Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
COMMENTARY ON THE MAJOR PROPHETS.
PROOEMIUM ON THE PROPHETS.
After the Pentateuch, I undertake the Prophets, who are the most noble and useful, as well as the most difficult and obscure, part of the entire Old Testament. The Hebrews, and following them St. Jerome, divide the Old Testament into three parts: Torah, that is, the Law or Pentateuch; Nebiim, that is, the Prophets; Ketubim, that is, the Hagiographa. The Prophets therefore are most closely associated with the Law; as Christ and the Apostles also associated them, Matt. 7:12: "For this is the Law and the Prophets;" and ch. 11, v. 13: "For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John;" and ch. 22, v. 40: "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets;" and Luke 24:44: "All things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning Me," and elsewhere.
And so what Christ has joined together, I shall not separate. After the Pentateuch, therefore, I present the Prophets, and I associate them with it; especially since my health, infirm and uncertain for thirty years, and my feeble strength, are gradually being worn away and diminished; so that, even if I am unable to complete commentaries on the other books of Sacred Scripture, which are easier and have been explained by many, I may at least offer and consign the Prophets, as a third work, in the third place and order, to the Most Holy Trinity, their Author; indeed I may return them to Him, to Whom they entirely belong, since from Him I have received the whole, such as it is. Thus, as I recently offered Pauline gold and Levitical incense, so now with the three Magi I may offer prophetic myrrh, which, being truly myrrh, through threats and burdens provokes tears and calls all to repentance.
Indeed, here let me be permitted to say what St. Jerome once felt and said on this same occasion and subject in his preface to Book XIV of his commentary on Isaiah: "The Lord who looks upon the earth and makes it tremble; who touches the mountains and they smoke; who speaks in Deuteronomy, 'I will kill and I will make alive; I will strike and I will heal': by frequent illnesses He has also made my own earth tremble, to which it was said, 'You are earth, and to earth you shall go,' and He frequently reminds one forgetful of the human condition that I should know myself to be a man, and an old one at that, and soon to die. Of whom it is written: 'Why does earth and ashes glory?' Whence He who had struck me with sudden illness healed me with incredible swiftness, so as to frighten rather than afflict, and to correct rather than to beat. And so, knowing whose is everything by which I live, and that perhaps my rest is therefore deferred so that I may complete the work begun on the Prophets, I give myself entirely to this study, and as though stationed on a certain watchtower, I contemplate the storms and shipwrecks of this world, not without groaning and sorrow; thinking not at all of present things, but of future ones; trembling not at the fame and petty rumors of men, but at the judgment of God."
I shall therefore treat the Prophets, not by my own strength, but by God's, who chooses the weak things of the world, so that His divine power may be perfected in our weakness. I speak of the Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, the four Evangelists of the Synagogue, the chariot and four-horse team of the Cherubim, upon which Ezekiel saw God's majesty seated and driving. These ancient princes and doctors of the Church illuminated the world; they bore the torch before Christ and the Church. These instruments of the Holy Spirit with wonderful harmony sang to us of God's wisdom and the mysteries of faith. This is what we perpetually profess in the Creed: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, who with the Father and the Son is together adored and glorified, who spoke through the Prophets." In these St. Paul studied, taught at the feet of Gamaliel; from these he drew all his wisdom and spirit. Likewise he commends Timothy, his disciple, shepherd, Bishop, and Apostle, because he had learned the Sacred Scriptures from infancy — those of the Old Testament, of course, which alone then existed — and especially the Prophets, who far surpass all the other books of the Old Testament in sublimity, variety, and depth of wisdom, as well as in pathos and effectiveness of speaking and moving, and are like a topaz and emerald set in a gold ring. And he urges him to continue in what he has begun: "Until I come, he says, 1 Tim. 4:13 and 16, attend to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine. Take heed to yourself and to doctrine; continue in them. For in doing this you will save both yourself and those who
hear you;" and, 2 Tim. 2:15: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" — that is, the words of the Holy Spirit, the words of the Prophets.
Wherefore the blasphemy and heresy of Ebion has long since been condemned and buried in oblivion, who, as Epiphanius testifies (Heresy 30), after Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, admitted no other Prophets except Christ alone. For he claimed that He alone was the Prophet of truth; but that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel were "Prophets of understanding, not of truth."
The Prophets therefore were teachers of the orthodox faith, doctors of truth, who proclaimed the hidden counsels of God to men, and who distinguished the Church of God from the synagogue of Satan, and by the gift of prophecy, as the most certain mark and sign of the true Church, set them apart and showed them to the whole world. This is what the Doctor and Prophet of the Gentiles says: "And He Himself gave some to be Apostles, some Prophets, others Evangelists, others pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of faith, etc." Eph. 4:11.
Indeed, God Himself, contending with idols and the synagogue of idolaters about divinity and the true religion, by this as an indubitable and invincible argument takes it from them and claims it for Himself. "Announce, He says, what is to come in the future, and we shall know that you are gods," Isa. 41:23. "For the testimony of divinity is the truth of divination," says Tertullian, Apolog. ch. 20 and ch. 18. "The voices, he says, of them (the Prophets) and the miracles which they produced as proof of their divinity, remain in the treasuries of literature." For this reason, in every age God has adorned His Church with Prophets, and through them has manifested, sealed, and confirmed her, so that no one amid so many fogs and labyrinths of errors and heresies could doubt the truth and the true Church.
In the law of nature the true Church of God had Prophets. First, Adam, who in Gen. 2:21 and 23, in ecstasy foreknew the marriage of Christ with the Church, and prefigured it by his own marriage with Eve. Therefore, prophecy began with the Church — indeed, with the world itself. Second, Abel, whose blood and martyrdom still cry out and prophesy, Heb. 11:4. Third, Enoch, who walked with God and was taken up to paradise, to bring the Gentiles to repentance. "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these," says Jude in his epistle v. 14, "saying: Behold, the Lord comes with His holy myriads to execute judgment, etc." Fourth, Noah, who foretold the flood, and therefore built the ark, by which he escaped it. Fifth, Abraham, who received from God many prophecies about Isaac and Christ to be born from him, about the multiplication of his line, about the possession of Canaan, and about the Gentiles to be blessed through Christ, etc., Gen. 12 and following. Abraham was followed by Isaac and Jacob, whose prophecies are recounted in Gen. 26:4, and ch. 27:27, and ch. 49 in its entirety.
Under the Mosaic Law, the Prophets were Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David, Elijah, Elisha, and our canonical writers here. Indeed, God willed that a perpetual oracle should exist in the ancient Church and temple. For the High Priest, clothed in the Urim and Thummim — that is, in his pontifical vestments — and consulting God about any matter, would hear His voice responding and speaking from the mercy seat, Exod. 25:22. Wherefore the Holy of Holies, in which the mercy seat was located, was called in Hebrew דביר debir, which Aquila and Symmachus translate as chrematisterion, that is, oracle, as our translator and others render it.
In the New Testament, the Prophets were Christ, the Apostles, and their followers. St. Justin Martyr testifies in his Dialogue Against Trypho that up to his own times, Prophets had existed in the Church of God in an almost continuous succession. St. Augustine asserts the same for his own age, in book 5 of The City of God, ch. 26, where among other things he recounts the oracles of St. John the Anchorite, who predicted that famous victory against the tyrant Eugenius, in which the weapons of the enemy were turned back by God upon the enemies themselves, which Claudian, though a pagan, admiringly celebrates in his Panegyric to the Emperor Honorius.
"On your account the North Wind from the icy mountain overwhelmed the opposing battle lines with storms, turned the hurled weapons back upon their authors, and drove back the spears with a whirlwind."
Thomas Bozius demonstrates the same for other centuries in his book On the Marks of the Church, mark 19. That in our own age St. Charles Borromeo, St. Francis of Paola, Bl. Louis Bertrand, St. Ignatius, St. Xavier, Gaspar the Belgian, Aloysius Gonzaga, Teresa, and many others have shone with the spirit of prophecy, is clear from their lives written by trustworthy men.
The heresiarchs saw this and envied it, and therefore, to claim credibility for themselves and their heresy, they sought the gift of prophecy. But just as the Magicians of Pharaoh, rivals of Moses' miracles, contending with him were defeated and confounded by him, so too these men were convicted of falsehood by the true Prophets of the Church, and gained nothing but the name and reputation of false prophets. And so, slaying themselves with their own sword, by their false and shameful prophecying, they actually illustrated and strengthened the faith and glory of the Church all the more.
Thus Montanus the heresiarch, around the year of the Lord 182, boasted that he was a Prophet, indeed the Paraclete sent by the Father; he even imbued Prisca and Maximilla, two notable harlots, with the same fanatical spirit and taught them to prophesy. He predicted among other things that under the Emperor Commodus (which he inferred from his character) there would be wars, seditions, and a terrible persecution against Christians. But the outcome convicted him of falsehood; for under Commodus there was peace for the Empire, peace for the Church and Christians, and indeed Commodus himself, as though an avenger of Christian blood, raged against those who
had afflicted Christians; because Marcia, his concubine, was most devoted to the Christians, says Dio regarding Commodus. But what was his end and that of his followers? Montanus himself, driven by the same insane spirit, took his own life by hanging; his prophetesses did the same. Eusebius testifies to this, book 5 of his History, ch. 15.
Curbicus, who called himself Manichaeus, as though a pourer out and giver of manna, but truly Manes — that is, insane — falsely claimed to be the Paraclete and to know the future. He predicted and promised that he would cure the ailing son of the king of Persia by prayer; but when he presented the boy dead instead of alive, he was flayed alive by the king. Cyril of Jerusalem testifies to this, Catechesis 6.
Around the year of the Lord 700, a certain Jewish sorcerer predicted and promised Ezid, the Mohammedan king of the Arabs, thirty years of life and reign if he would order that images of Christ and the Saints be removed from Christian churches and burned throughout his empire. He so ordered; but since the Christians would not obey, he sent Arabs and Jews into the churches, who diligently carried this out. And this man was the first Iconoclast, though a Saracen, whom Leo the Isaurian, a Christian Emperor, soon followed, having likewise been seduced by Jews, and ordered images to be removed and abolished from churches. Hence he received the surname Iconoclast. But what happened? Was the Jew's prophecy true? Not in the least. For King Ezid died the following year, and his son and successor punished the Jewish false prophet with a most disgraceful death, as is narrated in the Seventh Council, and by Cedrenus, Zonaras, and Nicetas in the Life of Leo the Isaurian.
Frederick II, Emperor, enemy and scourge of the Church, around the year of the Lord 1240, as though a prophet, predicted and threatened the Roman Church, and Gregory IX himself, and after him Innocent IV, and other Pontiffs by whom he had been deposed, with destruction, writing this verse:
"The fates will it, the stars teach, and the flight of birds, That I, Frederick, shall be the hammer of the world."
The Pontiff wrote back in equally matched verses:
"The fates will it, Scripture teaches, your sins declare, That your life shall be brief, your punishment eternal."
Which of them was the Prophet? Certainly the Pontiff: for he himself stood, and the Roman and orthodox Church stands and shall stand. But Frederick in the year of the Lord 1250 was strangled by his own son Manfred: so Cuspinianus reports from Alberic, though himself an enemy of the Pontiffs, and from these Bozius in Mark 19, and others.
In this century Martin Luther, the firebrand of Germany — the fifth, if you please, Prophet, the fifth Evangelist of the new Gospel, that is, of the evil-gospel, not of God but of the evil spirit — with the arrogance of Cerberus predicted the destruction of the Pope, and that he himself would overthrow the Papacy. For thus the soothsayer himself sang:
"I was a plague to you while living; dying, I shall be your death, O Pope."
But the false prophet died and descended to the underworld: the Pope and the Papacy live and shall live; the rock upon which Christ built His Church shall stand firm, and not even the gates of hell shall prevail against her.
Michael Stifel, Luther's disciple and minister of his word — a fitting lid for such a pot — from his Algebra, I believe, asserted confidently and persistently to his parishioners from the pulpit, in the year 1533, that on a certain day which he himself named, there would be the end of the world and the consummation of the age. The poor wretches believed their pastor. Some began to groan; the farmers refused to work or cultivate their fields; others drank and lavishly consumed their goods, as though they would have no further need of them; others fortified themselves with the Eucharist as though about to die; all waited in fear. The day came, and what then? The mountains are in labor: a ridiculous mouse will be born. The people drove out the fanatical prophet and accused him before Luther, and urged him to punish him as an impostor and remove him from ministry. Luther, colluding with Stifel like one augur with another, concealing the error, rebuked the people and ordered them to take back their Minister, obey him, and hear the word of God from him. Truly the poet says:
"Many you will see worth three obols, but few true seers."
Here the old saying applies: "Many who goad oxen, but few plowmen."
In the year of the Lord 1535, John of Leiden, a tailor, with fanatical boldness invaded and occupied the city of Munster in Westphalia with his Anabaptists. He proclaimed himself king, indeed the Messiah of the new temple in Zion. In imitation of Christ, he sent twelve Apostles and Prophets to the neighboring cities in every direction, who would invite everyone to hear and worship this new Messiah, as a sun given by God, indeed summon them in God's name, promising golden ages to those who received him, and threatening the wrath of God and every curse upon those who rejected him. Those enthusiasts went forth filled with frenzy, indeed with a demon, pouring out oracles, threats, and curses. And lest there be no Judith to cut off Holofernes, Hilla, a Frisian woman laden with gold and gems, when the city was besieged by its lord the Bishop, went out intending to entice the Bishop into love for her and kill him by poison; but she was betrayed and paid the penalty for her recklessness and crime with her head. There also came a new Samson, John Matthyssen of Haarlem, who on the very feast of Easter said it had been announced to him by the heavenly Father that if he went out against the besieging Bishop's camp, he alone would rout and slay all the enemies. All the Prophets approved; and he went forth armed with a battle-axe, and immediately fell pierced by a lance. But what was the outcome of this prophecy and enthusiasm? The Bishop by armed force brought the city under his power, subjugated the heretics, slaughtered the new Prophets, and suspended the king and Messiah of Leiden alive from a high tower, tied to a wicker cage, and exposed him to the sun to be scorched, to flies and birds to be torn apart, and gave him as prey to be devoured. The story, known to the whole world, is tragically recounted by Surius and other chronologists of the previous century, as also by Fr. Serarius in his preface to Judith.
Calvin, as Jerome Bolsec, his disciple, testifies in his Life of Calvin, predicted and pledged that he would raise a dead man to life in confirmation of his heresy and sect. What does he do? Hear his tricks. He induces a certain Bruleau, a man of slender fortune, with great promises, to pretend to be dead and, when publicly called back from death by Calvin, to feign rising from it. Said and done. Calvin calls him forth and commands that, if the faith he preaches is true, he should return from the underworld to life in God's name. But what? There was no voice in Bruleau, no sense, no life. Oh, what an efficacious voice and faith Calvin had, which by a new and unheard-of miracle turned a living man into a dead one! Here indeed is another Elijah, another Elisha.
"Who would deny that Nero was of great Aeneas' line? The one destroyed his mother, the other his father."
Such oracles, such miracles befit such Prophets: namely, these are the ones who teach the pure and unadulterated word of God, who teach the first truths. These peddlers of trifles are the ones to whom the world entrusts its souls, whose pronouncements are deemed irrefutable, to whom the accolade "he himself said it" is applied. These impostors, who bring upon their followers death instead of life, hell instead of heaven, damnation instead of salvation: those who dare such things, what will they not dare?
