Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Here begins the second general prophecy of Isaiah, which extends to chapter XIII and was made under the most wicked King Ahaz (for the first is that which has been expounded from chapter I to this point and was made under Uzziah and Jotham). This one chiefly treats of Emmanuel, to be born of a virgin, and His salvation, victory, graces, and triumphs. In this chapter, therefore, when Ahaz and the Jews feared destruction from the Syrians and the Samaritans, Isaiah promises help and liberation, while he threatens the Syrians and Samaritans with destruction. Second, in verse 10, he offers and gives as a sign of this the birth of Emmanuel from a virgin. Third, in verse 17, he threatens Ahaz and the unbelieving Jews with disaster from the Egyptians and destruction from the Chaldeans.
Note: The following chapters VII, VIII, IX, X are connected and repeat and reinforce what I have just said; for chapter VIII teaches that Emmanuel is to be called the swift plunderer: because through the Assyrians He will lay waste the kingdom of Syria and Samaria, and by Himself the kingdom of the devil. Chapter IX assigns six other names signifying the power and gifts of Emmanuel, and again threatens the devastation of Syria and Samaria. Chapter X announces the siege and affliction of the Jews and Hezekiah by the Assyrian Sennacherib, and then at length proclaims the destruction and defeat of Sennacherib himself, inflicted by the angel.
Vulgate Text: Isaiah 7:1-25
1. And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to make war against it: and they could not overcome it. 2. And it was told the house of David, saying: Syria has rested upon Ephraim, and his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest are moved before the wind. 3. And the Lord said to Isaiah: Go forth to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son who is left, to the end of the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the way of the Fuller's Field. 4. And you shall say to him: See that you be quiet; do not fear, and let not your heart be dismayed at the two tails of these smoking firebrands, in the fierce anger of Rezin the king of Syria and the son of Remaliah: 5. because Syria has taken evil counsel against you, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, saying: 6. Let us go up against Judah and rouse it up, and tear it away to us, and set up a king in the midst of it, the son of Tabeel. 7. Thus says the Lord God: It shall not stand, and it shall not be: 8. but the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within sixty-five years Ephraim shall cease to be a people: 9. and the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you will not believe, you shall not continue. 10. And the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying: 11. Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord your God, in the depth of hell or in the height above. 12. And Ahaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord. 13. And he said: Hear then, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to be troublesome to men, that you are troublesome also to my God? 14. Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel. 15. He shall eat butter and honey, that He may know to refuse evil and to choose good. 16. For before the child shall know to refuse evil and to choose good, the land which you abhor shall be forsaken by both its kings. 17. The Lord shall bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon the house of your father, days that have not come since the day of the separation of Ephraim from Judah, with the king of the Assyrians. 18. And it shall come to pass in that day: the Lord shall whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria; 19. and they shall come and shall all rest in the torrents of the valleys, and in the clefts of the rocks, and in all the thickets, and in all the holes. 20. In that day the Lord shall shave with a hired razor — with those who are beyond the river, with the king of the Assyrians — the head and the hair of the feet, and the whole beard. 21. And it shall come to pass in that day: a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep, 22. and because of the abundance of milk he shall eat butter; for butter and honey shall everyone eat who is left in the midst of the land. 23. And it shall come to pass in that day: every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand pieces of silver shall become thorns and briers. 24. With arrows and bow they shall go in there, for briers and thorns shall be throughout all the land. 25. And all the mountains that are hoed with the hoe — the fear of thorns and briers shall not come there, and it shall be for the pasture of cattle and the trampling of sheep.
Verse 1: And It Came to Pass in the Days of Ahaz
1. And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz. — The preceding prophecy, in chapter 6, happened to Isaiah in the year when Uzziah died; therefore from that prophecy to this one, sixteen years elapsed, during which Jotham, the father of Ahaz, reigned. That Isaiah prophesied certain things under Jotham is clear from chapter 1, verse 1; what those were is not clear, for in the sequence of chapters the chronological order is not preserved, as is evident in Jeremiah. Some think the vision of the preceding chapter occurred when Uzziah was dead and Jotham was already reigning.
REZIN WENT UP. — See the history in 4 Kings chapters 15 and 16, and 2 Chronicles chapter 28, where it is said that Judea, on account of the sins of Ahaz, was severely and repeatedly devastated by the kings of Syria and Samaria as God punished them, and finally when Ahaz feared siege and destruction from them, he implored the help of Tiglath-Pileser king of the Assyrians.
AND THEY COULD NOT CONQUER IT. — This is a prolepsis: for these words should be placed later; for this prophecy of Isaiah preceded the event and was the cause of this deliverance. For when the rumor of war was already threatening, and there was fear of Rezin and Pekah who were intent on Judea, Isaiah promised that God, who had previously sent Rezin and Pekah against Judea to punish it, would now protect it and render their efforts fruitless, because they were no longer acting by God's commission and command as before, but by their own impulse and ambition were now planning to utterly destroy and overthrow Judea. So St. Thomas.
2. And they reported to the house of David. — That is, to the two tribes that had adhered to the line of David, when the other ten made a schism and created for themselves King Jeroboam. Secondly, and more aptly, "to the house," that is, to the royal family of David, namely to King Ahaz and his brothers and kinsmen. Hence it follows: "And his heart was moved," namely the heart of the king. See Canon 17.
Syria settled, — meaning: Syria and Rezin its king joined itself, and, as the Septuagint translates, conspired; and, as Vatablus says, entered into alliance with Ephraim, that is, with the ten tribes whose capital was Samaria, situated in the tribe of Ephraim, namely with Pekah king of Israel, against Ahaz and the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin that adhered to him and were subject to him. So in 1 Samuel 7, it is said: "Israel rested after the Lord," that is, again allied itself to the Lord, began again to adhere to God and worship Him.
And his heart was moved (he was terrified, struck with fear, trembled) AS TREES BEFORE THE WIND — are moved and driven. The extreme terror of Ahaz and the Jews is signified. For as the king was, so was the people: like lips, like lettuce, as they say. It is the part of a king to be courageous in sorrowful times and to encourage the fearful hearts of the people; but an impious king both fears first himself and is the cause of fear in his subjects. For a guilty conscience always fears.
3. Go forth. — Ahaz, impious and afflicted, did not flee to God in the temple, but went out of the city to deliberate with himself about how to avoid this war;
hence Isaiah is commanded to go meet him, unworthy though he was, and to promise him victory.
SHEAR-JASHUB YOUR SON WHO HAS BEEN LEFT. — In Hebrew it is Shear-Jashub your son: therefore the son of Isaiah was called Shear-Jashub. So Vatablus, Pagninus, Osorius, Forerius. Our translator with the Septuagint shortens the name and calls him only Jashub, both to hint at the mystery hidden in the word Shear, which I shall explain shortly, and because this is often done elsewhere, as when Idumea is called Duma (Isaiah 21:11), Jerusalem is called Salem, Hierosolyma is called Solima, Ben-Ammi is called Ammon (Genesis 19:38), Bethlehemite is called Lemite (1 Chronicles 20:5, in the Hebrew). So Mordecai is said to have been "of the stock of Jemini" (Esther chapter 2), that is, of Benjamin, or a Benjaminite, as is explained in Esther 11.
Note: God is accustomed to prophesy not only through things and symbols, but also through names. For so in Hosea chapter 1, He commanded him to name his children: "Not having obtained mercy, Not my people." So to Christ, in the following chapter, He gives the name: "Hasten to plunder, make haste to despoil." So also here Isaiah, at God's prompting, gave his son the name Shear-Jashub, that is, "the remnant shall return," or "the remnants shall be converted," to signify that the Jewish people, who survived the preceding disasters inflicted by Rezin, Pekah, and others, were to be delivered from the destruction that these two kings were now threatening; and for this reason God commanded Isaiah the father to bring this son of his to Ahaz.
The Jews fable that Isaiah had two sons, namely Rabshakeh, who defected to the Assyrians and urged the Jews to likewise surrender to the Assyrians (4 Kings 18), and this one, who was therefore called Shear, that is, "left behind," because when the other fled to the enemy, this one was left with his father.
