The Book of Rules

Of the Lord's body in two parts.

Of promises and the law.

Of species and genus.

Of times.

Of recapitulation.

Of the devil and his body.

Scripture speaks of the Lord and His body, that is, the Church; reason alone discerns, while it persuades what befits each; but because the force of truth is so great, it extorts assent. Otherwise, any person is addressed as though it were single, yet the diverse offices of two teach that it is twofold. Thus through Isaiah: This one, he says, bears our sins, and grieves for us, and he himself was wounded because of our crimes. God delivered him up for our sins, which the whole Church proclaims with one voice to apply to the Lord. There follows, and it says of the same: And God wills to cleanse him from the wound, and God wills to take light away from him because of the sorrow, and to form him in prudence. Does he wish to show light to him whom he delivered up for our sins, and to form him in prudence, when he himself is the light and wisdom of God? And is this not for his body?

Wherefore it is clear that it can be seen by reason alone when the transition is made from the head to the body. Daniel too says that a stone cut from the mountain struck against the body of the kingdoms of the world and ground it to dust. But the stone became a mountain, and his body filled the whole earth. For it is not, as some say—to the reproach of the kingdom of God and the unconquered inheritance of Christ, which I say not without grief—that the Lord occupied the whole world by power, and not by the fullness of his body. For they say that the world was filled by that mountain; that it might be lawful for a Christian to offer in every place, which before was lawful only in Sion. But if it is so, there was no need to say that the mountain was made from the stone, and that the world began by increments.

For our Lord Christ had this glory before the foundation of the world, and since that man was the Son of God, he received all power in heaven and on earth not by degrees, as the stone, but at one time. But the stone became a mountain by increments, and by growing covered all the earth. But if he had filled the whole earth by power, not by body, he would not be compared to a stone. For power is an impalpable thing, but a stone is a palpable body. Nor is it shown by reason alone that the body grows, not the head: it is also confirmed by apostolic authority: "May you grow," he says, "in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together through every joint of supply, according to the working in due measure of each part, makes the increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself".

And again: "Not holding the head, from which the whole body, joined together and knit by joints and bands, grows with the increase of God". Therefore it is not the head, which is the same from its origin, but the body that grows from the head. Let us return to our subject. It is written of the Lord and his body; what befits which is to be discerned by reason: "He has given his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways: they shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and you shall trample the lion and the dragon. Because he has hoped in me, I will deliver him, I will protect him, because he has known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will hear him; I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him and glorify him. With length of days I will fill him, and I will show him my salvation".

Does he, concerning whose service God gave charge to his angels, show him his own salvation, and not to his body? Again: "As on a bridegroom he has set a mitre upon me, and as a bride he has adorned me with ornament". He has called the one body of both sexes, bridegroom and bride: but what applies to the Lord, what to the Church, is known by reason. And the same Lord says in the Apocalypse: "I am the bridegroom and the bride". And again: "They went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride". And again, what is to be discerned by reason as belonging to the head and to the body is declared through Isaiah: "Thus says the Lord to Christ my Lord, whose right hand I have held, that the nations may obey him".

There follows, and it says what befits only the body: "And I will give you hidden treasures, and I will open to you invisible things, that you may know that I am the Lord, who calls your name, the God of Israel, for the sake of Jacob my servant, and Israel my chosen." For on account of the covenant which he arranged with the Fathers, to be known by them, God opens to the body of Christ invisible treasures, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man—but not of the man who is closed off, who is not in the body of Christ: but to the Church God has revealed these things through the Holy Spirit indeed, although this is of the grace of God. Nevertheless, when reason is applied, at times these things are seen more easily. There are other things in which such reasoning is less clear, because the saying might rightly apply either to the Lord or to his body.

Wherefore they can be seen only by the greater grace of God. So in the Gospel: "Henceforth," he says, "you shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven". In another place he says that they shall not see him coming in the clouds of heaven, except only on the last day, when all the tribes of the earth shall mourn. And then they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven. But both must come to pass. But first is the coming of the body, that is, of the Church, continually coming in the same invisible glory; then that of the head, that is, of the Lord in manifest glory. For if he had said, "Henceforth you shall see him coming," the coming of the body alone would have to be understood. But if "you shall see," it would be the coming of the head.

But now, he says, "henceforth you shall see him coming," since he comes continually in his body by birth and by the glory of like sufferings. For if the reborn become members of Christ, and the members that make up the body are Christ, it is he who comes, since birth is a coming, as it is written: "He enlightens every man coming into this world". And again: "Generation goes, and generation comes". And again: "As you have heard that Antichrist comes". Again of the same body: "For if he who comes preaches another Christ". Whence the Lord, when asked about the sign of his coming, began to discuss that coming of his which the enemy body can imitate by signs and wonders: "Take heed," he says, "that no man deceive you". Many will come in my name, that is, in the name of my body. But at the last coming of the Lord, that is, of the consummation of his whole coming, no one, as some suppose, will die.

But let us leave these matters to be discussed more fully in their own order. Nor will it be absurd that we wish the whole body to be understood from the one, so that the Son of man is the Church, since the Church, that is, the sons of God gathered into one body, are called the Son of God, called one man, and are also called God, as through the Apostle: "Above all that is called God, or that is worshipped". What is called God is the Church. But what is worshipped is God most high: so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself, that he himself is God, that is, that he himself is the Church. As if he said: he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he himself is the temple of God. Or he sits in God, showing himself that he himself is God.

But this understanding, as we know, Daniel wished no less to obscure concerning the last king: "In the Lord," he says, "his place shall be glorified": that is, shall be made glorious, as the Church in the place of the Church, in the holy place, he has set up, in place of the abomination of desolation, in God, that is, in the Church. And the Lord calls the whole people bride and sister. And the Apostle calls it holy Virgin, and, on the contrary side, the man of sin. And David calls the whole, Christ, the Church: "Showing mercies to his Christ David, and to his seed forever". And the apostle Paul calls the body of Christ, Christ: "For as the body is one, and has many members; but all the members of one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ", that is, the body of Christ, which is the Church.

Again: "I rejoice in my sufferings for you: and I fill up those things that are lacking of the sufferings of Christ", that is, of the Church. For nothing was lacking to the sufferings of Christ, since it is enough for the disciple that he be as his master. So then we shall understand the coming of Christ according to place. Likewise in Exodus, we know that all the sons of God are one son, and all the firstborn of the Egyptians are one firstborn, as God says: "You shall say to Pharaoh: Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son. I said to you: Let my people go, that they may serve me. But you would not let him go". Whence therefore: "Behold, I will kill your firstborn son." And David calls the vineyard of the Lord one son, thus: "God of hosts, turn again: look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vineyard, and perfect it, which your right hand has planted, and upon the son of man whom you have confirmed for yourself".

And the Apostle calls him the Son of God who is mingled with the Son of God: "Paul, servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, set apart unto the gospel of God, which he had promised before through his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestined the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection of the dead, of Jesus Christ our Lord". If he had said "concerning his Son," as from the resurrection of the dead, he would show one son; but now he says, "concerning his Son ... by the resurrection of the dead, of Jesus Christ our Lord." But he who was made the Son of God by the resurrection of Christ shows more openly concerning his Son, that he was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestined the Son of God.

For our Lord is not predestined the Son of God, because he is God, and coequal with the Father, who is what he is from the moment he was created. But that one, to whom, according to Luke, it is said at the baptism: "You are my son, this day have I begotten you". Who, from the seed of David, was mingled with the principal Spirit, and himself became the Son of God, by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ: that is, while the seed of David rises again in Christ: not that one of whom David himself says: "The Lord said to my Lord". And so the two are made one flesh, the Word was made flesh, and the flesh God: because we are born not of blood, but of God. The Apostle says: "The two shall be in one flesh. This is a great sacrament: but I speak in Christ and in the Church".

For God promised one seed to Abraham; that however many were mingled with Christ, there should be one in Christ, as the Apostle says: "You are all one in Christ Jesus. But if you are one in Christ Jesus: then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise".

Now there is a difference between "you are one" and "you are one thing." Whenever one is mingled with another by will into one, they are one. As the Lord says: I and the Father are one. But whenever they are also mingled bodily, and two are solidified into one flesh, they are one body. Thus in his head he is the Son of God; and God in his body is the Son of man, who comes daily by being born, and grows into the holy temple of God. For the temple is twofold. One part of it, although built of great stones, is destroyed, and in it stone will not be left upon stone. We must beware of the continual coming of that part, until the Church departs from its midst.

The rule of the twofold body of the Lord is much more necessary, and must be perceived by us with all the greater diligence, and kept before our eyes throughout all the Scriptures. For just as, as was said above, the passage from head to body is seen by reason alone: so too the return from part of the body to part, from the right to the left, or from the left to the right, is made clear in the head mentioned above. For when he says to one body: I will open to you invisible treasures, that you may know that I am God, and I will take you up; and he adds: But you have not known me, that I am God, and there is no other God besides me, and you did not know me. Now does he, although he addresses one body, come together into one mind: "I will open to you invisible treasures, that you may know that I am God, for the sake of my servant Jacob," and "But you have not known me"?

In the same body—and Jacob did not receive what God promised. Or does it not come together into one mind: "But you have not known me, and you did not know me"—for "you did not know" is said only of one who already knows. But "you have not known" is said to him who, although called to this end, that he should know, and although he belongs visibly to the same body, and approaches God with his lips indeed, yet is separated in heart. To this one he says, "But you have not known me." Again: I will lead the blind in a way which they have not known, and paths which they have not known they shall tread; and I will make darkness into light for them, and crooked things straight. These words I will do, and I will not forsake them. But they themselves have turned back. Now are those whom he said he would not forsake the same ones who turned back, and not only a part of them?

Again the Lord says to Jacob: Do not fear, for I am with you. From the East I will bring your seed, and from the West I will gather you. I will say to the North, give; and to the South, do not withhold. Bring my sons from a far land, and my daughters from the end of the earth, and all in whom my name has been called. For unto my glory I have prepared him, and formed him, and brought forth a blind people, and their eyes likewise are blind, and they have deaf ears. Now are those whom he prepared unto his glory the same as those who are blind and deaf? Again: Your fathers first; their princes committed a crime against me, and your princes defiled my holy things, and I gave Jacob to perish, and Israel to be a curse. Now hear me, my servant Jacob, and Israel whom I have chosen. He shows that he gave Jacob to perish, and Israel to be a curse—that is the one he had not chosen.

Again: I have formed you, my servant; you are mine, Israel, do not forget me. For behold, I have blotted out your crimes like a cloud, and your sins like a mist. Turn to me, and I will redeem you. Now, is it the one whose sins he has blotted out, to whom he says "you are mine," and to whom—lest he forget himself—he reminds and says "turn to me"—or are anyone's sins blotted out before he turns? Again: I know that being rejected you shall be rejected: for your name's sake I will show you my dignity, and I will bring my splendors upon you. Does he show his dignity to the rejected one, and bring his splendors upon him? Again: Not an elder, not an angel, but he himself considered them, because he loved them and spared them. He himself redeemed them, and took them up, and exalted them all the days of the age. But they themselves were stubborn and provoked the Holy Spirit.

Those whom he exalted all the days of the age—at what time were they stubborn, or did they provoke the Holy Spirit? Again God plainly promises to one body both firmness and destruction, saying: Jerusalem, rich city, tabernacles which shall not be moved, neither shall the stakes of your tabernacle be shaken forever, nor shall its cords be broken. And he adds: your cords are broken, because the mast of your ship had no strength, your sails hung down, and it shall not lift up a signal, until it be given over to destruction. Again he briefly shows the twofold body of Christ: I am dark and comely. For far be it that the Church, which has no spot or wrinkle, which the Lord has cleansed with his own blood, should be dark in any part, except in the left part, through which the name of God is blasphemed among the nations; otherwise, she is wholly beautiful, as he says: You are all fair, my companion, and there is no blemish in you.

Indeed he tells the reason why she is both dark and beautiful: like the tents of Cedar, and the curtains of Solomon. He shows two tabernacles: royal and servile. Yet both are the seed of Abraham. For Cedar is the son of Ishmael. Elsewhere too, concerning this long sojourn with Cedar, that is, with the servant born of Abraham, the Church thus groans, saying: Woe is me! For my sojourning is prolonged: I have dwelt with the tents of Cedar, my soul has been a stranger long. With those who hated peace I was peaceable: when I spoke to them, they fought against me without cause. But I cannot say that the tabernacle of Cedar is anything other than the Church. For she herself says: the tabernacle of Cedar and of Solomon; hence, she says, I am dark and comely. For the Church is not dark in those who are outside her.

By this mystery the Lord in the Apocalypse speaks of seven angels, that is, the sevenfold Church—now showing them as saints and keepers of the commandments, now showing the same ones as guilty of many crimes and deserving of penance. And in the Gospel he manifests one body of the ministers as of different merit, saying: Blessed is that servant whom his lord, when he comes, shall find so doing. And of the same one: but if that servant be wicked, whom the Lord divides into two parts. I say: does he divide or cleave the whole? In short, he does not divide the whole, but sets a part of him with the hypocrites. For in one he shows the body. This body, then, must be understood throughout all the Scriptures, wherever God says, on account of the merit of Israel, that it will perish, or that his inheritance is accursed. For the Apostle argues at length in this way, especially to the Romans, that whatever is said of the whole body must be understood as of a part.

Concerning Israel, he says, he says: All the day long I have stretched out my hands to a people that contradicts me. And to show that this was said of a part, he says: I ask, then, has God cast away his people? Far be it. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. And after he taught how this manner of speaking is to be understood, by the same kind of speech he shows that the one body is both good and evil, saying: According to the Gospel indeed they are enemies for your sake; but according to election, they are beloved for the fathers' sake. Now can the same ones be beloved who are enemies, or can both apply to the same cause? So the Lord throughout all the Scriptures testifies that the one body of the seed of Abraham, in all nations, grows and flourishes and perishes.

It is written: Whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them who are in the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become subject to God. Because by the law no flesh is justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. Again: Sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law. Again: And we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith, and not by the works of the law. Again: For if there had been a law given which could give life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin: that the promise, by the faith of Jesus Christ, might be given to them that believe. But someone will say: from Christ onward, the law does not justify, yet in its own time it did justify.

To this the authority of the apostle Peter answers, who, when the Gentiles were being compelled by the brethren under the yoke of the law, said thus: Why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear. And the apostle Paul says: When we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death. And on the contrary, the same Apostle says: As touching the righteousness which is of the law, blameless. But if the authority of so great an Apostle were lacking, what could be said against the testimony of the Lord saying: Behold! An Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile? And if the Lord did not deign to bear this testimony, who would be so sacrilegious, so puffed up with the swelling of stupor, as to say that Moses and the Prophets, or all the Saints, did not perform righteousness, or were not justified?