It is therefore certain and clear that prophecy is the mark and undoubted credential of the faith and true religion, given to it by God, just as false prophecy is the mark of heresy and the synagogue of Satan, who is the father of lies. God Himself expressly asserts this, Deut. 18:21-22: "If you say in your heart, 'How can I recognize the word that the Lord has not spoken?' — you shall have this sign: What the prophet has predicted in the name of the Lord, and it does not come to pass — this the Lord has not spoken, but the prophet has fabricated it out of the swelling of his own mind."
Wherefore it is easy to show that these four Prophets are mystically represented by the four Cherubim of Ezekiel, as attendants of the First Truth and Uncreated Wisdom (for I shall show in its proper place that others are understood in the literal sense). For the lion corresponds to Isaiah, the ox to Jeremiah, the man to Ezekiel, the eagle to Daniel.
That the lion represents Isaiah is clear from his ch. 21, v. 6, where he hears from the Lord: "Thus, He says, the Lord said to me: Go and station a watchman, and let him announce whatever he sees." And soon after, v. 8: "And the lion cried out: I am upon the Lord's watchtower, standing continually by day; and at my post I am, standing through all the nights." For the lion, because it is watchful, is the symbol of a watchman and sentinel. For this reason Isaiah roars, thunders, and hurls lightning like a lion. "Hear, he says in ch. 1, v. 1, O heavens, and give ear, O earth. Woe to the sinful nation, the people heavy with iniquity, the wicked seed, the criminal sons: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they have gone backward." And v. 10: "Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah." And v. 21: "How has the faithful city become a harlot, once full of justice? Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. Your princes are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love bribes, they pursue rewards."
That Jeremiah is the ox is evident from his constant labors, by which he cultivated the Lord's field, and from his continual afflictions, by which the Jews harassed him, and finally slaughtered him as a victim to God, and stoning him, enlisted him as a Martyr. Hear him in ch. 11, v. 19: "And I was like a gentle lamb (in Hebrew alluph, that is, an ox, as Vatablus, Pagninus, and others translate — as if to say, 'I was like a lamb and like an ox'), who is led to the slaughter: and I did not know that they had devised plots against me, saying: Let us put wood into his bread, and let us cut him off from the land of the living."
That Ezekiel is denoted by the man, God Himself teaches, who in revealing oracles to him continually calls him son of man. Thus in ch. 2, v. 1: "And He said, he relates, to me: Son of man, stand upon your feet, and I will speak with you." And v. 3: "Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to apostate nations." And ch. 3, v. 1: "Son of man, eat whatever you find." And ch. 4, v. 1: "Son of man, take a brick."
That Daniel is represented by the eagle is clear from the fact that Daniel was the wisest of all mortals in that age. Wherefore God, mocking the king of Tyre with irony — who considered himself the wisest — says: "Behold, you are wiser than Daniel; no secret is hidden from you," Ezek. 28:3. For Daniel, a man of abstinence and a man of desires, soaring into heaven like an eagle and continually conversing with God, from that lofty watchtower of eternity, as with eagle eyes, clearly perceived the succession of all ages, and with them penetrated the very last things of the world. He alone depicted the course, revolution, and succession of the four monarchies; the deeds of Darius and Alexander; the wars of Antiochus with Scipio and the Romans; the battles between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, between the Antiochuses and the Jews; the birth and death of Christ at the end of the seventy weeks; the life, character, persecution, and destruction of the Antichrist; the resurrection, the glory of the Blessed, and the happy and eternal kingdom of Christ — he depicts all this so vividly that he seems to observe it close at hand and to present it for others to observe. And finally he concludes with this golden sentence: "Those who are learned shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who instruct many unto justice, like stars for all eternity."
Moreover, what Ezekiel says about these animals — that they were full of eyes — corresponds perfectly to the Prophets. For the Prophets were the eyes of the Synagogue, as well as of the Church. And this also: "Where the impulse of the spirit was, there they went;" and: "The living creatures went and returned, in the likeness of a flash of lightning."
But lest I digress too far, I come to the matter proposed — namely, prophecy and the Prophets. But before we hear them speaking and reasoning, five questions about them must be addressed first. First, what is prophecy? Second, how many kinds are there? Third, what was the cause, subject matter, manner of speaking, theme, and what were the duties and offices of the Prophets? Fourth, when, in what order, and about what subject did each of the Prophets prophesy? Fifth, concerning their obscurity and difficulty, and by what way and method it may be overcome.
I. IT IS ASKED therefore first: What is prophecy? What is its nature and essence?
Cassiodorus, in his preface on the Psalms, says: "Prophecy is a divine inspiration, foreknowing and foretelling with immovable truth and the greatest certainty the outcomes of events far distant from us." From this definition, St. Gregory teaches in Homily 1 on Ezekiel that the Prophet embraces threefold and all time — namely, past, present, and future — for the events of all these can be far distant; and therefore prophecy is threefold.
"Prophecy, he says, concerns the future: Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. Prophecy concerns the past: In the beginning God created heaven and earth — for a man spoke of that time when there was no man." Thus Daniel also by the spirit of prophecy recounted to the king the dream he had forgotten, and then interpreted it, Dan. ch. 2. "Prophecy concerns the present, when the Apostle Paul says, 1 Cor. 14: But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or uneducated person enters, he is convicted by all, he is judged by all: for the hidden things of his heart are made manifest. Therefore prophecy is rightly so called, not because it predicts the future, but because it reveals what is hidden. Thus Gehazi had gone far from the Prophet when he was receiving the gifts of Naaman the Syrian; yet the Prophet said to him: Was not my heart present when the man turned from his chariot to meet you?" 4 Kings 5. Thus John the Baptist was a Prophet because he showed the unknown Christ to the world, saying: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sin of the world," John 1. Thus the blind Ahijah prophesied, when by God's inspiration he recognized the wife of Jeroboam pretending to be someone else, and said: "Come in, wife of Jeroboam: why do you pretend to be someone else? I have been sent to you as a harsh messenger," 3 Kings 14:6. Thus Elizabeth, by the spirit of prophecy, recognized the Word incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Mary, when she said to her: "Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Luke 1. For it requires equal difficulty, power, and wisdom to reveal hidden things — for example, the secret thoughts of men — as to predict the future: for both require a supernatural and divine light, namely, a revelation from God, as St. Thomas teaches, II-II, Quest. 171, art. 3.
St. Chrysostom teaches the same, in his preface to the Psalms, vol. 1: "The entire kind of prophecy, he says, is divided in three ways: into future, present, and past. Since prophecy is the discovery of what is hidden: as was done by Peter, who detected the theft of Ananias and Sapphira," Acts 5.
I say "hidden things" — that is, things which are in fact hidden. For it can happen that what is open, seen, or known to one person may be hidden from another; in that case, things which others know by sense or demonstration can be prophetically revealed to this person. Thus others recognized the wife of Jeroboam by her appearance, but the blind Ahijah recognized her only by prophecy. So says St. Thomas.
But St. Gregory rightly observes in the same place, saying: "In two of these time periods, prophecy loses its etymology; because since prophecy is so called because it predicts future things, when it speaks of the past or present, it loses the meaning of its name." And Tertullian, Apolog. 18: "Prophecy, he says, is named from the function of foretelling." Therefore prophecy properly pertains only to future things: "All prophecy is an image of things to come. Therefore the house of God was foretold in the image of prophecy," says St. Augustine on Psalm 131.
Wherefore, with St. Thomas and the Scholastics, II-II, Quest. 171, art. 3, we shall properly define prophecy: "Prophecy is a divine inspiration or revelation, foreseeing and foretelling with certain and immovable truth the outcomes of future contingent events."
Hence prophecy in Hebrew is also called chazon, that is, vision; the prophets are called chozim, that is, seers — that is, observers and foreseers. For they were, as it were, the mouth of the Lord and the eyes of the Church, because they saw visions shown by God that were to be communicated to the whole Church. Whence St. Basil in his preface to Isaiah: "The Prophets, he says, were called Seers, because they perceive future things as though they were present."
I say "divine" in the definition, because God alone can foreknow and foresignify future contingent events with certainty. For to God alone, because He is eternal, omniscient, and of immense power, all things — future as well as past and present — are continually presented and objectively set before His eyes, even when they do not exist in the nature of things. For the infinite keenness of His mind and power of knowing surpasses the existence of things, and pervades and penetrates all times as well as all places, and equals, indeed transcends, every truth. For every truth — whether existing or not existing; whether present, past, or future; whether absolute, conditional, or possible — is reached and seen through by that infinite Mind and Eye of God. Wherefore some have rightly said that "the Prophets are made participants of eternity by God." Prophecy therefore is nothing other than a divine revelation and speech, presented and sent into the mind of the Prophet by God, in such a manner and with such light, that he knew with certainty it was sent to him from no other source than God.
For God, whether He speaks by Himself or through Angels, can give to the mind most certain signs of Himself, though these be unknown to the inexperienced, so that
the soul may know that it is God speaking within it, not a demon, not nature.
This is what St. Gregory says, book 4 of his Dialogues, ch. 48: "Holy men, amid illusions and revelations, discern by a certain intimate taste the very voices or images of visions, so that they know whether they are receiving something from a good spirit, or suffering something from the deceiver." Thus St. Augustine revealed about his mother in the Confessions that she was accustomed to recognize and distinguish, by a certain spiritual taste, the inspirations and revelations of God from other suggestions of nature or of demons. For this reason, the Prophets were bound to believe their oracles by divine faith — that is, whatever they heard from God, as things revealed by the First Truth. For these are the proper and adequate material object of faith, whose formal object is the divine revelation itself, or the First Truth revealing. For God so certainly demonstrated to the Prophets both the prophecies themselves as revealed by Him, and that it was He who was revealing them, that they believed both by divine faith; otherwise they would have exposed both themselves and God to the danger of falsehood and mockery, which, besides the disgrace, would have been an enormous crime of sacrilege.
But when the Prophets spoke only through a certain instinct (which, as St. Augustine says, sometimes even unknowing human minds experience), they were not entirely certain it was from God; hence at such times they did not dare to present it as an oracle of God to the people. However, it is now certain through the declaration of the Church that our Prophets here spoke from God in everything they wrote in these books. For their prophecies and books are canonical Scripture.
Wherefore St. Gregory keenly observes in Homily 1 on Ezekiel: "It must be known, he says, that sometimes holy Prophets, when consulted, from their great habit of prophesying, utter certain things from their own spirit, and suspect that they are saying these things from prophecy; but because they are holy, they are quickly corrected by the Holy Spirit, hear from Him what is true, and rebuke themselves for having spoken what was false." Thus Nathan approved David's plan to build the temple; but soon, taught the contrary by God, he retracted his statement, 2 Sam. 7:5. And in this true Prophets differ from false ones: "For the false," says St. Gregory, "both announce false things and, being strangers to the Holy Spirit, persist in their falsehood." If therefore the Prophets carefully attend, they easily perceive whether it is God speaking within them, or a demon, or reason, or their own desire: for God manifests Himself by certain signs, and makes them certain that they are hearing these things from God. This is what St. Peter says, 2 Pet. 1, last verse: "For prophecy was never brought by human will: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." See St. Thomas, II-II, Quest. 171, art. 5. For this reason, the Prophets prefixed the name of God at the beginning of their discourse: "Lest they should seem to speak by their own talent; but because the things they said were certain divine oracles and letters" brought "from heaven," says St. Chrysostom on Isaiah ch. 1, v. 1.
And by this reasoning, prophecy is distinguished from augury and necromancy — for example, the kind by which the witch of Endor raised Samuel for Saul, 1 Sam. 28 — and from every other form of divination that is drawn from the help of demons, or even from the natural sagacity of Angels. For St. Augustine teaches in his book On the Divination of Demons that a demon can naturally foreknow and predict many things that a human being cannot, and there he lists five ways in which demons naturally predict the future.
By the same reasoning, prophecy is distinguished from consultative lots, even lawful ones: "Lots, says the Wise Man, Prov. 16:33, are cast into the lap, but they are governed by the Lord" — governed, I say, either by God's ordinary governance and providence, as other things are, or by the extraordinary concurrence and disposition of God intervening, as God designated Matthias the Apostle by lot, Acts 1.
By the same reasoning, prophecy is distinguished from conjecture, which is made by natural cleverness from physiognomic or other natural signs, examples of which can also be seen in the Sacred Scriptures. Indeed, regarding chiromancy — not the magical kind, but the natural — many well explain that passage in Job 37:7: "He places a sign in the hand of every man, that each may know his works," as I showed there. Some also add astrological divination, from Judges 5:20, where it says: "From heaven war was waged against them; the stars, remaining in their order and course, fought against Sisera." But this smacks of superstition and is a rabbinic invention. For that passage in Judges 5 has a very different meaning, as I demonstrated there. So says St. Chrysostom on Isaiah ch. 3, vol. 1: "A Prophet, he says, is distinguished from a conjecturer, as Elisha from Solomon: the former by revelation, the latter detects and perceives hidden things by the reasoning process from signs and from experience. For thus Solomon resolved the dispute of the two harlots over the child by testing which of them loved the child more. But Elisha knew of Gehazi's avarice and acceptance of gold by no sign, no reasoning, but solely by God's revelation."
Second, I said in the definition of prophecy that it concerns "future contingent events" — that is, free acts, or things depending on them, which depend on the free will of a person or angel for their future realization, either immediately or mediately, so that they emanate freely from it and come into act at their proper time. For these alone are properly contingent. For other natural events which physicists call contingent — such as future rains, heat, cold, storms, etc. — since they depend on natural causes — namely, vapor, the sky, winds, etc. — which are determined, they too are determined and necessary, and can be determinately foreknown and foreseen by Angels and demons, who are most expert in natural causes, physics, and astronomy — unless the free will of someone intervenes and changes the combination and course of secondary causes.
changes and alters. Therefore only future free acts are contingent, because they are undetermined until free will freely determines itself in this or that direction, as it will freely determine itself in a future time, when it will exist and act. These, then, neither angel nor demon can foreknow; but only God, who by His infinite power of understanding penetrates and comprehends the freedom of all creatures, and sees from the immensity of His intelligence clearly and distinctly what it will freely determine, do, or not do at any time, place, and circumstances.
Third, I said: "With certain and immovable truth." Some restrict this to the prophecy of foreknowledge or absolute prophecy, so as to exclude the prophecy of threat or of promise — that is, conditional prophecy — for they judge that this is not of immovable truth, because it is not always fulfilled. Note here: St. Thomas, II-II, Quest. 174, art. 1, posits a threefold prophecy. The first is of predestination, by which God foreknows and foretells what He Himself has decreed and predestined to do, and therefore these will most certainly come to pass. The second is of foreknowledge, by which He foreknows future good and evil acts both of man and of angel. The third is of threat, by which He threatens, for example, the Ninevites through Jonah with destruction. The first two are of certain, immovable, and absolute truth; the third is not. For it is clear that the Ninevites by their repentance escaped the destruction threatened against them, and therefore this prophecy and threat was not in fact fulfilled.
But more correctly it is said that the first two species of prophecy are absolute, and therefore have absolute truth; but the third, since it is conditional, also has its own truth, but a conditional one commensurate with itself. For it cannot have absolute truth, since it is not in itself absolute but conditional. For the threat made to the Ninevites through Jonah was this: Unless you repent, you shall be destroyed. This was a conditional proposition, and conditionally true; but because the Ninevites by repenting removed this condition, they thereby also removed the destruction annexed to it, and caused it to be the case that what God had threatened them with would absolutely not come to pass — because they performed what God intended through this threat, namely, repentance and a change of conduct, so that through it they would escape the calamity He threatened, as by repenting they actually did escape it.
