Now as to what follows: Horns are in his hands, it is the custom of the Scriptures always to put horns for kingdoms. For that which Hannah speaks in the first Book of Kings: He has exalted the horn of his Christ, signifies the magnificence of the Savior's kingdom. And in Daniel, ten horns show ten kingdoms.

So now it is said: Horns are in his hands, in the same way as we read written elsewhere: The heart of the king is in the hand of God: meaning that the mind and ruling part of the heart of the holy man (who presses on to the kingdoms of heaven, who, still placed on earth, reigns over his body free from sins) does not wander abroad, but is set under the guardianship of God. But since neither in the Hebrew nor in the other editions is it written: Horns are in his hands, but in his hand, which is said JADO (ידו), let us understand by the strong and mighty hand of God his Son. And let us say that in this hand are placed all the kingdoms of heaven, and of those who strive to ascend to heaven: which Isaiah also declares, saying: A vineyard was made for the beloved in a horn, in a fruitful place, meaning, in a kingdom.

For this reason, I think, no horned animal is placed among the unclean in Leviticus, and the same thing is signified by the unicorn in the Psalms, or the rhinoceros; and that saying: In thee we will toss our enemies with the horn. Now as to what we read according to the LXX: and he set the love of his strong power, this too is to be understood of Christ, that God the Father therefore covered the heavens with his power, and filled the earth with praise, and made his brightness to be as light, and placed the kingdom in the hand of his Son, that he might cause his beloved to be loved by men, and to be loved not lightly, but vehemently and strongly, so that those who had loved him strongly, and clung fast in his love, no one might take them out of his hand.

On the contrary, the devil causes us to love the world, and instead of the love of virtue to love vices, and not lightly, but strongly, so that it might be said of us: And the devil set the strong love of his own vices. (Verse 5.) Before his face shall go death: and the devil shall go forth before his feet. The Septuagint: Before his face shall go the word, and it shall go forth into the field after his feet. In place of what we translated as death, in the Hebrew three letters are placed, DALETH, BETH, RES, without any vowel, which if read DABAR (דבר), signify word; if DEBER, pestilence, which in Greek is called λοιμός. Finally, Aquila also translated it thus, Before his face shall go pestilence; Symmachus, Before his face death shall go before; the fifth edition, Before his face death shall walk; only the LXX and Theodotion translated it as word instead of death.

Likewise in the following verse, where we said: The devil shall go forth before his feet, the LXX translated otherwise, according to which we shall dispute afterward: Aquila translated for devil, flying thing; Symmachus and Theodotion, and the fifth edition, bird, which in Hebrew is called RESEPH (רשף). Now the Hebrews relate that, just as in the Gospel the prince of the demons is called Beelzebub, so Reseph is the name of a demon who holds primacy among the others, and who, because of his exceeding swiftness and his running to and fro into diverse places, is called a bird and a flying thing: and that he is the one who spoke to the woman in paradise under the form of a serpent, and received this name from the curse by which he was condemned by God; since RESEPH is interpreted as creeping on the belly.

This is, then, what is said: as soon as the Lord shall come and shall have been baptized in the Jordan, and at the descent of the dove the voice of the Father shall have thundered: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, as he comes out of the waters the devil shall meet him; and before his feet shall stand death, and the ancient serpent, who tempted him forty days in the wilderness.

But if we read according to the LXX, before his face shall go the word, and it shall go forth into the fields after his feet, this signifies that the word of God, before his visitation, which is now allegorically called face, goes before and prepares the hearts of believers: that it may lay the crooked things straight, and the uneven places level: and that the soul of the hearer, like a field newly cleared, may be able to receive the spiritual seed. (Verse 6.) He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and dissolved the nations, and the mountains of the age were broken to pieces: the hills of the world were bowed down, by the ways of his eternity. The Septuagint: He stood, and the earth was moved: he beheld, and the nations melted away: the mountains of violence were broken to pieces: the hills of the age melted away by the everlasting way of his going.

The Savior, standing and surveying all things, and measuring with his eye the whole of the world, scattered the multitude of the nations: and these being scattered and dissolved, the mountains of this age were broken to pieces, and the hills of this world were bowed down. For there are also other mountains and hills, which the bridegroom leaps over and skips across in the Song of Songs, of which it is also said in the second psalm of the steps: I lifted up my eyes to the mountains, whence help shall come to me. But the mountains of the age are those which are also the mountains of darkness, concerning which Jeremiah bade that our feet should not stumble upon them. These are the hills on which Saul reigned when he was slaying the priests of God: for Gibeah is interpreted "hill." And elegantly it is said: the hills of the world were bowed down. For before the coming of the Savior they walked with stiff neck, and no one could humble their pride.

But they were broken and bowed down by the ways of his eternity, that is, of God, because his eternity deigned to come to us, whether because he always, from the beginning of the world until his incarnation, came to the saints, and the word of God became present in the hand of each one, and in all who conquered he himself overcame, and bent his everlasting course, and broke to pieces the hills and mountains. These things are spoken by metaphor according to the Hebrew. Further, according to the LXX, after the word had gone before the face of God, and had gone forth into the plains, God the Father comes there, where a region has been prepared for him for his word, and comes after the feet of his word, and stands; never going before, but always waiting for that word to prepare the way for him.

But where he shall have stood next to the feet of his word, there straightway the earth—that is, the works of flesh and of bodies, unable to sustain the presence of God—is moved. And when they have been moved, the power of the word and the presence of God looks upon all the nations of the soul, which we may understand as the thoughts and manifold and diverse opinions, which are straightway dissolved and melt away. If anything also had exalted itself against the knowledge of God on earth, and had taken possession of the mind of the hearer, this, at the going before of the word, and at the coming of God, shall be broken and crushed. But the mountains being broken and crushed at the sight of God, the hills shall plainly be consumed, and reduced to nothing. For they are not the mountains of God, but the mountains of the age.

For the everlasting way of God, looking upon those things which his word goes before, and being stronger than the hills of the age, shall consume and destroy them. But the mountains may also be understood as demons, who are active among heretics, and lift themselves up against the knowledge of God: the hills also as other strongholds of the demons, which cause men to admire the beauty of bodies, dignities, riches, nobility of birth, and the other goods of the world. One may see, after the coming of the word of God, and the presence of God the Father, how human souls are moved, and everything that is earthly is dissolved, and former thoughts are reduced to nothing. Then are the demons destroyed, then are the heights of the age brought to nothing, and all the knowledge of the heretics, which at first was swollen with pride, is humbled at the coming of the word of God, is crushed and consumed. And that which before seemed beautiful and very great is cast aside as despised and small.

And this happens because of the coming of God and the dwelling of Christ, according to what is written elsewhere: I will dwell in them, and walk among them, and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Verse 7. For iniquity I saw the tents of Ethiopia, the skins of the land of Midian shall be troubled. LXX: For their labors I saw the tabernacles of the Ethiopians: they shall fear, and the tabernacles of the land of Midian.