Seeing that Scripture says of Zacharias and his wife: They were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and justifications of God without blame. And the Lord came not to call the just, but sinners. But how could the law justify from sin, which was given to this end: But the law entered in, that sin might abound. But we ought to know and hold this: that the seed of Abraham has never at any time been altogether cut off, from Isaac even to this day. Now the seed of Abraham is not carnal, but spiritual, which is not of the law, but of the promise. For the other seed is carnal, which is of the law from mount Sinai, which is Hagar, bearing unto bondage. He indeed who was born of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman, by promise.

And that the seed of Abraham is nothing but that which is of faith, the Apostle says: Know ye therefore, that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham? And again: Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. The seed of Abraham, therefore, is not of the law, but of the promise, which passes continually through Isaac. But if it is agreed that the seed of Abraham is that which is of faith, it is agreed that it was never of the law. For it could not be of the law and of faith at once. For the law and faith are different things. Because the law is not of faith, but of works. As it is written: The law is not of faith; but, The man that hath done them shall live in them. Abraham, therefore, always had sons by faith, never by law.

For the promise to Abraham, or to his seed, that he should be the heir of the world, was not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. For the law worketh wrath. If then neither the faith nor the promise to Abraham can be destroyed, it has remained continually from its origin. Nor was it hindered by the giving of the law, so that the sons of Abraham should not be begotten according to the promise of faith. For the Apostle says that the law, given four hundred and thirty years after, did not hinder or destroy the promise: For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise. And in another place: Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid.

We see that the law does not pertain to the promises, nor did the one ever collide with the other, but each kept its own order. For as the law never hindered faith, so neither did faith destroy the law. As it is written: Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law, that is, we confirm it: for they mutually confirm one another. Therefore the children of Abraham are not of the law, but of faith through the promise. Now it must be asked how those who are said to be unable to be justified by the works of the law, being placed under the law and working the law, were nevertheless justified. It must further be asked why, after the promise of faith, which can in no wise be destroyed, the law was given, which is not of faith, by whose works no one could be justified, because As many as are of the works of the law are under a curse.

For it is written: Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them. The Apostle finally, looking to this question, when he asserts that the sons of Abraham have always in every way been so by the gift of God through faith, not through the law of works, answers himself in another's person, saying: Where then is the law of works? That is: If the sons are of faith, why was the law of works given, since the promise would have sufficed for the begetting of the sons of Abraham, and they were to be nourished by faith? Because the just man liveth by faith. For before he asked himself: Where then is the law of works? He had already said, that they might live who could not be justified by faith, in this manner: Now that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident: for the just man liveth by faith.

He shows moreover that it was said by the Prophet, He liveth by faith, that it might be made manifest how those should live who could not do the law. But it is less clear what this means: The just man liveth by faith. For no one placed under the law could live as a just man unless he had done the works of the law, and all the works: otherwise, he would be cursed. God gave the law and said: Thou shalt not covet. Immediately, sin, taking occasion, wrought by the commandment all manner of concupiscence. For it is necessary that the passions of sins, which are by the law, work in the members of him who is under the law. Therefore it was given: that sin might abound, because the strength of sin is the law. But being sold under sin, he now does not the good that he wills, but the evil that he wills not: for he consents unto the law according to the inward man.

But he is otherwise conquered by the law of the members, and dragged captive, and could never be freed except by grace alone through faith. Now it is a great crime of faithlessness not to have attended to the kind of arms by which the violence of sin might be conquered, and, on the other hand, it is a great thing of faith to have sought and seen it. It is, therefore, a sacrilegious mind, and one thinking evil of God, which, seeing that the law could in no way be fulfilled humanly, and yet was prepared to punish, did not understand that there was some remedy of life; nor could it have been that the good God, who knew the law could not be fulfilled, should have left no other entrance to life, and should have shut on every side the ways of life against the men whom he had made for life. Faith did not endure this, did not admit it. But when pressed by the weakness of the flesh and the strength of sin, God gave clarity.

Knowing the Lord to be good and just, and that he had not shut up the bowels of his mercy against the works of his own hands, faith understood that there was a way to life, and saw the remedy for the doing of the law. For God, when he said, Thou shalt not covet, did not lay bare how this might come about, but said truly and decisively: Thou shalt not covet; because he left that to be discovered. For if he had commanded that the fulfillment be sought from himself, he would have destroyed the law and faith. For to what purpose would he give the law, if he promised the law would be entirely fulfilled by works? Or what would be left to faith, if by promising help he anticipated faith?

But now for the good of faith he gave the law, the minister of death: that lovers of life might, by faith, see life, and the just might live by faith, believing that the work of the law could be accomplished not by their own strength, but by the gift of God. For the law cannot be fulfilled by the flesh; and when it is not fulfilled, it punishes. What hope, then, has man of fulfilling the law and escaping death, except the help and mercy of God, which faith finds? The flesh is not subject to the law of God; neither indeed can it be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. He shows that the Spirit of God and of Christ are the same.

He shows moreover that whoever has the Spirit of God is not in the flesh. If then the Spirit of God and of Christ is one, the prophets and saints, because they had the Spirit of God, had the Spirit of Christ. If they had the Spirit of God, they were not in the flesh, and they fulfilled the law: because the flesh is enmity against God, and is not subject to his law. He, therefore, who flees to God receives the Spirit of God; and when he has received it, the flesh is put to death; and the flesh being put to death, the spiritual man could fulfill the law, being freed from the law, because it is not laid upon the just man. And again: If ye be led by the Spirit of God, ye are not under the law. Whereby it is manifest that our fathers, who had the Spirit of God, were not under the law.

For as long as one is in the flesh, that is, does not have the Spirit of God, the law dominates him. But if he yields himself to grace, he dies to the law, and the spirit works the law in him, the flesh being dead, which cannot be subject to the law of God. For what was then done is still done now: for it is not that, because we are not under the law, that prohibition of concupiscence has ceased, and it has not, rather, been increased; but we run to the revealed grace through faith, taught by the Lord to seek the work of the law from his mercy and to say: Thy will be done: and, Deliver us from evil. But they, through the same faith not yet revealed, were compelled by fear of death, which they saw threatened by the sword prepared through the ministry of the law. The law was given until the seed should come, to whom the promise was made, and it announced faith beforehand.

Before, indeed, the law compelled toward faith; as if faith could not be expressed without the law, so as to seek out the grace of God, because sin had no strength. But the law being given, the passions which are by the law worked in our members, pressing us into sin, so that even by necessity they might be driven into faith, which would implore the grace of God for the help of endurance. We suffered the custody of a prison, the law threatening death, and surrounding us on every side with an insurmountable wall, whose circuit had only one door, which was grace. Over this door faith stood as keeper, so that no one might escape that prison except him whom faith had opened it for; and whoever did not knock at this door died within the enclosure of the law. We suffered the law as a pedagogue, which compelled us to strive after faith, which compelled us into Christ.

For the Apostle says that the law was given for this purpose, that it might shut us up under its custody unto the faith which should afterward be revealed, until it should be revealed in Christ, who is the end of the law, by whom all lived who sought the faith of the grace of God. Before faith came, he says, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed. The law, therefore, was our pedagogue in Christ, that we might be justified by faith. The law, I say, was faith's demonstrator. But someone will say: if the law was given for the profit of faith, why not from the origin of the seed of Abraham, since it was continuous? In truth, it was continuous. Continuous also was faith, as the mother of the sons of Abraham. Continuous also was the law, through the discernment of good and evil.

But after the promise of the sons of Abraham, when they had been multiplied according to the flesh, the seed of Abraham which is not of faith also had to be multiplied. And this multiplication could not come about without the help of the law being multiplied, and the multitude, faith not yet being revealed, as has already been said, would be led by necessity. Therefore, by the providence of God, the seed of Abraham was made holy by increasing and governing it, so that by the severity and fear of the law many might be compelled to faith, and the seed might be sustained until the revelation of faith. But the law entered in, that sin might abound. Where, he says, sin abounded, grace did much more abound. He did not say "was born," but "abounded still more." For from the beginning it was given to those fleeing the troubles and dominion of the law. It abounded when the law was multiplied, but it abounded much more upon all flesh, when it was revealed in Christ.

Who, coming to restore the things which are in heaven and which are on earth, preached the gospel of faith to those who are near and those who are far off, that is, to the sinners of Israel and to the Gentiles. For the just of Israel, from faith, were called into the same faith. For the same Spirit, the same faith, the same grace has always been given through Christ. Coming to their fullness, the veil of the law being removed, he bestowed it upon every nation, which differed from those to come only in measure, not in kind. For otherwise there was never a seed of Abraham. But if anyone has been justified apart from faith, he was not a son of Abraham. Because he cannot be called a son of Abraham, if he was justified by the law, and not, as Abraham, by faith.

For the Apostle teaches that the Church has passed over from the same image of grace and Spirit into the same image, saying: But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory. He says that even before the Lord's passion there was glory, and denies that it could be excluded from, that is, expressed, produced, or effected by the law. Whence it is manifest, it was of faith. Where then, he says, is boasting? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. We have passed to glory from the same glory, which was not from the law. If it were of works, it has glory, but not toward God. For indeed it is impossible, without the grace of God, to have any glory. For there is one glory, and it has always been of one kind.

For no one has conquered, except him whom God has conquered in, which is not of the law: but he who has done it. But toward faith, God makes our adversary weak. Therefore, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For if that which we conquer is not our own: it is not of works, but of faith. There is, therefore, nothing of which we may glory of ourselves. For we have nothing that we have not received. If we exist, we exist from God: so that the greatness of the power may be God's, and not from us. All our work is faith. And however great this may be, God works so much in us. In this Solomon glories, that it was not from man, but from the gift of God, that man's continence exists: When I knew, he says, that I could not otherwise be continent, unless God gave it. And this itself was a mark of wisdom, to know whose gift it was. I went to the Lord, and besought him.

We must believe, on the judgment of Solomon, that not by works, but by the grace of God, all are justified who have known that the work of the law is to be fulfilled by God, so that they may glory. But the Apostle says: That no flesh should glory in the presence of God. The wicked are altogether so, because they have not known God: the just, because it is not their own work, but God's. Base things, he says, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, and things which are not: that he might bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in the presence of God. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who is made unto you wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. And again: By grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast: for we are his workmanship, created in Christ. Thus no flesh can ever be justified by the law, that is, by works, so that every just man might have glory from God. There is another reason why no one should glory in the presence of God: for God so works in his own, that there is still something for him to forgive. For there is no one clean from filth, not even if his life be but one day. And David says: Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. And Solomon at the dedication of the temple says: There is no man that sinneth not. And again: Against thee only have I sinned. For who will glory that he has a pure heart? Or who will glory that he is clean from sin?

It was a small thing to speak of a pure heart, that is, from thoughts, unless no one should glory of himself as clean from sin as well. Every victory is granted not by works, but by the mercy of God, as it is written: Who crowneth thee with pity and mercy. And the mother of the martyrs says thus to her son: That I may receive thee again with thy brothers in that mercy. The just, however, fulfilled the will of God by desire and effort, striving and longing to serve God, yet not under the law. For if the law had justified them, all the just would be of one merit, since it demands equal observance from all; otherwise, it would work a curse: but if their merit was unequal, did not each receive as much grace of the merciful God as he believed was given to himself, being transformed from glory to glory as by the Spirit of God, that is, from the same into the same?

For it is the same thing, that after Christ faith was given, as that the Holy Spirit was given, since all prophets and just men always lived by the same Spirit. For they could not have lived otherwise than by the spirit of faith. For as many as were under the law were slain. Because the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. And yet the Lord says of the same Spirit: If I go not away, he will not come, though he had already given the same Spirit to the Apostles. But the Apostle says that the same Spirit was among the ancients: But having the same spirit of faith, as it is written: I believed, wherefore I have spoken. He said that he who said, I believed, wherefore I have spoken, had the same spirit of faith; and he confirms it, saying: We also believe, and therefore also we speak. By saying "We also," he shows that they also believed by the same spirit of faith.

Whence it is manifest that the just always had these things not from the law, but by the spirit of faith. Whatever came through the Lord is the fullness, of which there was a part through the same Spirit before. As an infant, who although he lacks nothing that a man has, is nevertheless not yet a man, and through the growth not of new members but of the same members comes to the fullness of the body's stature, so as to be perfect, yet remains the same one who was an infant. In truth the Holy Spirit was not in all before the Lord's passion; but in those who believed through his presence, so that with him as victor, and perfecting all things, the sealed might be made perfect. For the just whom he found here had the Holy Spirit, as Simeon, Nathanael, Zacharias, Elizabeth, and Anna the widow, daughter of Phanuel. The promise is separate from the law; nor, since it is a different thing, can it be mixed with it.

A condition does not weaken a promise; but we are compelled to speak things which we cannot hear without the fire of grief. For some say, who do not know the firmness of promises, and the transgression which is of the law: that God indeed promised Abraham all the nations (but with free will safeguarded), if they had kept the law. And though it may profit to lay open the dangers of some of the just men's inexperience for the sake of salvation, yet when the discourse is of God almighty, we ought to moderate what is said, lest by considering things to be kept silent we mention them, and lest, though foreign to us, they be heard from our mouth. Therefore, speaking with trembling, let us leave each one's own dangers for him to consider. It is manifest that God foreknew, by free will, whether those whom Abraham was promised would come to be, or would not.

It is one of two: if they were to be, the question is settled; if they were not to be, a faithful God would not have promised. Or if it was thus determined with God, then to give the promised ones, if they, the promised, should wish it: surely he would say so, lest his servant and believer, since he who promised is able also to perform, should be mocked, Abraham. But that promise is one which incurs no condition. Otherwise, neither is the promise firm, nor the faith whole. For what would remain stable in God's promise, or in Abraham's faith, if that which was promised and believed depended on the will of those who were promised? Then God would have promised something not his own, and Abraham would have believed incautiously. Why also was that very promise afterwards made a debt, God saying: In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice, and hast not spared thy beloved son for my sake?

Nor is it among those things which some can easily use, even against the merit of Abraham's free will, to raise a calumny; for even after the death of Abraham himself, God confirms himself as debtor to him, and declares that for his sake he would do what he was promising to his son, saying: I will be with thee, and will bless thee. For to thee and to thy seed I will give this land, and I will fulfil the oath which I swore to Abraham thy father, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and I will give to thee and to thy seed all the nations of the earth, because Abraham thy father obeyed my voice. Behold, the debt to Abraham is confirmed. For he could not, through free will, after death lose what he had merited while living; but the nations were unwilling to believe. What then will Abraham do, to whom it is owed?