Others take "son" here not of the flesh, but of instruction, so that "son" is the same as "disciple" of Isaiah, just as in 4 Kings 6, the disciples of the Prophets are called "sons of the Prophets." So Rabbi Solomon and Rabbi David following Rabbi Jonathan. Hence the Chaldean translates: go forth now to meet Ahaz, you and the rest who have not sinned, and who have been converted from sin, your disciples — as if Isaiah were here commanded to go forth with his disciples to meet Ahaz. Following this, some Catholics think Isaiah was not married but celibate. But "your son Shear-Jashub who has been left" simply and plainly means he was the natural and carnal son of Isaiah, not his disciple.
Tropologically, Shear-Jashub signifies the just and holy, who are the true seed of God born from God, who will finally escape unharmed from all their danger and distress under God's guidance.
Allegorically, Ahaz represents the Jews, Isaiah represents Christ, Jashub represents the Apostles of Christ, who liberated many Jews from eternal destruction and converted them to Christ and salvation.
Anagogically, for how one may be converted from earthly to heavenly things and be led there, see St. Basil.
ON THE ROAD OF THE FULLER'S FIELD — where, because of the nearby aqueduct of the pool, that is, the upper reservoir, there were many fulling workshops, which could not be in the city because of the scarcity of water and space: for fullers need an abundance of water for cleaning and dyeing cloths, and an open place for drying them.
4. SEE THAT YOU BE QUIET. — See that you rest, that you be of a calm mind, and lie down securely in this promise and protection of mine; do not fear the Syrians and Samaritans, meaning: You, O Ahaz, with your people are struck with fear and tremble at the report of the enemy; put aside these fears, these tumults; be of a tranquil mind: I will protect you with the city. So Cyril, Procopius, and Haymo. Hence it follows: "Do not fear." Secondly, "see that you be quiet," meaning: Do not despair, and in your despair blaspheme God (for Ahaz was impious); do not even, in your fear, think about imploring the help of the Assyrians; but rest confidently in God and in His help which I promise you.
DO NOT FEAR THE TWO TAILS OF THE SMOKING FIREBRANDS. (What these tails of firebrands are he explains by adding:) IN THE WRATH (for in Hebrew bet, that is "in," is often taken for min, that is "from, by") OF THE FURY OF REZIN AND THE SON OF REMALIAH. — He compares these two kings of Syria and Israel to two tails, or extremities, of firebrands which, having been pulled from the fire, smoke but are soon extinguished: because in a similar way these two kings, inflamed with anger, pride, and eagerness for war against the Jews, brought only smoke, that is, annoyance — namely, some fear — to the Jews; for the fire, that is, their force and power, was soon extinguished and destroyed along with their kingdom by Tiglath-Pileser king of the Assyrians, 4 Kings 16 and 17.
6. LET US GO UP AGAINST JUDAH (against the Jews), AND ROUSE IT — let us provoke it to war. AND LET US TEAR IT AWAY. — In Hebrew nabkienna, that is, let us split or cut it off, namely from Ahaz, and from the crown and stock of David, and draw it to ourselves. Secondly, let us split it into two parts, as if they said: Let us divide among ourselves the kingdom of the Jews, so that the Syrians occupy one part, the Samaritans the other.
7 and 8. Thus says the Lord: It shall not stand, and it shall not be so (meaning: I, God, will overturn this plan of Rezin and Pekah, and will bring it about that) the head of Syria (that is, of Syria alone, shall be) Damascus, and the head (that is, the king of Damascus alone (namely of Syria, whose capital is Damascus, shall be) Rezin — meaning: Rezin therefore shall not subjugate any part of Judea to himself or annex it to the kingdom of Damascus, but shall rule over Syria and Damascus alone, as he has done until now. So St. Jerome, Basil, and Haymo.
Secondly, Sanchez gathers from these words that Rezin and Pekah had designated this son of Tabeel as their heir and as king of Judea, so that he would rule over Judea as well as Syria and Samaria, and that they wanted to make Jerusalem the capital, head, and citadel of these three kingdoms. Hence God, thwarting this, says: Not Jerusalem, but Damascus shall be the head of Syria.
Thirdly, and best, Cyril by zeugma repeats in all these clauses the verb "shall cease" which follows, in this way: their arrogant plan shall not stand; but on the contrary, the head of Syria, Damascus, shall cease and fall, and the head, that is, the king of Damascus, Rezin, shall cease, and Ephraim shall cease to be a people; and the head, that is, the capital of Ephraim, namely Samaria, shall cease; and the head, that is, the king of Samaria, the son of Remaliah, shall cease. This meaning is the most plain and fitting. For he turns the proud arrogance of the two kings, by which they were planning the destruction of Judea, back upon their own heads, and threatens them with the very same ruin and destruction, and this he explains clearly in the following chapter, verse 4; and that it actually happened is evident, for Tiglath-Pileser and the Assyrians devastated and subjugated both Syria and Samaria, 4 Kings chapters 16, 17, and 18.
8. WITHIN SIXTY-FIVE YEARS EPHRAIM SHALL CEASE TO BE A PEOPLE. — The Hebrews relate in Seder Olam, chapter 19, and from them St. Jerome, Haymo, St. Thomas, Procopius, Hugo, and Dionysius, that these 65 years are to be computed not from Ahaz, under whom Isaiah prophesied these things, but from the prophecy of Amos, chapter 5, verse 27, and chapter 7, verse 11, who prophesied the same thing as Isaiah here, in the 25th year of King Uzziah of Judah, two years before the earthquake, which occurred in the 27th year of Uzziah. For if you count from the 23rd year of Uzziah, there will remain from the years of Uzziah (who reigned 52 years) 27 years. Add to these 16 years of Jotham, and 16 of Ahaz, and finally 6 of Hezekiah (for in his 6th year Samaria was captured), and you will find 65 years, meaning: I, Isaiah, repeat and confirm the prophecy of Amos, which is commonly known and well-worn, namely that starting from his prophecy, after 65 years Samaria will be devastated.
AND LET US SET UP A KING IN ITS MIDST, THE SON OF TABEEL. — Tabeel in Hebrew means "good and favorable God." Hence some think "Tabeel" is the name of an idol, or a god of the nations, whose epithet is "good," or "best and greatest," as if they said: Let us place our god Tabeel in the temple of the Jews, excluding their God, so that they may unite with us into one kingdom and one faith and religion; for this reason Jeroboam made idols, namely golden calves, to keep the people bound to himself. Secondly, the Chaldean translates: let us set up a king who is good and convenient for us. But the word "son" indicates that Tabeel was a man, not an idol; again, it was not Tabeel, but his son who was designated for the kingdom of Judah. Tabeel, therefore, was the proper name of a man who was joined to the kings Rezin and Pekah by blood, or by close friendship and obligation, whose son, accordingly, an energetic man and devoted to them, they wished to make king of Judea, yet so that he would remain bound to them, that is, subject or feudatory. So Cyril and others.
You will object: That earthquake, before which Amos prophesied, occurred under Uzziah, as is clear from Zechariah 14:5, and under Jeroboam, as is clear from Amos 1:1. But Uzziah began to reign in the 27th year of Jeroboam, as is clear from 4 Kings 15:1. Moreover, Jeroboam reigned 41 years; therefore Uzziah reigned only fourteen years simultaneously with Jeroboam, and to those years the said prophecy of Amos must be assigned, because it occurred under both these kings, as I said. Therefore Amos prophesied not in the 27th, but at most in the 14th year of Uzziah, and from that point these 65 years must begin.
I respond that Uzziah began to reign in the 27th year of Jeroboam, namely of Jeroboam reigning together with his father, which year of Jeroboam's reign, counting only from when he reigned alone after his father, was the 14th year, as is gathered from 4 Kings 14:23, compared with 2 Chronicles 25:1, where it is said that Amaziah, father of Uzziah, reigned 29 years, and in his 15th year Jeroboam began to reign. Therefore Amaziah reigned 14 years alongside Jeroboam, and then died, and immediately Uzziah his son succeeded him in that same 14th year, from which up to the 41st year of Jeroboam are counted 27 years, during which Uzziah or Azariah reigned alongside Jeroboam. So Cajetan in that place and others.
Moreover, what some add — that Uzziah was struck with leprosy at the time when the earthquake occurred (for by both these punishments his sacrilege was punished) — presents a difficulty: for thus he would have been a leper for 25 years, and therefore separated from the people, and consequently his son Jotham would have administered the kingdom for him for just as many years. But this is false, for Jotham, when his father Uzziah died, was only 25 years old, as is clear from 2 Chronicles 27 — unless you say the nobles administered the kingdom on behalf of Uzziah and the boy Jotham, until Jotham grew to an age at which he could administer it himself.