Fourth, I said: "Foreseeing and foretelling." For, as St. Athanasius says in On the Passion of the Lord: "Just as we, looking at things before our eyes, are not deceived in seeing, nor do we see them otherwise than they are, but we see them as they happen: so too the Prophets saw future things as present, and what they saw had to come to pass. For what was happening (in the future, that is, what was going to be) they saw entirely: but what they foresaw could not happen otherwise; for if they had happened otherwise, they would not have been Prophets, because they would not have seen future things but things that were not going to be, and so they would have been false and deceived in their vision."
I added "foretelling." For a Prophet properly is not one who knows future things, but one who announces them beforehand. For hence in Greek he is called prophetes, in Latin Propheta, from prophemi, that is, I speak forth, I speak before, I foretell. In Hebrew he is called nabi, as if to say, a forth-bringer, or rather a forth-doer, from the root bo (for the etymology of nabi alludes to this more, as is clear from the letter aleph added to both, than to the root nub, that is, he spoke, or bin, that is, he understood) — that is, he came. For from it is derived naba, that is, he caused to come, he predicted what was to come: because the Prophets by their word and oracle, as certain and indubitable, according to the Hebrew idiom and the manner of human speech, as it were caused to come the things that did not yet exist, and by their prediction summoned them, as it were, to come, and virtually brought about their certain occurrence. Thus the Prophets were said to bring rain, drought, pestilence, the sword, to kill, to give life, etc., because they predicted these things as certainly and infallibly going to happen.
This therefore is the proper nature, meaning, and essence of prophecy. But because Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other Prophets did not only foretell future things, but also taught, preached, prayed, sang psalms, and worked miracles, hence "to prophesy" and "Prophet" signify various things by catachresis.
First, to prophesy is the same as to teach and exhort to piety from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul uses "to prophesy" in this sense in 1 Cor. 14, where he calls teachers and exhorters Prophets, and asserts that it is better to prophesy than to speak in tongues.
Second, to prophesy is the same as to sing the divine praises with unusual fervor from the instinct of the Holy Spirit. Thus Saul, among the Prophets playing music, seized by the spirit of God, is said to have been a Prophet and to have prophesied — that is, to have sung psalms and praises of God with those playing, as if driven by ecstasy, 1 Sam. 19:24.
Hence third, to prophesy simply means to sing and to play psalms. Thus all singers are called Prophets, 1 Chron. 25:1: "David, it says, and the officers set apart the sons of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, who should prophesy (that is, sing psalms and play instruments) with harps, psalteries, and cymbals."
Fourth, to prophesy is used by antiphrasis to mean to rave, and to speak delirious and insane things from the inspiration of an evil spirit. Thus again Saul, seized by an evil and melancholic spirit, is said to have prophesied — that is, to have spoken things alien to reason and delirious, 1 Sam. 18:10.
Fifth, to prophesy means to work miracles and thereby confirm one's oracles. Thus Sirach 48:14 says that the dead body of Elisha prophesied — that is, it raised to life the corpse of a dead man thrown into its tomb, 4 Kings 13:21. For these reasons, "all the Prophets were sent before the face of Christ, and were called Angels, as it is written: You who received the law through the ordinances of Angels and did not keep it," says St. Chrysostom on Matt. ch. 11, Homily 27.
II. IT IS ASKED SECOND: How many kinds of prophecy are there?
St. Thomas, II-II, Quest. 174, art. 2 and 3, and following him Francisco Suarez, III Part, Quest. 30, art. 4, disp. 9, sect. 2, responds that it is twofold: intellectual and sensible or imaginative. The intellectual is that which does not take its origin from sense or imagination, but arises immediately through a light infused into the intellect, and through intellectual species either newly imparted or pre-existing, but applied by divine power to some supernatural apprehension or conception.
Now this occurs in two ways. First, when the intellect is so illuminated and elevated that it knows a thing without the operation of the imagination — which is rare. Nevertheless, this seems to have been granted to St. Paul when he was caught up to the third heaven, for then he heard secret words that it is not lawful for a man to speak, 2 Cor. 12:2. Our Suarez, at the end of the cited passage, also judges that this mode was granted to the Blessed Virgin after the Incarnation of the Word in her, so that she clearly knew and saw this mystery through her intellect.
The second mode is when the imagination cooperates with the intellect — not indeed with the intellect first moved by the imagination, but with the imagination itself moved and applied by the intellect, so that it works together with it and concurs in the prophetic understanding and vision. Such seems to have been the vision of Isaiah in ch. 6, as St. Jerome teaches there. For there he saw the three divine Persons in one essence, as I shall show in that place; and any others that were similar and equally sublime.
Moreover, neither of these modes can be accomplished by an Angel, but only by God. For God alone can enter into the mind and intellect, and immediately infuse light and species into it, and work understanding and vision in it. Wherefore this revelation and speech of God is a vital act of the intellect, elicited in it by God.
The sensible or imaginative prophecy is so called not because it does not reach the intellect, but because it occurs first and primarily through some sensible or imaginary representation, from which arises a conception of the mind, and to which it is in some way proportioned. The prior intellectual kind is more perfect than this sensible kind, because it is more abstract and spiritual, whence it is produced by God alone; but the sensible kind can be and usually is produced by an angel.
Now the visions and revelations of the Prophets were commonly sensible, both because they saw certain sensible objects — as Jeremiah saw a boiling pot, a watching rod, a basket of figs; Daniel saw a tree, the king's dream, four beasts, etc.; Ezekiel saw a chariot, wheels, living creatures, etc. — and because St. Dionysius (On the Celestial Hierarchy, ch. 4), St. Augustine (book 3 On the Trinity, last chapter), and Damascene (book 2 On the Faith, ch. 3) judge that they were commonly produced through Angels.
Moreover, the angel commonly spoke to the Prophets not in his own person, but in the person of God, and represented Him. Hence the Prophets everywhere say: "Thus says the Lord," not the angel. For this is the gentle and fitting order of divine providence, that through Angels He illuminates Prophets and other men. Hence also Moses, who was the first and chief of the Prophets, received the law from God on Sinai through an Angel, as the Apostle testifies, Gal. 3:19.
And therefore the Fathers commonly judge that all the appearances of God displayed to the patriarchs in the Old Testament were made through Angels, as I said in canon 17 on the Pentateuch. I admit, however, that when the angel was speaking in the Prophet's imagination and presenting his visions or words to him, God sometimes infused into the Prophet's intellect a divine and supernatural light brighter and more sublime than usual, when the sublimity of the subject demanded it, so that the Prophet might conceive and understand it worthily — that is, more fully and deeply than usual. Just as when a person preaches outwardly, God is accustomed to speak and represent the same thing more clearly inwardly in the mind of the hearer, through grace that illuminates the intellect and moves the affections, without which all outward preaching would be fruitless.
For the most part, therefore, God revealed His prophecy and will to an angel, and the angel in turn revealed the same and spoke in the Prophet's imagination, and this in various ways. For there are various grades of these prophetic visions, some of which are more perfect than others.
The first and lowest, says St. Thomas, art. 3, in the cited place, is when someone, from an interior hidden instinct and impulse, without an express revelation, is moved to do certain things outwardly, as is said of Samson in Judges 15, that the spirit rushed upon him when he broke his bonds. In this way many hermits and Saints have presaged, and still presage and have presentiments of, future things.
The second is when those prophesying clearly conceived and uttered prophecies, but did not know they were prophesying, as Balaam's donkey prophesied, and Caiaphas the high priest foretold the death and redemption of Christ, which however he did not understand, because he twisted it toward his own malice and cruelty against Christ, John 11:51.
Third, some received prophecies by sight alone, so that to one person the apparition of symbols or images was made, but to another their meaning was revealed. Such were the images of the ears of grain and cows seen by Pharaoh, Gen. 41:1, and the tall tree seen by Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. 2, whose meaning was revealed by God to others — namely, to Joseph and Daniel. Again, some saw visions while sleeping, others while awake: the latter was clearer and more sublime than the former.
Fourth, some drew prophecy solely from the outward hearing of a speaking voice, as Samuel saying: "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening," 1 Sam. 3:10.
Fifth, some saw through the imagination certain visions portending future things, while others heard a voice speaking inwardly and announcing future things. The latter occurred more frequently to the Prophets and was more perfect. For a heard speech expresses a thing more distinctly and clearly than a symbol or visible sign of it.
But the most perfect mode was when they simultaneously saw the vision and heard the voice explaining it, as in ch. 1, Jeremiah saw a boiling pot, and immediately heard that it portended the burning and destruction of Jerusalem, and of other nations through Nebuchadnezzar.
Sixth, some heard of natural things, such as the events and outcomes of wars, kings, and monarchies; others of supernatural things, such as the calling of the Gentiles, the rejection of the Jews, the mysteries of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, and of the Passion of Christ: the latter was more perfect than the former.
Seventh, sometimes they were commanded by God to prophesy and portend the future not only with words but also with deeds: as when Isaiah walked naked in ch. 20, he portended the despoiling and nakedness of Egypt and Ethiopia; when Jeremiah in ch. 27, v. 2, wore chains and fetters on his neck, he portended the Babylonian captivity; when Ezekiel lay on one side for three hundred and ninety days and ate cattle dung, he portended the siege and famine of Jerusalem, Ezek. 4:4 and 12.
Eighth, they not only saw the thing and heard words, but also sometimes saw the person speaking and demonstrating things, and this was the most perfect mode; because through this it was shown that the Prophet's mind more closely approached the revealing cause. Again, it was more perfect if the speaking person was seen in the appearance of an angel, as was commonly the case with St. John in the Apocalypse; than if seen in the appearance of a man, as Jeremiah and Onias appeared to Judas Maccabeus, 2 Macc. 15:15, with Jeremiah saying: "Accept this holy sword, a gift from God, with which you shall strike down the adversaries of my people Israel." Finally, it was more perfect than both if the speaking person was seen in the appearance of God, as Isaiah saw in ch. 6, God seated on a throne and conversing with him from it. So says St. Thomas, art. 3 cited.
Similar and subordinate to this division is the division of Isidore, book 7 of the Etymologies, ch. 8, and from him St. Thomas, II-II, Quest. 174, art. 1, reply to 3: "The kinds of prophecy, he says, are seven. The first is ecstasy, which is an excess of the mind, as Peter saw the vessel lowered from heaven with various animals. The second is vision, as it is said in Isaiah: I saw the Lord seated. The third is a dream, as Jacob sleeping saw a ladder, Gen. 28:12. The fourth kind is through a cloud, as the Lord spoke to Moses. The fifth is a voice from heaven, as God spoke to Abraham saying: Do not lay your hand upon the boy, Gen. 22:12. The sixth is a received parable, as happened to Balaam, Num. 23:7. The seventh is the filling of the Holy Spirit, as occurs with almost all the Prophets."
This division is drawn from the variety both of the modes and of the objects and imaginable or sensible forms of prophecy. For the first three — namely, ecstasy, vision, and dream — are three modes of prophesying; but the three following are the objects and sensible signs that the Prophets perceived. Among which the first is a certain corporeal thing appearing outwardly to the sight, which he places in the fourth position. The second is a formed voice, outwardly conveyed to the hearing of a person, which he places in the fifth position. The third is a voice formed through a person with the likeness of some thing, which pertains to a parable, which he places in the sixth position.
Again, regarding the modes of prophesying, Isidore in the same place and St. Augustine, book 12 On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, ch. 7 and following, posit three kinds of visions: the first according to the eyes of the body, the second according to the imaginative spirit, the third through the intuition of the mind. This division is drawn from the cognitive powers in a person, which are three: sense, imagination, and intellection, as St. Thomas explains, II-II, Quest. 174, art. 1, reply to 3.
Finally, St. Augustine, book 19 Against Faustus, ch. 2, distinguishes a threefold class of Prophets: first those of the Gentiles, such as Balaam and the Sibyls; second those of the Jews, such as our prophets here; third those of the Christians, or of the New Testament, such as St. John in the Apocalypse, Paul, the Apostles, and after them many others.
Here note the difference between the Sibyls and other Gentile Prophets and the faithful — that is, ours: for the former prophesied with their mind alienated, as if compelled and sometimes unwilling, as though seized by enthusiasm or driven by furies — the same thing happened to the prophetesses of Montanus and other demoniacs. Hence Cicero in book 1 On Divination: "Democritus denies, he says, that a great poet can exist without frenzy;" and again: "There is therefore in the mind a presentiment cast in from without and enclosed by divine power. If it blazes more keenly, it is called frenzy, when the mind, abstracted from the body, is excited by divine instinct."
But the minds of our Prophets were self-possessed; they knew what they were saying, they spoke willingly, not in ecstasy — not even those things which they had previously received in ecstasy — as St. Jerome teaches in his preface to Isaiah, and St. Paul: "The spirits of the Prophets, he says, are subject to the Prophets," 1 Cor. 14:32.
Moreover, the Sibyls were prophetesses not of the demon, but of God, who by the merit of their virginity — as St. Jerome asserts in book 1 Against Jovinian — obtained the gift of prophecy, and prophesied about future things, especially about Christ, with such certainty and clarity of foreknowledge that they seem to write of past rather than future events. There were ten of them, whose surnames and homelands are: Cumaean, Cumanian, Persian, Hellespontine, Libyan, Samian, Delphic, Phrygian, Tiburtine, and Erythraean. Hence some wish "Sibyl" to be derived from siou boules, that is, the counsel of God, because they announced that very counsel to mankind. For in the Aeolic dialect, God is called sios instead of theos.
Whence St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian, past the third part of the book: "Why, he says, should I mention the Sibyls, etc., whose distinguishing mark is virginity, and the reward of virginity is divination? For if in the Aeolic form of speech a Sibyl is called theoboule, then rightly virginity alone is written to know the counsel of God."
Thus also Epiphanius, Heresy 78: "Philip, he says, the Evangelist had four daughters who prophesied, Acts 21:8; they prophesied because of their virginity, which they had been made worthy to possess." Hence also Virgil, in book 6 of the Aeneid, depicts the Cumaean Sibyl prophesying the fates and events that would befall, thus:
"To whom the Delian prophet inspires a great mind and spirit, and opens the future."
And below:
"They had come to the threshold, when the virgin said: 'It is time to seek the fates; the God, behold, the God!' As she spoke thus before the doors, suddenly her face and color were not the same, her hair no longer stayed arranged; but her breast heaved, her fierce heart swelled with frenzy, and she seemed taller; not sounding mortal, since she was breathed upon by the nearer power of the God."
And below:
"The prophetess rages, trying to shake the great God from her breast: all the more He wearies her foaming mouth, taming her fierce heart, and molds her by pressing."
See concerning the Sibyls and their oracles, both their verses in St. Augustine, Eusebius, and others, and Suidas under the entry "Sibyl," and Sixtus of Siena, book 2 of the Bibliotheca, under the entry "Sibyl."