The Ethiopians, dark and lovers of darkness, and strangers to all light, who feed on the flesh of the dragon (of whom it is written: Thou hast given him for meat to the peoples, to the Ethiopians), are understood to be demons, whose tabernacle becomes whoever in this world has labored for the sake of honors and riches: which is significantly shown under the one word "iniquity," "For every rich man is either unjust, or the heir of an unjust man." See how men cross the seas: keep watch before the doors of the powerful: endure all things which the condition of slaves scarcely endures, that they may heap up riches, that they may attain some dignity: and after they have obtained this, they give themselves over to luxury and pleasures and every iniquity, so that what avarice has gathered, luxury may consume. These then, for their labors, become the lodging of demons, and they who ought to have been the temple of God become the tabernacle of the Ethiopians.

But also that which follows: The skins of the land of Midian shall be troubled, or, they shall fear, even the tabernacles of the land of Midian, understand as the same as the tabernacles of the Ethiopians, and the tabernacles of the land of Midian. For after they have grown rich, and by right and wrong have climbed to the highest rank, then, through the consciousness of their sins, they shall always dread death, always dread judgment, and at a slight fever, like robbers in prison, they shall so sigh over the eternal punishments. Now Midian in our language means "from judgment," that is, condemnation, and it is shown that through fear of judgment and of eternal punishments they are always in dread, and the torments which they feel they deserve they bear with daily terror.

Verse 8. Wast thou angry, O Lord, in the rivers? Or was thy wrath in the rivers, or thy indignation in the sea? For thou wilt ride upon thy horses, and thy chariots are salvation. Thou wilt surely raise up thy bow, the oaths which thou hast spoken to the tribes. Ever. LXX: Wast thou angry, O Lord, in the rivers? Or was thy wrath in the rivers, or thy onset in the sea? Who mounting upon thy horses, and thy horsemanship is salvation: bending, stretching thy bow over the scepters, saith the Lord. Diapsalma. Where the Seventy have "diapsalma," and Aquila "ever," the rest have translated similarly as above. And since the discourse hastens to the tropological interpretation, briefly comprehending the sense of the chapter according to the letter, I shall pass on to the rest.

Just as thou didst dry up the Jordan, and the Red Sea, fighting for us: for thou wast not angry with the rivers and the sea, nor could insensible things incur any offense: so now, mounting thy chariots, and seizing thy bow, thou wilt give salvation to thy people, and wilt fulfill forever the oaths which thou didst swear to our fathers and to the tribes. But when it says: Wast thou angry, O Lord, in the rivers, or was thy wrath in the rivers, or thy onset in the sea? It speaks ambiguously, and more in the tone of one questioning than of one affirming. For there are both good rivers and bad. There is a sea most evil, and a sea most good. Of the good rivers this is the example: The stream of the river makes glad the city of God. And that whoever drinks of the water of the Lord, from his belly shall flow rivers of living water springing up into eternal life.

Of the evil, that which Pharaoh speaks in Ezekiel: The rivers are mine, and I have made them, in which the dragon dwells, and many similar things. That the sea also is taken in a good sense the twenty-third psalm testifies, in which, tropologically, it speaks of the Church under the term οἰκουμένη, that is, the world: The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof, the world, and all that dwell therein: he hath founded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the rivers, that is, the world. But that which is founded by the Lord upon the rivers, and prepared upon the sea, is certainly taken in a good sense. Likewise that which is said of the vine that was transplanted out of Egypt: Thou hast stretched forth its branches unto the sea, and its shoots unto the rivers, unto the sea, I think, can be taken in a good sense.

And we say that the divine words which are more manifest, and which offer, as it were, a drink to the thirsty, are called rivers: but those things which are full of mysteries, and set in the depth (of which the Apostle says: O the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! And the Prophet agrees: Out of the depths have I cried to thee, O Lord), are called sea in the Scriptures. This concerning that the sea also can be understood in the better sense. But that it is also taken in the contrary sense, there are many testimonies, of which this too is in the Psalms: This great and wide sea: there the ships shall pass through, small creatures with great. This dragon which thou hast formed to play therein. And from the Gospel, when the Savior rebuked the winds and the sea, and said to it: Peace, be still. For that which is rebuked is evil, according to that of Zechariah: The Lord rebuke thee, O devil. And to Timothy: Reprove, exhort, rebuke.

Therefore, since the Prophet asks: Wast thou angry, O Lord, in the rivers, or was thy wrath in the rivers, or thy onset in the sea? Let us say that if there are rivers of Egypt, and a red and bloody sea; the Lord is angered and strikes them, and is carried with full onset into the whirlpools, lifting themselves against the knowledge of God. Whence the sea saw and fled, unable to bear the presence of God. And Jordan was turned back, yielding to the glory of the people passing through, which is also divided by Elijah and by Elisha. But that I may speak more plainly, understand by the rivers, against which the Lord is angered, the eloquence of heretics which flows against the truth and the Church.

But the souls of those who are carried about by every wind of doctrine, and always fluctuate in malice, held in salty whirlpools—consider this the sea upon which the onset of the Lord takes place, and let it feel his coming, and know by what boundaries and barrier it is enclosed, and hear: In thee shall thy waves be broken. But if the rivers are good and the sea good, Jesus is washed in them, and places his Church upon such a sea. After this follows: Who mounting upon thy horses, and thy horsemanship is salvation. I ask what horses the Lord mounts upon, and I think there are none other than the souls of the saints, upon which the divine word mounts, that it may both save them, and others through them. Let us set forth examples of horses. The Bridegroom speaks in the Song of Songs: I have compared thee, my love, to my company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots.

Not that Christ compares the Church, or the word of God compares the soul which he calls his bride, to the chariots of Pharaoh; but that every soul, however holy and perfect it may be, compared to God, is as it were the chariot of Pharaoh, and a beast of burden. Whence Moses too speaks to the Lord: But I am ἄλογος, that is, irrational. And David: I am become as a beast before thee. Not that he was absolutely a beast, since he was uncircumcised in lips; in the Greek, according to the Seventy, it is read, ἐγὼ δὲ ἄλογός εἰμι, that is, I am irrational. Which David expressed in other words: I am become as a beast before thee. Not that he was absolutely a beast; but that before God he was as a beast. Contrary to these horses are those which Pharaoh has, and of which it is said: The horse and rider he hath thrown into the sea: riding of this kind is not salvation, but perdition.

Let us seek also other horses, upon which the Lord mounts: In the fourth Book of Kings we read that the servant of Elisha rose early, and going out saw an army encompassing the walls of the city, and horses and chariots. And after his eyes were opened at the prayers of the prophet: He looked, it says, and behold, the mountain was full of horses, and fiery chariots round about Elisha. Note carefully that horses are seen and chariots, and yet among so many thousands of horses and chariots there is no rider: of these horses he was the charioteer and ruler of whom the Psalmist sings: Thou that sittest upon the Cherubim, shine forth. By such horses and such a chariot Elijah too was caught up to heaven.

But if anyone wishes to learn from Zechariah who are the red horses, and who the black, and who the speckled, and who the white, going forth from the myrtle groves, and from the mountains set in the depth, or, as it is written in the Seventy, of brass, we shall try to explain this, if the Lord grant space of life, in the prophet himself. John too saw white horses, and their riders: of which I think the bodies of those rising again in glory are the white horses; but the riders are the souls of the saints. But if anyone is a sinner, and like myself, he shall sit upon a black horse, and it shall be said of him: All they that mounted upon horses have slumbered. Of such horses it is written: A horse is a vain thing for safety: for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and its wisdom is enmity with God. Let this be said of those who love their bodies, and sit upon black horses.