Secondly, Vatablus and Forerius compute these years somewhat differently, namely from the 17th year of Jeroboam son of Joash; for in that year, they say, Amos prophesied these things. Therefore from Jeroboam's reign (who reigned 41 years) there remain 24 years: to these add 10 of Menahem, 2 of Pekahiah, 20 of Pekah, and 9 of Hoshea (for in his 9th year Samaria was captured), and you will have 65 years, which is what we are looking for. But this computation does not agree with the common Hebrew computation, which I have already given: for the 27th year of Uzziah, from which the Hebrews begin these 65 years, falls not in the 17th but in the 14th year of Jeroboam.
Thirdly, Sanchez thinks these 65 years refer not to the future but to the past, and that the meaning is: "Yet," that is, 65 years ago the devastation of Samaria was predicted by Amos, and it will indeed befall it as predicted. But the words "yet" and "shall cease" usually signify the future, not the past; nor could 65 years have elapsed from Amos to Isaiah, as is clear from what has been said.
9. IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE (namely, that by my help you are to be delivered from the destruction that Rezin and Pekah threaten you with, and that I will punish and overthrow them along with their kingdoms), YOU SHALL NOT ENDURE — in your kingdom, but just like them you will be carried away captive with the ten tribes, your brethren, suffering the punishment of those whose unfaithfulness you have followed. So St. Jerome, Haymo, St. Thomas, Rupert, and others.
In the Hebrew, moreover, there is a beautiful paronomasia: im lo taaminu ki lo teamenu, meaning: "He who does not trust shall not be trusted" (or "shall not endure"); for the word aman in the qal means to believe, in the niphal to be firm, stable, to stand fast and endure. The Septuagint translates: if you do not believe, you shall not understand — which St. Augustine, Chrysostom, Cyprian, and other Fathers frequently cite.
11. Ask for yourself a sign. — Ahaz was unbelieving as well as impious, and distrusted the prophecy of Isaiah and the help of God. Therefore God offers him through the Prophet a proof by means of a sign and miracle, meaning: Ask, for the confirmation of my prophecy and of the truth that I have foretold, namely that you are to be delivered and your enemies overthrown, whatever sign you please: do you wish the earth to split open and the underworld to gape wide, or rather that the heavens be opened, or the sun stand still as Joshua made it do, and as I shall do again for your son Hezekiah? Say, choose: I will accomplish and bring about whatever you choose. So the Chaldean and Abulensis on this passage of Isaiah.
12. I WILL NOT ASK. — St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 8, verse 4, and others, think Ahaz out of modesty and humility did not wish to ask for a sign, lest he seem to tempt God. But because the Prophet in the following verse becomes indignant against him, and because Ahaz was an idolater, it seems more truly that he responded thus out of hypocrisy and impiety: for being turned away from God and distrusting Him, he trusted in demons, had resolved to consult his idols, and to implore the help of the Assyrians. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Basil, Rupert. Secondly, Forerius and Sanchez think that Ahaz, trusting in his own resources and the help of the Assyrians, was unwilling to commit this matter entirely to God, lest he seem to tempt God through a miracle when he could employ human means and aids, by which he thought he would accomplish the thing. But the king's impiety, and the rebuke of Isaiah that follows, show he went further than this, especially since Ahaz could easily see there was no tempting of God here if he accepted the sign the Prophet was freely offering. Therefore he says falsely: "I will not tempt the Lord."
13. HEAR THEN, O HOUSE OF DAVID: IS IT A SMALL THING FOR YOU TO WEARY MEN? — meaning: By your impiety, unbelief, and distrust, O Ahaz, and you his nobles and counselors, by which you distrust my oracles and despise them as if false or vain, and therefore scorn and reject the signs I offer — you are troublesome, unbelieving, and injurious not only to me, but also to God, from whose mouth I speak and make these promises, and, as the Septuagint translates, you cause a struggle
you render, as if they would say: You seem to wish to wrestle with God and to weary Him and cause Him vexation, while you continually provoke Him with your impiety, and now especially when you despise Him freely promising such great things, and even tacitly accuse Him of falsehood or impotence, as if He could not deliver you from Rezin and Pekah.
14. THEREFORE THE LORD HIMSELF SHALL GIVE YOU A SIGN. — meaning: Because you, O Ahaz, with your people, do not do what you ought to come to meet your God, and do not believe that God can deliver you from Rezin, therefore God will do something worthy of Himself — not what He owes, but what He mercifully decrees — namely, He will give a sign of His power, goodness, and mercy far more wonderful and powerful than this deliverance of yours that I have predicted here. He will give it, I say, not to you in your own person, because you are unbelieving and unworthy, but to your descendants, according to Canon 34, so that when they see this sign — namely, that through Christ they have been delivered from far more powerful enemies: death, sin, and the devil, of which this deliverance of Jerusalem from the invasion of the Syrians and Samaritans is a type — then they may believe that I prophesied truly both about this type and about its antitype, that is, both about this deliverance from Rezin and Pekah, and about the redemption of the human race from the power of the devil through Christ. For the Prophet flies, as is his custom, from the type to the thing signified, namely to Christ, according to Canon 4. A similar sign, not preceding and prognostic, but following and as it were posthumous — that is, commemorative and confirmatory of a preceding prophecy, namely the deliverance of Jerusalem from the siege of Sennacherib — is given to Hezekiah in 4 Kings 19:29: "This," he says, "shall be a sign to you: Eat this year what you find; in the second year, what grows of itself; but in the third year, sow and reap." This harvest took place after the Angel struck down 185,000 in the army of Sennacherib. A similar sign is given to Moses when he was to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, in Exodus 3:12: "This," He says, "you shall have as a sign that I have sent you: When you have led my people out of Egypt, you shall sacrifice to God upon this mountain." A similar sign was given to Saul, 1 Samuel 10:1. This meaning is plain and obvious. Add that when King Ahaz refused the sign offered him by God, the Prophet recalls him to the foundation of the covenant, which not even the impious would dare openly reject, namely the Messiah, on whom the salvation of the whole people depended, and this the Jews believed and hoped for. The meaning therefore is: You indeed, O impious king, by refusing the promise, would wish to overturn God's decree; but in vain. For His decree will remain holy and inviolable, and neither your treachery nor your ingratitude will prevent God from being the perpetual deliverer of His people. For at last He will raise up from a Virgin the Messiah, the redeemer and savior of Jews and Gentiles.
Secondly, Sanchez thinks this sign is given not as though the future conception of the Virgin and the incarnation of Emmanuel are a sign of the victory of the Jews against Rezin and Pekah; but conversely, namely that the victory of the Jews against Rezin and Pekah will be a sign of the conception of the Virgin and the birth of Emmanuel, meaning: Now when the impious and unbelieving King Ahaz appears less worthy that God should be beneficent toward him, God's mercy will all the more exalt and display itself; for He will give you the fulfillment of the promised help against Rezin and Pekah, as a sign of another greater benefit, namely the spiritual salvation which Emmanuel, born of the Virgin, will one day bring — He who will descend from you and your posterity, O Ahaz, and will restore your tottering kingdom and that of David, chapter 11:1.
Thirdly, the meaning will be fullest if you join both things already said together: for the word "sign" is taken here broadly and without restriction, to mean the same as a new, stupendous thing, a portent, and it fits both the type and the antitype. For this deliverance of Jerusalem from the Syrians and Samaritans was a sign of the future deliverance of the human race from sin and the devil through Emmanuel Christ, just as conversely. Hence Isaiah so joins and interweaves both in this chapter, as if they were one and the same, and each wonderfully agrees with and corresponds to the other.
For first, just as God's benignity was wonderful in that He delivered the Jews from Rezin and Pekah, so it was wonderful, indeed greater, that He delivered men from the tyranny of the devil through Christ. Secondly, just as God here permitted the Jews, because they did not believe His promises, to be led captive to Babylon, so He permitted their descendants in the time of Christ, on account of unbelief, to be captured and devastated by the Romans. Thirdly, in both this case and that, there was Emmanuel, that is, "God with us." For these reasons, therefore, this sign of the virgin bearing Emmanuel, rather than any other, is given here by God.