You will ask whether the Prophets understood all their prophecies — that is, whether they always received from God the meaning and explanation of their oracles, both those heard and especially those seen, that is, of their symbols. I respond: This is uncertain. It is certain that they received the explanation when they write and expound it; but when they do not write or expound it, we do not know whether they received it. It is credible that sometimes they did, and sometimes they did not. For God willed to make them, as Prophets, privy to His secrets beyond other men, and to know more than they would write; yet on the other hand, He willed to keep certain secrets for Himself and not communicate them even to the Prophets. Just as a king keeps certain secrets for himself that he reveals to no counselor, so Christ also kept to Himself the secrets of certain parables and other things, which He disclosed neither to the Apostles nor to anyone else.
Thus in Ezek. ch. 1, when Ezekiel saw the chariot of God, the Cherubim, wheels, firmament, fire, wind, one seated on the throne in the appearance of amber, etc., it is credible that he understood that all these things signified the war chariot of God, and that God with the Cherubim and hosts of Angels was hastening to the destruction of Jerusalem: for he himself clearly predicts this in what follows. But it is not necessary to say that he understood in particular what each of the things just mentioned (since he does not explain them) portended or represented.
In the same way, in ch. 40 and the eight following chapters, he describes the construction of the temple and city, in detail through the description and measurement of each of its parts. It is credible that he did not understand what all these things symbolically signified; for he scarcely explains any of them.
Thus Daniel, in ch. 7, saw the vision of the four beasts, but did not understand it. Hence in v. 16, he asked the angel for its explanation and received it. The same happened to him in ch. 8, in the vision of the ram and the goat: for seeking its understanding in v. 15, he received it from Gabriel in v. 17. The same occurred in ch. 10, where fasting and praying in v. 2, he received the explanation of the vision from the angel in vv. 11 and 19. Again in ch. 12, Daniel expressly says in v. 8: "And I heard, but did not understand. And I said: My lord, what will come after these things? And he said: Go, Daniel, for the words are closed and sealed until the appointed time." From which it is clear that these words were closed even to Daniel, and that he did not receive their explanation.
Thus Zechariah, in ch. 4, saw a lampstand with seven lamps and two olive trees; yet he did not understand what these signified. Hence he said to the angel in v. 5: "What are these, my lord?" And the angel responding explained them to him. Likewise in ch. 6, seeing four chariots of various colors, he said to the angel in v. 5: "What are these, my lord?" And from him he heard: "These are the four winds." But who and what these winds are, whether literal or rather parabolic and mystical, he did not hear.
Likewise in ch. 9, v. 11, as if abruptly he says: "You also, by the blood of Your covenant, have set free Your prisoners from the waterless pit." And v. 17: "For what is his goodness and what is his beauty, but the grain of the elect and the wine that makes virgins flourish?" Whether he himself understood that these things were said about Christ and the Eucharist is uncertain, for he does not explain them. Similar passages are in ch. 14.
Such also are Jer. 31:15: "A voice was heard in the heights, of lamentation, weeping, and wailing — Rachel bewailing her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." And v. 22: "The Lord has created a new thing upon the earth: a woman shall encompass a man." And from v. 33 to the end he describes the boundaries of the new city to be built. Whether he understood these to be said about the massacre of the Innocent martyrs, the conception of the Mother of God, the building of the Church, and its parts and dimensions in particular, is not established. For he himself reveals or explains none of these things.
Similarly, St. John in the Apocalypse, although he received greater and clearer revelations than other Prophets — being a Prophet of the New Testament and the last among the sacred writers, and the disciple whom Jesus loved — nevertheless, whether he understood all the symbols he saw is doubtful. For example, whether he understood in ch. 4, precisely and clearly, what the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures signified — the first of which was like a lion, the second a calf, the third a man, the fourth an eagle. Again in ch. 6, the four horses and riders — namely, white, red, black, and pale. Also in ch. 8, the plagues of the seven Angels. And in ch. 9, what the locusts signify that had golden crowns on their heads, faces of men, hair of women, teeth of lions, iron breastplates, tails of scorpions. And in ch. 10, the seven thunders. And in ch. 11, what
signifies the division of the temple, the altar, etc. Ch. 12: the woman clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet and twelve stars on her head, giving birth to a male child; and the battle of Michael with the dragon, etc. Ch. 13: the beast having seven heads, ten horns, and its number 666. Ch. 15: the sea of glass mingled with fire. Ch. 16: what the seven bowls and the plagues of the seven Angels signify. Chs. 17 and 18: the mystery of Babylon. Whether, I say, St. John plainly understood these and other things like them is not established. For he explains none of them, which is the reason why the Apocalypse is so obscure, and interpreters in its explanation both conjecture and vary.
Wherefore St. Jerome in the Helmeted Prologue writes of the Apocalypse that it "has as many mysteries as it has words" — which surely not even John, nor any mortal, is credibly believed to have understood in their entirety.
Finally, that the Prophets did not understand all their oracles is taught by St. Ambrose, book 1 On Abraham, ch. 8; Cyril (or rather Clichtove, the Parisian Doctor — for he supplied the eight middle books of St. Cyril on John that had been lost), book 8 on John, ch. 3; and St. Augustine, book 7 of The City of God, ch. 33: "The Prophets, he says, understood some things, and did not understand others." And St. Thomas, II-II, Quest. 173, art. 4.
Moreover, when the Prophets saw their visions but did not understand them, they were not perfect and properly so-called prophets, but imperfect, half-formed, and inchoate ones, as was Caiaphas when he unknowingly predicted Christ's death, John 11:51; and Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar seeing dreams but not understanding them, Gen. 41, Dan. 2:1. So says St. Augustine, book 12 On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, ch. 9: "He is not a Prophet, he says, who sees signs but does not understand them; therefore Prophets are called Seers, because the vision pertains more to the spirit than to the body." He teaches the same in his book Against Adimantus, ch. 28. And St. Gregory, book 11 of the Moralia, ch. 12: "When something, he says, is either shown or heard, if it is not attributed to the intellect, the person is not a Prophet."
St. Basil holds the same in his preface to Isaiah, Origen in book 3 of On First Principles, ch. 3, and St. Chrysostom, Homily 19 on 1 Corinthians. There, against the Montanists, they teach that the Prophets were not driven by enthusiasm, nor carried outside themselves (as are the possessed and the Prophets of the Gentiles), but were in possession of themselves and their minds, and understood what they prophesied, according to 1 Cor. 14: "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets."
III. IT IS ASKED THIRD: What was the cause, subject matter, and duties of the Prophets?
I respond. The cause of sending Isaiah and the other Prophets was varied and manifold, but especially that which the Prophets frequently touch upon, particularly Hosea, and which 3 Kings ch. 12 expressly recounts: namely, when Jeroboam, with God's permission and as just punishment and vengeance upon Solomon and Rehoboam, had by a monstrous crime severed the ten tribes from the two and from the royal line of David, fearing that if the people continued in their custom of going to the true temple of God in Jerusalem, they would gradually return to the former unity of the nation, kingdom, and royal line, he cast the Apis, the Egyptian idol which the Hebrews had worshipped both in Egypt and in the desert — two golden calves, I say, one of which he placed in Dan and the other in Bethel, at the two boundaries of his kingdom. This was the author and leader of idolatry, from which, as from a Lerna, all subsequent kinds of vices flowed forth, which the ten tribes together with their source spread with equal impiety to the two neighboring Gentile nations.
Repeatedly this source, when cut down, like a hydra burst forth into new heads. Against these God sends His Prophets as antagonists, to abolish idolatry and call the people back to their ancestral religion. If they do not obey, the Prophets announce the Assyrian captivity, and even more the Babylonian, and sound the trumpet of war for the Babylonians against the Jews. And this is what St. Chrysostom says on Isaiah ch. 8: "Prophecy is a remedy prepared by the mercy of God, instructing the erring through foreknowledge of punishments, so that by repenting they might escape the actual experience of them."
Here note that all these Prophets rarely prophesied and preached to the ten tribes, but frequently and habitually to the two — namely, Judah and Benjamin. The reason was that the ten tribes, addicted and as it were enslaved to the golden calves through their impious kings, were incorrigible; hence shortly afterward — that is, in the sixth year of Hezekiah — Shalmaneser, having captured Samaria, led them away into Assyria, 4 Kings 18:12.
And from this the manifold subject matter of the Prophets and their varied method and manner of speaking become clear. For first, they denounce sins — both of idolatry and of pride, avarice, gluttony, injustice, etc. — and call the Jews to repentance, threaten punishments, assail the stubbornness of the Jews, and threaten them with God's rejection and reprobation, and finally predict it with certainty. Second, they soften their threats, and console the afflicted with the hope of pardon and the promise of a future good — namely, the Messiah. Third, they simply foretell the future, both to the Jews and to other nations: this they do commonly and often. Fourth, they pray for the people and offer prayers to God. Fifth, they teach what should be done or omitted, by instructing, commanding, and forbidding, both by word and speech and by deed and action.
Hence it again follows that there were chiefly three duties and offices of the Prophets. The first was to teach the people both what to believe and what to do — both matters of faith and the way of virtue and salvation. For the Prophets were most learned Theologians, instructed not by man but by God, and therefore God-taught. Wherefore St. Chrysostom, Homily 10 on Matt. ch. 7: "Just as, he says, clouds carry rain, so too the Prophets and Apostles receive words from God and pour them out upon the rational earth." The same author in his preface to Psalm 1, Homily 1: "The Prophets, he says, are certain painters of virtue and vice: they depict the sinner, the just man, the penitent, the one standing, the one rising, the one stumbling."
For this reason Ecclesiasticus ch. 39, v. 1, in depicting the wise man and theologian, calls for his untiring study of the prophets together with devout prayer: "The wise man, he says, will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, and will be occupied with the prophets (in Greek, en propheteiis, in the prophecies). He will preserve the narration (in Greek, diegesin, the exposition, explanation) of renowned men, and will enter together into the subtleties" — the hidden and tortuous acuities — "of parables. He will search out the hidden meanings of proverbs, and will dwell among the secrets of parables. He will open his mouth in prayer, and will make supplication for his sins. If the great Lord wills, He will fill him with the spirit of understanding; and he will pour forth the words of his wisdom like showers; he himself will make known the instruction of his teaching, and will glory in the law of the Lord's covenant."
This is what St. Basil embraced in three words, advising and enjoining upon the Theologian: "Let reading follow prayer, and prayer follow reading." And St. Cyprian, book 2, epistle 2 to Donatus, near the end: "Let your prayer or reading be constant; now speak with God, now let God speak with you." For in prayer we speak to God; in reading God speaks to us: reading teaches, prayer obtains the understanding, savor, and fruit of reading.
To pass over others here, let St. Jerome stand in place of all, who in his preface to Isaiah writes this about himself: "Whatever belongs to the Sacred Scriptures, whatever Logic, Physics, Ethics — whatever the human tongue can utter and mortal understanding can grasp — is contained in this volume."
Cardinal Hosius, President of the Council of Trent and terror of the heretics, saw this — he who was a follower of the great Hosius of Cordoba who fought against the Arians at the Council of Nicaea. Though most occupied with public business of the Church and the Council of Trent, he was daily absorbed in the Prophets and Scripture, to such a degree that he had most diligently read through Hieronymus Osorius' paraphrase on Isaiah, which had then appeared, more than thirty times — especially because he recalled that this Prophet had been recommended to Augustine for reading by Ambrose. Thus he yearned to draw his Theology and heavenly wisdom from the Prophets; thus he strove to make his heart the library of Christ. The authority for this is the Protonotary Reschius, an eyewitness and his collaborator, in his Life.
Moreover, the Prophets teach not only the Theologian or the Prelate, but every faithful Christian. For what else are the Sacred Scriptures, and especially the prophecies, but oracles of faith, oracles of sound doctrine, oracles of orthodox truth, which the Prophets, Christ, and the Apostles preached to the whole world both by voice and by writing? What are the Prophets but divine Philosophers, secretaries of the Most High, heavenly pipes, instruments of the Holy Spirit? — which convey to us the very secrets of the Most Holy Trinity, which announce to us the Word of God Himself, by which that First and Uncreated Truth instructs all the faithful in what they ought to believe, hope, fear, worship, and love.
"In many ways, says Paul, Heb. 1:1, and by many means, God formerly spoke to the fathers through the Prophets; in these last days He has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the ages." The Prophets therefore are the book of God Himself, the book of the Holy Spirit, the book of the Most Holy Trinity — a book, I say, composed and dictated by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in which He described and depicted, as in a living image, Himself and His attributes, the mysteries of the Trinity, of the Incarnation of the Word, of predestination, providence, grace, the calling of the Gentiles, His Sacraments, His eternal laws, His will, His beatitude and the immense goods which He has prepared for those who love and obey Him — the straight way, I say, to heaven and to blessed eternity. So that what the Wise Man said of all of Sacred Scripture, Sirach 24:32 — that it is "the book of the commandments of God and the book of life" — applies especially to the Prophets.
St. Justin the Philosopher and Martyr reports at the beginning of his Dialogue Against Trypho, about himself and his conversion to the faith and worship of Christ, that while still a pagan, eager for philosophy and that true wisdom which leads to God, he had in a remarkable circuit wandered through the most illustrious schools of the philosophers, as through an Odyssey of errors, but in vain. At last he found rest in the Prophets and in the Christian philosophy of the Sacred Scriptures, as the only solid thing. "First, he says, I attached myself as a disciple to a certain Stoic, from whom, since I heard nothing about God, I chose a Peripatetic teacher; but despising him as one who peddles wisdom for money, I moved on to a Pythagorean; but because I was neither a musician, nor an astronomer, nor a geometer — which arts he required as prerequisites for the blessed life — from him I fell to a Platonist, deluded by all of them with a windy and empty hope of wisdom. Until unexpectedly I encountered a certain divine Philosopher — whether man or angel he was. He immediately persuaded me that, abandoning all that circular learning, I should read the books of the Holy Prophets, whose authority is greater than any demonstration and whose wisdom is most salutary, and in these sharpen my whole desire for knowledge. And he departed and was seen by Justin no more; but so great and burning a desire for this study and sacred reading was cast into him, that immediately bidding farewell to the teaching of all others, he most eagerly pursued this alone and most steadfastly held onto it, with such abundant fruit that it produced for us Justin — Christian, Philosopher, and Martyr."
Truly therefore St. Gregory said, book 4, epistle 84: "What is Sacred Scripture but a kind of letter from Almighty God to His creature?" By which God has prescribed to it His will, and what He wishes it to believe and do. For this letter declares and explains the thoughts of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of the eternal Word. "No one has ever seen God; the Only-Begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared to us" — the mysteries hidden from the foundation of the world. When therefore you read the Prophets, you hear not Aristotle, not Plato, not a king, not a pontiff, not an angel, not a Seraph; but God Himself speaking to all mankind, and to you and your conscience individually — teaching, admonishing, exhorting, promising eternal goods, striking fear, and threatening eternal punishments if you do not obey His law.
The second duty of the Prophets, to which they were sent and destined by God, was to preach. Hence their writings appear to be perpetual and enduring sermons, and those ardent and effective, like hammers shattering rocks. For they dealt with rocks — that is, with the hard, rebellious, and obstinate hearts of the Jews. To break and soften these, how great a force of speech, what spirit, what energy do you think was needed? You would therefore rightly say that the Prophets were not only the most learned Theologians, but also the most eloquent and most effective preachers — indeed fiery ones — since they bring forth and pronounce not their own but God's spirit and breath, not their own but God's very sermons; indeed, through them as through His own mouths, God Himself preaches.