But let us prepare our souls as horses, and as chariots for the Lord, who mounted in Paul, mounted in Peter, and riding in chariots of this kind, traversed the whole world. Also bending his bow or his arrows, he uprooted, destroyed, and brought to ruin the scepters, that is, the kingdoms, against which Jeremiah was sent; and he brought it about that sin should not reign in our mortal body. But by scepters, that is, the kingdoms of the devil, which he shows also to the Lord, understand the various sins—avarice, luxury, wrath, detraction, theft, perjury—against which the word of God, sitting upon horses and in his chariots, aims the twisted darts of his brightness, and meanwhile does not release them, so that he who has been terrified at the drawn bow may not feel the release of the arrows. And this he does always, which Aquila has translated for "diapsalma." For he always sits among his saints, he is always armed.

And preparing sharp arrows on their tongues, he rides, and runs hither and thither for the salvation of the world. (Verse 10.) Thou shalt cleave the earth with rivers. LXX: The earth shall be cleft with rivers. Because the Lord hath raised up his bow, that he might give back to the tribes the oaths which he had spoken, it is consequently said, thou shalt cleave the rivers of the earth, that is, thou shalt divide and scatter the kings of the earth who are fighting against thy people. But according to the Septuagint, who said: The earth shall be cleft with rivers, let us first set forth an example, that by this as by a step we may come to higher things.

We read in those who have compiled volumes of marvels, and who have carried down the Olympiads of Greece even to our own time, setting forth what new thing happened in the world in each year, that among other things rivers burst forth by an earthquake, which had not existed before, and again others were swallowed up and perished: because, namely, all the veins of the earth, just as in a human body blood, so in themselves have hidden waters, which are broken open by the shaking of the earth, and remain as rivers. If we have understood this, let us see that the human soul has in itself naturally waters and rivers, and that through our sluggishness they are hidden, and do not flow. But when it has been shaken by the preaching of the word of God, and moved from its former state, then that which lay hidden bursts forth, and flows for the refreshment of those who drink.

This same thing I think that passage in Genesis also signifies, where the wells are dug by the servants of Isaac, which the Philistines had filled up with earth, though they had been made by Abraham. As long as Abraham lives, his wells are not stopped up: but when he is dead, and the wells are stopped up, if the servants dig, the Philistines contradict them, and there is a quarrel. But if Isaac himself comes, and digs a well, and finds water, the Philistines cannot contradict him. See Peter and Paul, and do not doubt concerning the wells and rivers of Christ. Behold all the apostles, and you will understand that now not four rivers, but twelve rivers go out from the paradise of the Scriptures. These rivers, before the earth was shaken, lay hidden, and though they were in the veins of the earth, they gave no draughts to the thirsty.

But after, at the coming of Christ, the world and all the earth was shaken, suddenly they burst forth, and then was fulfilled: He turned rivers into a wilderness, and the water-springs into dry ground; a fruitful land into saltness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. He turned the wilderness into pools of water, and dry ground into water-springs; and there he made the hungry to dwell, and they established a city for habitation. For after the Lord came into the world, and that was fulfilled which he said in the Gospel: For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind: then the land of Israel, from which rivers formerly flowed and watered the whole people of Judea, dried up, and its fountains were stopped.

But the whole world, which had been desert and barren, and had not the waters of the Lord's preaching, was turned into pools of water: and as many teachers as it sent forth, so many fountains it had. Nor was it enough for them, that is, for the fountains and rivers, to water the peoples of the world; but in each province, gathering into one people those who were hungering and suffering famine for the word of God, they built up the Church, which is called the city for habitation, and which the rush of the river makes glad. (Verses 11 and following.) The mountains saw thee, and were grieved: the gathering together of the waters passed by: the deep uttered its voice: the deep lifted up its hands on high: the sun and moon stood still in their habitation: in the light of thy arrows they shall go, in the brightness of thy glittering spear.

In wrath thou wilt tread the earth under foot: in fury thou wilt astonish the nations: thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, for salvation with thy Christ: thou struckest the head from the house of the wicked, thou hast laid bare the foundation even to the neck. Always. We have set forth only our own edition, so that following it, that is, following the Hebrew, weaving the sense of the passage, we may afterwards discuss the Seventy comma by comma, chapter by chapter. The mountains saw thee, O God, and were grieved: that is, the lofty kingdoms and the exalted powers of this world, and the four chariots in Zechariah, which go forth from the mountains of brass: these saw thee and trembled. And the gathering together of the waters passed by: that is, all their assault and persecution, by which they harassed thy people, after they saw thee, passed away.

Then the deep, that is, the underworld, praised thee: then also those above, that is, the angels, clapped applause with their hands, to show, as it were by some gesture and dance of uplifted hands, the victor. Thy sun and thy moon, and all the splendor with which thou hadst before shone upon thy people, and which afterward, by the weight of evils, had all been covered with the horror of darkness, received back their light and had their former brightness. Thy arrows and thy glittering spear, that is, thy blows and thy chastisement, gave light to thy people. Finally, in the light of thy arrows, and in the brightness of thy spear, which struck them for this purpose, that it might correct them, thy people walked in thy roaring.

When therefore thou shalt avenge the wrong done to thy people, thou shalt trample down earthly kingdoms, and shalt make all nations marvel, because thou hast gone forth for the salvation of thy people, and hast come to them with thy Christ: although in the Hebrew it is written: Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people with Jesus thy Christ: or with thy Savior Christ: for Jesus is interpreted Savior. But when Jesus Christ thy Son came, thou didst strike Antichrist from the house of the wicked, that is, in this world, which lies in wickedness: or thou didst strike the devil himself, who is the head of impiety, and thou hast laid bare his foundation even to the neck, that is, thou hast made his hidden things open, not for a brief time, but forever: for this is what SELA signifies, that is, always.

LXX: They shall see thee, and shall grieve, or shall travail, the peoples; for ὠδινήσουσι signifies both. Consequently, the earth having been rent, and the rivers flowing, the peoples who had drunk from the rivers of God shall see God, and shall travail. For from this very fact, that they see God, they immediately conceive by the word of God and say: From fear of thee, O Lord, we have conceived in the womb, and have been in labor, and have brought forth: we will bring forth the spirit of thy salvation upon the earth. Blessed, he says, are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. These peoples then, washed by the rivers, have not yet seen, but are about to see God: and when they shall have seen, they shall conceive, that they may be able to bring forth the fruits of doctrines.

But since it is said, peoples, and it does not belong to peoples to see the face of God, although the sentence is extended to the future, they shall see and shall bring forth: yet according to the tropology, the Hebrew is rather to be followed, where it is said: The mountains saw thee, and brought forth: for it belongs to mountains to see God and to bear children, whom they have conceived from the word of God. LXX: Thou wilt scatter the waters of the journey. There are diverse waters: some everlasting, some brief. Of the everlasting waters, and those which flow from the fountains of Israel, it was said: The earth shall be cleft with rivers. Of the sudden ones, and those running for a time: All the torrents go into the sea. For the end of such waters is destruction. God therefore will scatter all the waters which have been trodden down by perverse doctrines, when he shall have dissipated the counsels of princes, and the wisdom of this world.