Add that "sign" can properly be taken here in a new sense, meaning: When you see a virgin bearing a child, then from this as a certain sign know that the time of the world's redemption is at hand, of which this redemption and deliverance of yours from the hand of Rezin will be a type. For the virgin bearing a child will bear no other than the Redeemer of the world, whom I foretell to you throughout all these chapters, now clearly and expressly, now obscurely and implicitly through shadow and figure. Because Ahaz, a contemner of God's signs, is unworthy of them, therefore not to him but to his faithful future descendants I give this sign of the Messiah to be born, namely the birth from a virgin, so that when they know she has given birth, they may know from this birth that the Messiah has been born. For it is fitting that the Messiah be born from none but a virgin, and conversely it is fitting that a virgin bear no other than the Messiah.
Finally, our Blasius Viegas on Apocalypse chapter 12, comment 3, sections 14 and 15, and Barradius, volume 4, book 8, chapter 6, on those words "Behold a virgin," says: "Nor do we affirm that the birth from the Virgin was a sign of the deliverance of Ahaz. He was indeed promising the king a sign of deliverance, if he wished to ask. When he refused, the Prophet transferred his meaning from the present to the future, from the type to the truth." He adds: "'Sign' is to be taken not as a sign of deliverance, but as a miracle, in this sense: The Lord will give you a sign, that is, the great miracle of a virgin birth."
Symbolically, St. Gregory, on the Fourth Penitential Psalm, says: "That birth of Christ without male intercourse was a sign to the peoples that He was going to give to those who believe in His name the power to become sons of God: namely, to those who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. For just as Blessed Mary bore Christ as a virgin and after the birth remained incorrupt, so also Mother Church begets children for God without pain, and perseveres always as an inviolate virgin. And in this also, that they love God with their whole heart, they clearly show that they have God as their Father."
Morally, note "therefore": for from this see that the nature of God is different from that of men, who when they encounter difficult, hostile, unfriendly, and impious people, contract and withdraw themselves, conceive hatreds and angers, desire vengeance, etc. But God, who is of a magnificent and most generous spirit, contends with His piety against the impiety of men, and does not allow Himself to be conquered by it. Therefore He shows Himself most beneficent precisely when He sees men to be most wretched and wicked, as here He freely promises the incarnation of the Word to the ungrateful and wicked Ahaz. In the same way, when Christ became incarnate, the world was most corrupt, and therefore needed the greatest physician, namely Christ, whom God in His wondrous clemency then sent them, so that where iniquity abounded, grace might abound, as was accomplished through Christ, who through Himself and the Apostles changed men living like beasts into true men, indeed into angels. Therefore to do good to the impious and to enemies is divine. Let holy Religious and all Christians imitate this: thus they will overcome evil with good, and will win for themselves not only the grace of God, but also that of men, and by their goodness and beneficence will conquer the malice and slander of others.
This new kind of victory is taught not by the philosophy of Aristotle, but of God and Christ. Thus said that holy woman when asked how she had attained sanctity: "Never was I harmed by anyone without repaying that person with a special kindness."
was accustomed not only to free from the offense of their crime, but even to adopt among his household, and was rebuked for this by Lawrence, Palatine of Hungary: "To you," he said, "it seems useful to kill the enemy, because the dead do not stir up wars. But I kill the enemy by sparing him, and I make a friend by pardoning him." He felt excellently that it is more beautiful and more glorious to conquer an enemy by doing good than by fighting, and to make him a friend. So Aeneas Sylvius, book 2 of The Deeds of Alfonso.
Alfonso, king of Aragon, after capturing Stephen, received with wonderful humanity the centurions and soldiers who had cursed him; when others thought they should be punished with death, he said: "I would rather earn praise from clemency and humanity toward enemies than from victory."
David, driven from his kingdom by his son Absalom, after Absalom was slain in battle, sent the priests Zadok and Abiathar to the elders of Judah, saying: "You are my brothers, my bone and my flesh; why are you the last to bring back the king? And say to Amasa (who had commanded the enemy camp): Are you not my bone and my flesh? God do thus to me and more, if you shall not be commander of the army before me at all times in place of Joab." Hear the fruit and success of this clemency and beneficence: "And he won over the heart of all the men of Judah as one man, and they sent to the king, saying: Return, you and all your servants." This munificence of David therefore bent the hearts of even all the rebels, so that they summoned him and restored his kingdom to him (2 Samuel 19:12).
The Emperor Theodosius, asked why he had never punished with death anyone who had done him an injury, replied: "Would that I had rather the power to recall the dead back to life! For thus I would imitate God, who alone raises the dead." The witness is Socrates, book 7, chapter 22.
The Emperor Leo used to say: "As the sun imparts its warmth to those upon whom it has shone, so also the Emperor should be clement and beneficent to those whom he has looked upon." The witness is Zonaras, volume 3.
Spyridon, Bishop of Trimethous in Cyprus, free from pride, pastured sheep. At midnight, thieves attacked the sheepfold, and while they were trying to steal the animals, they were bound by an invisible force at the sheepfold. When dawn came, he went to his flock, and seeing them bound, he freed them, earnestly urging the thieves to seek their livelihood by honest labor and not by wrongdoing. He sent them away with a gift of a ram, adding with humor: "Lest you seem to have stayed awake for nothing." So Socrates, book 2, chapter 8.
A certain young man, suborned by the Arians, attempting to kill St. Gregory Nazianzen, when he had been so restrained by the secret power of God that he abhorred such a great crime and, prostrate at the feet of Nazianzen, tearfully begged for pardon, he res-
The Emperor Sigismund, having overcome enemies in war,
replied Nazianzen: "May Christ be merciful to you, O dearest one, and may He Himself forgive you who also preserved me. This alone I ask of you for the expiation of your crime: that you renounce the heresy, become mine, approach God, and offer Him sincere and voluntary service." The same, to his fellow citizens wishing to afflict the heretics by whom they had been afflicted, said: "This I consider to be vengeance: that those by whom we were provoked with injury should obtain salvation, and confess that what they were just the other day persecuting is true and divine." The witness is Gregory the priest in his Life of Nazianzen.
Apollonius, monk and martyr, when in prison the flute-player Philemon was heaping every insult upon him, sighed and said: "My son, may God have mercy on you, and may He not reckon as sin any of those things you have just poured out against me in abuse." At these words, the man was struck with compunction, embraced the faith he had been persecuting, and did not refuse martyrdom.
Behold a virgin shall conceive. — Treacherously, Symmachus the Ebionite, Aquila, and Theodotion, who were Jewish proselytes, and our Jews, and recently Castellio and Oecolampadius, translated: "Behold a young woman shall conceive." The Jews explain it thus, meaning: A young woman, namely the wife of Ahaz, formerly barren, shall now conceive and bear a son, either Hezekiah or someone else.
But the first interpretation is clearly false: for Hezekiah had already been born. For Ahaz reigned only sixteen years; but Hezekiah, succeeding to the kingdom, was 25 years old; therefore he was born before his father's reign. Secondly, neither Hezekiah nor any other son of Ahaz was called Emmanuel, that is, "God with us." Thirdly, foolishly and impiously they translate the Hebrew alma as "young woman." And what kind of sign, what is remarkable, what is new, if a young woman who bore Hezekiah should bear another son? And if she had already borne Hezekiah, how was she barren?
I say therefore, it is a matter of faith that it must be translated thus: "Behold a virgin shall conceive"; and these words are to be understood of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, conceiving and bearing Christ the Lord with her virginity entire and intact; so that whoever denies this is a heretic, as Helvidius was, against whom St. Jerome wrote. This is clear from Matthew 1:20 and 23.
And this is proved, because the Hebrew alma, especially with the article he, haalma, as it is here, does not signify "young woman" (for naara signifies this, and rather betula, which commonly means a virgin, though with an addition it can mean a married woman, as is clear from Joel 1:8, where the Septuagint translates betula as "bride"), but signifies "virgin." For so the Septuagint, the Chaldean, our translator, and the ancient Rabbis translated it, as recorded in Galatinus, book 7, chapter 13. For the root alam means to hide: hence alma means a virgin hidden and unknown to a man. Hence in the Punic language, which is related to Hebrew, a virgin is called alma, says St. Jerome.