Wherefore St. Charles Borromeo, a model of ancient learning and holiness, a second Ambrose, Archbishop and Cardinal of Milan, was deeply and long occupied both in all of Sacred Scripture (which, following the example of the divine Thomas, he was accustomed to read daily with prayer beforehand, and for six years before his death never except on his knees) and especially in the Prophets, whom he regarded as heavenly orators. From these he would treat the more difficult and beautiful passages for his sermons, with that fruit which we still observe and admire in Milan, in the ancient piety and devotion of the Fathers, as it were restored in the clergy and citizens. The Prophets therefore transformed Borromeo from a jurist into a Theologian and Preacher. His intimate friend, Augustine Valier, Bishop of Verona, testifies to this in his Life.
Francisco Foreiro, an illustrious preacher of the royal house of Portugal from the Order of St. Dominic, in the preface to his Commentary on Isaiah, written at Trent during the Council of Trent, openly professes that he owes all that power and grace of preaching which all Portugal celebrated to the Prophets and Sacred Scriptures, and to the Hebrew sources.
Edmund Auger of our Society, commonly called the "Trumpet of France" on account of the effectiveness of his preaching — to such a degree that the churches could not contain the crowds, but he had to go out into the fields and open country to address the people, for the people hung upon his words as an infant hangs upon its mother, and accordingly he drove them wherever he wished by his wonderful power and energy of speaking and persuading — this man, I say, worked on no other texts than Isaiah and St. Paul, and in each sermon he treated one passage from Isaiah and another from Paul, copiously and vigorously. In this way he so pleased his hearers that he drew them all first into admiration of himself, then into his own way of thinking — indeed, he swept them away. The French report that he converted up to forty thousand people to virtue and holiness.
St. Augustine himself saw and understood this, in book 18 of The City of God, ch. 30, when he says: "They (the Prophets) were for them (the Israelites) their philosophers, that is, lovers of wisdom; they were their wise men, their theologians, their Prophets, their teachers of uprightness and piety. Whoever was wise and lived according to them, was wise and lived not according to man, but according to God, who spoke through them. If sacrilege was forbidden there, God forbade it. If it was said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' God commanded it. If it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal,' etc., it was not human mouths but divine oracles that uttered these things."
The Prophets therefore unteach vices by censuring them, and teach and implant virtues by exhorting to them. This is their appointed task, this their work: to instill and breathe into the minds of readers and hearers piety, true worship of God, humility, patience, charity, zeal, and every form of holiness. For they suggest to minds not mere precepts, bare exhortations, or words merely sounding in the ears, but also energy, spirit, and a wonderful impulse, by which they strike the soul and almost compel it to a just and holy life. For God, who is the most powerful and perfect of preachers, through their voices enters into the soul, and what they persuade outwardly, He Himself speaks and persuades inwardly in the soul, sending heavenly illuminations to the intellect and pious affections to the will, so that what is perceived outwardly may be inwardly grasped, savored, loved, embraced, and carried out in deed.
Hence the Psalmist prays: "Open my eyes, and I will contemplate the wonders of Your law;" and Paul, Heb. 4:12: "The word of God, he says, is living and effective, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and reaching even to the division of the marrow."
And this is the reason why God wills that Sacred Scripture and the oracles of the Prophets be continually preached not only to Theologians, but also to all the faithful. For all human preaching and sermons, unless they rest upon the divine — namely, the word of God and the Prophets (who were the heralds of God) — and propose and explain these to the people, are cold, theatrical, and fleeting, as St. Gregory demonstrates, book 18 of the Moralia, ch. 14. All the Fathers, the ancient doctors and preachers of the Church, saw this: St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, Jerome, Cyprian, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and the rest, who devoted almost all their time and effort to the Prophets and Sacred Scripture, and from them delivered fervent and effective homilies, treatises, and sermons to the people, by which they removed vices and implanted Christian and holy conduct.
Certainly St. Thomas, the author and prince of Scholastic Theology, devoted himself intensely along with it to Sacred Scripture and the Prophets, and from them he emerged as a notable preacher as well as doctor, and left to posterity learned commentaries on the Prophets.
Moreover, the Prophets first teach and move the preacher himself, so that he in turn may teach and move the people with the same things — which is indeed the effective and best method of preaching. For who can give to another what
he does not have in himself? Who, being cold, can set fire to others who are cold? Who, having a hard or earthly heart, can move others to compunction and tears? "If you wish me to weep, you yourself must first weep," says the Poet.
For this reason the ancient Saints always cultivated the Prophets, not so much to imbue others as to imbue themselves with wisdom, virtue, and the divine spirit. Read the Lives of the Fathers: you will find that the Anthonys, the Hilarions, the Pauls, the Bernards, the Dominics, the Francises, and all who attained outstanding holiness, scarcely read anything other than Sacred Scripture, and especially the Prophets, and from these composed their lives according to their norm and according to God's law and will expressed in them, and thus ascended to the summit of perfection. "For all Scripture, says the Apostle, and through the Apostle the Holy Spirit, 2 Tim. 3:16, is divinely inspired and is useful for teaching, for reproving, for correcting, for instructing in justice, so that the man of God may be perfect, equipped for every good work."
For God in these books of His teaches us to despise earthly things, to love heavenly things, to disdain honors and the pomp of the world as smoke that immediately vanishes, and to esteem as vain riches, wealth, and whatever flatters under the sun. "Vanity of vanities, says God's Ecclesiastes, and all is vanity" — except to love God and serve Him alone. For nothing is great, lofty, or sublime in the world except God and a mind fixed upon God. "I will lift you up, says Isaiah, ch. 58, v. 14, above the heights of the earth, so that dwelling in heaven you may fear nothing earthly and desire nothing earthly; and I will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father" — so that, savoring and tasting heavenly things, you may despise this pinpoint of earth which is divided among mortals by sword and fire; so that by the hope of eternal goods, with a lofty spirit you may overcome both prosperity and adversity, and for the love of God may shrink from no toil, no discipline, no danger, no death or martyrdom, but rather seek them; so that, enrolled in the company of Angels, as a fellow citizen of the Saints and a member of God's household, you may live as an Angel among men and emulate on earth the heavenly life of the Angels; and moreover, may incite and impel others to share in such great goods; and may strive to teach, care for, and lead to eternal salvation and beatitude the souls, especially of the poor and unlearned, redeemed by the blood of Christ. For the poor have the Gospel preached to them, says Christ.
Finally, that you may always set before your own eyes and those of others the remembrance of the brevity of life, of the last things, and of eternity, and may live not for this brief and slight time, but for Eternity, and may say with Paul: "The momentary and light burden of our tribulation works for us beyond all measure an eternal weight of glory on high;" so that your life may be nothing other than continual love, continual praise of God; so that like the Seraphim you may perpetually, by a holy life and holy words, praise and celebrate God, and incite and impel all others to the worship, love, and praise of God. For this is the whole of man.
"Virtue, says St. Chrysostom, Homily 72 to the People, is to despise all human things and to think of future things at every hour, to gape after nothing of the present, but to know that all human things are shadow and dream. Virtue renders one as though dead to the affairs of this life; but to live and work for spiritual things alone, as Paul also said: I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me."
And by this serious reflection, as by a sharp goad, you should daily rouse and spur yourself — not to ordinary and common things, but to the arduous, rare, and heroic works of exalted virtues; and especially to a complete victory over yourself, your passions, and all things; to a total resignation of your soul to God and God's will; to a burning zeal for promoting the divine glory. And therefore in your actions you should always look not to the eyes of men, but to those of God who continually beholds you; you should seek and pursue not pomp, not outward show, not vain display of your deeds, not the applause of the fickle crowd, but the favor and honor of God and the Angels in every work of yours.
For we have been made a spectacle to God, to Angels, and to men. Therefore strive to please God alone in all things, and serve Him with a pure conscience in holiness and justice before Him, all the days of your life. He will bring it about that you please both Angels and men. For what? The form of this world passes away, and without Christ all that we live is vain. We daily see before our eyes the very vicissitude of all things, the very transience, death itself; as we watch now this one, now that one snatched from our side and dying. Indeed, we daily feel and touch with our hand the death dwelling in our very bowels. For what are the constant flows of phlegm and so many discharges of humors and filth, but the beginning of corruption, the commencement of death? — which continually cry out to us with a silent voice: Live for God, live for Eternity.
This is the reason that formerly drove wise and religious men, and still drives them, to the frequent, diligent, and constant reading and study of Sacred Scripture and the Prophets. For we see that in the clergy, in monasteries, in religious societies, in colleges — wherever it has flourished and flourishes — there likewise divine wisdom, this spirit, these dispositions have flourished and flourish. Where it has languished, heavenly wisdom and spirit have likewise languished, and men have vanished into their merely human studies and conceptions; indeed, crawling on the ground in worldly and various desires, ambitions, vexations, and complaints, they have spent and continue to spend an unquiet, troublesome, abject, and miserable life — indeed, an irreligious and dangerous one.
Wherefore St. Jerome wonderfully celebrates Pammachius, the son-in-law of St. Paula, because after the death of his wife, having professed as a monk, he distributed his wealth to the poor and converted his house into a church (which still exists and is the Church of Saints John and Paul, next to the house and church of St. Gregory; for there in the Tribune, St. Pammachius in monastic habit
depicted in a painting can be seen) — and Jerome writes that Pammachius devoted himself entirely to the study of Sacred Scripture and the Prophets, as is clear from his letter to Pammachius, which is number 97 in order. "Pammachius, says St. Jerome, embraced the entire knowledge of the Prophets, and fulfilled what is written: Ask your father and he will tell you; your elders, and they will say to you."
we see depicted with this inscription: 'Saint Pammachius, founder of this church,' and he consecrated himself entirely to God. Jerome exhorts him to the reading and study of the Prophets, so that by this means he might ascend to the summit of Christian perfection. 'For us,' he says, 'after the sleep and slumber of Paulina (she had been the daughter of Saint Paula, wife of Pammachius), the Church brought forth Pammachius as a posthumous monk, a patrician by the nobility of both father and spouse, rich in almsgiving, sublime in humility. In our times Rome possesses what the world previously did not know. Then rare were the wise, the powerful, the noble among Christians; now many monks are wise, powerful, noble -- among all of whom my Pammachius is the wiser, the more powerful, the more noble, great among the great, first among the first, commander-in-chief of monks, benefactor of the poor, and candidate of the needy -- thus he hastens to heaven.' And further on: 'May you daily drink the marrow of the Prophets, initiate of Christ, fellow-initiate of the patriarchs.' He immediately adds the fruit: 'Whether you read, whether you write, whether you keep vigil, whether you sleep, let love always sound as a trumpet in your ears; let this bugle rouse your soul; mad with this love, seek in your bed Him whom your soul desires, and speak with confidence: I sleep, and my heart keeps watch; and when you have found Him, and held Him, do not let Him go.'
The third office of the Prophets, and one proper to them, was to prophesy and predict the future, both for the Jews and for the Gentiles, especially for the Church and for Christians. For Christ is the end of the law and of the Prophets, and the law and the Prophets aim at Christ as at their target. Truly Theodoret says in On the Cure of Greek Afflictions: 'Just as other paths from villages and fields converge upon the royal road, so the Prophets (who are also ways to heaven and salvation) showed believers that this Christ is the Way.' For Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Manichaeus of old and Marcion attacked the law and the Prophets -- that is, the Old Testament -- as imperfect and contrary to the Gospel, and therefore handed down by a different and opposing God. For they dreamed, or rather blasphemed, that the good God was the author of the New Testament and an evil God the author of the Old, and therefore that the Prophets should be rejected and only the Apostles embraced. But Augustine refuted these men at length and precisely in the thirty-three books which he composed against Faustus, the leader of the Manichaeans, and in the two books which he learnedly wrote against the adversary of the law and the Prophets, in which he clearly demonstrates that the Old Testament agrees and coheres with the New in all things, as a shadow with a body; that the Old foreshadowed the New and won credence for it, and the New in turn explained and fulfilled the types and oracles of the Old, and thus confirmed and ratified its faith. 'For you see the Old Testament recounted in the New, and the New recounted in the Old,' says Saint Augustine on Psalm 105. Again, 'In the Old Testament is the concealment of the New, in the New Testament is the manifestation of the Old,'
says the same Augustine in the book On Catechizing the Uninstructed, chapter 4. Therefore prophecy is nothing other than the Gospel sealed; conversely, the Gospel is nothing other than prophecy unsealed and completed through Christ. The Prophets therefore predicted Christ's incarnation, birth, life, passion, death, cross, redemption, and His entire economy, and especially the reprobation of the Synagogue of the Jews and the succession of Christ's Church and the calling of the Gentiles -- some six hundred, some seven hundred, some eight hundred years beforehand. This prediction surely convinces the Jews and all nations that, if they are willing to open their eyes, they can see and ought to believe that Jesus is the Messiah promised by God through the Prophets so many centuries before. For the Jews themselves, our enemies, are invincible witnesses for us before the Gentiles that these oracles of the Prophets were not fabricated by Christians but were published by the Jews themselves before Christ, as Saint Augustine rightly argues in Tractate 35 on John. Again, it was not one Isaiah alone, or Hosea, who predicted this, but all of them together and individually, and with one harmonious voice, so that not even in a thread does one differ from another -- which is surely evident proof that one and the same Spirit of truth spoke through the mouths of each. This is what Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist, sings: 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because He has visited and wrought the redemption of His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us (namely Jesus Christ) in the house of David His servant: as He spoke through the mouth of His holy ones, who have been from of old, His Prophets.' Then turning to his son John as the crowning figure of the Prophets (for Saint John was the horizon of the New and Old Testaments, both the terminus of the Old and the beginning of the New), he adds: 'And you, child, shall be called the Prophet of the Most High: for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation,' Luke 1.
Again, God willed to show Christ to the world from afar through so many centuries, and to foreshadow Him through figures and oracles, so that people might conceive in their minds His greatness, dignity, usefulness, and necessity, and by yearning for Him and His salvation, might prepare themselves fittingly. 'We have,' says Saint Peter, 2nd Epistle, chapter 1, verse 19, 'something more sure than the very glory and majesty of Christ which we witnessed in His transfiguration -- namely the prophetic word, to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.' For, as Saint Augustine says in Sermon 26 On the Seasons: 'Rendering to Him (Christ) service and testimony like lamps of the coming day, all the Prophets, foretelling Him, came before Him by being born, and after Him clung to Him by believing. For it was fitting that He who was to come and work miracles should be foretold -- miracles by which, to those who understood rightly, a man would appear small among the small, yet humble among the proud, teaching man His own smallness, so that he might recognize himself as small.' The same Augustine on Psalm 142: 'He Himself (Christ) was proclaiming Himself in the Prophets, since He Himself is the Word of God; nor did they say any such thing unless they were full of the Word of God. Therefore they were announcing Christ, being full of Christ, and they were preceding Him who was to come, yet He who preceded them did not abandon them.'
'Marcion established,' says Tertullian, book 4 against him, chapter 6, 'that one Christ was revealed in the times of Tiberius by some unknown God for the salvation of all nations, while another was destined by God the Creator for the restoration of the Jewish state, to come at some future time. Between these two he draws a great and total distinction -- as great as between the just and the good, as great as between the law and the Gospel, as great as between Judaism and Christianity.'