If ever you see some heresy flourish for a short time, and afterward, by the grace of God, dissipated, say that this is fulfilled: thou wilt scatter the waters of the journey. Now this word "journey" may be understood as "of the devil," so that the sense is: The waters which the devil has trodden down, and which have offered in themselves a way to many, that is, have lain open to many errors, the Lord will divide and scatter. Whence also the other interpreters, wishing to describe the heretical fury, translated: The dashing, or the onrush of the waters shall pass by. For they are borne along with a headlong and precipitous course of eloquence, so that whomever they find in their path, and light of mind, they drag along with them. LXX: The deep gave forth its voice, the height of its imagination. The deep is often taken in a good sense: often in a bad sense: sometimes indifferently. In a good sense: Thy judgments are a great deep. And: Deep calleth unto deep, and so forth.

In a bad sense: The waters saw thee, O God, and so forth. But the demons also beg not to be sent into the abyss, and in Genesis: The deep upon which there was darkness, I know not whether it can be taken in a good sense. Indifferently it is put here: The fountains of the deep were broken up, and the floodgates of heaven were opened. And that in the hundred and forty-eighth psalm: Dragons, and all deeps: fire and hail and stormy winds, unless perhaps, from the fact that it is placed among dragons, and fire, and hail, it is to be drawn to a bad sense. Which I know not whether one can say, who has seen it resounding with the rest in praise of the Lord.

If therefore we take the deep in a good sense, let us say, the waters of the worst journey having been scattered, thy wise men saw thee, and borrowing from the sight of thee the height of knowledge which they had, whatever they had before thought concerning thee (because the mountains saw thee and travailed), they brought forth in the praises of their voice. And beautifully he calls the notion of imagination "height," following Jesus the son of Sirach, who says: Who shall search out the deep and wisdom? Whence also, concerning the little mountain, that is, the assumption of the human body, which Daniel calls a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, that is, without the work of marriage, Christ, the deep, calls upon the Father, another deep, in the voice of his cataracts, that he may give to those who evangelize the word with much power.

Or certainly the New Testament, as a deep, in testimony of the little mountain, by which the prince of Tyre was wounded, calls upon the deep of the Old Testament, that through the cataracts of Christ, that is, the apostles, the preaching may become firmer. But if anyone should wish to take this saying: The deep gave forth its voice, the height of its imagination, in a bad sense, he will use this argument, that after the waters of the journey were scattered, which were certainly taken in a bad sense, this too is rightly understood in the contrary sense. And observe at the same time that he did not say "its height," but "the height of its imagination," that is, of shadow and image. For they seem to have height and knowledge of the Scriptures; but all their height, compared to truth, is imagination, and it lifts up its voice in vain, because the waters of the journey have already been scattered.

Let us seek in the Scriptures whether anywhere we can find "imagination" taken in a good sense, and since it will be found rarely or never, we shall more firmly interpret the deep, and its imagination, in a bad sense.

LXX: The sun was lifted up, and the moon stood in its order. If we follow the simple interpretation, from the present words is shown the advancement of the sun and of the moon: because, according to Isaiah, in the age to come the sun shall shine sevenfold, and the moon shall shine with the brightness of the sun. For since the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God, which is now made subject to vanity, because of him who subjected it in hope of liberty, when at the consummation of the world every creature shall have been set free, the sun also and the moon shall be set free, and shall stand in their order.

But if we wish to take the sun of righteousness as Christ, in whose wings is health, and the moon, which is illumined by the brightness of this sun, as the Church: it is not difficult to say that the true light, and the light of men, and the brightness of the glory of God, and the brightness of eternal light, illumines her: who now in this present age, according to prosperity and pressures, waxes and wanes. But when the sun shall have been lifted up, and, according to the Apostle, God shall have exalted him, and given him a name above every name: then also the Church, which in the present age cannot keep her order, shall return to her due order, and shall by no means be changed; but shall stand with fixed step, and shall hear with Moses: But stand thou here with me.

LXX: In light thy weapons shall go forth, in the splendor of the flashing of thy armor. The weapons of God, that is, the arrows going forth and proceeding, are not sent to slay but to enlighten. For the distinguishing of these arrows and weapons, Christ is called the chosen weapon, crying out through Isaiah: He set me as a chosen weapon, and hid me in his quiver, and said to me: This is a great thing for thee, to be called my servant. These arrows will have many more arrows, which he will send into the whole world. Whence also the bride, wounded by the chosen weapon, says: I am wounded with love: according to which we too can say: I am wounded with chastity, I am wounded with wisdom. By which weapon of wisdom the Queen of the South also, being wounded, was not in herself, and being amazed, found more in the true Solomon than fame had told her.

These arrows, then, which are sent into the light, proceed also in the splendor of the flashing of his, that is, of God’s, armor. For whoever shall be armed to stand against the wiles of the devil, and girded with the armor of the Apostle, to him shall come the weapons of light, so that of him it may be said: You are the light of the world. But if anyone is a sinner, and groans because he dwells in the tents of Cedar, there are sent to him the sharp arrows of the mighty one with desolating coals, that he may first be pierced by the words of God, and say: I have been turned about in misery, while a thorn is fixed in me.

And after he has been pierced, then let the desolating coal be sent to him through the Seraph, that is, the burning word of God, which may not only consume the lips—which alone were unclean in Isaiah—but all the parts of his members, and bring him back to the solitude of sinners.

LXX: In threatening thou shalt diminish the earth, and in fury thou shalt drag down the nations. This can be understood of the consummation of the world, when, with the multitude slain through frequent wars, few men shall be found, and those who were unwilling to be of the people of God, but remained nations and heathens, shall be led down to hell by the fury of the Lord. But it is better that we interpret the earth diminished by threatening as earthly works, and those who, established in the Church, do not wait as sinners to be seized by the fury of the Lord; but hearing in the Scriptures what punishments hang over sinners, do penance, and gradually diminish their earth, and advance toward heaven.

If any of us dreads the threatening of the Lord, for him the earth is diminished; but he who perseveres in the number of the nations, and does not wish to be of those whose earth decreases, nor of the people of God, of whom it is said: The peoples shall see thee, and shall be in labor—he shall be dragged down with the nations unto punishment.

LXX: Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, that thou mightest save thy anointed ones. Let us first see how many kinds of "christs" there are, and afterward treat how the Lord went forth for the salvation of his anointed ones. In the old Testament the patriarchs also were called christs, of whom it is written in the Psalms: He rebuked kings for their sakes: touch not my anointed ones, and do no evil to my prophets. And in the first book of Paralipomenon, all who went out of Egypt are called christs. Also chrism for the priesthood is prepared in Exodus, with which afterward the priests are recorded to have been anointed in Leviticus. There is also another ointment with which kings are anointed in the kingdom, which is divided into two. For if it is David or Solomon, that is, strong of hand, or peaceful, he is anointed with the horn.