How will he receive the debt of his faith and trial, of which he was assured God was debtor? To whom if it was said: I will give what I have promised, and I will render what I have sworn: if the debt depended on the will of the nations, he would not believe, but would await chance. If a condition is necessary, it must be with the laborer, not with the wage. For the laborer may be willing to receive it or not, not the wage be paid or not paid. For all the nations were given to Abraham as the wage of his faith, as God says: Thy reward shall be very great. For he did not promise because they would be, but promised that they would be. Because it was not on account of Abraham's faith that it pleased God that all nations should be saved: for he had possessed them not only before Abraham's faith, but before the foundation of the world.

But he sought a faithful man to whom he might give this, out of whom should come that for which he had determined what would be. Abraham, therefore, did not merit that those should exist who were to exist, whom God had chosen, and had foreseen would be conformed to the image of his Son. For in Genesis, Scripture testifies concerning the foreknowledge of God, that all nations were promised to Abraham, saying: Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. He knew also that Abraham would command his children and his household after him, that they should keep the ways of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, that God might bring upon Abraham all that he has spoken to him. But we also find conditions, such as: If ye will hear me, and be willing. Where then is the foreknowledge of God, where the firmness of the promise, in such conditions?

The Apostle also said that the promise was given of faith, and not of the law, for this reason, that the promise might be sure. The law, he says, worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore of faith, that according to grace the promise might be sure to all the seed. Rightly, that the promise might be sure. For he adds, it is not sure by condition. For it is quite foolish to believe that what is said to a two-part body applies to the whole body. Far be it that God should say to those whom he knew would hear, whom before he made them he knew would persevere in the image of God, and whom he also promised, "If ye will hear me." A condition, that is, a law, is not given except to the impious and to sinners: that they may either flee to grace, or be more justly punished, if they make it void.

Why is there a law for the just, to whom no law is imposed, who by God's favor fulfill the law without law, who serve, who live for the image and likeness of God and Christ, who are good willingly? For he who is under the law, from fear of death, is not such: he is not merciful, not the image of God. The law displeases him: but he fears the avenger, and cannot perform it, thinking that it must be done not from desire, but from necessity. He must needs be handed over to his own will, that the will indeed may receive its reward, because he did not join his soul to the will of God. What God willed displeases him. For he who is good from necessity is evil in will. The law is an obstacle to the deed, not to the will. He is not joined to God, who, if there were no punishment for evil, would follow evil.

Nor does he do the will of God, who groans that he is not doing his own will. He is not merciful, who fears to be cruel. He is under the law, he is a servant. He does not hate theft, but fears punishment. He must needs steal, being persuaded and overcome, who is carnal, under the power of sin, not having the Spirit of God. But he who loves the good is the image of God, lives by the Lord's faith, and is an heir, being now no longer the son of the bondwoman, who received the law in fear; but of the free woman, according to Isaac, who did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the adoption of sons, crying Abba, Father. He who loves God does not fear servilely. It is written, for servile fear hath hatred of discipline. But sons fear with honor for their father. It is one thing to fear from the law, another out of veneration of the awesome majesty of God.

Such as these are like their Father who is in heaven: being taught and reminded, they love the good, they hate the evil. They are without law, they are free, they themselves are the promised ones: it is not said to them, "If ye will hear me," for he can indeed hear; can it apply to one whom God has not yet foreseen will hear? And the just indeed, whom God foreknew, are under this law. It is said also to them: if ye will hear me; but for another reason, not because they are able not to hear, but that they may always be solicitous for their salvation, and certain of their end. For no one is secure that he is among the number of the foreknown, the Apostle saying: Lest I myself should become a castaway.

Therefore this law is not to them a worker of wrath, but an exercise of faith, whereby they always seek God's grace by laboring, that what God foresaw in them may be perfected, and that they who were destined for life by free will may attain it. Otherwise it is impossible not to hear him whom God foresaw would hear, whom he promised, whom he swore to. But to which part the law properly applies, though given to one body, the Lord declares in the Gospel, saying to the Apostles: If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them. I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen. A great brevity, showing one body and yet separating it. For if he had said, "I speak not of you all"; or, "I speak not of all"; he would not have shown one body. But now, saying "I speak not of all," he shows that, though not of all, he yet spoke of them.

As if one should say, "I did not speak of the whole of you," for two bodies are mixed as one, and in common one body is praised or reproved. As in Exodus, when a certain one went out on the Sabbath against the prohibition to gather manna, God said to Moses: How long refuse ye to hear my law? Though Moses always heard. What do we say of that law which seems openly opposed to the promise? It is written in Isaiah: O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments, Israel, thy number should have been as the sand of the sea. Behold, Israel is reproved because through its own fault it was not made as the sand of the sea. It remains to understand, that if it never hears, it will always be small. And where then is the firmness of the promises? But this happens, because we wish to understand before we believe, and to subject faith to reason. But if we believe altogether that it happens as God has sworn, faith will give the reason.

How treacherous it is to seek by reason, and we understand the firmness of the promises to be greater than we suppose their weakness to be. For this saying, "If Israel had hearkened," is a commemoration of the righteousness of God, and a confirmation of the promises, since by the disposition of God some were made unto death, some unto life. Therefore he said to those present, "If ye had heard me": that it might be made manifest, that those whom he promised would be as the sand, he promised because he foresaw they would hear. For before the Lord Christ, when this was said, was the seed of Abraham ever as the sand of the sea? This is easy to prove. First, because he promised this multitude in Christ: Not of seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. Then, because he promised all the nations, which could not come about before Christ.

And if before the Lord the number of the children of Israel was as the sand of the sea, it was mixed with false brethren, who are not the sons of Abraham. For not because all are of Abraham are all the sons of Abraham; or because they are of Israel, are all Israel. As the Apostle, when he wished himself accursed for Israel's sake, whose was the adoption of sons and the covenants, shows that not all such were sons of Abraham, but that he grieved from the affection of carnal kinship, that they were not of that number. Not that the promise of God had failed, saying: Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect, for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel; neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called; that is, not they which are the children of the flesh, are the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

Therefore in the ancient multitude the seed of Abraham was not, save in those who, according to Isaac, were sons of faith and promise. He also brings this example: Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved, that is, a small remainder. And, Except the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom. These very remnants were the seed of Abraham, lest all Judea be as Sodom. Again, when he asserted that God never abandoned his inheritance, but that, as at the coming of the Lord a part of Israel was made safe, so it had always been the case. What, he says, saith the divine answer? I have reserved unto myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

So now also, at this present time also, the remnant according to the election of grace have been saved, saying: If now at this time: he shows that it was so done before also in Israel, that the remnant, that is a small number, should be saved. But if neither faith nor reason persuades faith concerning him who was promised, it was said: If thou hadst hearkened, O Israel, thy number should have been as the sand of the sea. And Jacob, who before he was born was given, was afterward, by free will, rejected. As Hosea says: The Lord hath a controversy with Judah, to punish Jacob according to his ways, and according to his doings will he recompense him: because in the womb he supplanted his brother, and by his strength he had power with God, and had power over the angel, and prevailed. But if it is agreed that in Jacob the beloved was accomplished, he who prevailed with God by strength is not the same as the supplanter, but there are two in one body.

For it is a figure of the double seed of Abraham, that is, of two peoples wrestling in one womb of Mother Church. The one is beloved according to election, from foreknowledge; the other, by the choice of his own will, unjust. Now Jacob and Esau are in one body, of one seed. But because they were plainly begotten as two, it is a showing of two peoples. And lest anyone should think that the two peoples would thus plainly be separated, it was shown that both would be in one body, in Jacob, who was both called beloved and expressly named the supplanter of his brother. Thus in the two, quantity was expressed, not the quality of separation. Moreover, both who are separated, before they were divided, were shown as destined to be in one. And Isaac says: Thy brother came with subtlety, and hath taken away thy blessing.

Unless this is a mystical saying, briefly showing two in one body, is it not contrary to reason that he should have received the blessing by deceiving his neighbor, when Scripture says: He that sweareth not deceitfully to his neighbor; he shall receive a blessing from the Lord? Jacob, that is, the Church, never came to the blessing without deceit accompanying it, that is, false brethren. But it is not that, because innocence and deceit come together to the blessing, they are equally blessed: for he that is able to receive it, let him receive it, and one seed comes forth according to the quality of the ground.

Nor is it contrary that the evil should seem to have supplanted the brothers, because it does not say: In the womb Esau supplanted, but "his brother." Esau, on the other hand, is everywhere a sign and a name of the wicked; but Jacob is of both: on this account, that the evil part pretends to be Jacob, and without doubt, under one name; but the good part cannot pretend to be Esau. This name belongs only to the wicked; the other is two-part. As for the rest, concerning free will, neither is all the seed of Jacob good, nor all of Esau evil, but from each, both. Thus from Abraham the twofold seed was shown. One was born of the bondwoman as a figure: that it might be shown that there would also be slaves from Abraham, and she departed with her son. But after she departed, it was found in the other seed, which is of the free woman, which is of Israel, who received the law on mount Sinai, which is Hagar bearing unto bondage.

There, in that same people, according to Isaac, of the free woman, many sons of the promise, that is, saints and faithful, were begotten. Thus, once the figures of Israel and Esau are separated from among believers, the whole afterward comes forth in one people. There, from the origin, both covenants, Hagar and Isaac, were present; but for a time the one lay hidden under the name of the other and still lies hidden, because when the new is revealed the old does not cease from begetting. Therefore it does not say Hagar, who begets into bondage. But it is necessary that both grow together until the harvest. As then formerly, under the profession of the Old Testament, the new lay hidden, that is, grace, which would beget, according to Isaac, sons of promise from the free woman, which is revealed in Christ: so also now, while the new prevails, there are not lacking sons of bondage begotten of Hagar, which will be revealed in Christ.

The Apostle confirms that this is now also happening among brethren, which then happened among them, saying: Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. And necessarily he added, But what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. And what he said, as then he persecuted, even so now, is not without meaning. For the Apostle himself interpreted "persecuted." For Scripture says: Ishmael was playing with Isaac. Was it not persecution when the brethren who were preaching circumcision to the Galatians openly pursued them, and not by play, that is, without any mark of persecution?

As then he called it persecution from the kind of playing, so also those who separate the sons of God from Christ, as it were by a common utility, that is, by the discipline of the law, and enroll themselves as sons to their mother Hagar.

For there is no other reason why the sons of the devil should creep in, to explore our liberty, and pretend to be brothers, and play in our Paradise as if sons of God, than that they may glory over the subjugated liberty of the sons of God—they who will bear judgment, whatever sort of men they may be, who have persecuted every saint, who have killed the prophets, who have always resisted the Holy Spirit; enemies of the cross of Christ, denying Christ in the flesh while they hate his members, the body of sin, the sons of perdition, the ministry of wickedness, who come according to the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and wonders, spiritual wickedness in high places: whom the Lord Christ, whom they persecute in the flesh, shall slay with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming.

For it is time that these things be said not by hints, but openly, since the departure is at hand, which is the revelation of the man of sin, when Lot departs from Sodom.

We speak of species and genus, not according to the power of Rhetoric of human wisdom, which he who was able more than all others did not employ, lest he should have made the cross of Christ void, if he had needed the aid and adornment of speech, as falsehood does. But we speak according to the mysteries of heavenly wisdom by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Who, in whatever mystery he established as the price of faith in truth, has told it in the species while concealing the genus, so that he might take up in the old Jerusalem the whole Church which now is throughout the world, or in one member the whole body, as in Solomon. But this is no less hidden than the other things which are concealed not only by the outward form of the word, but also by manifold narration.

Wherefore, having implored the grace of God to our aid, we must labor that the spirit may multiply the approaches to reading, and that the subtle eloquence which, to the hindrance of understanding, inserts genus into species, or species into genus, may not easily seem to be a genus when it is a species. For while it narrates the species, it passes over into the genus in such a way that the transition does not at once plainly appear; but in passing it sets down such words as fit both, until little by little it exceeds the measure of the species, and the transition becomes clear, when the things which had begun from the species agree only with the genus; and in the same way it leaves the genus, returning to the species. Sometimes, however, it does not return from species to genus in the manner described above. Sometimes it passes over in the aforesaid manner, and returns clearly with a similar variety of order; or it ends the narration either from species into genus, or from genus into species.

Sometimes it returns from the one into the other not once only; and the whole narration neither exceeds the species nor passes beyond the genus, agreeing with both. This variety of transference and of order requires a faith that seeks the grace of God. Thus the Lord speaks through Ezekiel, and joins the coming of the Gentiles to the kings of those who had been taken captive and dispersed from Jerusalem, and expresses the world in the land which our fathers possessed. For the seven nations promised to Abraham are a figure of all nations. The word of the Lord, he says, came to me, saying: Son of man, the house of Israel dwelt in the land, and defiled it by their way, and by their idols and their sins: according to the uncleanness of a menstruous woman was their way before my face.

And I poured out my wrath upon them, and scattered them among the nations into which they entered, and there they defiled my holy name: while they themselves say, These are the people of the Lord, and they have gone out of thy land; and I spared them, for the sake of thy holy name, which the house of Israel defiled among the nations into which they entered there. Therefore say to the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord: I do not act for your sake, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name which you have defiled among the nations, into the midst of which you have entered.

There he begins to join the genus: And I will sanctify my name, that great holy name, which was defiled among the nations, which you defiled in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, who shall be sanctified in you before their eyes, and I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all the lands, and bring you into your own land. Here he plainly exceeds the species: And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your idols, and I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes, and to keep my judgments, and to do them.

And you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers. And you shall be my people, and I will be your God, and I will cleanse you from all your uncleannesses. Here he touches the species, yet without leaving the genus: And I will call for the wheat, and multiply it, and I will not bring famine upon you: and I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the produce of the field: that you may no longer receive the reproach of famine among the nations, and you shall remember your evil ways, and your thoughts that were not good, and you shall not loathe them in the presence of others because of your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I do this, says the Lord. Be it known to you; be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel.

Thus says Adonai the Lord: In the day when I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause the cities to be inhabited, in the figure of the land of Judah, which had been laid waste by wars, it shall be tilled, because it was made desolate before the eyes of all who passed by. And they shall say, That land which was made desolate has become like the garden of delight, and the cities that were desert and desolate and demolished are now fortified and inhabited. And the nations that are left round about you shall know that I am the Lord. I have rebuilt the demolished places, and planted the desolate ones: for I the Lord have spoken, and have done it.

The Apostle also interprets the entrance promised to Jacob as the entrance of the Gentiles, saying, Until the fullness of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of Sion he who shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And by the same kind of speech he returns to the species, saying: According to the Gospel indeed they are enemies for your sake. Likewise in Ezekiel he begins from the species, which agrees also with the genus, and ends in the genus alone, showing that the land of the fathers is the possession of the world: Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will take the whole house of Israel from the midst of the nations into which they have entered there, and I will gather them from all who are round about them, and bring them into the land of Israel, and there shall be one prince over them.

And they shall no more be two nations, neither shall they be divided any more into two kingdoms; that they may not be defiled any more with their idols. And I will deliver them from all their iniquities in which they have sinned, and I will cleanse them, and they shall be my people, and I the Lord will be their God.