Therefore all the Prophets, as types and figures, foreshadowed Christ, and by describing and representing Him in themselves and in their words and deeds as in an image, they set Him forth. And in turn Christ was at work in them, Christ was suffering in them, Christ was showing Himself through shadow to the ancient fathers to be seen and contemplated. 'For who else was carrying wood for his own sacrifice in Isaac, but He who was carrying the cross for His own passion? Who else was the ram to be sacrificed, caught in the thicket by his horns, but He who was to be fastened to the gibbet of the cross to be offered for us? Who else wrestled with Jacob in the form of an angel, etc., but He who allowed Himself to be overcome and blessed in them certain ones of the people Israel who believed? And the breadth of Jacob's thigh limped in the multitude of the carnal people,' says Saint Augustine, book 12 Against Faustus, chapter 26. And in chapter 31: 'Let him see,' he says, 'Jesus leading the people into the promised land. Let him see the cluster of grapes from the promised land hanging on a pole. Let him see in Jericho, as in this mortal world, a harlot sending through the window of her house, as through the mouth of her body, a scarlet thread -- which is assuredly the sign of blood, to confess unto salvation for the remission of sins.' And in chapter 32: 'Let him see the times, first of the Judges, then of the Kings, just as there will be first judgment, and then afterwards a kingdom; and in those very times of the Judges and Kings, Christ and the Church being prefigured in many and various ways. Who was it in Samson slaying the lion that came against him, when he was going to the foreigners to seek a wife, if not He who, about to call the Church from the Gentiles, said: Rejoice, I have overcome the world? What does the honeycomb found in the mouth of the slain lion signify, if not that behold, we see the very laws of the earthly kingdom, which previously had raged against Christ, now that their ferocity is destroyed, providing strongholds for the sweetness of evangelical preaching? Who is that woman full of faith, piercing the enemy's temples with a wooden stake, if not the faith of the Church destroying the kingdoms of the devil by the cross of Christ? What of the fleece soaked with dew on the dry threshing floor, and afterwards the threshing floor soaked while the fleece was dry -- if not that first one nation of the Hebrews held secretly in its holy places the mystery of God, which is Christ, of which mystery the whole world was empty? But now in its manifestation the whole world possesses it, while that nation has been emptied.'
And a little further on: 'Elijah is sent to be fed by a foreign widow, who wanted to gather two sticks before she died: here not only by the name of wood, but also by the number of the pieces of wood, the sign of the cross is expressed. Her flour and oil are blessed -- the fruit and gladness of charity, which when spent does not fail. For God loves a cheerful giver.' And in chapter 35: 'Boys insulting Elisha and shouting "Bald head, bald head" are eaten by beasts: with childish folly mocking Christ crucified on the place of Calvary, they are seized by demons and perish. Elisha sends his staff through his servant upon the dead man, and he does not revive; he comes himself, joins and fits himself to his death, and the man revives. The Word of God sent the law through His servant, and it did not profit the human race dead in sins; He came Himself, conformed Himself to us, made a partaker of our death, and we were made alive.' These and more things Saint Augustine says. Therefore 'the Prophets were the sowers, the Apostles the reapers,' says Chrysostom, Homily 34 on John 4 -- indeed Christ Himself, John 4:38. Clement of Alexandria testifies, in book 6 of the Stromata, that Saint Peter in his sermons professed that he had studied the prophecies, and from them had learned of Christ's birth, death, cross, resurrection, and ascension, and through these had believed in God and Christ; and therefore that he taught and preached nothing without Scripture. Hence again Saint Peter, 1st Epistle, chapter 1, verse 10, says that the Prophets searched and scrutinized concerning this salvation. And Saint John, Apocalypse 19:10: 'The testimony of Jesus,' he says, 'is the spirit of prophecy.' Therefore these testimonies of the Prophets concerning Christ were gathered by Saint Cyprian in his work To Quirinus, by Prosper in the book On Predictions and Promises, by Galatinus, Finus, and Joseph Acosta in the book On Christ Revealed, and from these they convict the Jews. Lactantius says excellently in book 4 of the Institutes: 'God is not believed by us to be Christ because He worked miracles, but because in Him we saw fulfilled all the things that were announced to us by the prophecy of the Prophets, etc. Let us therefore acknowledge the fruit of prophecy, and let us not neglect so great a part of the Christian profession.' And Saint Ignatius, in his epistle to the Philadelphians, writes that he would not believe the Gospel unless he saw it foretold in the ancient writings. Finally, concerning Christ, Saint Peter says, Acts 10:43: 'To Him all the Prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.'
IV. IT IS ASKED FOURTHLY: When, in what order, and about what subject did each of the Prophets prophesy?
Saint Augustine, in book 18 of the City of God, chapter 37, teaches that these Prophets are more ancient than Pythagoras (for he, Augustine says, flourished under Cyrus, who ended the Babylonian captivity of the Jews); and much more so than Socrates and Plato, and indeed than Thales (who flourished under Romulus), Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, and others who preceded Pythagoras. He says, however, that the Prophets were later than Orpheus, Linus, and Musaeus; but that Moses is prior and more ancient than all of these, and Abraham much more so. Thus far Saint Augustine.
The wisdom of the faithful, therefore, was prior to the wisdom of the Gentiles; indeed, the latter borrowed their wisdom from the former. This is what Tertullian throws in the face of the Gentiles in the Apologeticum, chapter 19: 'The other Prophets too, although they come after Moses, yet the very latest of them are not found to be later than the earliest of your wise men, your lawgivers, and your historians.'
So also Eusebius, in book 10 of the Preparation for the Gospel, at the end, and Lactantius, in book 4 of the Divine Institutes, chapter 5, teach that our Prophets were more ancient than the seven sages of Greece and all the philosophers, and indeed than the Olympiads themselves, and from this they demonstrate that wisdom was venerable and ancient among the Hebrews, while among the Greeks and Gentiles it was only just being born and was still an infant. 'In the times of Ahaz (or rather toward the end of Uzziah, who was the grandfather of Ahaz),' says Eusebius, 'the Olympiads began, and the first to be declared victor in the Olympic stadium was Coroebus of Argos. In the fiftieth Olympiad, under Cyrus, Thales flourished, the teacher of Anaximander, who taught Anaximenes, who taught Anaxagoras, who taught Pericles; and in the times of Anaxagoras, Xenophanes and Pythagoras lived.' Here Eusebius disagrees somewhat with Saint Augustine, for he places Thales under Cyrus, while Augustine places him under Romulus. For although Thales lived to a great age -- namely from the 35th Olympiad to the 58th, as Eusebius says in the Chronicle -- he still could not have spanned from Romulus to Cyrus, for nearly 200 years elapsed between the two, and no one at that time lived so many years.
Now the first of these Prophets was Hosea. For this is what is said in his chapter 1, verse 2: 'The beginning of the Lord's speaking through Hosea.' Hosea began to prophesy under Uzziah or Azariah, king of Judah -- namely at the beginning of Uzziah's reign. The last was Malachi, who prophesied after the return from Babylon and the restoration of the temple under Darius Hystaspis, king of Persia. From this it follows that all the Prophets lived and flourished within a span of three hundred years, for that many years elapsed from Uzziah to the times of Darius.
Now let us register each one in order, and set before the eyes a brief sketch -- a kind of thumbnail portrait -- of each one's subject matter. Or rather, let us not so much give a summary as sip a kind of honey-gathering from the encyclopedia of all these seers.
The time and order of each Prophet must be sought from the very beginning of his prophecy; for there they customarily indicate the kings under whom they prophesied. Thus the first, Hosea, says he prophesied under Uzziah; then under the same king followed Joel, Amos, and Isaiah, who continued to the times of Manasseh. Next, under Jotham the son of Uzziah, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah prophesied. Therefore Hosea, Isaiah, Amos, Joel, Obadiah, and Micah were contemporaries, says Saint Jerome on Hosea, chapter 1. Subsequently, under Hezekiah Nahum flourished, and under Manasseh Habakkuk. Then under Josiah came Zephaniah, and soon after Jeremiah, who prophesied shortly before the captivity and during the captivity itself, which occurred under Zedekiah. After him, during the captivity itself in the fifth year of the deportation of Jehoiachin, came Ezekiel; then after Jerusalem was destroyed by the Chaldeans, in the fifth year Baruch, and in the eighth year Daniel. Finally, after the return from captivity in the eighteenth year, Haggai, Zechariah, and lastly Malachi prophesied.
The first, then, in time and age was Hosea. Commanded to marry a harlot and beget children of fornication from her -- giving a great example of obedience -- by this marriage of his he convicted the idolatrous Jews of violating the religion and covenant entered into with God. And in the names of the three children born from her -- first, Jezreel, meaning 'seed of God'; second, Lo-Ruhamah, meaning 'without mercy'; third, Lo-Ammi, meaning 'not my people' -- he casts before the Jews, as in a daily image, the repudiation of the Jews and the Synagogue and the substitution of the Gentiles, so that in addressing these children, they would be addressing themselves by their own name. The Apostle treats this argument of predestination and reprobation from Hosea profoundly in his Epistle to the Romans, especially chapters 9, 10, and 11 -- an epistle that cannot be understood without this book of Hosea.
The second, Joel, says Saint Jerome in the Helmeted Prologue, describes the land of the twelve tribes consumed by the caterpillar; what the caterpillar left, the locust devoured; what the locust left, the canker-worm consumed; what the canker-worm left, the blight devastated. And after the overthrow of the former people, the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon the servants and handmaids of God, that is, upon the one hundred and twenty believers by name in the upper room of Zion at Pentecost. The same prophet depicts the day of the Last Judgment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat so graphically that no one could conceive it more dreadfully in the mind, or set it before the people's eyes in words more vividly.
The third, 'Amos, a shepherd and rustic (continues Saint Jerome), who gathers mulberries from brambles, but who was made a Prophet by the Holy Spirit, cannot be explained in a few words. For who could worthily expound the three and four crimes of Damascus, of Gaza, of Tyre, of Idumea, of the sons of Ammon and Moab, and in the seventh and eighth degree, of Judah and Israel?' He speaks to the fat cows that are on the mountain of Samaria, and testifies that the greater and lesser house will fall. He himself sees the maker of locusts, and the Lord standing upon a plastered or adamantine wall, and a hook of fruit, drawing punishments upon sinners, and a famine in the land -- not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of God.'
The fourth, Isaiah, the Homer of the sacred seers and that heavenly Talthybius, proclaiming with urban and elegant heralding, illuminated by figures, the sacrament of approaching wisdom and truth, seasoned, so to speak, with sacred wit and divine salt, and delightful -- who could ever be sufficiently explained through an entire lifetime? Nor is it necessary to call in a supplementary rhapsodist. Thomas Hasselbach did this, Professor of Sacred Theology at Vienna in the year 1410, who, though for twenty-one years he had not yet completed the first chapter of Isaiah, finally left twenty-four books on that same chapter, says Sixtus of Siena in book 4 of the Bibliotheca, letter T. If you consider the doctrine and prophecies of Isaiah, he seems to be weaving not so much a prophecy, says Saint Jerome, as a Gospel: on the Virgin's birth, on Emmanuel, on the child who was born to us as a little one -- how devoutly he delights in this! The calling of the Gentiles, the rise of the Church, its dawn, its noon, its victory -- how he sounds these with melodious pipes! How he rejoices here! How he exults in spirit! I seem to see here the choir of the Church, and the dancing of the Saints, with Isaiah as choirmaster. Finally, by His admirable providence, as an eternal testimony of truth and of Christ, God willed that whatever the Gospels contain should be predicted by Isaiah -- and often word for word -- eight hundred years before Christ, for the Jews and all the Gentiles. Leo Castro collected the harmony of the individual chapters of the Gospels that correspond to Isaiah, so that all the Gospels appear to have been drawn from Isaiah. And this is a new and hitherto unheard-of method of speaking and preaching, which those who wish to enter upon and attempt will be a source of wonder -- namely, that while they treat the Gospel, they show that the very same thing was predicted and treated by Isaiah in the passages annotated by Castro. If you consider the charm and elegance of his diction, if you consider the power of his preaching, what sinews, what weight! From one passage learn them all; thus he begins:
'Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and raised up children, but they have despised Me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's manger; but Israel has not known Me, and My people has not understood. Woe to the sinful nation, the people heavy with iniquity, a wicked seed, criminal children; they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are estranged backwards. On what part shall I strike you further, who continue to add transgression? Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom, you people of Gomorrah,' and what follows. As many words as there are here, so many thunderbolts, so many lightning-flashes pierce the mouth and soul.
And in chapter 14, with what fierce ardor he taunts not a proud angel, but the Babylonian king! 'How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who rose in the morning? You have fallen to the earth, you who wounded the nations? Who said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the mount of the covenant, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. But you shall be dragged down to hell, into the depths of the pit. Hell beneath is stirred up to meet your coming; it has roused the giants for you. All the princes of the earth have risen from their thrones, all the princes of the nations. They shall all answer and say to you: You too have been wounded as we have; your pride has been dragged down to hell, your corpse has fallen; beneath you the moth shall be spread, and worms shall be your covering.'
On the other hand, how he consoles the poor, the meek, the penitent, the humble! Chapter 40: 'Be comforted, be comforted, He says, My people. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem. Ascend a lofty mountain, you who evangelize Zion; raise your voice with strength, raise it, do not be afraid. Say to the cities of Judah: Behold your God will come, and His arm shall rule; behold His reward is with Him. As a shepherd He will feed His flock; in His arm He will gather the lambs, and in His bosom He will lift them up; He Himself will carry those that are with young.' Chapter 61: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, etc., that I might heal the brokenhearted, and preach freedom to the captives, a year of favor to the Lord, that I might comfort all who mourn, and give them a crown instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of grief.' Chapter 58:12: 'The desolations of ages past shall be built up in you; you shall raise up the foundations of generation upon generation; then you shall delight in the Lord, and I will raise you above the heights of the earth, and I will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob.' Chapter 60:15: 'I will make you the pride of ages, a joy from generation to generation.'
The fifth, Obadiah, meaning 'servant of God': 'He thunders,' says Saint Jerome, 'against Edom, the bloody and earthly man; he also strikes with a spiritual lance the perpetual rival of his brother Jacob.' Small himself, how sweetly he crushes pride, so that you may rightly say of him: 'The bee is small among flying things, yet the first of sweet things is its fruit' -- of sweetness, but also of stings.
The sixth, Jonah, 'that most beautiful dove, prefiguring the Lord's passion by his shipwreck,' swallowed by a whale, and drawn forth from the whale's belly on the third day, foreshadowing Christ rising from the tomb, calls the world to repentance, and under the name of Nineveh announces salvation to the nations.
The seventh, Micah of Moresheth, co-heir of Christ, announces devastation to the daughter of the robber, and lays siege against her, because she had struck the cheek of the Judge of Israel.' The same prophet congratulates Bethlehem on the Son of Christ: 'And you, Bethlehem Ephrata, you are small among the thousands of Judah; from you shall come forth for Me He who is to be ruler in Israel, and His going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.'
The eighth, Nahum, consoler of the world, rebukes the city of blood, and after its overthrow speaks: 'Behold upon the mountains the feet of him who brings good tidings and announces peace.'
The ninth, Habakkuk, a strong and steadfast wrestler, stands upon his watchtower to contemplate Christ on the cross and say: 'His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise. His splendor shall be as the light; horns are in His hands: there His strength is hidden; before His face shall go death.'
The tenth, Zephaniah, 'a watchman and knower of God's secrets,' with a great cry and howling roars forth the devastation of the city of Jerusalem, and of the whole world at the end of time: 'Because all the people of Canaan have been silenced, all who were wrapped in silver have perished.'