But if they are Jehu and Hazael, they are drenched from the flask: for the earthen vessel is so called, that is, "paxic." But even Cyrus, king of the Persians and Medes, who released the people from captivity (though many err, and think it was written of the Lord the Savior), hears through Isaiah: Thus says the Lord to my anointed Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, that nations might hear before him. And at the end it is said: But thou hast not known me—which it is impious to understand of the Savior. There is a prophetic ointment, by which Elijah is commanded to anoint Elisha as a prophet. And above all kinds of ointments, there is a spiritual ointment which is called the oil of exultation, with which the Savior is anointed, and it is said to him: Therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of exultation above thy companions. And I think those are the companions to whom John also speaks: And you have an anointing from the Holy One.

And shortly after: These things I have written to you concerning those who seduce you: and the anointing which you have received from him, let it remain in you: and you have no need that anyone teach you; but the anointing itself will teach you concerning all things, and it is true, and is not a lie, and as it has taught you, abide in it. And lest perhaps those who have lost the chrism of baptism should despair of the chrism being restored, it is written in Leviticus: that when the leper, cast out of the camp, has come to the priest, and his leprosy has been cleansed, the priest shall put oil in his left hand, and dipping his finger, sprinkle the oil seven times before the Lord, and touch with the same oil the ear of him who had been a leper, and his right hand, and his right foot, and whatever remains of the ointment he shall pour wholly upon his head.

And when he has duly completed all these things, then let him offer a holocaust for him, and let him himself be called an anointed one of God. I wish to say something; but I fear lest I give occasion for ruin to the negligent: for in the sacred Scriptures the same man is frequently found anointed.

In fact David was anointed a third time: let us not understand this of one who has sinned; and again he is anointed (for it suffices for the leper that, after the first ointment is lost, he be anointed a second time), but of one who advances day by day, and whose anointing is always increased, and who passes from the oil of the leper to the oil of the people and of the saints, and from the oil of the people arrives at the oil of the priests, and from the priests ascends to the chrism of the pontiff, and from the pontiff also to the king, from the king to the patriarchs, and from the patriarchs proceeds to Christ, and is anointed with the oil of exultation, with which whoever has been anointed becomes one spirit with God, and where the Father and the Son are, there also he shall be. But this is rare, and these are the vows of believers. For the rest, I do not know whether the effect follows.

For it is said: God, thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy companions, that is, with that oil which those who are thy companions can seldom, or never, find. It is for the salvation of these anointed ones, then, that God went forth from his place, as Micah also says: And he shall go forth from his place to save. For because those who needed salvation were unwilling to enter to him, he himself went forth from his majesty and from his place, that he might lead those who were outside into the land of the meek and the region of the living, from which Adam had been expelled: from which Cain, having gone out, dwelt in the land of Naid.

But it must be known, as we said above, that where the LXX put the plural number, "that thou mightest save thy anointed ones," there is in the Hebrew Lajesua eth messiac (לישע את משיחך), which Aquila translated, "for salvation with thy Christ," not that God went forth to save the people, and to save his Christ; but that he came for the salvation of the people together with his Christ, according to that saying of the Gospel: The Father in me, and I in the Father; and the Father abiding in me himself does his works. But the fifth edition likewise translated: Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, for salvation with thy Christ. Theodotion however, truly as one poor and an Ebionite, and Symmachus also of the same doctrine, following a poor sense, translated in Jewish fashion: Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, that thou mightest save thy Christ. And: Thou wentest forth to save thy people, to save thy Christ.

I am about to say an incredible thing, but true nonetheless: these semi-Christians translated in Jewish fashion; and the Jew Aquila interpreted as a Christian. The sixth edition, betraying the mystery most plainly, thus rendered from the Hebrew: Thou wentest forth, that thou mightest save thy people through Jesus thy Christ, which in Greek is said ἐξῆλθες τοῦ σῶσαι τὸν λαόν σου διὰ Ἰησοῦν τὸν Χριστόν σου. To this sense may be fitted the fact that the Father went forth with the Son from the temple and from the ceremonies of the Jews, saying: Your house shall be left to you desolate; and came for the salvation of the nations, that he might save believers through Jesus Christ his Son. LXX: Thou hast sent death upon the head of the impious. Let us not think this is said of that common death by which all die, and by which Abraham died, and was gathered to his fathers; and the prophets, and Christ himself died; but death was sent upon the wicked; that they who formerly lived to iniquity, being dead to sin, might live to justice.

This indeed Anna also signifies in her prayer: The Lord kills and gives life. For he kills sinners, sending death upon the heads of the impious, that he may give life to justice. I will say something more bold: Christ came into the world for this, that he might send death upon the heads of the wicked. And just as he himself died to sin once, so also they might die to iniquity; and those who had been made partakers of this death might also become partakers of life. But according to the Hebrew, where it is written: Thou hast struck the head from the house of the impious—let us take "head," as I said, to mean the prince of this world; and his "house," the world, and every soul of the sinner, in which the devil had lodging. And for this reason the head is struck in the house of the impious, that, he being struck and cast out, it may become the house of God, and justice may dwell there, and walk about in it.

And this is worthy to be understood of God, who went forth for the salvation of his people with his Christ, that, this sort of head being struck, he might become the head in us who is the head of every man and of his Church. If then anyone still feels himself to be the house of the impious, let him pray for the coming of the Son of God, that the head of the impious may be crushed in himself.

LXX: Thou hast raised up bonds even unto the neck, unto the end. The Lord raised up the bonds of charity, that, the former burden being laid down, and the most grievous yoke by which we were pressed being cast off, we might take up the light yoke of Christ; and, being placed in his chariot, might bear the best charioteer. Which indeed Theodotion, taking it in a good sense, renders: Thou hast adorned the foundation even unto the neck. The fifth edition: Thou hast stripped bare, or, emptied, the foundation even unto the neck, sela, that is, forever. For because the foreign land had buried the foundation of Christ, which was in the soul of each one, the heaped-up earth is dug out, and the best foundation is laid bare, and adorned, so that what lay hidden may appear and receive again its brightness, and this may be forever, which in Hebrew is called SELA.

And note at the same time that the LXX themselves, compelled by the necessity of the matter, who always rendered sela as "diapsalma," now translated it "unto the end." (Verse 14. Seqq.) Thou hast cursed his sceptres, the head of his warriors, coming as a whirlwind to scatter me. Their exultation is like that of one who devours the poor in secret. Thou hast made a way in the sea for thy horses, in the mire of many waters. I have heard, and my belly was troubled: at the voice my lips trembled. Let rottenness enter into my bones, and swarm beneath me: that I may rest in the day of my tribulation, that I may go up to our girded people.

And now let us discuss only the Hebrew, so that we may treat separately of the edition of the Seventy, for it differs greatly from the translation of all: Thou hast cursed, he says, his sceptres, that is, his kingdoms: doubtless of that impious one of whom he had said above: Thou hast struck the head from the house of the impious: thou hast stripped bare the foundation even unto the neck. And we understand the impious one to be either Nebuchadnezzar, or every adversary of the people of God.

And not only with his sceptres, but also on the head of the warriors whom you had struck, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, that is, to overthrow Israel, and lead it captive into a foreign land. Thus they exulted in devouring the poor and Israel subjected to them, as if doing this in secret, and would devour us without your knowing. You came, then, to battle for your people, and driving your chariots into the waters—that is, into many nations—you made a way for them in the mire of many waters, that is, so that you might trample them, and crush them like mud beneath the hoof and wheel of your horses and chariots.