He plainly passes over into the genus: And my servant David shall be prince in the midst of them, one Shepherd of them all, who shall walk in my precepts, and keep my judgments, and do them, and they shall dwell in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob, where their fathers dwelt, and they themselves shall dwell in it, and David my servant shall be their prince forever; and I will make with them a covenant of peace, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for ever, and my dwelling shall be among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the nations shall know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them, when my sanctuary is in the midst of them forever, saith the Lord. Likewise there, into the going forth of the dispersion of Israel, he inserts the coming of the Gentiles.

It is made clear that the wilderness was the figure of the people who were forsaken, in which the Church now is: and that these same wicked ones, although recalled together with the people of God from among the Gentiles into the land of Israel, are nevertheless not in the land. As I live, says the Lord, if I answer you, and if this thing shall come up into your mind, and it shall not be as you say. We shall be like the nations, and like the tribes of the earth, that we may serve wood and stone.

As I live, says the Lord, unless I reign over you with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, and I will bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries wherein you have been scattered, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and fury poured out; and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and I will plead with you face to face: as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I judge you, says the Lord, and I will make you pass under my rod, and I will bring you in by number, and I will choose out from you the wicked and the deserters: for I will bring them out of the place of their sojourning, but they shall not enter into the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the Lord.

Likewise there to that captivity God promises to the mountains of Israel abundance, and the multiplication of peoples even to the end: For, he says, they have given your land to themselves for a possession with joy, despising the souls thereof, and have laid it waste for destruction: therefore, prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and hills, and to the streams and the woods: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I have spoken in my zeal and in my wrath, because you have borne the reproach of the nations. Behold, I will lift up my hand over the nations that are round about you. They shall bear their own reproach: but you, mountains of Israel, shall bring forth branches, and yield your fruit to my people, who are about to come. For behold, I am for you, and you shall be tilled and sown: and I will multiply upon you the whole house of Israel unto the end, and the cities shall be inhabited, and the desolate places shall be built up.

Likewise there, as it were in the last resurrection, the first is signified: He spoke, he says, to me, saying: Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They themselves say: Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, we are cut off. Therefore prophesy and say: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will open your graves, and bring you out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have opened your sepulchres, and brought my people out of their graves, and I will put my spirit in you, and you shall live: and I will place you upon your own land, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

Shall we then plainly know the Lord only when we rise again, and not now, when we rise through baptism? Or can the dead say: Our bones are dried up, so that we should rightly believe this to have been promised to the dead? For what is of the mystery, lest it should come into doubt, God has made plain. For concerning the final resurrection of the flesh, we believe that no Christian doubts. And the Lord according to John manifests these resurrections, saying: Amen, amen I say unto you, that he who hears my word, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life, and shall not come into judgment, but shall pass from death to life. Amen, amen I say unto you, that the hour comes, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the Father has life in himself, so has he given to the Son also to have life in himself.

And he has given him power to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. He joins the final resurrection: Do not marvel at this: for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth, they who have done good, unto the resurrection of life; but they who have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment. First he said, the dead who hear shall live. Second, all who are in the graves shall come forth. Likewise, that the whole body is signified in one man, God promises David in the Book of Kings, speaking of Solomon: I will raise up his kingdom: he shall build me a house.

These things agree: but he exceeds the species, saying: And I will direct his throne even for ever. Likewise in respect of both: I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And if his iniquity shall come, I will correct him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men; but my mercy I will not take away from him, as I took it away from those from whom I took it away from before my face, and his house shall be faithful. Again he exceeds the species: and his kingdom shall be for ever before my face, and his house shall be faithful. Again he exceeds the species: and his kingdom shall be for ever before my face, and his throne shall be established even for ever. But that which seems, by an excess in the species, to promise the throne of Christ for ever, promises the throne of the son of man, and thus the Body of Christ, that is, of the Church.

For God did not promise for David's sake that Christ would reign: to whom, before the foundation of the world, He promised this glory. And through Isaiah God speaks thus to Christ: This shall be a great thing for thee: that thou be called my servant, and that thou raise up the tribes of Jacob, and convert the dispersion of Israel. Behold I have made thee a covenant of the people, a light of the Gentiles, that thou mayest be for salvation even to the end of the earth. What is greater for the Son of God to be called my servant, and to convert the dispersion of Israel, than that through him Israel itself, and heaven and earth, and the things visible and invisible that are in them, were made? But he said this to be great for him who is joined to the Son of God from the seed of David.

For every promise to Abraham and David is this: that their seed might obtain mercy from him whose all things are, and might be co-heir for ever: it was not for their sake that Christ, who is constituted King of all by the Father, would reign. What do we say of Solomon? Is he with God, or was he condemned after idolatry? If we say he was with God: we will grant impunity to the worshippers of idols. For Scripture does not say that Solomon did penance, or recovered wisdom. But if we say he was condemned: the voice of God confronts us, which says that not even the earthly kingdom was taken away from Solomon for David's sake, as it is written in the Book of Kings: Rending I will rend thy kingdom out of thy hand, and I will give it to thy servant. Nevertheless, in thy days I will not do this, for David thy father's sake. Out of the hand of thy son I will take it.

But I will not take away the whole kingdom; I will give one sceptre to thy son: for the sake of David my servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem the city which I have chosen. For what would it profit David, if for his sake his son should obtain the earthly kingdom, only to lose the heavenly? By which it is manifest that Solomon was with God: from whom indeed the earthly kingdom was not taken away for David's sake, as He had also said: I will correct his sins with the rod of men: but my mercy I will not take away from him. But if he was neither condemned, nor do worshippers of idols possess the kingdom of God: it is manifest that Solomon was a figure of the bipartite Church, whose breadth of heart and wisdom is as the sand of the sea, and whose idolatry is horrible. Rending, He says, I will rend thy kingdom out of thy hand: nevertheless in thy days I will not do it.

In these there is a work in progress: rending I will rend: just as blessing I will bless, and multiplying I will multiply thy seed. For He shows that Solomon will always be present in his son, that is, in his posterity: whose kingdom, in the times after Solomon, God does not take away, according to the promises to the Fathers: but corrects it forever, so as to take it away continually according to the idolatry of Solomon, persevering in his sin. Otherwise, how does He, rending, rend or not rend from the hand of Solomon, if Solomon is not now present, good or evil, in his sons? But when He says: But I will not take away the whole kingdom: He returns to the species, beginning another figure in the son of Solomon and the servant. In Jesus son of Nun too the Lord speaks thus, manifesting in one man the future body that He shows: but in this passage only the evil part.

The people, He says, have sinned and transgressed the covenant which I made with them; they have stolen from the accursed thing, and have put it among their own vessels: though only Achan of the tribe of Judah had done this. Understanding that this body would always be present, Jesus, when he put him to death, said thus: May God destroy thee, as he does today. But this is much more necessary to know: that absolutely all the cities of Israel and of the Gentiles, or provinces which Scripture addresses, or in which it relates something to have been done, are a figure of the Church. Some indeed only of the evil part, some of the good, some indeed of both. And if there are some things which seem to fit even the Gentiles who are outside: yet in the part which is within, the whole adverse body is agreed upon, just as in captive Israel, a return to God is promised to the Gentiles.

For it is impossible for the law to speak to one who is not in the law: to speak of him, yet not to him: and if anywhere, without this occasion, He addresses foreigners not specifically in Israel, they must in every way be believed to be within: because, even though what was prophesied happened specifically, it is nevertheless the Church. Finally, the property does not fit all the species. For Damascus and Tyre and Sor and many others still exist even now, though God had said they would be utterly removed and not restored. That the Church is meant in foreign cities is clear in Ezekiel, to whom, when the Lord bade him foretell destruction upon Theman, which is Esau, and upon Dagon, which is the idol of the Philistines, he understood it to be a parable against Jerusalem and the temple. The word of the Lord, He says, came to me, saying: Son of man, set thy face toward Theman, look toward Dagon, prophesy toward the highest forest of the south: Hear the word of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour in thee every green tree, and every dry tree. The kindled flame shall not be quenched, and every face shall be burned in it from the south to the north, that all flesh may know that I the Lord have kindled it, it shall not be quenched any more. And I said, Ah, Lord. They say to me: Is not this a parable which he speaks? And the word of the Lord, He says, came to me, saying: Therefore, son of man, prophesy and set thy face toward Jerusalem, and look toward their holy places: and thou shalt prophesy against the land of Israel. Thus says the Lord: Behold I will draw my sword out of its sheath: and I will destroy out of thee the wicked and the unjust.

So my sword shall go forth out of its sheath upon all flesh from the south to the north, and all flesh shall know that I am the Lord, who have drawn my sword out of its sheath, it shall not return any more. Set, He says, thy face toward Theman, and look toward Dagon. And he interpreted it, saying: Set thy face toward Jerusalem, and look toward their holy places. And he showed it upon all Jerusalem, saying: I will destroy out of thee the wicked and the unjust. Thus he says it will happen generally: So my sword shall go forth upon all flesh from the south to the north.

He shows that in Jerusalem is Theman, whom God there slays, and Dagon, and all the execrable things of the nations, worked by the son of David, Solomon, in his sons, by whom also the temples of God were visibly cast down and demolished, and, spiritually burned, he cast them into the torrent, that is, into the world, when there is born of the seed of David a son, Josiah, that the altar in Bethel might be broken, as it is written: Altar, altar, thus says the Lord: Behold a son shall be born of the house of David: Josiah shall be his name. Nineveh, a city of foreigners, is a figure of the bipartite Church. But because it would be long to follow the order of the reading in interpreting it: it will be enough to say what cannot agree with the species.

Nineveh, it says, was a great city: so much so, though it was adverse to God, being the metropolis of the Assyrians, which also destroyed Samaria, and always oppressed all Judea: yet in the figure of the Church, with Jonah preaching, that is, Christ, it was altogether wholly freed. The same Nineveh is altogether described as about to perish by the following Prophet, to whom the Lord, preaching, said: The sign is that of Jonah in the belly of the whale. And that the Prophet himself might also show that it was not that particular city, he inserts certain things which exceed the measure of the species.

There was no end, he says, for the Gentiles belonging to her: since she was the city of one nation. And again: Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven, that is, the Church. And again: Upon whom hath not thy malice passed continually? Could the malice of one city have come upon every man, or come continually, except that city which Cain founded with his brother's blood in the name of his son, that is, of his posterity? The Prophet teaches still more plainly that the Church is Nineveh. And he shall stretch out his hand, he says, against the North (that is, a people foreign to the sun, against the South) and shall destroy the Assyrian. And that: Nineveh, a waste without water in the desert: and flocks shall feed in the midst of her, all the beasts of the earth, and the chameleon, and hedgehogs shall lodge in her thresholds, and beasts shall give voice in her trenches, and ravens in her gates, because her cedar was her height.

A despising city, that dwells in hope, that says in her heart: I am, and there is none besides me. And further: How is she become a desolation, a pasture for beasts? Every one who passes by her shall hiss and wag his hands. O illustrious and redeemed city, dove, which heard the voice, did not receive instruction, trusted not in the Lord, and drew not near to her God. Her princes in her are as roaring lions; her judges, as wolves of Arabia, that leave nothing until the morning. Her prophets, puffed up in spirit, are contemptuous men. Her priests prophesy holy things, and profane the law; but the Lord is just, in her temple he will do no unjust thing. Egypt likewise is twofold. Behold, he says, the Lord sits upon a light cloud, and comes into Egypt. The cloud is the spiritual body after Baptism, and the brightness of the Son of man.

For this is the first coming of the Lord, ever coming in his body, as he says: Henceforth you shall see him coming in the clouds of heaven and the works of Egypt's hands shall be broken to pieces before his face, and their heart shall fail in them, and the Egyptians shall rise up against the Egyptians, and a man shall purge out his brother and a man his neighbor, and city shall fight against city, and nation shall rise against nation, that is, Egypt against Egypt, and law against law, that is, meaning by diversity under one law: And the spirit of the Egyptians shall be troubled within them, and I will scatter their counsels. And after he had mixed now the species with the genus, now the genus with the species, he added, saying: And in that day there shall be an altar of the Lord in the land of the Egyptians, and pillars at its borders to the Lord.

And it shall be for a sign for ever to the Lord, in the land of the Egyptians. He did not say: it will be permitted that an altar exist at the borders of Egypt forever: but, it shall be. Ezechiel indeed shows more openly that the whole world is Egypt, saying: O day! For the day of the Lord is near, a day of cloud, it shall be the end of the nations: and the sword shall come upon the Egyptians. And he joins the species: And there shall be a tumult in Ethiopia, and the wounded shall fall in Egypt, and her foundations shall fall, the Persians and the Cretans, and the Lydians, and all the mixed multitude, and the children of my covenant, shall fall by the sword in her together with them. This indeed happened, when after the overthrow they went down into Egypt, and were slain there by Nabuchodonosor according to the prophecy of Jeremias.

But it shall also happen generally, on the last day, when along with the Egyptians the children of the covenant shall fall, living after the manner of the Egyptians. Again through Ezechiel God threatens the king of the Egyptians, and his multitude, that they should be terrible against the saints, reckoned among the circumcised: which applies only to those who flatter themselves by circumcision, that is, by sacred rites. Since therefore he gave his terror upon the land of the living: that Pharaoh should sleep in the midst of the uncircumcised, wounded by the sword, and all his multitude with him, says the Lord.

And there from the genus to the species: Thus says the Lord: I will spread thee over the land of many peoples and draw thee out with my hook, and stretch thee upon the open field: and I will set over thee all the birds of heaven, and I will fill all the beasts of the whole earth with thee: and I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains, and fill the hills with thy blood, and the land shall be watered with what proceeds from thee; from thy multitude, in the mountains I will fill the thickets with thee, and I will cover the heaven when thou art put out, and I will darken its stars, I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All things that give light with their light in the heaven shall be darkened, and I will bring darkness upon thy land, says the Lord.

He joins the species: And I will vex the heart of many peoples: when I shall bring thy captivity into the nations, into a land which thou hast not known. He goes beyond the species: And many nations shall be grieved over thee, and their kings shall be stupefied with dismay of mind, when my sword shall fly over their faces, in the midst of them it shall be for ruin from the day of thy ruin. He returns to the species: For thus says the Lord: The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon thee, with the swords of the mighty, and I will cast down thy strength, plagues from all the nations, and they shall hang up the reproach of Egypt, and all her strength shall be crushed. Into the genus: And I will destroy all her cattle from beside many waters: and the foot of man shall no more trouble them, nor shall the hoof of cattle tread them. Then their waters shall rest, and their rivers shall flow like oil, says the Lord.