The eleventh, Jeremiah, a priest, initiated and consecrated as a Prophet by the Holy Spirit in his mother's womb, like a second Idaeus of Troy, foretelling to his fellow citizens the captivity of Jerusalem with prophetic proclamation and mournful cry, sees a watching rod and a boiling pot from the face of the north, and concludes with ruin and desolation. Isaiah, then, exults in mind and style; Jeremiah laments; Ezekiel threatens; Daniel is carried away by visions. Thus each Prophet has his own genius, his own spirit and style inspired by God, who distributes and divides His gifts to each as He wills. And what wonder? Thus each philosopher, orator, and teacher has, has always had, and will always have his own genius and spirit. Hear Sidonius Apollinaris, book 4, epistle 3, skillfully assigning to each his own: 'No one,' he says, 'affirms like Claudian; thinks like Pythagoras; distinguishes like Socrates; explains like Plato; entangles like Aristotle; flatters like Aeschines; rages like Demosthenes; blooms like Hortensius; delays like Fabius; feigns like Crassus; dissembles like Caesar; persuades like Cato; dissuades like Appius; convinces like Tully. Now if we come to the most sacred Fathers for comparison, no one instructs like Jerome; destroys like Lactantius; builds up like Augustine; is uplifted like Hilary; humbles himself like John; corrects like Basil; consoles like Gregory; flows forth like Orosius; compresses like Rufinus; narrates like Eusebius; provokes like Paulinus; perseveres like Ambrose.' The same author, in epistle 1 to Probus, assigning to each his own style in his genre: 'If,' he says, 'the heroic poet composed something lofty, the comic something witty, the lyric something songful, the orator something mature, the historian something true, the satirist something figurative, the grammarian something regular, the panegyrist something applause-worthy, the sophist something serious, the epigrammatist something playful, the commentator something lucid, the jurist something obscure -- in manifold ways they composed, but who does not know that you transmitted all of this in every way?'
He speaks to the voice and word, and weaves a fourfold alphabet in different meters: everywhere the dirge-singer groans over impending destruction. He represents Christ both by his voice and his life, harassed by prison and a thousand insults from the Jews because he proclaimed that Jerusalem was to be destroyed: 'Let us put wood in his bread,' he says, 'and let us cut him off from the land of the living. And I was like a gentle lamb that is carried to the slaughter, and I did not know.' At other times he exhorts, threatens, prays, curses:
And the Thracian priest in his long robe Speaks forth in numbers the seven distinctions of tones.
The true herald of God turns himself in every direction, to drive the people to repentance and a better life: 'And the Lord said to me,' he says, 'chapter 14, verse 11: Do not pray for this people. And I said: Ah, ah, ah, Lord God!' Then: 'Let my eyes shed tears by night and by day, and let them not be silent, for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a most grievous wound.' And chapter 22, verse 29: 'O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord!' And chapter 15, verse 2: 'Those for death, to death; those for the sword, to the sword; those for famine, to famine; those for captivity, to captivity.'
The twelfth, Baruch, from the pen and records of Jeremiah, warns the captives departing for Babylon not to follow the idols and vices of those nations. He teaches that true wisdom must be sought not from philosophers, not from the earth, but from heaven: 'Learn, he says in chapter 3, verse 14, O Israel, where prudence is, where strength is, where understanding is -- so that you may know at the same time where length of life and sustenance is, where the light of the eyes is, and peace. Where are the princes of the nations, who played among the birds of heaven, who treasured up silver and gold? They have descended to the underworld; they ignored the way of discipline; it has not been heard of in Canaan, nor in any land. This is our God, for whom the stars shone with gladness, and when called they said: We are here. He found out every way of discipline, and gave it to Jacob His servant. After this He was seen upon earth, and dwelt among men.'
The thirteenth, Ezekiel, at the beginning sees God riding upon the chariot of the Cherubim; at the end, the architecture of the temple. Therefore its beginning and end, says Saint Jerome, are wrapped in such great obscurities that among the Hebrews these parts, along with the opening of Genesis, are read by no one before the thirtieth year of age. In the rest he is similar to Jeremiah and Isaiah. Saint John in the Apocalypse imitates and follows Ezekiel in many things.
The fourteenth, Daniel, aware of the times, universal historian of the whole world, clearly foretells the succession of monarchies in order, their rise and fall, and finally the kingdom of Christ -- like a stone cut from the mountain without hands, overturning all kingdoms. Then running through the times of the Maccabees and the kings of Syria, and especially the most impious Antiochus, he concludes with his deeds as the antitype of the Antichrist's tyranny.
The fifteenth, Haggai, festive and joyful, builds the destroyed temple, to be made glorious by the teaching of Christ: 'Yet a little while,' he says, chapter 2, verse 7, 'and I will move the heaven and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will move all nations, and the Desired of all nations shall come.'
The sixteenth, Zechariah, mindful of his Lord, manifold in prophecy, sees wickedness shut up in a vessel with its mouth closed, being carried by two winged women to the land of Shinar; Jesus clothed in filthy garments, and the stone of seven eyes; and a golden candlestick with as many lamps as he sees eyes. After horses black, red, white, and piebald, and the scattered chariots of Ephraim, he prophesies a poor king, sitting upon a colt, the foal of a donkey under the yoke, offering us the grain of the elect and the wine that makes virgins flourish.
The seventeenth, and last, Malachi, celebrates the dignity of the priests and the sacrifice of the Eucharist: 'In every place,' he says, chapter 1, verse 11, 'sacrifice is offered, and a clean offering is presented to My name.' He sees Elijah the Tishbite, forerunner of Christ the Judge, returning from paradise.
V. IT IS ASKED FIFTHLY: Concerning the obscurity of the Prophets, and the manner and method of overcoming it.
It is certainly clear that they are obscure and difficult, both because they prophesy about hidden and concealed matters, especially future ones, and because they signify future things through symbols that are often hieroglyphic. Hence they also have their own peculiar phraseology, often symbolic, parabolic, and enigmatic; indeed, you will find among them many enigmas that are both beautiful and profound. To address these difficulties, I shall set forth some Canons that will, as it were, carry a torch and give light in the darkness.
Truly Saint Jerome says on Nahum chapter 3, near the middle: 'And let us acknowledge,' he says, 'that holy Scripture was woven together with these difficulties, and especially the Prophets who are full of enigmas, so that the difficulty of the language might also envelop the difficulty of the meanings -- lest what is holy be easily laid open to dogs, and pearls to swine, and the Holy of Holies to the profane.'
Saint Augustine narrates of himself in book 9 of the Confessions, chapter 5, that when, freshly converted, he had abandoned his profession of rhetoric and turned his whole mind to sacred studies, he consulted Saint Ambrose as to what it would be most profitable for him to read. Ambrose recommended Isaiah. 'Nevertheless,' he says, 'I did not understand this first reading of it, and judging the whole to be of the same character, I put off returning to it until I should be more practiced in the Lord's discourse.' So says Saint Augustine -- Augustine, I say, that keen intellect, who confesses that by reading Porphyry on his own and Aristotle's Categories, and many such things, he understood them by his own natural ability; a man cultivated in all human literature and philosophy. What then are we small children compared to that Atlas, if the teacher is lacking, if the one to bear the light is absent? 'For divination is on the lips of the teacher; in doctrine his mouth shall not err.'
So too Saint Thomas, when he had come upon a certain difficult passage of Isaiah and could not work it out, according to his custom combined fasting with prayers for several days. At last Saints Peter and Paul were sent to him and explained the passage, so that, having immediately summoned his secretary Reginald, he dictated the commentary on the passage easily, as if reading from a book. The same Augustine, in epistle 2 to Volusian, acknowledges such a height of wisdom here that for the most aged, the most acute, and those most burning with desire to learn, what that same Scripture says in a certain place comes true: 'When a man has finished, then he begins.'
Gregory the Great, both Pontiff and Doctor, commenting on Ezekiel, recognizes so many and such hidden mysteries in these books that he asserts certain things have not yet been disclosed to mortals and are open only to heavenly spirits. Indeed, I think scarcely any mortal plainly understands the last chapters of Ezekiel -- let whoever wishes try. I believe that when he has strained all his powers, he will carry away nothing but mental exhaustion. Of myself I can say what Ezekiel says of himself in chapter 47, and learned interpreters after him: 'I could not cross the torrent, because the waters of the deep torrent had swollen, which cannot be forded.'
But leaving aside this appendix, which is perhaps of rare use, come, take up any chapter of Isaiah or of the Minor Prophets, open any book; if you do not find clouds, a labyrinth, an Iliad of doubts, or an Odyssey of darkness, and if you have conceived this in your mind, I shall do whatever you wish.
Therefore Saint Clement, in book 1 of the Apostolic Constitutions, chapters 4, 5, and 6, decrees from the doctrine of the Apostles: 'Meditate on the holy Scriptures with constant remembrance. For it is written: In His law you shall meditate day and night, walking in the field and sitting at home, lying down and rising up, so that you may be understanding in all things.' And then: 'Read the law, the books of Kings, the Prophets; sing the psalms of David; study diligently the Gospel, in which these things are consummated.' He adds: 'Abstain from all books of the Gentiles. For what do you lack in the law of God, that you should want to turn your mind to those writings of the Gentiles? If you wish to read histories, you have the books of Kings; if sophistic writings -- that is, those that cleverly pertain to wisdom -- and poetry, you have the Prophets, Job, Proverbs, in which you will find more keenness than in all the poetry and wisdom of the sophists, because He who alone is wise uttered these things.' And in book 2, chapter 5, he decrees concerning the Bishop: 'Let him meditate on the books of the Lord and study them. Let him be much engaged in reading, so that he may accurately interpret the Scriptures: the Gospel, so that it may harmonize with the Prophets and the law; the law and the Prophets, so that they may harmonize with the Gospel. For the Lord says: Search the Scriptures.'
But what increases the difficulty not a little is that commentators on these books do not exist in the same abundance as for the Gospels and similar works. Many, I confess, have written on some of them -- Origen, Apollinaris, Didymus, Pierius, Eusebius -- but these have been lost; Saint Jerome, however, made use of them. After these came Saint Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret, Gregory, Basil; but of these, some give practically only the mystical sense, while others put forth now the mystical, now the literal sense without distinction, so that you cannot tell which exposition is literal and which is mystical. Saint Thomas also wrote, about whom I shall say what I think when we come to Isaiah. Then Lyra, Hugo, Dionysius. Among more recent authors: Leo Castro, Adam Sasbout, Guevara, Arias Montanus, Vatablus, Andreas, Capella, Francisco Ribera on the Minor Prophets, Benedict, Pererius, Jerome Prado and Juan Bautista Villalpando, who labored strenuously for sixteen years at the expense of the King of Spain in elucidating Ezekiel and recently published three enormous volumes in Rome. Among heretics, Calvin, Oecolampadius, Musculus, and others. But of these recent writers, each comments on only one or another Prophet; yet someone who would treat briefly and methodically, from the Fathers and from Greek and Hebrew sources, only the literal sense of our Latin version -- I have seen no one so far. Our Emmanuel Sa is brief, but he serves mainly the more learned, those who can conjecture the whole meaning from a single word, as it were from a claw. Sometimes he does touch upon the light, but at other times he often abandons the beginner in rough terrain, and generally renders the sense of words with a word, without pursuing the difficulty of the subject matter or of incidental questions. Let whoever wishes consult him on one or another chapter of the Minor Prophets, especially where a difficulty lurks; and immediately
he will see himself stuck fast. One guiding light here holds up a torch for us. With the good leave of Jerome I will say: 'Jerome is a friend, but truth is a greater friend.' For truth itself was always, and now especially is, dearer to Saint Jerome himself than his own self and his own interpretation.
Saint Jerome, that phoenix of his age, a man most skilled in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and by the judgment of the Church the greatest doctor in expounding the sacred Scriptures -- for he grew old in these studies to his final gray hairs, and as Saint Augustine testifies, he read all the ancient Greek and Latin commentators. Indeed, unless he had been the first to break the ice here, the way of the Prophets would have been impassable for all who came after. But by God's beneficent providence, in this entire work the labor and learning of Jerome stands firm, so that this doctoral laurel and gem of his writings shines above all the rest. I speak of the most outstanding of all his works, in which he surpassed himself.
But lest anyone err in this matter, let him take note of one or two things. Saint Jerome customarily first briefly touches upon the literal sense, as he received it from the Hebrews; if he thinks anything in it is false, he promptly rejects it; but what he does not reject, he approves. He occasionally calls this literal sense 'the Jewish sense,' because the Jews insist on it alone. Then he passes to allegory and tropology, and ranges more widely, as do the other Fathers also, who often omit the literal sense because allegory or tropology seems to them more elegant and more devout, and because they seek Christ in all things -- who, as I showed above, is the fruit and goal of the law and the Prophets.
The second point is this: Saint Jerome customarily only reports the opinions of others. Hence in the introductions to each of the Prophets, he lists Origen, Apollinaris, Didymus, and others whom he intends to follow. From this it follows that he sometimes also reports their errors without rejecting them, acting as a reporter rather than a judge, leaving the judgment to the reader. This is how he defends himself against Rufinus, who objected to him the errors of Origen, Apollinaris, and others. Let the attentive reader therefore see whom Jerome pledges in each introduction that he will follow; and if he then puts forward anything false, let the reader attribute it to those authors, not to Saint Jerome.
I therefore, although I have consulted very many, shall chiefly follow one author -- Saint Jerome, who, as I said, wore out his age and long life on Sacred Scripture, and devoted his last efforts to the Prophets, and died while working on them; hence, overtaken by death, he left his commentary on Jeremiah unfinished. Here therefore we shall hear his swan song. Of him we read that, although he was tried by various illnesses and pains, he was accustomed to overcome bodily ailments by devout labors and by perpetual reading or writing. The same cause and the same state of health is mine in common with him; and therefore I shall use the same remedy as he to ease and overcome it. To him, as to an oracle, questions of Sacred Scripture to be resolved were referred from all parts of the world. Pope Damasus often consulted him on such matters, as did Saint Augustine and other pastors and doctors of the Church. I too constantly consult him and shall continue to do so, yet in such a way that if anyone should bring forward something better, or God should suggest it, or reason
For twenty-three and more years I publicly expounded the Prophets in Belgium at Louvain; now for the fourth time in Rome I have taught and treated the same, and have applied the final hand and polish. True is that saying of Afranius about wisdom: 'Experience begot me, memory was my mother.' And of Pliny, book 26: 'Experience is the most effective teacher of all things.' And indeed this doctoral laurel and gem of writings brings with it age and experience, and as Ovid says in Metamorphoses 6, 'skill comes from long years.' Hence that saying of Solon: 'Ever learning, I hasten toward old age.' Many things gathered gradually over time from interpreters and other authors I have discussed and arranged more carefully; many things I have added from myself, or rather at the suggestion of the Author of lights and eternal Wisdom itself. Yet where I saw others grasping a path and a true interpretation that satisfied the mind, I preferred to follow those who went before rather than to enter upon a new, uncertain, and suspect path from my own understanding (for everyone is excessively pleased with their own inventions and the offspring of their mind, just as mothers with their children, whom, though deformed, they think most beautiful). For truth is the same everywhere, and the true interpretation of holy Scripture ought to be the same among all. Therefore Vincent of Lerins wisely warns in his golden little book against the profane novelties of heresies: 'Say things in a new way, not new things.' For truth, since it is public and of common right, like the sun, is venerable and ancient, the same in all ages and among all learned people. Wherefore an immense testimony of truth, of true faith, exposition, and doctrine, is the consensus of doctors and interpreters -- a harmony discordant in words and method, yet consonant and concordant in substance and meaning. And such a harmony produces in the Church a remarkable and wonderfully pleasing concord, like the four-voiced harmony of the Evangelists, who, different yet equal with four voices, and equally different, saying the same thing but in another manner and, as it were, key, produce one and the same divine melody and concert of the Gospel.