As for what follows: I heard, and my belly was troubled: at the voice (understand: yours) my lips trembled, let rottenness enter into my bones, and let it swarm beneath me: that I may rest in the day of tribulation, that I may go up to our girded people—the meaning is this: Now we willingly suffer all straits, and at your threatening we tremble in our whole inward parts.

Now my lips tremble, and the fear of a shaking mind is marked upon my face, and not only this, but I also of my own accord seek and of my own accord desire another thing: let rottenness enter into my bones, and let it swarm beneath me; that is, I gladly endure what Job endured, desiring that not only my flesh but even the marrow of my bones waste away, and that my bed swarm with the rottenness of my body and countless worms, so that after I have endured these things here for my sins, I may rest in the bitter day, in the day of tribulation, in the day of necessity and distress. And may I go up to our girded people, that is, the strong, the warlike, and the combative people. And beautifully, "may I go up": for one always goes up to a girded people.

And elegantly, "our": for he who has been afflicted, and has willingly borne pressures, and has compensated present evils with future rewards, boldly speaks of "our," so that, alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he himself too may sleep in a good old age, full of days, and be gathered to his fathers. But if someone should say: Behold, while you did not know it, in expounding the history you have been caught in the nets of allegory, and have mingled tropology with history—let him hear that a metaphor of history does not always harmonize with allegory: for frequently history itself is woven metaphorically, and under the image of a woman, or of one man, the whole people is set forth.

And now, therefore, we can say in the person of the people: I willingly undergo captivity, with equal mind I endure straits, and I am oppressed by the heaviest yoke of the Babylonians, and whatever belongs to the final and hard necessity, I suffer gladly (or: I suffer): only that at that time I may rest when you shall curse the sceptres of the wicked one, and your horses shall trample the mire of many waters, that afterward with your saints Zerubbabel and Jesus the son of Josedec, and Ezra the priest, and Nehemiah, I may return to the land of promise. Up to this point, lest we should seem entirely to pass over the history, we have in a manner done violence to the understanding, and have drawn into captivity meanings that do not follow; now let us return to the Seventy translators, and to the tropological exposition.

The LXX: You divided the heads of the mighty in astonishment. As Christ is the head of the Church and of every man, so of all the demons who rage madly in this world, the head is Beelzebub, the prince of demons, and each of their bands has its own heads and princes. For example, the spirits of fornication have their own overseer, the spirits of avarice have their own ἄρχοντα (ruler), the spirits of vainglory, the spirits of falsehood, the spirits of unbelief have the presiding officers of their own malice. Therefore the most merciful God, who had sent death upon the heads of the wicked, who had raised up bonds even unto the neck, in the end also divides the heads of the mighty in astonishment, so that he may first separate the princes from their subjects, and, as it were, behead the body from the head, and where there had been the worst head, there the best head may be set in its place.

Let us set forth an example, that what we say may become clearer: if ever a tyrant is beheaded, his images too are taken down, and his statues; and with only the countenance changed, and the head removed, the face of the one who has conquered is placed over it, so that, the body remaining and the heads cut off, another head is substituted. This I choose to understand of the assemblies of the heretics, that when the heads of the heresies have been separated from the rest of the peoples, in their place Christ may begin to be the head. At the same time consider the significance of holy Scripture, that it did not say, "you cut off," or "you struck down the heads of the mighty," but "you divided": for what is divided is not so much amputated and destroyed, as separated into parts.

So that, just as in the building of the tower the tongue that had been wickedly united was separated, and the very evil league was torn apart by a useful division: so also these heads, which along with their bodies seemed to have agreement among themselves (for there are many heads of the heretics, which, though having different eyes, yet with one tongue, so to speak, of blasphemy bark against the Church), might be divided into parts, and, separated from their deceived bodies, might make room for the good head. We can use this verse whenever we see kings and their leaders shedding Christian blood, and afterward the Lord's vengeance following. This we have lately seen in Julian, and before him in Maximian, and above in Valerian, Decius, Domitian, Nero; and we may say to the Lord with exultation and prayer, in the Canticle: You divided the heads of the mighty in astonishment—that is, in the astonishment of believers, or in the astonishment of all the nations, who did not think they could fall so quickly.

When I was still a boy, and was being trained in the school of grammar, and all the cities were being defiled with the blood of victims, and suddenly, in the very heat of Julian's persecution, his death was announced, one of the pagans wittily said: "How is it," he said, "that Christians say their God is patient, and ἀνεξίκακον (long-suffering)? Nothing is more prone to wrath, nothing more present than this fury: he could not even for a short space defer his indignation." This he said in jest.

But the Church of Christ has sung with exultation: You divided the heads of the mighty in astonishment. I too will say something like this: Divide, O Lord, in the astonishment of all, Ahab and Jezebel. I indeed am not Elijah; but nevertheless that Ahab and Jezebel killed Naboth, and took his vineyard, and made it a garden for their own luxury. May some servant of yours, an Obadiah, be found, who may feed your poor and beggar, lest the blood of the harlot be given to dogs; may impious and avaricious Ahab be slain by the dart of the Lord. The LXX: They shall be moved in it, they shall loosen their bridles like one eating in secret as a poor man.

When the heads have been divided from their bodies, and divided in no other way than "in astonishment," which in Greek is called ἐν ἐκστάσει: whence, declined accordingly, it is said ἐν αὐτῇ, that is, "in it," they shall also loosen their bridles, or those of others (for it can be understood either way), so that that dominion by which they formerly ruled over the bodies subject to them, being relaxed, may give place to a better rider and a better charioteer. And this they do as if eating like poor men in secret, having no liberty, nor any abundance of food, but scanty fare, eating which secretly they would want no one to see what they do.

It can also be interpreted otherwise: When the heads have been divided in astonishment, as if beheaded from the rest of the body, they shall open their mouth, which had been bridled as it were with the bit of condemnation, and, in the likeness of those eating, gnashing their teeth against one another, they shall grind, wishing to eat again but not having the power to devour. Understand how, after the coming of Christ, the heads of the demons, separated from the nations that had previously been subject to them, wish again to exercise their ancient power. But because they have been cut off from their bodies, they do not have full freedom of feeding: they eat like poor men, and not only are they poor, but poor in secret. They are poor, because they have lost their former riches: they eat in secret, because they always sit in ambush, that they may kill the innocent in hidden places. These heads have the same teeth as they have arrows.

And although it was said before, "I will ascend above the stars of heaven, I will set my nest on high, and I will hold the whole world like eggs in my hand," yet they shall be dragged down from their heights, and, losing their former furnishings and all the substance of their house, shall scarcely, like poor men, attempt to eat and bite in secret. I know that the Hebrew differs much from what has been said; but what can I do, who have once set out to interpret both the Hebrew itself and the Scriptures made current throughout the whole world?

The LXX: And you led your horses into the sea, troubling many waters. After God had sent death upon the heads of the wicked, and had struck down the heads of the mighty in astonishment, and had broken them in the sea (for it is written in the Psalms: You broke the heads of the dragon)—the princes being slain, or broken, and the strong one conquered, one comes to his house, and all his vessels are plundered. But by the vessels and house of the strong one, and the furnishings of the prince, what else can we interpret but the sea of this world, in which the dragon dwells? God, therefore, the excellent horseman and the chief charioteer, leads in his horses—that is, the angels and the lofty powers—over the sea of this world, so that they may trouble the many waters, the demons and the opposing powers.