Species: And I will give Egypt over to destruction, and the land shall be made desolate with all its fulness, and I will scatter all who dwell in it. Genus: And they shall know that I am the Lord. I will cover, he says, the heaven, when thou art put out: and I will darken its stars, I will cover the sun with a cloud and the moon shall not give her light. All things that give light with their light in the heaven shall be darkened over thee: and I will bring darkness upon thy land. In the Passion of the Lord, there was darkness not only over the land of Egypt, but over the whole world. Nor, when Egypt was taken, were the nations astonished, expecting their own ruin from the day of her ruin.

For concerning Tyre also it is thus written: Thus says the Lord to Tyre: Shall not, from the day of thy ruin, at the groaning of the wounded, while they are slain by the sword, the islands in thy midst tremble, and all the princes of the sea depart from their seats, and take off their mitres and the ornament of their ears: they shall strip themselves in astonishment of mind, they shall be astonished and afraid at thy destruction, and shall groan over thee, and take up a lamentation and say to thee: How is that renowned city destroyed from the sea, which gave her fear to all that dwelt in her?

And the islands shall fear from the day of thy ruin: At the noise of thy cry, thy pilots shall be seized with fear, and all thy rowers shall come down from their ships, and the mariners, and the pilots of the sea shall stand upon the land, and shall wail over thee with their voice, and cry bitterly over thee, and cast dust upon their heads, and strew ashes, and take up over thee the lamentation of the sons, the lament of Tyre. How much profit hast thou found from the sea? Thou hast satisfied many nations with thy multitude, and by thy mixture thou hast enriched all the kings of the earth. But now thou art grieved in the sea, thy mixture is in the depth of the water, and all thy assembly in thy midst. All thy rowers are fallen: all who dwell in the islands are grieved over thee, and their rowers are stupefied with dismay of mind, and their countenance has wept over thee.

Their merchants among the nations shall hiss at thee: thou art become a ruin, thou shalt be no more for ever, says the Lord. Can what is said apply to one island alone? Or could she alone have enriched all the kings of the earth? But we leave some things for their fitting places: which, though spoken briefly here, may be understood there. Tyre likewise is twofold, as is said through Isaias, who after much of species and genus, added also this, saying: It shall come to pass after seventy years that Tyre shall be like the song of a harlot. Take a harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten, sing well, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered. And it shall come to pass after seventy years, God will visit Tyre, and she shall be restored again to her former state. Is it credible that all the kingdoms of the earth came to Tyre for the sake of trading?

But if they should come; what use would it be to have foretold future commerce for Tyre to all the kingdoms of the earth, unless Tyre is not Tyre, but the Church, in which all the trading of the earth is for eternal life? For it follows and shows what her trade is, saying: And her trading and her wares shall be holiness to the Lord. For they are not gathered for those, but for those who dwell in the sight of the Lord. All her trading is to eat and to drink and to be filled, as a sign of remembrance in the sight of the Lord. If then her trading is holy to the Lord: how can it belong to all kingdoms, unless this Tyre is everywhere? For it follows clearly, and shows what Tyre is, saying: Behold, the Lord shall lay waste the world, and shall destroy it, and shall lay bare its face: he shall scatter those that dwell in it, and the people shall be as the priest.

Is it not of that world, whose trading is holy to the Lord? And the servant as the master, and the maidservant as the mistress. And the buyer shall be as the seller: and the debtor as the one to whom he owes; and the lender as the one who borrows: for the earth shall be utterly corrupted, and shall be utterly laid waste. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things. The earth mourned, the world was bowed down, the high places of the earth mourned. But the earth committed an offense, because of those that dwell in it: for they have transgressed the law, and changed the ordinances of the everlasting covenant. Therefore has a curse consumed the earth: because they that dwell in it have sinned. For this reason those that dwell in the earth shall be poor.

Can those be nations, for whom in all the kingdoms of the earth the trading is to eat, and to drink, and to be filled, not at some time, but as a sign of remembrance in the sight of the Lord? And there shall be men left, few in number. The vine shall mourn, the wine shall mourn. All that rejoice in soul shall groan. The joy of the timbrel shall cease, when the shamelessness and riches of the wicked shall cease. Shall not the voice of the harp of the saints cease? They are confounded: they have not drunk wine, the wine is become bitter to those that drink it. Every city is made desolate: all shall clap because none enter, howl, all of you, everywhere all the joy of the earth shall cease, and the cities shall be left desolate, and the deserted houses shall perish. All these things shall happen to the earth in the midst of the nations. If every city is desolate; who are the nations, in whose midst these things happen?

Even if some of these things seem to happen imperceptibly, nevertheless all are spiritual. He calls every desolate city spiritually dead: but that of Tyre, the harlot, not of her whose trading is holy over the whole world. But in Jerusalem there shall be left a few men, indeed with the state of those who perish being safe. A few shall be left of those whom he calls spiritually dead: who lived by remembrance, whom the Church has not slain: as we read in many places. But since our purpose must be fulfilled, we are content with two examples. God threatens fire out of fire against Israel, against the king of the Assyrians, that is, the adverse body, and says to the Syrian, or rather to the stubble, that after a little while they shall become fire.

The Lord Sabaoth, he says, shall send, for thy honor, dishonor: and for thy glory, a burning fire: and the light of Israel shall burn, and it shall be fire to thee, and he shall sanctify it in a burning flame (namely, the light of Israel), and it shall devour, as it were hay, the forest. In that day the mountains shall burn: and they shall flee through the precipices, as one flees from a burning flame; and those who remain of them shall be numbered, and a child shall write them down. Those who remain, he says, of them. For can the fire that burns, not burn? But those who survive of the burnt shall themselves become fire. In Zacharias we read that those return whom the Church has not slain, that they be converted to her: but that others are spiritually put to death by torments.

Since, while standing, their eyes are plucked out, and their flesh made to waste away: There shall dwell, he says, in Israel one who trusts: and this shall be the slaughter, with which God shall smite the peoples, as many as have made war against Israel. Their flesh shall waste away as they stand upon their feet: and their eyes shall flow out from their sockets, and their tongue shall waste away in their mouth. And there shall be in that day a great astonishment upon them, and each one shall seize the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall be filled in the hand of his neighbor (that is, the blind leading the blind). And Judea shall fight for Jerusalem, and shall gather the wealth of all the nations round about, gold, and silver, and garments, in very great abundance. And this shall be the plague of the horses, and mules, camels, and asses, and all the cattle that are in those camps, according to this plague.

And it shall be, that whoever are left of all the nations gathered against Jerusalem, shall go up year by year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. Elam is of the foreigners. There he joins the special with the general, and shows it to be twofold. Thus says the Lord: I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might. And he goes beyond the species. I will bring, he says, four winds, from the four quarters of heaven, and there shall be no nation which shall not come thither to drive out Elam. He returns to the species: And I will terrify them before their enemies, who seek their lives, and I will bring evils upon them according to the fury of my wrath, and I will send my sword after them, until I consume them. He joins the genus: And I will set my throne in Elam: and destroy from thence king and princes.

It shall come to pass in the latter days that I will bring back the captivity of Elam, says the Lord. Is it to be believed that there was no nation that did not come to fight against Elam, or that there is a throne of the Lord there, whose captivity he turns back, unless this is a figure of the Church? What is on the left hand only, as Sodom, as it is written: Hear the word of the Lord, princes of Sodom, and which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt: where also their Lord was crucified. Out of these Sodoms shall come forth Lot, which means, departure, that the man of sin may be revealed. Babylon is a city against Jerusalem: the whole world is, in her portion, as Israel is in this.

This is fittingly said: The burden, he says, against Babylon, and speaks of the saintly soldiers of God coming against the world: Lift up in turn and rejoice in turn with them, fear not, exhort one another; open your hands, ye rulers: for behold I command. Sanctified ones are called, giants come to appease my wrath, rejoicing together and doing violence. The voice of many nations upon the mountains, like the voice of many nations, the voice of kings and of nations gathered together: when the nation and king of the Medes overthrew Babylon. For it follows and shows who these kings are, and what Babylon is. God Sabaoth commanded a warlike nation to come from far off, from the utmost foundation of heaven. God, and his warriors, have destroyed the whole world. Howl, for the day of the Lord is near, and destruction from God shall come. Therefore all hands shall be loosed, and every soul of man shall tremble.

The messengers of the one in travail shall be troubled, and the walls round about, one shall be amazed at another, and their faces shall change like a flame. For behold, the incurable day of the Lord is coming, of indignation and wrath, to lay waste the world, and to destroy the sinners out of it. He speaks of the day of the Lord, from the time he suffered: from which time the world is spiritually put to death, the army of God putting it to death: while the wicked do not see its light, as it is preserved, saying: For the star of the outer heaven and all its lights shall give light, and it shall be darkened, and its light shall not remain. And I will inflict evils upon the dead of the earth, and their sins upon the unjust, and I will destroy the injustice of the wicked, and humble the injustice of the proud.

And they that are left (that is, those whom the said soldiers have not slain) shall be more honored than gold, which has not touched fire, and man shall be more honored than the sapphire stone: For heaven shall be indignant, and the earth shall be shaken from its foundations, because of the visitation of the wrath of God, in the day when his indignation shall come. He joins the species: And it shall be that he who is left, shall be as a fleeing roe, and as a sheep going astray, and there shall be none to gather them, that a man may turn back to his own people, and hasten to come into his own tribe. For whoever is taken shall be overpowered: and whoever are gathered together shall fall by the sword, and their daughters shall fall before their eyes, and their houses shall be plundered, and their wives shall be possessed. Behold, I stir up against you the Medes, who regard not silver, neither shall they desire gold.

Subtly he inserts the genus: for since you exist, there is no need of gold and silver: unless it is the man of the Church, who enjoys life spiritually. Their bows shall dash the young men to pieces, and they shall not pity your children, and their eye shall not spare your offspring. All these things are written spiritually, as concerning the same Babylon: Happy shall he be that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock. For it was not the king of the Medes, because he prevailed against Babylon, that he called happy, but rather those of the Church, who prevail and dash the children of Babylon against the rock of offense. But he prevails, as it is written: He who now restrains, let him hold, until he be taken out of the way. And after much of species and genus, the close of the passage plainly shows all these to be Babylon, and that they perish in her land and on her mountains, that is, in the Church.

Thus says the Lord: I will make Babylon desolate: that the hedgehogs may dwell in her, and she shall be brought to nothing, and I will make her into a swamp of mire for destruction. Thus says the Lord Sabaoth, saying: as I have said, so it shall be: and as I have purposed, so shall it stand, that I may destroy the Assyrians in my land and on my mountains, and they shall be trodden down, and their yoke shall be taken from them, and their glory shall be taken from their shoulders. This is the purpose which the Lord has purposed upon the whole world, and this is the hand stretched out over all the nations of the world. For the Holy God has purposed it: who shall disperse it, and who shall turn back that strong hand? Whenever, after an overthrow, he threatens that the dwellings of a ruined city shall become the habitation of beasts, he means that unclean spirits shall dwell in men, whom the Holy Spirit has abandoned.

For the slain inhabitants cannot feel this injury, nor the ruin. The words (says Amos) which he saw concerning Jerusalem, and began. For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away from it, because they sawed with iron saws those who were with child. And again: For three transgressions of Idumea, and for four, I will not turn away from it, because he pursued his brother with the sword. And many other cities of the foreign nations rightly serve as a figure of the Church. Whenever he names Idumea, Theman, Bosor, Seir, he means evil brethren. But these are the possessions of Esau. And by iron saws he means hard and cruel men, who cut down the Churches that are in travail.

Likewise: that all the nations that are under heaven shall drink the wrath of God in the city of God, and be smitten there, Jeremias testifies, saying: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Take the cup of pure wine from my hand, and thou shalt make all the nations to whom I send thee drink of it: and they shall vomit and go mad because of the sword which I send among them. And I took the cup from the hand of the Lord, and made the nations to whom the Lord sent me drink of it, even Jerusalem itself and the cities of Judah, and her kings, and her princes: that they might be made a desolation, and a waste, and a hissing, and Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his mighty men, all his people, and all the mixed multitude, and all the kings of the foreigners, Ascalon and Gaza and Accaron, and the remnant of Azotus, and Idumea and Moab, and the children of Ammon, and the king of Tyre, and the king of Sidon, and the kings that are beyond the sea, and Dedan and Theman and Bosor, and all that are shaven round about the face, and all the mixed multitude that dwell in the desert, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Persians, and all the kings from the east, both far and near, one to another, and all the kingdoms of the earth that are upon the face of the earth, and thou shalt say to them: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Drink, and be drunk, and vomit, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I send among you.

And to those who refuse to take the cup to drink, thou shalt say: Thus says the Lord: You shall surely drink; for in the city in which my name is called, upon it I begin to bring evil, and shall you be unpunished? You shall not be unpunished, for I summon the sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He says, thou shalt make Jerusalem drink, the cities of Judah, and her kings and her princes. Then he says: And all the kingdoms of the earth, that are upon the face of the earth: to show that he has passed from the special Jerusalem to the general, in which are all the nations of the earth, whom God shall there strike, as he also interpreted, saying: For in the city in which my name is called, in it I begin to bring evil upon you, and you shall not be unpunished.

Could Jeremias, while in the body, who never went into Egypt from the prison of Judea except by being dragged there, have, by clearly adding wine mixed in the cup, given that drink to all the nations under heaven? Or does he now prophesy through the Church? But if this holds both then and now in the Church, it is manifest that all the nations to which that Jeremias speaks are gathered together in their chief part. For whatever is highest, whatever is heavy, whatever is on the right hand, Satan has in his body: he has mingled it with heavenly things, as is the custom of warriors, to oppose the strong with the strong. Whence the Apostle says, that the saints do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places.

The quantity of times in the Scriptures is frequently mystical by the trope synecdoche; or by legitimate numbers, which are set down in many ways, and are to be understood according to the place. Now synecdoche is either the whole from the part, or the part from the whole. By this trope, Israel served 400 years in Egypt. For God says to Abraham: Knowing thou shalt know that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not their own, and they shall bring them under bondage, and afflict them 400 years. But the Scripture of Exodus says that they were 430 years in Egypt. Did they not serve all that time? It must therefore be asked from what time; and this is easy to find. For Scripture says the people did not serve except after the death of Joseph, and of all his brothers, and of all that generation. But the children of Israel grew and multiplied, and the Hethites were and prevailed, and the land multiplied them.

But another king arose over Egypt, who knew not Joseph, and said to his people: Behold, the people of the children of Israel are a great multitude, and are stronger than we. Come, therefore, let us circumvent them. If then the people began to serve after the death of Joseph, and from the 430 years during which they remained in Egypt we subtract the 80 years of Joseph's rule (for he ruled from age 30 to 110), there remain 350 years of Israel's servitude, whereas God said 400. But if Israel served the whole time of its sojourn, that is more than God said; if it is reckoned from the death of Joseph according to the faith of holy Scripture, it is less. Whereby it is clear that 400 is the part taken from the whole. For after 390 years, the part of the remainder is 100 years i.e. The rounding to a hundred. Therefore it says 400 years.