My method is this: that I read whatever more distinguished interpreters I can obtain, extract the marrow from them, and condense their statements into a few words. Therefore what others say at length, and others even confusedly or obscurely, I endeavor to say briefly, methodically, and clearly, so that whoever reads these pages may seem to himself to have read everyone, and yet no one. For besides my own method, the reader will find many things in both the literal and the moral sense that are my own, to be found in no one else. For this reason, for the sake of brevity, I abstain from prolix discourses, and much more from those composed for show and pomp, or that are tortuous, and drawn out and led around through various twists and turns of speech in the manner of rhetoricians. Instead I immediately touch the very point of the matter, as with a needle; for to the wise, few words suffice. Moreover, I spare words as much as I can, so that what I can say in one word I do not say in two, knowing that an account must be rendered to God for every superfluous and idle word. And I have followed Saint Augustine, book 1 of the Retractations, in the prologue, who, citing this saying of Christ about the idle word and another of the Wise Man, says: 'That also which is written: In much speaking you shall not escape sin, frightens me exceedingly, because from so many disputations of mine, without doubt many things can be gathered which, if not false, at least may seem, or even be shown to be, unnecessary.' Whence he adds that for this reason he wrote the books of Retractations, saying: 'It remains therefore that I judge myself under one Master, whose judgment on my offenses I desire to escape.' And earlier: 'For a long time I have been thinking of doing what I now undertake -- to review my little works with judicial severity, and to mark with a censorial pen whatever offends me; so that he who could not have first place in wisdom might have second place in modesty; so that he who was not able to say everything without regret might at least repent of what he recognizes ought not to have been said.'
To this it may be added that various other authors have written at length on various parts of Scripture, whom those who delight in prolixity may consult. For my aim is to treat briefly the better or entire Sacred Scripture, if God grants it, and to assign its literal and genuine sense in a few words, lest, if I am too prolix, the volumes grow so much both in number and in bulk that scarcely anyone could read through them all. Indeed, my purpose is to study brevity for this reason: so that those eager for Sacred Scripture may be able to read through my commentaries from beginning to end, and penetrate and understand the whole of Sacred Scripture. For I know that the time of our life is short, and that it is occupied and constrained by many other studies and duties, so that few have either the leisure or the inclination to read through lengthy commentaries on Sacred Scripture. Therefore I have resolved to meet their desire and zeal, as well as their occupations, with this brevity, and to satisfy them as far as possible -- likewise those who, endowed with quick and keen intelligence, especially the Italians, do not tolerate delays and circumlocutions, but wish the matter to be presented to them in the blink of a word and an eye. Otherwise, for me as for others generally, it would be easier to explain and amplify my ideas through many words than to compress them -- distilling, as it were, and rejecting what is less necessary -- into a few, and, as they say, to give the pure sifted flour with the bran rejected. For here it is easy to inflate, stretch out, and amplify with the added water of speech, by anyone who lacks neither brains nor eloquence. In short, everyone prefers a tree laden with fruit to one covered with leaves and flowers; and likewise they prefer a commentary dense with substance and meaning to one luxuriating in the foliage and flowers of words.
But indeed, just as other interpreters are not an obstacle or hindrance to me, but rather an advantage and help, so I would wish that this brevity of mine be no impediment to anyone; rather, if anyone has or is preparing more extensive commentaries on the Prophets, let him bring them to light and publish them for the public benefit of the Church. For I feel and say from my heart that word of Moses to Joshua, who wished to forbid Eldad and Medad from prophesying: 'Why are you jealous for me? Who would grant that all the people might prophesy, and that the Lord might give them His Spirit?' Numbers 11:29. For what else do we all seek and pursue except to illuminate the glory of God and to benefit the Church, not only through ourselves but also through anyone else? For charity does not seek its own, but the things of God, the things of the Church -- of which the Psalmist sings: 'The queen stood at Your right hand in gilded vesture, surrounded by variety.' That is, the Church adorned with a robe made colorful by the variety and diversity of so many states, orders, degrees, Sacraments, Saints, virtues, and graces (this is her beauty, this her splendor and loveliness) -- and why not also of doctors and writers? For the Prophets deserve not one, but a hundred commentators and commentaries. Indeed, give as many as you like, you will never give enough to exhaust their meanings and their depths; they will leave much for posterity to discover, comment upon, and write. Deep is this sea; deep are the utterances of the Holy Spirit, which cannot be exhausted.
Now in this commentary, as I have done elsewhere, so here I cling as exactly as possible to the literal sense, searching it out and tracking it down from the Fathers, from the Hebrew source, from the Septuagint and other translators, from what precedes and follows, from the usage of Sacred Scripture, and from the mutual comparison of its various passages with one another. For in order to genuinely grasp the meaning of a phrase and a word, the best way and method is to compare passages of Sacred Scripture in which those same or similar words or phrases recur. On matters that are easy, I do not linger but pass over them lightly. I follow Saint Augustine, book 18 of the City of God, chapter 28, where, having cited a clear and plain statement of Hosea, he adds: 'If one were to explain even this further, the savor of prophetic eloquence would be blunted.' And Saint Jerome in the introduction to book 3 of the Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, who says: 'It is my duty to discuss what is obscure, to touch briefly on what is clear, and to dwell on what is doubtful.'
The Prophets themselves have copious and moving moral passages, so that if you understand them literally, and set them before others and press them, you will scarcely need other sources. Nevertheless, I shall from time to time intersperse moral reflections -- brief but vigorous ones, drawn from the sayings of the Fathers or the ancients, from examples, histories, and apothegms, as I did in the Pentateuch -- so that readers may piously and fruitfully nourish their souls with these, and preachers may use them to feed and edify the people. In this matter two warnings are in order. The first is that in the works of Saint Gregory, the epistles of Saint Cyprian and Saint Ambrose, and certain other Fathers, I found in Rome, in the Vatican or a similar edition, a different division of epistles and chapters from what I had seen at Louvain. Therefore let neither Italians nor those from beyond the Alps think an error in citation has been committed, if in their own codex, published elsewhere and differently divided, they do not find the passage I have cited. Again, let them not be surprised that I cite passages of the Fathers differently according to different editions. For I composed part of this work at Louvain and part at Rome, where I had to use different editions. Although I do not deny that errors in numbers are very easy to make, whether by the copyist, the printer, or the author himself. For since the numerals are varied and minute, and occur very frequently, and must pass through so many eyes and hands, how easy it is for someone intent on other things to slip up in one or another! This must be pardoned to human weakness. So Saint Jerome excuses himself in Epistle 28 to Lucinius: 'If,' he says, 'you find errors of this kind, or some things less accurately transcribed that impede the reader's understanding, you should not blame me, but your own people and the incompetence of the scribes and the carelessness of the copyists, who write not what they find but what they understand; and while they try to correct the errors of others, they display their own.'
Secondly, let the reader not measure this commentary by the inspection of one or another passage, but let him survey and consider the whole and complete work (such as only the finished product which Apelles rightly wished to be judged), and let him see how the last things correspond to the first, the middle to both the first and the last, how Daniel and Ezekiel agree with Isaiah and Jeremiah. For thus he will be able to judge whether this chariot team advances at an equal, even, and harmonious pace. This is the form of our work, that it will please more upon inspection than at first glance: 'For what pleases quickly does not please long.' Plato, cited by Stobaeus in the Ethical Eclogues, 'used to compare most writings to the gardens of Adonis, which, sprung up suddenly in one day, perish most swiftly.' I hope this will not happen to our work, which, having been elaborated and sown over many years, will gain more strength from time, and 'will grow like a tree through the hidden ages,' so that in future centuries it may produce more robust, better, and more mature fruits in the minds of readers. 'The illustrious deeds of genius, like the soul, are immortal,' says Sallust in the Jugurtha. For this reason I have imitated silkworms, who first eat day and night, and by eating grow large and fat; then they begin to spin silk and form their cocoon, drawing out from the same mouth and belly by continuous spinning and weaving as much as they had eaten. Namely, what I have gathered over many years by reading, meditating, and teaching, and stored up in my mind, here I unfold and bring forth and share with others. I have also followed that saying of Saint Bernard, Sermon 18 on the Song of Songs: 'If you are wise, you will show yourself a basin, not a channel. Fill up first, and then take care to pour forth. The fountain of life Himself first filled up the interior, and thus overflowing, in His many mercies He visited the earth and made it drunk.'
Now I find here a twofold class of interpreters opposed to one another. One is the Judaizing school -- namely those who take everything that the Prophets say about Judah, Jerusalem, Zion, Babylon, the Chaldeans, Moab, Edom, and the like, plainly and crudely as it sounds, of earthly and temporal things. The other is the allegorical school -- those who on the contrary take all these things as referring to the Church, to Christ, to the calling of the Gentiles, to the new law, and to spiritual goods. There is therefore a third group who more safely walk the middle way between these, joining now with the one side, now with the other. Authors of the first kind are the Rabbis, champions of Judaism and enemies of Christ and Christianity, whom Hugo, Lyra, the commentary attributed to Saint Thomas, and certain other orthodox writers too incautiously follow. For these twist the clearest prophecies about Christ and the Church to apply to Cyrus and the synagogue of the Jews.
As an example, what Isaiah writes and prophesies in chapter 8 about the prophetess conceiving and bearing a son whose name is 'Make haste to plunder, hasten the spoil,' he says of the Blessed Virgin bearing Christ; but they refer it to the wife of either Isaiah or Ahaz king of Judah, and to his son. Some others have gone so far as to claim that the passage of chapter 7 -- 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, etc.' -- was likewise spoken literally of Isaiah's wife, when the whole Church and Saint Matthew, chapter 1, verse 23, expressly teach that this is to be understood of none other than the Virgin Mother of God. That passage of Isaiah chapter 60, verse 1: 'Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, etc. And the Gentiles shall walk in your light, and kings in the splendor of your rising. Lift up your eyes round about and see: all these are gathered together, they come to you, etc.' -- they interpret literally of the earthly Jerusalem flourishing again, and only allegorically of the Christian Church. That passage of Zechariah chapter 9, verse 11: 'You also, by the blood of your covenant, have sent forth your prisoners from the pit in which there is no water' -- they expound literally of the Jews' liberation from Babylon, and only allegorically of the redemption of the fathers from Limbo through Christ's descent. And many similar cases will occur throughout the course of the work.
Not a few interpreters and doctors are indignant at this, and sharply censure them, and not without reason. For what else is this than to depress, cast down, and weaken the illustrious and sublime prophecies? Than to shatter -- if not destroy, certainly to blunt and weaken, or even to twist -- the clear oracles about Christ and Christianity? Than to foster the blindness of the Jews and supply them with weapons to attack Christians? For even granting that they themselves admit that allegorically at least these prophecies pertain to Christ and the Church, nevertheless they snatch away from Christians the letter and the literal sense, which is the basis and foundation of Sacred Scripture. And once that is snatched away, how easily will the Jews evade the allegorical sense? For they will flatly deny that this is the sense of Sacred Scripture, and will say that it is an invention of the human brain and a fabrication of Christians.
Those who are at the other extreme wish to take what is said everywhere historically and literally about Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Hezekiah, Zedekiah, etc., as referring to the devil, to Christ, and to the Apostles. Thus Leo Castro twists the whole of Isaiah toward Christ, in order to wrest the entire book from the Jews. These too, although
they are excessively dangerous, they nevertheless indulge their own inclination beyond reason, and therefore stray from the truth and the true sense.
The middle way, therefore, must be taken here by sincere interpreters, so that from the circumstances they may skillfully investigate what applies historically to the Synagogue, what to the Church; what to Cyrus, what to Christ; what to the Jews, what to Christians. Because this is complex and difficult to trace, I shall for this reason give some canons for explaining and tracing it out, and shall assign the reason.
I conclude: what Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas, and the other doctors of Sacred Scripture and the Church openly confess -- that heavenly light is needed here -- is certain. 'For no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private interpretation,' says Saint Peter, 2nd Epistle 1:20, so that God Himself may illumine for us His own words, so obscure and involved, so that He Himself may irradiate our understanding, direct our judgment, and strengthen our memory. And so let us invoke our Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, that they may share with us their prophetic light, make us prophets, teachers, heralds, sowers of eternity -- so that, as with Isaiah, some Seraph may fly to us, and with a burning coal touch, purge, and open the mouth that is about to prophesy. With Jeremiah let us cry out: 'Ah, ah, ah, Lord God, behold I do not know how to speak, for I am a child.' With Ezekiel let us fall prostrate to the ground before the face of the Cherubim, and beg to be raised up by the Spirit and to have our mouth opened. With Daniel let us keep the word of God in our heart, and be amazed at the vision because there is no interpreter, and humbly beg the angel for the interpretation.
Indeed I would be ungrateful and unjust to God if I were to attribute these twenty years of my midnight studies, however small they may be, to my own talent, effort, or labor -- to which, however, by God's grace I have never been wanting -- rather than to divine beneficence and generosity, and to His unmerited help and illumination. How often I shuddered at this ocean, despaired of the harbor, distrusted my own strength, and said: Who shall enter into the mighty works of the Lord? Who shall search out the secrets of the Most High, so as to know the mind of the Lord? Who shall open the book that is sealed and written within and without? Not I, for I know that all things in me are small; and You, O Lord, know better, who know me thoroughly in truth. And yet it is not permitted to be silent, because You command me to speak. Give what You command, You who make the tongues of infants eloquent, and command what You will. I am less than all Your mercies and Your truth, which You have fulfilled for Your servant. To You be glory, but to us confusion and thanksgiving. With my staff I crossed not the Jordan but the Ocean, and behold, with two, or rather three, bands of codices of both Testaments I return. You alone know and have directed the way of the eagle in the sky, the way of the serpent upon the earth, the way of the ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man in his youth. Give me therefore the wisdom that sits by Your throne, and do not reject me from among Your servants, for I am Your servant and the son of Your handmaid, a weak man and of short time, and too small for the understanding of judgment and laws. Send her from Your holy heavens, and from the throne of Your majesty, that she may be with me and labor with me. For who shall know Your mind unless You give wisdom, and send Your Holy Spirit from on high? Confirm and perfect, O Lord, what You have wrought in us, that You may lay open to us the mysteries of the Prophets -- You who alone have the key of David, who shut and no one opens, who open and no one shuts -- so that I may place this crowning work upon Your sacred books as the capstone of a triple crown, and offer it to You, O most holy Trinity, for Your glory, my consolation, and the instruction and fruit of those whom it shall please You to teach through these my writings. Grant therefore that I may love You as much as I may know You, and that others through us may know and love You. Grant moreover that, when it shall seem good to You to dismiss Your servant from this wretched pilgrimage in peace, my eyes may see Your salvation, foreseen and foretold by these our seers, which they themselves now see face to face and enjoy. And that I may be the least of those who, having instructed many unto justice, now shine like stars for all eternity; and that, standing with Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel before Your throne, offering also this crowning work along with their crowns (for it is Yours, not mine), I may sing with eternal hymns to You who sit upon the throne, and to the Lamb: 'Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honor, and power, and strength to our God forever and ever. Amen.'