But if we should wish to interpret this of the coming of Christ, according to what is written in the Apocalypse, that the Word of God sits upon a white horse, and all the army on white horses follows him, we shall see how Christ ascended in his apostles, saying to them: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world; and: Going, go, baptize all nations, and the rest. And afterward he mounted upon one white horse, whom I think to be none other than the apostle Paul, upon whom riding, he went about the whole world. But the Word of God ascends on his horses, that the many waters might be troubled, that is, either the many peoples, who before were in the sea and held bound to the dragon (for wide and spacious is the way that leads to death), and were troubled, first abandoning their former error: then, being troubled, they might receive the coming rider.

Or certainly, of whom we spoke above, the bands of demons should by no means so dominate in the sea; but, troubled, they should yield, and dread the wounds of the warring rider. And would that the Word of God might also ascend in me, and through the lance of my mouth slay him who reigns in many waters, so that, at the destruction of the king, the waters that had been subject to them, being troubled, might offer their necks to my rider, and, gathered into one chariot, we might become the Lord's Cherubim, which is interpreted "multitude of knowledge." For never is a charioteer so composed, and so carried adorned, as in those who are joined together by the reins of the multitude of knowledge and of wisdom.

The LXX: I kept watch, and my belly feared at the voice of the prayer of my lips: and trembling entered into my bones, and beneath me my strength was troubled. Or, as we find written elsewhere, ἡ ἕξις μου, which we can render "my habitude": for various copies are found. Now these things can also be said, in the person of the prophet, connected with what precedes: Because you have sent, O Lord, death upon the heads of the wicked, and have raised up bonds even unto the neck, and have divided in astonishment the heads of the mighty, and have led into the sea your horses troubling the many waters: therefore I have kept my heart with all watchfulness, and my inward parts have trembled, and all my—either strength, or habitude—has been troubled, lest I should endure the like things.

It can also have its own beginning, the prophet narrating his own fear, and how he dreaded lest he should sin in anything, and, being warned at the voice of the prayer of his lips, feared God so much that trembling entered into his bones: and, placed under the exalted hand of the Lord, was troubled in all the strength, or habit, of his soul. But when he says: Trembling entered into my bones, it must be taken more emphatically (ἐμφατικώτερον), so that we may see the greatness of the fear of God penetrating the whole soul, and moving the whole man, lest he should do anything that would displease God. And because Scripture, in an allegorical manner, according to the members of the body, also commemorates the members of the soul, let us understand by the "trembling belly" that faculty of the soul which receives spiritual food, and by the "lips" that by which the mind speaks with itself, and by the "bones" the strong and solid doctrines by which the whole framework of the soul is made firm.

These things have been said briefly by me. But if anyone should find things more penetrating and truer than these, give your assent rather to his explanation.

The Septuagint: I will rest in the day of my tribulation, that I may go up to the people of my sojourning. Because with all watchfulness I have kept my heart, and my belly trembled at the sound of the prayer of my lips, and trembling entered into my bones, and beneath me my strength or condition was troubled: and because of such great watchfulness I was made a stranger to sins: therefore I now confidently say: I will rest in the day of tribulation, that I may go up to the people of my sojourning, that is, to him who, equally with me, has sojourned in this world. And I shall go up, though placed below, and, as it were striving from the valley toward the heights, I shall press on with all eagerness, so that at the time when the rest are in tribulation and distress, my care may be for the ascent, that I may rest in the higher places with the people of my sojourning.

And I think the day of tribulation is the consummation of the world, of which Isaiah also says: The day of the Lord is incurable, of fury and wrath, to make the whole world a desert, and to destroy sinners. (Verse 17.) For the fig tree shall not blossom, and there shall be no bud in the vineyards: the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no food: the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. The Septuagint: For the fig tree shall not bring forth fruit, and there shall be no buds in the vineyards: the work of the olive shall lie, and the fields shall not make food: they have failed, because the sheep were eaten up, and there are no oxen in the stalls.

According to the Hebrew, in which we said above: Let rottenness enter into my bones, and let it swarm beneath me, that I may rest in the day of tribulation: that I may go up to our girded people: so what has preceded shall be joined to what follows: I have chosen for the present to endure tribulation, and afterward to go up to a strong people, because the day of tribulation and necessity will come, and while the rest are placed in distress, I shall rejoice in thy majesty: For the fig tree shall not blossom, and there shall be no bud in the vineyards: the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall bring no food, and so forth. Since these things do not differ much from the Septuagint, let us discuss them together with their interpretation.

When the day of tribulation shall come, and I shall go up to the people who once sojourned with me: or certainly when the day of the overthrow of the Jewish people and of the former people shall come, and the daughter of Sion shall be left desolate, like a tabernacle in a vineyard, and like a hut in a cucumber field, and like a city that is besieged, I, who have been chosen out of the perishing people (of whom it is said: Unless the Lord had left us a seed, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like Gomorrah), shall join myself to the disciples of Christ: whom, because he teaches them on the mountain, leaving the crowds and the weak below, I shall climb up to the mountains. For the fig tree gave no fruit, to which the Lord came hungry in the Gospel, and did not find fruit on it, and cursed it, saying: Thou shalt bring forth no fruit forever.

And consider carefully what he said: Thou shalt bring forth no fruit for the age—he does not say, forever and ever: but when this age has passed, and the fullness of the Gentiles has entered in, then also this fig tree shall bring forth its fruits, and all Israel shall be saved. This is the fig tree to which the father of the household comes for the third time, and, as it were, wishing to cut down the one that bears no fruit; for which the farmer, to whom it had been entrusted, entreats that he give it space, and says: Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it, and put dung on it, and if indeed it bear fruit: but if not, then thou shalt cut it down.

This farmer is either Gabriel or Michael, to whom the people of the Jews has been entrusted, who entreats the Lord in the passion, and says: Lord, give it space for repentance, and do not overthrow them, and if they bear fruit: but if not, then thou shalt overthrow them. If they bear fruit, he says—he did not say what they should sustain; nor did he say, if they bear fruit, they shall remain as they were; but if they bear fruit, the sentence is left in suspense, so that it may be understood, thou shalt transfer them into the Church of the Gentiles, and shalt transplant them into another vineyard. The Lord came a third time, and found no fruit in them. First he gave the Law through Moses: secondly he spoke through the prophets: thirdly he himself came down. And after the passion, forty-four years having been given for repentance, because they bore no fruit, they were overthrown the fourth time. This, however, is left to our own understanding.

For in the parable it is not written what the father of the household did afterward; but only what the farmer entreated. From which we observe that those who bore fruit from this fig tree were transferred to the people of the Gentiles, to whom the prophet also ascends, saying: I will rest in the day of tribulation, that I may go up to the people of my sojourning.