For this is done regarding an entire sum of time, as for instance after 9 days, or after 9 months: the first day of the tenth month, as it is written: In my mother's womb I was fashioned flesh, being compacted in blood for ten months. And as in the first part of any time the whole time is present, so in the very last hour the whole day is present; the remainder of a thousand years is a thousand years. Six days are the age of the world, that is, 6000 years. In the remnants of the sixth day, that is, of the thousand years, the Lord was born, suffered, and rose again. Likewise the remainder of the thousand years is called the thousand years of the first resurrection. For as the remnant of the sixth day, that is, three hours, is the whole day—one of the three of the Lord's burial—so the remnant of the greater sixth day, in which the Church arose, is the whole day, a thousand years.

For by this trope three days and three nights are reckoned complete. Now of night and day, the 24 hours are one period of time, and nights are not added to days except for a specific reason. Otherwise, we speak of days alone, as the Apostle is said to have remained with Peter 15 days. Was it necessary to say so many days and nights? For thus it is written: Evening and morning were one day. But if night and day are one period, the last hour of the day retains both the whole day and the night that has passed. Likewise the last hour of the night retains the whole day and night to come. For an hour is a part of either period. The hour in which the Lord was buried is a part of the sixth day together with its night which had passed, and the hour of the night in which He rose, being imminent, is a part of the day.

Otherwise, if in the present day the past night is not present, nor in the present night the coming day: then the Lord did not rise in the day, but in the night. Since day is from sunrise, as it is written: The greater light is the beginning of the day. But the Lord rose before sunrise. For Mark says: the sun rising—not risen, but rising, that is, going toward its rising. But Luke says: at daybreak. But lest there be doubt about this expression, two Evangelists openly testify that it was still night. For Matthew says the women came to the tomb at night, and saw the Lord. But John says, when it was yet dark. If then the Lord rose before the sun, that is, before the beginning of the day, that night was a part of the dawning day. This also befits the works of God, that the day should not be darkened into night, but the night should brighten into day.

For that very night is illuminated, and becomes day: which is a figure of the things that were done in Christ. Since it is God who said: Let light shine out of darkness in our hearts. Who illuminated the darkness, as it is written: Thy darkness shall be as the noonday. And: The night is passed, and the day is at hand; let us walk becomingly, as in the day. For that which is carnal comes first, then that which is spiritual. Therefore the first and last day are, from the whole, a part. Only the middle day was full, from evening to evening, according to the ordinance and precept. As He says to Moses: From evening to evening you shall observe your sabbath. But some say the reckoning should be from the day, since the Lord said three days and nights, not three nights and days. But this is not overthrown by a lengthy argument.

For if the beginning of the burial is from the day, the end is in the night; but if it ended in the day, it began from the night. For if each is completed on both sides, there will be more than one day. They say further that a past night cannot be in a day, nor a future day in a night: that separate days and nights must be assigned, counting the first day as that on which He was crucified; the second, of the three restored hours; the third, of the sabbath: so the Lord's day would be the fourth. But those who avoid this circumvention agree indeed that the reckoning should be from the night: but that the nights should be kept separate from the days, saying that in the 3 hours of the untimely darkness was the first night, the second of the sabbath, the third of the dawning Lord's day.

There are, as it were, three nights, but two days: the first in the three hours after the darkness, the second of the sabbath. For he who reckons the days as separate cannot say that in the night in which He rose there was a future day. But if he grants this, he must also grant that in the remainder of the sixth day there was a past night. And even if those were untimely darkness, still the three hours of light belong to that same day, nor did they lose their order, since they were a part of their own day and night. I say nothing of the fact that the 3 hours of darkness could not have been a night, since they were outside the ordinary course of God's ordinance. For whatever is a sign does not disturb the rational course of the elements.

For it is not because the sun and moon stood still in the days of Joshua and Hezekiah that the sun alone returned: nothing was cut off or subtracted, or added to the day or night, in the course between sun and moon, and from thence a new reckoning of times or of new moons began, which God established in the sun and moon, to mark the days and years of times, as it is written in Genesis. Much more in that day nothing was disturbed, to which the three hours of darkness were not added so as to make 15. For if we say the sun was darkened and then shown again, and that this constitutes a day, what name, what order do we give to that day which is said to have occurred between the sixth day and the sabbath, unless there was a double sabbath and that week had 8 days?

Certainly, if the dispute cannot be settled by reason, we prove briefly that the 3 hours of darkness do not belong to the Lord's burial, since He was still alive. For He could not have been in the heart of the earth except from the time He died or was buried, which took place within the three hours of the sixth day, before the twelfth hour. For after sunset the Jews were not allowed to bury, since it was the Preparation, the beginning of the sabbath, as John says. There, therefore, because of the Jewish Preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus. Now days are preferred to nights in dignity, not in the order of newness; just as all males are firstborn, as it is said: He begot sons and daughters, and died. Which is against the law of nature, that all those should have begotten males first. For us, however, the whole time is day. All things are new, the figures have passed away. Of legitimate numbers there are the sevenfold, the tenfold, the twelvefold.

The number is the same even when multiplied: as seventy, or seven hundred, or when multiplied into itself: as seven times seven, or ten times ten. But they signify either perfection, or the whole from the part, or a simple sum. Perfection, as the seven spirits, the seven churches. Or as it says: Seven times a day I will praise thee: or he shall receive seven times only in this age. Likewise the tenfold, as another Evangelist says: He shall receive a hundredfold in this age. And Daniel embraced the innumerable multitude of angels and of heaven, or of the Church, by the tenfold number, saying: A thousand thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before him. And David says: The chariots of God are ten thousand times. And of all time, David: to a thousand generations. Likewise, by the twelvefold number, of the whole Church it is said: 144,000, and twelve tribes, meaning all the nations, as: You shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

The whole from the part: since some periods of time are defined by legitimate numbers, as in the Apocalypse: You shall have tribulation ten days: though it signifies until the end. But it is not opportune now to prove that the seventy years in Babylon is the same period. Besides the legitimate numbers, Scripture also frequently abbreviates any period of time in any number, as the aforesaid period is called an Hour, as the Apostle says: It is the last hour. And a day: as, Behold, now is the day of salvation. And to preach a year: as through Isaiah: To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. For it was not only that time in which the Lord preached that was acceptable, but also this time in which He preaches, as it is said: In an acceptable time I have heard thee; and the Apostle interprets: Behold, now is the acceptable time. Finally, the end of this year, that is, of judgment, he joined, saying: To preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of retribution.

And David says: Thou shalt bless the crown of the year of thy goodness. Sometimes an hour, a day, and months are a year, as in the Apocalypse: Prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, which is three years and a half. In the same place, months for years: It was given to him to kill men, for five months. Sometimes a day by the tenfold number is a hundred days, as in the Apocalypse: A thousand two hundred sixty days; for a thousand two hundred sixty times a hundred are 126,000 days, which are 350 years, with months of 30 days. In the same place, one month by the tenfold number is a hundred months, as: They shall tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months. For forty-two times a hundred are 4200 months, which are 350 years. A "time" is either a year, or a hundred years: as time, and times, and half a time, which is either three years and a half, or 350.

Likewise: one day is sometimes a hundred years: as it is written of the Church: to lie in the city where also her Lord was crucified, and after three days and a half. And the Son of man must go up to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. For He indeed rose on the third day. A "generation" is sometimes also a hundred years: as the Lord says to Abraham: But in the fourth generation they shall return hither. But in Exodus, it is said not of the time of servitude, but of the whole time of sojourning: But in the fifth generation the people shall go up out of Egypt; that is, after 430 years. Likewise, "generation" is sometimes ten years: as Jeremiah says: You shall be in Babylon even to seven generations. That the number three is the same as the number ten is more fully grasped in the Gospel. For Matthew says the Lord's substance was entrusted to three servants.

But Luke says ten: which ten he reduces to three, since he too speaks of an accounting demanded from three. Sometimes one day is a thousand years: as it is written: In the day you eat of the tree, you shall die the death. And the first seven days are 7000 years. In six days God worked, and rested from all his works on the seventh day, and blessed and sanctified it. But the Lord says: My Father works until now. For as He worked this world in six days, so He works the spiritual world, which is the Church, through 6000 years, to cease on the seventh day, which He blessed, and made forever. That is why the Lord, among other commandments, commanded nothing more frequently than that we should observe and love the day of the sabbath. For whoever does the commandments of God loves God's sabbath, that is, the seventh day of eternal rest.

Therefore God exhorts the people not to enter the gates of Jerusalem with a burden on the sabbath day, and threatens the gates, and those entering and going out through them, as He commands Jeremiah, saying: Go, stand in the gates of the sons of your people, by which the kings of Judah go in and out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem, and say to them: Hear the word of the Lord, you who enter these gates. Thus says the Lord: Keep your souls, and do not carry burdens on the sabbath day, and do not go out through the gates of Jerusalem, and do not bring burdens out of your houses on the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers: and they did not obey with their ears, and hardened their neck beyond their fathers, so as not to hear me, nor receive instruction.

And it shall be, if you hear me, says the Lord, so as not to bring burdens through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, and to do no work of yours, and to sanctify the sabbath day: then kings and princes shall enter through the gates of this city, sitting on the throne of David. And mounting chariots and horses, they themselves, their princes, and the men of Judah who dwell in Jerusalem. And this city shall be inhabited forever, and they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the cities round about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the land toward the south, bringing holocausts and offerings, and gifts, and frankincense, bringing praise into the house of the Lord. And if you do not hear me, to sanctify the sabbath day, so as not to carry burdens, nor enter through the gates of Jerusalem: I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall consume the houses of Jerusalem, and shall not be quenched.

It would have been enough to have commanded briefly not to work on the sabbath. Why then: Do not bring burdens through the gates of Jerusalem? Or, if it were necessary to name the kind of work, He should have said the type of work, that is, do not bring burdens in through the gates. For some did not bring burdens into the city through walls and roofs. Jerusalem is divided into two, and its gates are divided into two. Through the gates one exits from the holy Jerusalem into that which is accursed, and through the same gates one enters. But those who enter through the gates enter into the eternal Jerusalem, as kings in chariots and on horses, sitting on the throne of David, as through Isaiah: They shall bring the sons of your sons from all the nations as a gift to God with horses and chariots, in splendor, with covered wagons, into the holy city.

The gates of the holy city Jerusalem are Christ, and His vicars, keepers of the law: but the killers of prophets and stoners of those sent to them. The gate of the devil is Satan, and his vicars are the pseudo-apostles, transgressors of the law, who hide the keys of the kingdom of heaven from deeper understanding. These are the gates which do not prevail against the Church, which is founded upon the rock. For the foundation of God stands, as it is written: The Lord knows who are His. If anyone enters through the precepts of those who sit in the chair of Moses, he enters through Christ. For the precepts are His, He Himself lays down the burden of one's sins, and without Him one does not enter into the rest of the sabbath. But if anyone enters not through the precepts, but through the deeds of those sitting in the chair of Moses, he is a son of Gehenna more than they.

And while all who gathered manna before the sabbath are resting, he with his burden is found on the sabbath day, on which it is not lawful to gather manna, nor to lay down one's burden. Because they will not hear the voice of the Son of God crying out in the Church and saying: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. These are the thieves, who do not enter through the true door, but through their own gates, into their own Jerusalem. And God will kindle fire in the gates of Jerusalem, and it shall burn its ways, and shall not be quenched. For the fire which burned the literal gates of Jerusalem has been extinguished.

But the Apostle says the sabbath, and the other precepts of the law, are a figure of what is to come, thus: Let no man therefore judge you in meat or drink, or in respect of a festival day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbaths: which are a shadow of things to come. In many places, the different outcomes of one period, described separately in appearance, have created two periods, as though following one another in sequence. But in general, both outcomes belong to one period: for if the years of Joseph are 14, the years of abundance and of famine are only each, that is, the whole time of the Lord's Passion, in figure of which Joseph was made lord of Egypt, being 30 years old. So then the 7 years of plenty and abundance for us are the same as the other of scarcity and famine. For at this time the Lord threatens famine to the rich, but abundance to the poor.

He promises these good things; and the evils of a double period are to occur in one period. The Scripture of Exodus testifies, for it is clear that Israel was immune from all the plagues of Egypt, and had light for the three days of darkness. This is now accomplished spiritually, as God afterward threatened that same Pharaoh, saying: I will bring darkness upon your land. Sometimes one period is divided into many parts, each of which is the whole period. Thus the year in which Noah was in the ark divides all the numbers. Yet whenever there is mention of times, the number four is specially the time from the Lord's Passion to the end. And the number four occurs whether it is complete, or after the third part of the fourth, as 340, or three and a half. But the others (for they are to be understood according to their contexts) are signs, not manifest definitions. Therefore the forty days of the flood are the whole period.

For these are the same as the 40 years in Egypt, and the 40 years in the wilderness, and the 40 days of fasting of the Lord and of Moses and of the Church, during which the Church fasts in the Church, that is, abstains from the pleasures of the dead. The same 40 days in which the Church eats and drinks with the Lord after the resurrection are the 40 years in which the Church was eating and drinking under Solomon, peace everywhere profound, yet oppressed by the twofold division under Solomon: as the same Church says: One father oppressed us. Forty days the water remained in its state, and for as many it decreased: so that twice the decrease of the water might be completed in the tenth month, that is, in a perfect period. But in general it is not so, that at one time it grows strong, and afterward diminishes.

For at the time it grows strong in the flesh, it diminishes spiritually at the same time, so that the very exaltation is the diminishment, until the time is completed. Thus the reigning world is placed under the feet of the Church, the Son of man. So then the 40 days, that is, 150 days, in Ezekiel, are one and the same: for in 40 days he discharges the sins of Judah, and in 150 those of Israel. And in the 7th month the Ark rested, the same period: and the water decreased until the 10th month, the same period. It came out of the Ark in the 12th month. This is the year of the Lord's acceptable liberty. When it is completed, the Church will manifest that the flood of the world has passed over. Each part of this year is the same year. As if one were to say, it came out of the Ark on the fortieth day, or in the 7th or 10th month.

Recapitulations are those parts from beginning to end: as from Adam to Enoch, that is, to the translation of the Church, seven generations, which is all time. Again from Adam to Noah, that is, to the restoration, ten generations, which is all time; and from Noah to Abraham, ten generations. For also the hundred years during which the Ark was being built are all the time in which the Church is built, and in that time, while all perish in the flood, it is governed. This we leave for the more diligent to investigate further, the way having been given. For lest the abundance of Scripture should require interpreting each single point, and lest we should remove what perhaps hinders this understanding, we have not thought it needful, hastening to other matters. Among the rules by which the Spirit has sealed the law, so that the way of light might be guarded, the seal of recapitulation is kept with such subtlety in some measure, that it seems more like a continuation of the narrative than a recapitulation.