Secondly, that this virgin of Isaiah would bear a child, and that Christ would be born of a virgin, was foretold by ten Sibyls, among whom the Phrygian sings thus: God Himself willed to send down from heaven into a virgin's body His offspring, when the Angel announced to the nourishing Mother, who relieved the wretched from the stain they had contracted.
And the Cumaean Sibyl in Virgil, Eclogue 4: Now the last age of the Cumaean song has come. The great order of ages is born anew. Now the Virgin returns, the Saturnian kingdoms return; Now a new offspring is sent down from high heaven. Illustrious child of God, great increase of Jupiter: He shall receive the life of the gods, and shall see Heroes mingled with the gods, and he himself shall be seen by them. Although Virgil, either ignorantly or by flattery, transferred these Sibylline verses to Saloninus, the son of Asinius Pollio, Roman Consul in the time of Augustus Caesar, nevertheless St. Augustine (City of God, book 10, chapter 27) and Eusebius (Life of Constantine, book 4) and others generally accept them as spoken of the Blessed Virgin and Christ, and this is clear from the very words and from the whole eclogue; for the predictions are so magnificent that they fit not Saloninus nor any other man, but Christ alone. For the oracles of the other Sibyls, see Canisius, Marian book 2, chapter 7.
Thirdly, that the Blessed Virgin would bear Christ was foretold by Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 22: "The Lord has created a new thing upon the earth: A woman shall encompass a man." See the commentary there.
The Jews object: In Proverbs chapter 30, verse 19, it is said: "The fourth I do not know at all, namely, the way of a man with a young woman." For in Hebrew it is baalma; therefore alma means a young woman known to a man, even if it is difficult to prove she was known, should she deny it, since scarcely any trace of a past union remains.
Sanchez responds that the meaning is: I do not know the way of a man to a virgin hidden away, who flees the eyes of men and hides herself at home, meaning: You will more easily find the way of an eagle in the air and of a ship in the sea than the traces of men at the door of that virgin who never offers herself to be seen by men, indeed shuns and flees them, and therefore is alma, that is, hidden.
Secondly, Rabbi Haccados and the ancient Rabbis in Galatinus explain it so that there is the same prophecy as here about Christ to be born of a Virgin, meaning: It is most difficult to know the conception and birth of Christ (who was a man from the beginning of His conception, perfect in all the powers of the soul as well as in the members of the body) in the Virgin. Thirdly, most simply, "the way of a man with a young woman" cannot be known, because after intercourse and carnal union no trace of it remains. For what some think — that in union with a virgin a membrane is broken which is the sign of virginity — Francis Valesius and other physicians teach is false. Therefore alma here also signifies a virgin, not one who is now a virgin, but one who was a virgin before union, or rather one who in the very union was found by the man to be a virgin.
Fourthly, and best, it should be read with the Latin and the Septuagint as "the way of a man in his youth," not "with a young woman." Therefore the Hebrew reads corruptly baalma instead of baalmut. The meaning therefore is: It is most difficult to know what a young man has done or what
a young man does, who by the fervor of his blood and spirits is immediately swept away into one pursuit after another, one thought, one work, one place after another.
Calvin objects secondly (he who denies that the penetration of bodies — so that two are in the same place — is possible for God; and therefore denies that the Virgin remaining a virgin bore a child, just as he denies that Christ after the resurrection entered to the disciples through closed doors) that it is not proved that the Blessed Virgin remaining a virgin conceived and bore Christ, because these words: "Behold a virgin shall conceive" can be taken in a divided sense, not a composite one, meaning: She who had previously been a virgin, after union was no longer a virgin but, corrupted, conceived. But this fiction is clearly refuted by St. Matthew, chapter 1, verses 20 and 23, where, to remove all doubt, he says: "What is born in her is (not from the man Joseph, but) from the Holy Spirit." Therefore, the Virgin remaining a virgin conceived from the Holy Spirit. Then he adds: "Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the Prophet saying: Behold, a virgin shall have in her womb and shall bear a son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel." The same is refuted by all the Fathers and by the whole Church, which takes these words of Isaiah and Matthew in the composite sense, and therefore firmly believes that the Blessed Virgin was a virgin in the birth and after the birth as much as before the birth. Our Father Canisius cites this, Marian book 2, chapters 14 and 15. And what, I ask, would this sign be, that a woman
already corrupted should conceive? For this is an everyday and natural thing. Hence in the Hebrew it is signified here that this sign will be unusual and admirable, when it says: hinne haalma hara, that is, "behold, that virgin (wondrous) shall be with child and pregnant." From this, therefore, it is clear against Calvin that the Virgin bore Christ in the composite sense, and consequently that the penetration of bodies is possible for God. Again, the mystery of the Eucharist is possible, which Calvin with equal blasphemy denies. For if God can make two bodies — for example, the body of the Virgin and the body of Christ — be in the same place, why can He not make one and the same body of Christ be in many places and on many altars? Again, why can He not make the whole body of Christ be in a small Host? For if He can place several whole bodies in the same place, why can He not place the parts of the same body in the same place, for example, in a small Host, indeed in a point? For these three things are plainly equal, namely equally difficult and contrary to nature, and require equal power and potency to be accomplished. For it is just as impossible for one place to be filled by many bodies as for one body to be present in many places.
Finally, God more than once confirmed this very thing by miracle. Illustrious is what St. Augustine relates in City of God, book 22, chapter 8, about Petronia, a most distinguished woman, who was miraculously healed when she visited the shrine of St. Stephen after a desperate illness. For when she had previously received from a Jew a superstitious ring as a remedy, which she fastened in her hair with a band so that it was worn under her garment against her bare body, as she was proceeding to St. Stephen, the ring, intact, and the band, intact and undamaged, leapt to her feet. She accepted this miracle as a pledge of her future healing: "Those do not believe this," says St. Augustine, "who also do not believe that the Lord Jesus was born through the intact virginal members of His mother, and that He entered to His disciples through closed doors. But let them inquire into this; and if they find it true, let them believe those things. She is a most distinguished woman, nobly born, nobly married; she lives at Carthage: a great city, a great personage — those who inquire are not allowed to be left in ignorance. Certainly the martyr himself, by whose intercession she was healed, believed in the Son of the ever-Virgin, in Him who entered to the disciples through closed doors." St. Stephen believes, St. Augustine believes — do you not believe, Calvin?
Note here: In Hebrew it is haalma, in the Septuagint he parthenos; that is, that rare and unique virgin, that phoenix of the world, that illustrious Virgin, to be celebrated throughout the whole world and in all ages — she who was indeed the first to dedicate to God a vow of continence and virginity, and raised its standard for all posterity, to which after her so many thousands of holy virgins, women as well as men, flocked. St. Jerome says excellently to Eustochium, On the Guarding of Virginity: "In the Old Testament, this good of continence was found only in men (in Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, and the sons of the Prophets), and Eve continually bore children in pain. But after the Virgin conce-
ived in her womb, etc., the curse was loosed. Death through Eve, life through Mary. And therefore the gift of virginity flowed more richly into women, because it began with a woman. As soon as the Son of God entered upon earth, He established for Himself a new family, so that He who was adored by the Angels in heaven might have angels also on earth." Hear also the Poet in the Ecclesiastical hymn: Having the joys of a mother with the honor of virginity, She was seen to have neither a predecessor like her nor a successor. Again: Childbirth and integrity, long at odds, Have made a treaty of peace in the bosom of the Virgin.
For what Gellius writes in book 9, chapter 4, and Pliny in book 7, chapter 4 — that in the consulship of P. Licinius Crassus and C. Cassius (the year was 172 before the era of Christ) a virgin gave birth — must be regarded as fiction, not fact, as also what Genebrardus writes occurred in our age under Henry II, king of France, at Amiens in France, that a virgin gave birth.
Hence St. Chrysostom, Basil, Jerome, Prudentius, Bernard, and from them Canisius, book 2, chapter 16, teach that the Blessed Virgin by her angelic virginity and purity of mind and body merited by a merit of fittingness to become the Mother of God. Wherefore Venantius Fortunatus sings: Happy virginity, worthy of the birth of the Thunderer, Which merited to bring forth its Lord.
And Prudentius in the Cathemerinon: "For she merited to bring forth God" — namely the Virgin by her virginity — "the Virgin conquers all poisons." See more in Canisius, throughout book 2, and Suarez, Third Part, volume 2, Question 27, disputation 5.