But those who bore no fruit, and remained in their hardness, were overthrown. This same thing is signified also by the voice of John in the Gospel: Behold, the axe is laid to the roots of the trees. Every tree that does not bear fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire. We have spoken of the fig tree, showing that it is the people of the Jews: let us speak also of the vineyard, which indeed anyone who has read Isaiah will easily understand: The vineyard became for the beloved a horn, in a fruitful place. And afterward: And he waited for it to bring forth fruit: but it brought forth thorns, and not judgment, but a cry. And in Jeremiah: But I planted thee a fruitful vineyard, wholly true: how art thou turned into the bitterness of a strange vine? And more plainly in the Psalms: Thou didst transport a vineyard out of Egypt, thou didst cast out the nations, and didst plant it.

This, then, is the vineyard to which the father of the household often sent servants, that he might receive from it the wine which gladdens the heart of man, because it was turned into bitterness, and at last it even dared to kill the son of the father of the household, bringing forth not grapes but thorns, and not judgment but a cry: Crucify, crucify him! And: We have no king but Caesar. Therefore the boar out of the wood laid it waste, and the wild beast alone devoured it. The olive, too, will be clearly shown to be the people of the synagogue, by anyone who reads in the Apostle of the broken branches of the olive, and of us grafted in from the wild olive, so that we may understand by the branches that the Jewish multitude was cut off, while in the roots the election of the apostles was preserved, into whom we shall remain grafted, if we bear fruit, and it shall be said of us: Thy children like young olive plants round about thy table.

Many think that the fig, the vine, and the olive are taken in the mystery of the Trinity, in that the fig, on account of the sweetness of its fruits, is understood as the Holy Spirit. The vine is our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who says in the Gospel: I am the vine. But the olive is God the Father almighty, from whom all things are illuminated, and from whom light goes forth, and to whom we can say: O olive, in thy light we shall see light, that is, in the Son we shall see the Holy Spirit. To these fruitful trees, and to the most fruitful vine, come the fruitless trees in the book of Judges, and ask that they might reign over them. But never does the olive, the fig, and the vine reign over the trees of the forest, which are destined for burning: rather the buckthorn rules over them, full of thorns and like a hedgehog, which dwells in Babylon, and is always found in pits.

This little shrub not only has thorns, but also fire, wounding and burning whatever it touches. In the end fire went out and consumed the trees of the forest. But that you may know, according to the understanding above, in which we have received it to be said of the synagogue: The fig tree shall not bear fruit, and there shall be no offspring in the vineyards—that this is said not of fruits but of good works. In the olive the riddle is plainly opened, and it is said: The work of the olive shall lie. For the fruits which they ought to have brought forth are shown in works: but the work of the olive shall lie, promising one thing and doing another, saying to Moses: All things whatsoever the Lord shall say, we will do; and yet unwilling to believe in him who was foretold by Moses. The fields also shall not bring forth fruit.

Consider that Jerusalem, which once was situated on the mountains, and mountains were round about it, and its foundations were on the holy mountains, is now called low and level, which not only does not nourish men, that is, rational animals; but not even cattle and oxen either, of which Solomon also speaks in Proverbs: Give heed to the regions that are in the field, and cut the grass, and gather hay, that you may have sheep to feed. Oxen too shall not be in the stalls: for where the stalls are full, the strength of the ox is manifest. The ox is a worker: the ox of the Lord sustaining the yoke: the ox in whose track he who has sown is blessed. All these things shall be taken away from the people, because it has acted unjustly against God its Creator.

But if you wish to take the day of tribulation as the day of the consummation, you will refer all these things to those who say they are of the Church, and do not have the works of righteousness. And the fig, and the vine, and the olive—that is, the mystery of the Trinity—will not bring forth their fruit in them, and not only will there be no grain and food for rational beings; but they will not even have food in their fields for cattle and beasts of burden, and their stalls are empty, and instead of the lofty mountains they dwell in flat and low places. (Verses 18, 19.) But I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will exult in God my Jesus. God the Lord is my strength, and he will make my feet like the feet of harts. And upon my high places he, the victor, will lead me, singing among the Psalms.

The Septuagint: But I will exult in the Lord: I will rejoice over God my Saviour, the Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet unto perfection: upon the high places he will set me, that I may conquer in his Canticle. The fig-tree and the vine and the olive, according to what I have expounded, not bearing their fruit, and the fields of the Jews not bringing forth food, the flocks also cut off from the fold, and the herds from the stalls, after they had heard from the Lord: Your house shall be left to you desolate, and the people also delivered over to captivity, and scattered throughout the whole world, the prophet, speaking on behalf of the people of the Jews, whose name is interpreted "embrace" (because he loved the Lord, and clung to him, and joined himself to him), speaks in the person of the apostles and of the people believing in Christ: But I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will exult in God my Jesus.

In place of which the Septuagint translated τῷ Σωτῆρί μου, that is, "my Saviour." The same thing also, as Gabriel interprets: And he shall be called Jesus, for he himself shall save his people. God the Lord is my strength: for I will have no other virtue except in Christ, and all the righteous deeds of the law I will reckon as refuse. And he will make my feet like the feet of harts, so that I may tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and like a little child put my hand into the hole, and draw out the serpent, and play (or, Judah) with the adder: For my kinsman is like a roe, or a young hart. And because he himself is the hart, he has granted also to me that I should be a hart, lofty in horns, cleaving the hoof, chewing the cud, and by my scent putting serpents to flight: of which it is said in the seventeenth Psalm: Who has made my feet like the feet of harts, and will set me upon the high places.

And in the twenty-eighth: The voice of the Lord perfecting harts. He will therefore set my feet among his other harts, and will lead me to the heavenly places, that among the angels I may sing the glory of the Lord, and on earth announce peace to men of good will. And I will sing his victory and his triumph and the trophy of the cross. This, according to the Hebrew and the fifth edition, let us refer altogether to the time of the Jewish overthrow, and to the coming of the Lord.

But if we wish to take it of the consummation of the world, it must be explained thus: just as in Exodus, when Egypt was struck, and God struck their vineyards and their fig-trees, and slew the firstborn of men and of cattle with hail, and the Egyptian crops the locust and the caterpillar consumed: the fig-tree in Egypt bore no fruit, nor were there clusters in their vineyards, the work of the olive proved false (wherever indeed it could be found in Egypt), and their fields gave no food: and their cattle failed, because they had no food, and there were no oxen in the stalls.

But the people of Israel exulted in the Lord, and rejoiced in God their Saviour: so at the consummation of the world, when, iniquity having multiplied, charity shall grow cold, and the fig-tree shall not bring forth fruit, and the vineyards shall not have grapes, and the work of the olive shall prove false, and the fields shall not bring forth food, and the rest that follows: then whoever shall be found just and worthy of the election of God, will speak, exulting. But I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in God my Saviour, the Lord is my strength.

And as one set by God upon the consummation of the age, so that afterward he may climb to higher things, and be led up by God to the summit, he will say: And he will set my feet unto perfection, upon the high places he will place me: so that when by the ἀγωνοθέτῃ Jesus, who first prevailed in the contest, the prize shall have been set for those who sing, I shall conquer in his song, and my hands shall tune the harp, and the psaltery, and every kind of instrument, and I shall write a panegyric to the one triumphing. And I who at the beginning said: How long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? I will cry out to thee, suffering violence, and thou wilt not save? And disputed concerning his justice and judgment; afterward I will praise his equity, and I will surpass all the other singers with my song.