For sometimes it recapitulates thus: Then, at that hour, on that day, at that time: as the Lord speaks in the Gospel, saying: On the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire from heaven, and destroyed them all. According to this, such will be the days of the Son of man, when that hour shall be revealed, when he who is on the housetop, and his goods in the house, let him not come down to take them, and he who is in the field, likewise let him not turn back. Let him remember Lot's wife. Is it not that at that hour, in which the Lord shall be revealed by his coming, one ought to turn to what is his own, and remember Lot's wife, and not before he is revealed?

But the Lord, at that hour in which he shall be revealed, commanded these things to be observed: not only that by concealing it he might make the truth more welcome to those who seek; but also that he might show that whole time to be the day or hour. Therefore at the same hour, that is, time, he commanded these things to be observed: but before he is revealed. The same hour indeed: but in what part of the hour is known by reasoning. Sometimes, however, these are not recapitulations of this kind, but similitudes of the future, as the Lord says: When you shall see that which was spoken by the prophet Daniel, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. And he brings in the end. But what Daniel said: it takes place in Africa, nor is the end at the same time. But although it is not under that same title, yet it is to come.

Therefore he said "then," that is, when it shall have been done likewise throughout the world: which is the falling away and the revelation of the man of sin. In this kind of speech the Spirit speaks in the Psalms. When the Lord shall turn the captivity of Sion: we were made as men comforted: Then was our mouth filled with joy, and our tongue with exultation. Then shall they say among the nations, The Lord has done great things with them. The Lord has done great things with us: we are made joyful. But by saying: When the Lord shall have turned the captivity of Sion: then they said among the nations. "Now he will turn it," he says. "Then they shall say among the nations." For we are the nations, whose captivity he turned. As theirs was in a figure, we have our time, saying: The Lord has done great things with them, the Lord has done great things with us.

From the likeness therefore of their time and ours, he has made one and joined them, saying: Then shall they say among the nations, that is, when he shall have done likewise to the nations. Nor do I think this should be passed over, that the Spirit wished something else to be understood without mysteries or allegory. Concerning John: many false prophets have gone out into this world. By this know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that dissolves Jesus, and denies that he has come in the flesh, is not of God, but this is of Antichrist. Of whom you have heard that he comes, and now he is already in this world. Does everyone who does not deny that Jesus has come in the flesh have the Spirit of God?

But this denial he shows subtly to be in deed, not in word, and that each one is to be understood not by profession but by fruits: throughout the whole Epistle, in which he writes of nothing but good and bad fruits, admonishing in the same kind of speech, as he says: By this we know him, if we keep his commandments. But he who says: I have known him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar. Did he say that a brother is to be understood by profession, one who does not know God, and not by works? And he who says, I love God, and hates his brother, is a liar. For if, as he says, he loves God: let him show it by works, let him cleave to God, let him love God in his brother. If he believes Christ incarnate; let him cease to hate the members of Christ. If he believes the Word made flesh: why does he persecute in the flesh the Word made flesh?

Why does he persecute the word in the flesh? Because the Lord said: As long as you have done it to one of the least of my brothers who believe in me, you have done it to me: let him not work evil in the flesh of Christ, that is, in his servants, since the Lord and the Church are one flesh. In which flesh if he believes man to be: why does he not love, or, what is more cruel, why does he hate, as it is written: He who does not love his brother, abides in death. And, he who hates his brother is a murderer. Has he said there is any greater or more evident sign of recognizing the Antichrist, than that he who denies Christ in the flesh likewise hates his brother?

But this which he says: For he who denies Christ in the flesh, is not of God: is like: No one can say "The Lord Jesus," except in the Holy Spirit: while many say "the Lord Jesus," he himself testifying: Not all who say to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. But in this place the Apostle said that no one can say "the Lord Jesus Christ" except in the Holy Spirit according to conscience, according to the inner man, not according to profession alone, that he might show those who say "the Lord Jesus" have nothing less than those who are exalted by kinds of charisms. But that one and the same Spirit is possessed by everyone who has believed the Lord Jesus, and has shown by works that he has so believed. No one, he says, can say "the Lord Jesus," except in the Holy Spirit: but there are diversities of gifts, yet the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministries: and the same Lord.

But to dissolve Jesus is not to do what one confesses Jesus to have done, as the same Lord says: Whoever shall dissolve one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. And what "dissolve" means he explains from what follows, saying: But whoever shall do, and so teach. This denial, therefore, is of works, not of voice, and the Apostle Paul confirms it, saying: They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him. And again: having a form of piety, but denying its power. In this sense he says that certain brothers preach Christ not in voice sincerely, but in heart. For in voice they preach sincerely. Finally he consents to their preaching, and commands it to be heard, saying: What does it matter, whether by occasion, or in truth, Christ is proclaimed? For Antichrist proclaims the Lord Christ not by will, but by occasion.

Tending elsewhere, he enters through the name of Christ: whereby he might pave a way for himself, whereby under the name of Christ he might serve the belly, and (which is shameful to say) put upon these things the name of sanctity and simplicity, asserting by signs and wonders of the inner chambers that his works are Christ. Whom the Apostle admonishes to avoid with wholesome caution, saying: Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Concerning the devil and his body it may be briefly seen, if what has been said of the Lord and his body be observed also here. For the transition from head to body is discerned by the same reasoning, just as through Isaiah it is said concerning the king of Babylon: How is Lucifer fallen from heaven, who rose in the morning? He is broken upon the earth, who sent to all nations. But you said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the high mountain, above the high mountains toward the north, I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High. But now you have descended to hell, into the foundations of the earth. And those who see you shall wonder at you, and say: Is this the man who stirred up the earth, who moved kings, who made the whole world a desert? And destroyed its cities, and did not release those led captive.

All the kings of the nations have slept in honor, each in his own house. But you are cast out upon the mountains, like a corpse abominable, together with all who have fallen by the sword in the deserts, and have gone down to hell. How have you come, like a garment sprinkled with blood, it shall not be clean, nor shall you be clean, because you have destroyed my land, and slain my people. You shall not be forever a wicked seed; prepare, slay your sons for the sin of your father, let them not rise again. In the king of Babylon, and all the kings, and all the people are signified; for it is one body. How, he says, is Lucifer fallen from heaven, he who rose in the morning, broken upon the earth: who is sent to all nations? But you said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of God. The devil promises this to himself.

For he does not hope, by holding on, to be able to ascend into heaven, he who was not able to resist being cast down. Much less can man hope for such things: and yet he calls him man, saying: This is the man who stirs up the earth. But apart from this reasoning—since neither the devil nor man can hope to ascend into heaven, and sitting above the stars of God, to become like God—Scripture itself admonishes that something else must be sought. For if he says he will place his throne in heaven and above the stars of God: how will he sit on a high mountain, or above the mountains toward the north, or in the clouds, so as to be like the Most High? For the Most High does not have his throne in such places. By heaven he means the Church: as we shall see as the Scripture proceeds. From this heaven falls the morning Lucifer.

For Lucifer is twofold: as the Lord says of himself and of his body in the Apocalypse: I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright morning star, the bridegroom and the bride. And likewise there: To him who overcomes, I will give the morning star: that is, that he may be a morning star like Christ, whom we have received. The part, therefore, Lucifer, that is, the adverse body, which is the devil, the kings, and the people, falls from heaven, and is broken upon the earth. By these rules Wisdom says: Hear therefore, kings, and understand: learn, you judges of the ends of the earth, give ear, you who rule over multitudes, and please yourselves in the crowds of nations: for power was given you by the Lord, and strength by the Most High; who will examine your works, and search out your thoughts. Because, when you were ministers of his kingdom, you did not judge rightly, nor keep the law.

The king of Babylon, therefore, is the whole body: but according to the places we understand to which part of the body it applies. "Lucifer fell from heaven" can apply to the whole body. I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of God, likewise also the head: the greater ones, who think that the lord of the stars of God, that is, of the saints, must be dominated, though the lesser ones dominate them, as it is written: The greater shall serve the lesser. To this Esau, that is, to the evil brothers, the Lord thus speaks through the prophet Abdias: Exalting his habitation, saying in his heart: Who will bring me down to the earth? Though thou be exalted as an eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. I will sit on a high mountain above high mountains, in the north, I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High. The high mountain is the proud people.

The high mountains, each one which, joined together, makes the mountain, that is, the body of the devil. For Scripture says there are many evil mountains: Mountains shall be moved into the heart of the sea. Again: The foundations of the mountains were troubled, and were moved, because God was angry. For the body of the Lord, that is, the Church, is also called a mountain: and each one who is of the Church makes mountains, as it is written: But I am set king by him, upon Sion his holy mountain, announcing his commandments. And again: I will destroy the Assyrians in my land and on my mountains. And again: Let the mountains receive peace for the people, and the hills justice. And again: The mountains shall exult like rams, and the hills like lambs of the flock. God has his seat on mount Sion, and on the mountains of Israel, and in his holy clouds: which is the Church.

It is written: Let all the earth fear before the face of the Lord: because he rises from the holy clouds. Again: I will command the clouds that they rain no shower upon it. Again: Cloud and mist are round about him. And that he dwells on mount Sion, he thus says: You shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion my holy mountain. And the devil sits upon a mountain also, but Seir, which is Esau, that is, of the evil brothers: which mountain God rebukes through Ezekiel, and says it will be made desolate amid the joy of the whole earth, because it wages enmity against Israel. He is the mountain, and they are the mountains of the North. In these the devil sits; and he seems to lord it over the clouds of heaven. So far, he says he is like the Most High. There are two parts in the Church, of the South and of the North, that is, the Meridional and the Septentrional. In the meridional part the Lord dwells.

It is written: Where dost thou feed, where dost thou rest at noon? But the devil in the North, as God says to his people: I will pursue him from the North away from you, and drive him into a land without water, that is, into his own; and I will destroy his face toward the first sea, and his hinder parts toward the last sea, which is among the first and the last peoples. After the pattern of the Church this world was fashioned, in which the sun rising has its course only through the South, that is, the meridian; and, running its course through the southern part, goes invisibly to its place, returning. So also our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Sun, runs through his part, whence he also calls it meridian. But upon the North, that is, the opposing part, he does not rise: as the same ones, when they come to judgment, will say: The light of justice has not shone upon us.

But for those who fear the Lord, the Sun of justice arises, and health is in his wings, as it is written. But for the wicked, at midday there is night: as it is written: While they wait for the light, darkness was made for them, they walked in gloom by dark night, they shall grope like the blind man along the wall, and he who has no eyes shall grope and fall at noonday as at midnight. Again: The sun shall set at noon, and the day of light shall be darkened over the earth. Again: Therefore night shall be to you instead of vision, and darkness to you instead of divination, and the sun shall set upon the prophets, and the day of light shall be darkened over them. Against this people God threatens from the South, as through Ezekiel he rebukes Seir, saying: The spirit of the South has broken thee. For he permits him to be broken, saying: Arise, North wind, and come, South wind: blow through my garden, and let my spices flow forth.

For when the wicked spirit arises, the Holy Spirit resists, who blows through the garden of the Lord, and the spices are drawn forth, that is, the odor of sweetness is offered. And through Ezekiel, God likewise says this, that from the remnants of the evil people he will bring upon his own people a part of that same people, which is the mystery of iniquity: Behold, I am against thee, Gog, prince of Mosoch and Tubal: and I will gather thee, and bring thee, and I will place thee from the uttermost North, and I will bring upon thee the mountain of Israel: and I will destroy the bow out of thy left hand, and thy arrows out of thy right hand, and I will cast thee down upon the mountains of Israel.

But this is being done from the passion of the Lord: until the Church, which restrains, departs from the midst of that same mystery of iniquity, so that in its own time impiety may be uncovered, as the Apostle says: And now you know what restrains, that he may be revealed in his own time: for the mystery of iniquity already works: only that he who now restrains do restrain, until he be taken out of the way. And then that wicked one shall be revealed. And in Jeremiah we read that the sinners of Israel gather in the North, the Lord saying: Go and read these words toward the North, and say: Return to me, house of Israel, saith the Lord. But the meridian part is the Lord's; as it is also written in Job: From the southern part life shall spring up there. The North is the devil's: but both parts are in the whole world. I will ascend, he says, the clouds: I will be like the Most High.

But now thou shalt go down to hell, into the depths of the earth. They that see thee shall wonder at thee, and shall say: Is this the man that troubled the earth, that shook kingdoms, that made the whole world a desert. Does it fit the devil, that they that see thee shall wonder at thee? Or the last king, when he shall go down to hell? For when he himself goes down to hell, there will be no one to wonder, the world having come to its end. For they will not say: Is this the man who troubled the earth, the kings, and made the whole world a desert: but he troubles, and shakes, and makes desolate.

For he calls the whole body a man, both in kings and in peoples: of which proud man, when God strikes a part and casts it down to hell, we say: Is this the man who troubles the earth, shakes the kings, namely the saints: who makes the whole world a desert: this is the voice of mockers, not of those confirming it, as in that place: Who destroys the temple, and in three days raises it up. For he said: I will act in strength, and in the wisdom of understanding. I will remove the boundaries of the nations, and I will lay waste their strength, and will bring low the cities with their inhabitants: and I will grasp the whole world in my hand, like a nest, and like abandoned eggs I will take it away, and there shall be none to escape me, or contradict me. Is he able to fulfill what he promises himself? He indeed makes the whole world a desert, but his own world.

But the cities he has destroyed are, of course, of his own world. For it is twofold, movable and immovable: as in Paralipomenon: Let all the earth be moved at the presence of the Lord. For he has founded the world, which shall not be moved. And he has not released those he led captive. It can, he says, seem to fit in outward form; because he would not have relaxed anything toward captives, but thinking it seized from enemies, he would use full princely power against them. Which God rebukes, saying: I indeed was angry a little; but they added to the evils. Nevertheless, these things were done and said as a figure of a general truth, and are fulfilled spiritually: while those who rule afflict those subject to them in humility, whether for trial's sake or deservedly subject to them, without regard for piety and the common condition, for whom power does not suffice, but who scorn to use it immoderately, which he blames, saying: Pursuing retribution.

And again: He has stretched out his hand to him in retribution. For it is not enough that he is an enemy; he still desires also to take vengeance on the subject, as it is written: You all oppress those subject to you. Dissembling that he hates the Lord, the enemy and avenger: because through the vengeance which God has reserved for himself alone, he usurps something of sanctity. For it is written: Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord. All kings have slept in honor, each man in his own house. He calls kings, the saints. For not all kings or private persons have slept in their own house, as the saints have slept in the house which they chose. But thou art cast out among the mountains like a corpse abominable, with all who have fallen pierced by the sword, and go down to hell. He speaks to the devil, Thou art cast out among the mountains, in which he sits. Note that he did not say dead: but like a corpse abominable.