Finally, God confirmed this mystery of the virginity of the Mother of God with miracles. The historians of Spain relate, and from them Baronius in the year of the Lord 657, that St. Ildephonsus, Archbishop of Toledo, defended in a published book the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God against the reviving Helvidians. Therefore when he was proceeding to the church at night on the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, the church began to gleam with heavenly splendor. When the others fled, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him saying: "The reward of the virginity cultivated in your body, joined with moral purity and ardor of faith, and of the defense of our virginity, shall be a gift brought from the heavenly court." With these words she placed a vestment on his head with her own hands, saying: "With this celebrate the feasts that recur throughout the whole year of my Son and myself."
In the Life of St. Giles, companion of St. Francis, on April 23, it is related that a certain Doctor of the Order of St. Dominic, doubting the virginity of the Mother of God, had thought to consult St. Giles about this matter. When he saw him from afar, St. Giles anticipated him and, striking the ground, said: "Brother Preacher, the holy Mother of God Mary is a virgin before the birth"; and immediately as he said this, a most beautiful lily sprang up there. Again, striking the ground, he repeated: "Brother Preacher, St. Mary is a virgin in the birth"; and at once a second lily sprang up. Thirdly, striking the ground with his staff, he said: "Brother Preacher, St. Mary is a virgin after the birth," and at the same time a third lily appeared, of wondrous whiteness and beauty. Thus he removed every scruple from him.
Moreover, the reasons why God willed to be born of a Virgin are these: First, because, as St. Bernard says, God deserved a new, unusual, proper, and sublime generation; and such is generation from a virgin. Second, because, as Theodore, Bishop of Ancyra, says at the Council of Ephesus, oration 2: "The bestower of incorruption does not introduce corruption, and the author of incorruption corrupts nothing." Third, because God and the Most Holy Trinity is the first virgin, as St. Gregory Nazianzen says in his poem. Hence the Father as virgin begets the Word in His mind, that is, His Son, and with the Son similarly breathes forth the Holy Spirit through an act of love or spiration. It was fitting therefore that Christ, like our Melchizedek, should be on earth without a father (apator); just as in heaven, according to His divine generation, He is without a mother (ametor), so that in both cases a virgin might be born from a virgin. The fourth reason is that by the very nature of His origin He might exclude original sin: for all who are seminally descended from Adam contract it, but not those born of a virgin. Again, so that the conqueror of the concupiscence of sin might be conceived without concupiscence and without sin. Finally, so that His conception might be most pure — He who was to purify all men and make angels out of men. Fifth, so that
He might show how great and how dear to Himself and to God virginity is.
Note: Just as in Hebrew, so also in Latin the Mother of God is called alma, as when we say: "Nurturing parent, nurturing Mother of God, Hail star of the sea, God's nurturing mother." And this, first, because alma in Latin sometimes means the same as "virgin." Thus "nurturing Ceres" is so called, and the Sibyl is called "alma" by Virgil (Aeneid 6) because she was a virgin. Secondly, because alma means the same as "holy" or "beautiful," says Festus. Hence goddesses, like the Muses, are called almae; thus by Lucretius (book 6) Pallas is called alma. But properly the mother of the gods was called alma. Hence Virgil, Aeneid 10: "Nurturing Idaean mother of the gods"; and Aeneid 1: "Nurturing Venus." Thirdly, because almus also means "most bright." Hence the sun is called "almus" by Horace in the Secular Hymn: Nurturing Sun, who with your shining chariot Bring forth and conceal the day. Hence also a happy and bright day is called alma. Now what is brighter, what happier than the Blessed Virgin? Fourthly, almus is derived from alere (to nourish), as if meaning "nourishing," says Festus; hence Lucretius, book 2: "The nourishing liquor of the waters." And light is called alma because it nourishes all things; for the natural philosophers teach that all things grow through light and day, says Servius, who also adds on Aeneid 2: "Alma properly applies to the earth, because it nourishes us; the epithet is also given abusively to other deities." And Columella, book 3, chapter 21: "For whom the nourishing earth, at its annual turn, as if in a kind of eternal childbirth, joyfully releases its swollen breasts of new wine to mortals." Such is the Mother of God, who nourished Christ, and continually nourishes and cherishes Christians. Now let us examine each word more closely.
Behold — meaning: Be present, O nobles; be present, O Jews; hear, all nations; see and be amazed! Behold a wondrous thing, unheard of in every age! Behold the portent of the ages! Behold a new thing never before seen, which the Lord will create (Jeremiah 31:22). Behold a thing to come after many centuries, which I behold as if certain and present before me. Behold, after 730 years a virgin shall conceive and bear a child. This you, O unbelieving Ahaz, do not deserve to see; your descendants will see it and enjoy it, and they will say: Behold, this portent Isaiah foretold so many centuries ago; now we see it fulfilled; now we believe, indeed we know, that a Virgin has borne the Savior of the world.
Virgin — In Hebrew haalma, that virgin, to be revered by the Angels, even by the Seraphim: "Who is at once mother, daughter, and spouse of God"; who joined and coupled God with man, heaven with earth, motherhood with virginity, sinners with holiness; and therefore is to be venerated by men and Angels not with mere dulia, but with hyperdulia. For in this work of the virginal conception and incarnation of the Word, three things are especially stupendous, which St. Bernard thus describes in sermon 3 for the Vigil of the Nativity: "Three works," he says, "three unions that almighty Majesty wrought in the assumption of our flesh, so wonderfully singu-
lar, and singularly wonderful, that such things neither have been done nor shall be done again upon earth. For there have been joined together God and man, mother and virgin, faith and the human heart. For the Word, soul, and flesh came together into one person, and these three are one, and this one is three — not in a confusion of substance, but in a unity of person. This is the first and surpassingly excellent union. The second is virgin and mother — certainly both admirable and singular. From the beginning of the world it has not been heard that she who bore a child was a virgin, and that she who was a mother remained a virgin. The third is faith and the human heart, and this is indeed a lesser union, but perhaps no less powerful; for it is wonderful how the human heart accommodated faith to these two things: how could it be believed that God was man, that she who had borne a child remained a virgin?"
A wondrous thing is related by Hegesippus in his book On the Supplement to the Evangelical Truth, and from him by Michael Caranza in his book On the Virginity of the Blessed Mary, chapter 14: namely, that Simeon, who in Luke 2 received Christ into his arms, was an eminent man among the Rabbis of his age, and had once expounded in the schools this oracle of Isaiah about a virgin who would bear a child. But in place of what he had found written — haalma, by which the Virgin who would give birth was certainly signified — he erased the first letter, and read alma, as if in a divided sense she who had been a virgin, but was now a corrupted woman, would bear a child. But when he read the Scriptures again, he found haalma with the prefixed article, just as it had been before. Therefore he erased the article a second time, and it was again divinely restored. He repeated this also a third time; hence he recognized the power of the divine will and understood that a virgin would truly bear a child. Therefore he besought God as a suppliant to preserve him alive until he could see and adore Emmanuel born of her; and he then received the answer that he would not see death until he had seen the Christ of the Lord. But the credibility of this story rests with Hegesippus, for it smells of Kabbalah, that is, the fable of some Rabbi. And how would St. Simeon have dared to erase a letter from Sacred Scripture? Who would believe this of a Rabbi, and a holy one at that, when we see that even otherwise faithless Rabbis are religious, indeed superstitious, in handling the Hebrew Scriptures? Add that alma just as much as haalma properly and truly signifies a virgin.
More truly, St. Basil, in his homily On the Human Generation of Christ, thinks that the devil, from this oracle, expected a virgin who would bear a child, so that from this he might recognize the Savior of the world and lay traps for Him. Therefore the Blessed Virgin married Joseph, so that the devil would think she had conceived from Joseph: "For he was watching virgins above all," he says, "since from the Prophet he had learned that one of them would bear a child, who said: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.' Therefore the spy and watcher of virginity, made ignorant under the appearance of marriage, abstained from his malice. For he knew that his dominion would be destroyed by the generation of the Lord's flesh." And St. Jerome on Matthew chapter 1: "The martyr Ignatius," he says, "added a fourth reason why He was conceived of one who was betrothed: so that His birth might be hidden from the devil, since the devil would think He was born not of a virgin but of a wife. For although the demon could naturally have known that the Blessed Virgin was untouched by Joseph, yet he was prevented by God from knowing what was going on between the Blessed Virgin and Joseph.