For he still lives: although he himself is slain by the sword in his own, and goes down to hell. For as the Lord said that whatever his own suffer, he himself suffers: so also the devil is trampled in his own, he himself is broken, abominable, as it is written: In the diminishing of the people is the breaking of the prince. The devil is not separated from his own man: nor can the man in whom the devil is not, say: I will be like the Most High. Nor is the devil this man that troubles the earth, unless he is in a man. As the Lord cannot be called man except in a man; nor can man be so called, except in Christ. But it must be observed according to the places, as to whom a thing applies. Again it fits the body of the devil itself, saying: How camest thou? As a garment sprinkled with blood is not clean, so neither shalt thou be clean: because thou hast destroyed my land, and slain my people.

Thou shalt not be for eternal time, wicked seed: prepare, slay thy sons for the sins of thy father, that they rise not again. There it shows that it does not fit in the particular. For the king of Babylon, who laid waste the land of the Lord and slew the people, that is, Nebuchadnezzar, died as a mortal man, but lives forever: he speaks to the body, that each of its own time must prepare those it has begotten, to be slain for the sins of him whom it is convened as begotten. For the last king can have not sons, but brothers. Nor like a dead man when he descends to hell, but dead. Through Ezekiel God thus rebukes the king of Tyre: Because thy heart is lifted up, and thou hast said: I am God, I have dwelt in the habitation of God in the heart of the sea. But thou art a man, and not God: and thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God. Art thou wiser than Daniel?

The wise have reproved thee by thy wisdom. Hast thou by thy wisdom or thy learning made thyself power, and gold and silver in thy treasures? Hast thou by much learning, and by thy trade, multiplied thy power? Therefore thus saith the Lord: Because thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God: therefore behold I bring upon thee foreign plagues from among the nations, and they shall draw out their swords upon thee, and upon the beauty of thy learning: and they shall wound thy beauty unto destruction, and shall bring thee down, and thou shalt die the death of the slain in the heart of the sea. Wilt thou say in the presence of them that slay thee: I am God? But thou art a man, and not God. Thou shalt perish among the multitude of the uncircumcised, by the hands of strangers: for I have spoken, saith the Lord.

Thou art the seal of the multitude and the crown of beauty: thou hast been in the delights of the paradise of God, having every precious stone bound in thee; sardius, topaz, emerald, carbuncle, and sapphire, and jasper, and silver and gold and ligure, and agate, and amethyst, chrysolite, and beryl, and onyx: and with gold thou didst fill thy treasures and thy storehouses. I set thee with the Cherub in the holy mountain of God: thou wast in the midst of the fiery stones, thou wast without spot in thy days, from the day thou wast created, until iniquities were found in thee. By the abundance of thy trading thou hast filled thy storehouses with iniquity and sins: and thou hast been wounded from the mountain of God. The Cherub has led thee away from the midst of the fiery stones, thy heart was lifted up within thee: thy learning was corrupted along with thy beauty.

Because of the multitude of thy sins and the iniquity of thy trading, thy holy things are defiled: I will bring forth fire from the midst of thee, this shall devour thee. And I will give thee for ashes upon the earth, in the sight of all that see thee, and all that have known thee among the nations shall grieve over thee. Thou art become a ruin, and shalt not be forever. Because thy heart is lifted up, he says, and thou hast said: I am God, I have dwelt in the habitation of God in the heart of the sea: this also fits a man saying: I am Christ; and it fits the devil who dwells in the heart of the sea, that is, of the people, as God sits in the heart of his saints. The people dwell in the heart of the sea, that is, in the pleasure or the pride of the world, as God says elsewhere to the same city: Thou art satisfied and greatly honored in the heart of the sea.

In many waters thy rowers have brought thee: the spirit of the South has broken thee in the heart of the sea of thy power. And the devil in man has been called man: as the Lord said in the Gospel: An enemy man hath done this. And he interpreted it, saying: He that sowed them is the devil. The man of the devil cannot be God. Therefore it fits both: Thou art a man, and not God. Thou hast set thy heart, as the heart of God. Art thou wiser than Daniel? In Daniel, the whole body of the Church is meant: because he who is of sin cannot be wiser in the affairs of life, as he is wiser in his own affairs than the children of light.

It can also fit the particular case: since Daniel especially confounds, in a figure, the king of Babylon, who by the prophetic spirit cast down the proud king to the confession of the one God, by the majesty of the Church; who, by the confession of his own virtues and by heavenly wisdom, overturned the superstitions of Babylon. The wise have not reproved thee by thy wisdom. For not only Daniel was wise, but also the three boys, who, by asserting the one Lord in the presence of that same God, confounded the king and his whole kingdom together with his own gods. These same, up to now generally, break through with the light of truth both the external and internal things of Babylon. Hast thou by thy knowledge or thy wisdom made thyself power, and gold and silver in thy treasures? Hast thou by much knowledge, or by thy trade, multiplied for thyself thy power? And thy heart was lifted up in thy power.

For the proud think, ungrateful for the benefits of Almighty God, that they can do something by their own power, and be enriched by wisdom, not knowing it is written: The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise. And again: Shall the axe boast itself against him that cutteth with it? And riches are indeed not for the prudent, nor grace for the knowing. For these are not in our own power, but are conferred by God. For what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? And again: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Because thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God: therefore, behold, I bring upon thee strangers, plagues of the nations: and they shall draw out their swords upon thee, and upon the beauty of thy knowledge.

Even though it can fit the particular sense, that the kings of the world through their pride allow themselves to be called lords; yet this too fits the general sense. For God frequently brings foreigners into the Church, and wounds many unto death. But also by hidden persecution he brings in many from among the nations, in whom he may tempt his people, and slay the wicked through their likenesses, as with Mattathias. And they shall wound thy beauty unto destruction. For some he wounds, not unto destruction, but with hope of healing. And they shall bring thee down, that is, they shall humble thee: and thou shalt die the death of the slain in the heart of the sea. He would not say to one wounded, thou shalt die the death of the slain: unless because he is not openly wounded and about to die: but he himself is present in those in whom he is wounded. Wilt thou indeed declare in the presence of them that slay thee: I am God?

That is, wilt thou terrify by titles of divine race those to whom thou shalt be delivered, both spiritually and carnally? But thou art a man and not God, thou shalt perish among the multitude of the uncircumcised by the hands of strangers: for I have spoken, saith the Lord. Now he has revealed in what sense that one calls himself God: while he threatens that he shall perish among the multitude of the uncircumcised by the hands of strangers: which fits none except him who seems circumcised to himself. For the king of Tyre could fear only death: whether he should die at the hands of the circumcised, or with them. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the prince of Tyre, and say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Thou art the seal of resemblance, and the crown of beauty; thou hast been in the paradise of God. Has paradise been made for the devil, that he himself should be reproached for having lost paradise?

Man was in the delights of paradise, he himself is the seal of resemblance, who was made in the likeness of God. But he called the seal for beauty: as through Aggaeus, to the brothers fighting against each other, God promises to the Church, saying: I will shake the heaven and the earth, the sea and the dry land; and I will overturn the chariots and their riders. And the horses and their riders shall go down, each by the sword of his brother. In that day, saith the Lord Almighty, I will take thee, Zorobabel, son of Salathiel, my servant, and I will make thee as a seal, for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord Almighty. Zorobabel is the whole body. For from that time we never read that anything came upon Zorobabel above himself. He is of the tribe of Judah, who under Darius merited to build Jerusalem.

He also in figure founded the house of God, and finished it, as the same Lord says: The hands of Zorobabel founded this house, and his hands shall finish it But what is this seal and crown of beauty, God promises to the Church, saying: The nations shall see thy justice, and the kings thy glory, and they shall call thy name, which the Lord has named. It shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Thou also shalt not be called forsaken: and thy land shall not be called desolate. Thy name also shall be called, My delight, and thy land, The habitable world Man therefore is the seal of resemblance, and the crown of beauty: whose part, in the very beauty of divine resemblance, and in the delights of paradise, that is, the Church, perseveres. But the other part, lest it live forever, has the flaming sword unfolding itself between it and the tree of life.

For Adam, as the Apostle says, is a shadow of the future. So also these brothers are divided into Cain and Abel. Having every precious stone bound in thee; sardius, and topaz, and emerald, and carbuncle, and sapphire, and jasper, silver and gold, and ligure and agate and amethyst and chrysolite and beryl and onyx: and thou hast filled thy treasures and thy storehouses in thee with gold. These fit both the devil and man. For these twelve stones and the gold and silver, and all the treasures, adhere to the devil, delegated to him. Then, thou hast in thee bound: and again, thy storehouses in thee. As the body of the Lord is adorned by the saints: God promising and saying: Lift up thy eyes round about, see all thy sons, they are gathered together, and are come to thee.

As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt be clothed with all these, and shalt put them upon thee: like the ornament of a new bride, because thy waste and ruined places, and those which have fallen, shall now be too narrow because of thy inhabitants. And in the Apocalypse, the same city is built founded upon twelve stones. Every, he says, precious stone, and he numbered twelve: to show perfection in the number twelve. For all things which God made are good. Of these the devil has changed the use, not the nature. And all men of excellent sense and powerful genius are gold and silver, and precious stones, according to nature: but they shall belong to him whose service, by their own nature, they enjoy. Since whoever has signed himself to obedience: is the servant of him whom he obeys, whether of sin, or of justice. Thus it comes about that the devil also has gold and silver, and precious stones. All these indeed, not his own according to origin, but his own according to will.

For it is also written of the devil in Job: All the gold of the sea is under him. And the Apostle says that there are vessels of gold and silver, some unto dishonor. For it is not, as some think, that he condemned all wooden and earthen vessels, since some of these are unto honor, he himself saying: The potter of clay, to make one vessel indeed unto honor, and another unto dishonor. And of wood, one is for preparation, another for sacrilege: of gold and silver, that is, of the great and illustrious, he called some unclean. For also in the Apocalypse: The harlot (that is, the adverse body) is adorned with purple, scarlet, and gold, and silver, and precious stones: having a golden cup in her hand, full of the abomination and filthiness of the whole earth. These, then, are the ornaments of the devil, the precious stones: with which he imitates the fiery stones, and man has in himself treasures both of crimes and illustrious deeds.

For he himself is the bearer of his own, whom his own resources have bound like fetters. Besides those things which are brought forth to adorn the body of the devil from both sexes: even in those things which they have hidden away, the heart is fixed. For where the treasure shall be, there also shall be the heart of man. For the old man and his earth are one body: since he himself also is earth. Whence the Apostle defined not only those things which can be committed by the body, but also avarice, as being a member of him who possesses it, thus saying: Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. For which things the wrath of God cometh. From the day thou wast created thou with the Cherubim, I set thee in the holy mountain of God, that is, in Christ, or in the Church.

Thou wast in the midst of the fiery stones, that is, of holy men, who joined together make the mountain of God. For angels, being of another substance, cannot be called stones, because they have no body. Thou wast without spot in thy days: from the day thou wast created, until iniquities were found in thee, by the abundance of thy trading. Peter thus says the stones are the Church: Behold you, brothers, as living stones, are built up into spiritual houses. Which house is fiery; and that the evil brothers burn in this house, God thus says: The house of Jacob shall be fire: and the house of Joseph a flame: but the house of Esau stubble. And they shall be kindled in them, and shall devour them: and there shall be no one to bear fire in the house of Esau, for the Lord hath spoken it.

For when a man sins, he is cast down from the mountain of God, and there shall be no fire-bearer, the Spirit being lost, and he shall be burned to ashes. Thou hast sinned, and art wounded from the mountain of God: and the Cherub has led thee away from the midst of the fiery stones. The Cherub is the ministry of God: which excludes all the wicked from the Church, but spiritually. For he who has not the wedding garment is excluded here in this world from the midst of those reclining at table. Then he is cast into darkness, that is, into hardness of heart: until he go down into everlasting fire. For in the world to come no one will be mingled with the choir of saints, who is afterwards excluded. Thy heart was lifted up in thy beauty, thy knowledge was corrupted along with thy beauty.

The knowledge of him is corrupted who, being knowing and prudent, asserts falsehood, having dissembled the truth, out of zeal for affected wisdom: as the Spirit says: When they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, or give thanks: but became vain in their thoughts, saying that they were wise. The knowledge of those is corrupted who teach others, but do not teach themselves. The beauty is corrupted, which does not correspond to its own kind in likeness of works. Because of the multitude of thy sins. I have cast thee down upon the earth: I have given thee to be dishonored in the sight of kings. And the devil is upon the earth, that is, in man, and man is cast down from the sublimity of the Church, into being trodden underfoot, as Jeremiah says: I have cast down from heaven to earth the glory. In the sight of kings.

He means Christians: by whose feet the devil and his man are trampled underfoot: Because of the multitude of thy sins, and the iniquity of thy trading, thy holy things are contaminated. It seems, as it were, to have reproached the principal title, meaning by the body of the devil rather trading, and the treasures, spiritual wickedness. For as spiritual justice's trading is treasure, as the Lord says: The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man. And again: Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Again: He gave to his servants his substance, that they might trade. Again: The merchants of Carthage resisting thee. Again: Her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord. And the Apostle: There is, he says, great gain, godliness. So spiritual wickedness is trading, the treasure of sins, as the Lord says: An evil man out of the treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things. And the Apostle: Thou treasurest up to thyself wrath against the day of wrath.

Because of the iniquity, he says, of thy trading, thy holy things are contaminated. For he who does not use the holiness of God rightly, makes it his own, as God says of his sabbaths: My soul hateth your sabbaths. I will bring forth fire from the midst of thee: this shall devour thee. Fire is the Church: which, when it has departed from the midst of the mystery of iniquity, then the Lord shall rain fire from the Lord, from the Church, as it is written: The sun was risen upon the earth, and Lot entered into Segor: and the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. This is the fire of which he said above: The house of Jacob is fire: but the house of Esau, stubble. They shall be kindled among them, and shall devour them: and there shall be no fire-bearer in the house of Esau.

Again in Genesis it is written: When God destroyed all the cities round about, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow: when God overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. Did not Lot deserve by his own righteousness to be delivered, that Scripture should say: God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow? Or did he dwell in cities, and not in one city, that it should say, cities in which he dwelt? But it is a prophecy of a future departure. For God, mindful of his promise to Abraham, cast Lot out of all the cities of the Sodomites, upon which fire shall come out of the fire of the Church, which shall be brought forth from their midst. And I will give thee for ashes upon the earth, that is, among men, or the men themselves in their own earth, who did not wish to be in the earth of God. In the sight of men who see thee, that is, who understand.

Can the devil be seen in a man? And all who have known thee among the nations shall grieve over thee. For when the Lord strikes or uncovers the wicked, those who are accustomed to be supported by their help grieve, a part of their body being weakened. Thou art become a ruin: and thou shalt not be forever.