Finally, Isaiah uttered this prophecy about the virgin who would bear Christ after the beginning of the reign of Ahaz, when he, afflicted by the defeats received from Rezin and Pekah, and fearing siege and destruction from the same, was thinking of imploring the help not of God, but of the Assyrians — namely, in the 3rd year of Ahaz. For in the 4th year of Ahaz, the things Isaiah predicted about the slaughter of Rezin and Pekah were fulfilled, as I shall show in chapter 8, verse 4. Therefore Beza and Vatablus greatly err when they think this prophecy was uttered by Isaiah in the tenth year of Ahaz. Others also err who count 24 years from the day of this prophecy up to the sixth year of Hezekiah. For from this it would follow that it was uttered before the reign of Ahaz. Sixtus of Siena also errs, in book 2 of his Library, under the letter G, when he thinks this oracle had its fulfillment regarding the destruction of Pekah and Rezin in the 6th, 7th, and 8th year of Ahaz.
Morally, let the virgin learn here what she ought to be. The first of virgins, the Virgin of virgins, will teach her that she ought to be "alma," that is, hidden, fleeing the eyes of men, concealed at home, a lover of privacy, a fugitive from publicity. "Alma" therefore is not only the guardian, but also the first part of modesty. Tertullian teaches this and graphically demonstrates it in his book On the Veiling of Virgins: "The very desire not to be hidden," he says, "is not modest. It suffers something that is not fitting for a virgin. The eagerness to please men, however well-intentioned the motive, necessarily puts itself in danger by self-display, while it is struck by uncertain and many eyes, while it is tickled by the fingers of those who point it out, while it is loved too much. Thus the brow is hardened, thus modesty is worn away, thus it is loosened, thus one learns to desire to please in a different way."
St. Cyprian, in his book On the Dress and Discipline of Virgins, says: "A virgin ought not only to be, but also to be recognized and believed to be one, so that no one who sees a virgin may doubt that she is a virgin. Let her integrity show itself equal in all things, and let no adornment of the body defame this good."
St. Ambrose, in book 2 on Luke, on the words of Luke 1, "And the Angel entered to her," says: "Alone in her inner chamber, whom no man might see, alone without a companion, alone without a witness, lest she be corrupted by any ignoble conversation, she is greeted by the Angel." For, as the same author says in his Exhortation to Virgins: "Solitude befits modesty, and privacy is the training-ground of chastity."
St. Jerome to Laeta, On the Education of Her Daughter: "Let her imitate," he says, "Mary, whom Gabriel found alone in her chamber, and who was therefore perhaps stricken with fear, because she beheld a man whom she was not accustomed to see. Let her emulate her of whom it is said in Psalm 44:14: 'All the glory of the king's daughter is from within.' Let her say
Such was the Blessed Asella, a Roman virgin, whom St. Jerome thus praises in letter 45 to Marcella: "Enclosed in the narrow confines of a single cell, she enjoyed the breadth of paradise. The same piece of ground served both as a place of prayer and of rest. She always conducted herself with such moderation, and kept herself within the privacy of her chamber, that she never set foot in public, never knew the conversation of a man, and — what is even more to be admired — loved her virgin sister rather than saw her. She hastened to the shrines of the Martyrs almost unseen. And while she rejoiced in her resolution, she exulted the more vehemently that no one knew her, so that she considered solitude to be delight, and in the turbulent city found a desert for monks. Her speech was silence, and her silence was speech." See what I said about the curiosity and violation of Dinah, Genesis 34:1.
SHE SHALL CONCEIVE AND BEAR. — See here how virginity is not barren, but fruitful and fertile, which brought forth God the Creator of all things. "Such a birth," says St. Bernard in sermon 2 On Advent, "was fitting for a virgin, that she should bear none but God; and such a nativity was fitting for God, that He should be born of none but a virgin." Most excellently therefore St. Ambrose, in book 1 On Virginity, says: "The body of the Virgin is heaven," that is, the seat and throne, "of God." And the Poet: Nor among parents is any more fruitful than your Mother, Who alone gave so many blessings through her one birth. Thus spiritually St. Cecilia the virgin converted her husband Valerian, Tiburtius, and many others, and bore them for Christ, so that the Church justly sings of her: "Cecilia, your handmaid, O Lord, served You like an industrious bee." Read the Life of St. Julian and Basilissa, and you will marvel that they, spouses and at the same time virgins, bore so many thousands of people for God. This fruitfulness God promises to virgins, in Isaiah 56:3: "Let not the eunuch say: I am a dry tree," etc.; on which matter, see more in that place.
AND HIS NAME SHALL BE CALLED — that is, He shall be (see Canon 29). In Hebrew it is vekarath, in the feminine gender and second person, that is, "and you shall call," as the Septuagint, Pagninus, and others translate — namely, you, O Virgin! For elsewhere in the Old Testament, fathers gave names to their sons, not mothers. But because here the Virgin conceives and bears without a father, she herself, as both father and mother, gives the name Emmanuel to her son. This is what Gabriel, announcing this birth to her, predicted in Luke 1:31: "Behold, you shall conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus." For Jesus is the same as Emmanuel, as will shortly be evident.
and she herself, wounded by the chosen dart of charity, say: 'The king has brought me into his chamber' (Song of Songs 1:4). Let her never go outside, lest those who go about the city find her, lest they strike and wound her and take away the mantle of her modesty and leave her naked in blood. Rather, when someone knocks at her door, let her say: 'I am a wall, and my breasts are a tower; I have washed my feet, I cannot defile them' (Song of Songs 8:10)."
The Jews therefore wrongly deny that this passage is about Christ, on the ground that He was called Jesus, not Emmanuel. For first, "to be called" in Scripture often means to be such as the name signifies, so that one can rightly be called by that name. Thus Christ, in chapter 9, is said to be called Counselor, Wonderful, Mighty, Prince of Peace, Father of the Age to Come — not that these were His proper name, but that He was such that He could deservedly be honored with these names and titles. Secondly, "name" here does not mean a proper name, but a surname or title, meaning: The name, that is, the title of Jesus, will be Emmanuel, that is, "God with us." Thus epithets and titles of honor are called names, as when the Emperor Trajan received the name Dacicus from the conquest of Dacia, and Scipio received the name Asiaticus from the conquest of Asia. Thirdly, the name Emmanuel is in reality the same as the name Jesus, that is, Savior: for to save us from sin, death, and hell, no one could except Emmanuel, that is, God-made-man, whose proper name is Jesus. Fourthly, a proper name is twofold: one is given by parents at birth, by which one is called by everyone, and such is Christ's name Jesus; the other signifies the proper nature and condition of the thing or person, and such is Emmanuel — for it signifies that this man is not a mere man, but a God-man, and therefore it is proper to Christ, for it applies to no other. And so at the feast of the Nativity, and often at other times, the faithful joyfully call upon and invoke Christ born as Emmanuel, and by aphaeresis, Noel.
EMMANUEL — that is, "God with us," meaning: God will now be with us spiritually, O Ahaz and Jews, delivering you from Rezin and Pekah. But when the virgin shall conceive and bear, He will be with us also bodily — the Word made flesh. As if to say: The Virgin will bear not Hezekiah, not Shear-Jashub — mere men — but Emmanuel, that is, God-man. Yet this Emmanuel will bring forth Shear-Jashub, that is, He will convert the remnants of Israel, and cause them to be reborn for God through baptism. For this reason, in this prophecy God commanded Isaiah to bring along his son Shear-Jashub.
What then is Emmanuel? He is God with us. From "Emmanuel" the Italians shortened it to Manuel, the French to Noel, that is, God is with us or our God is with us, which they joyfully repeat in their Christmas hymns, and hence they call this feast Noel, that is, the feast of the little Emmanuel.
What is Emmanuel? He is the son of the prophetess, whose name is "Make haste to take the spoils, hasten the plunder," chapter VIII, verse 3.
What is Emmanuel? "He is Wonderful, Counselor, God, Mighty, the Father of the age to come, the Prince of Peace, the Angel of great counsel," chapter IX, verse 6.
What is Emmanuel? He is the great Lord and exceedingly praiseworthy, who became for us a little child, and exceedingly lovable.
What is Emmanuel? He is "our God who prepared the earth for all time, who sends forth the light, and it goes; and He called it, and it obeys Him with trembling. The stars gave their light at their watches, and rejoiced; they were called, and they said: Here we are; and they shone with gladness for Him who made them. He found out all the way of knowledge, etc. After this He was seen upon earth, and He conversed with men," Baruch III, 38.
What is Emmanuel? He is Jesus our redemption, our love and desire, God the creator of all things, man at the end of time.
What is Emmanuel? He is the Word made infant, a wise child, God at the breast, says St. Bernard.
What is Emmanuel? He is the little one from Bethlehem, as St. Francis used to say with jubilation, reigning in heaven and lying in the manger.
What is Emmanuel? He is the Word clothed in flesh, He is God the lover of mankind, Titus III, 4.
What is Emmanuel? He is the Word of life, "that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, that our fellowship may be with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ," I John chapter I, verse 1.
What is Emmanuel? He is "the great mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to the Angels, was preached to the Gentiles, was believed in the world, was taken up in glory," I Timothy III, 16.
What is Emmanuel? He is God dwelling in us, our brother, companion, intimate friend, and associate. Therefore, O sons of Adam! Love your brother, kiss the Son of the Mother of God, delight in your Emmanuel, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men; but also love and honor His mother, blessed among women, who gave God a body for you. She is the ladder of heaven, the Lady of the world, the Queen of Angels, the Mother of God.
Furthermore, Emmanuel was the God-Man; hence His actions are called by St. Dionysius, in chapter II of the Divine Names, theandric, that is, God-manly. For in Christ there were three kinds of actions: first, divine, such as creating and governing the world, breathing forth the Holy Spirit, etc.; second, human, such as eating, building, laboring, etc.—in these He was subject to His mother; third, theandric, which belonged partly to God and partly to man, and were proper to Emmanuel. Such were teaching, working miracles, creating Apostles, and all the works of the Redeemer. In these He was subject to God the Father alone, for they were of a higher order, received and directed by the Father alone; hence Christ calls them the works of the Father, and when His parents sought them as if by command, He responds that they are to be done not at the will of parents, but at the will of God. John II, 4; Matthew XII, 48.
Finally, note: He does not say His name shall be called "We with God," but "God with us." For it was not we who sought God, but He Himself who first sought us. So also today He desires to be with us; we often flee from Him, and rush to our own destruction. For why do we so ardently seek the riches and pleasures of the world, unless because, although He Himself came to be with us, we nevertheless wish to be without Him? See here the immense piety of God toward us, and our incredible ingratitude toward Him.
Morally, Christ is Emmanuel, that is, God with us. First, really and bodily in the venerable Sacrament: there, therefore, the same mystery is truly enacted and daily renewed which Isaiah here foretells and which was accomplished in the incarnation of the Word. For by the words of consecration, truly and really, just as the bread is transubstantiated, so Christ is produced and as it were generated on the altar, so powerfully and efficaciously that, if Christ had not yet been incarnate, by these words, "This is My body," He would be incarnated and would assume a human body, as weighty theologians teach. The priest, therefore, is as it were the Virgin Mother of God, the manger is the altar, the little Emmanuel whom he brings forth is Christ produced under the small host by the power of the Most High and by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when you approach the altar, consider that truly and devoutly spoken saying of Thomas a Kempis, Book IV of the Imitation of Christ, chapter II: "It ought to seem to you as great, new, and joyful, when you celebrate or hear Mass, as if on that same day Christ, descending for the first time into the womb of the Virgin, were made man; or, hanging on the cross, were suffering and dying for the salvation of men." For Christ willed to be born and to be called Emmanuel because He desired always to be with us, to remain and dwell with us in the Eucharist. For His delights are to be with the sons of men.
Second, through providence, protection, and governance; for just as a king is present in his whole kingdom, which he rules and administers from afar, so Christ is in the whole Church, which He rules and governs from heaven.
Third, through His vicars, the bishops and priests, to whom He Himself said: "Feed My sheep;" and: "He who hears you, hears Me."
Fourth, through the Holy Gospels and other similar books, figures, and images, through which He continually presents Himself to our mind and lives in our memory, so that we may follow the living traces of His virtues and examples.
Fifth, through His constant help, grace, enlightenment, consolation, strengthening, and protection. For He is especially present to those who are tempted and afflicted, and He consoles and strengthens them, as He promised, saying: "I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him and glorify him." So He was present to St. Stephen, who therefore joyfully and fearlessly received the stones, saying: "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of the power of God;" and: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." So in shipwreck and at other times He was often present and appeared to St. Paul, and to St. Peter fleeing from prison, saying: "I go to be crucified again;" and so He led him back to prison and directed him to the cross and martyrdom. A chapel stands at that place, erected near Rome as a memorial, which I often see and visit. So He was visibly present to St. Anthony and many others; invisibly He is present to all martyrs suffering, laboring, and fighting for His glory. This is certain, this must be fixed in our minds, and it should sharpen our hope and courage, so that we say with Paul: (God is) "He who leads us in triumph in Christ;" and: "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me;" and with Habakkuk, chapter III, verse 18: "But I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will exult in God my Jesus. The Lord God is my strength; and He will make my feet like the feet of deer. And upon my high places He will lead me, the victor, singing in psalms." If, therefore, the temptation of the air arises, if the devil, if melancholy, if anger, if desire, if friends, if enemies press upon you, think of Emmanuel, call upon Him. He is El, that is, the Strongest, who will strengthen your weakness, so that you may easily overcome all adversities, all terrors, indeed even torments; for His power and glory are perfected in our weakness. If, therefore, Emmanuel is with us, if God is with us, who can be against us?
Verse 15: HE SHALL EAT BUTTER AND HONEY, THAT HE MAY KNOW TO REFUSE.
First, Abulensis, in his treatise on these words, "Behold a virgin shall conceive:" By these words, he says, Isaiah signifies that Christ as man would be very prudent and intelligent, and as an indication of this, the eating of honey and butter is added, which tend to make people very sharp and intelligent. But this is the opinion of carnal Rabbis, although John Huarte the physician, in his Examination of Minds, attempts to establish it with many physical arguments.
Second, and correctly, St. Jerome, Cyril, Rupert, Bernard, who will be cited shortly, judge that by these words Isaiah only signifies that this divine child would not be phantasmal, as the Manichaeans wished, but would be a true man like other infants and would need to be nourished with infant foods, as if to say: God born of a virgin will lower Himself to such a degree that, like an infant, He will need honey and butter and will eat them, and this so that "the wisdom of God may be suckled in human infancy," as a certain Doctor says. He alludes to the foods with which infants were nourished in Judea, which so abounded in milk and honey that it is often said to flow with milk and honey. This child, therefore, will eat butter and honey, and this so that He may know to refuse evil, that is, so that when He hungers for food, He may be able to distinguish by taste, and likewise gradually to discern all other things through experience, whether they are good or bad, as if to say: This child will be nourished with fitting food, will grow and develop into strength and a more mature age, at which, having acquired experiential knowledge, He will know how to distinguish not only foods, but all good things from bad. So St. Basil, Jerome, Cyril, Chrysostom here, and St. Justin in his Dialogue Against Trypho, and Augustine in Book VIII On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, chapter XIV, and others.
Isidore Clarus and Delrio add, at adage 695, that it is signified that Christ as a child would choose sweet things and reject bitter ones. For the Hebrews designate by honey all sweet things, such as sugar, grapes, figs, dates, and all sweet and honeyed fruits, as R. David and Genebrardus note on Psalm LXXX, 47, and Prado on Ezekiel XVI, 13. Thus Judea is called a land flowing with milk and honey, that is, with fruits sweet and savory like honey. Hence it is said of it in Deuteronomy XXXII, 13: "That he might suck honey from the rock." And Martial, Book VII, speaking to a bad poet, says: "Give the child sweet-apples," that is, sweet fruits. Therefore, certain more recent authors wrongly explain it thus, as if to say: Christ, like other children, will be subject to the diseases of children. For children usually, when they begin to teethe, suffer pain and become ill; for which malady physicians recommend honey and butter, as Galen, Book X On Simple Medicines, chapter X, and Pliny, Book XXVIII, chapter XIX. Wrongly, I say; for Christ throughout His whole life was subject to no disease, but always had a healthy and robust body, as theologians generally teach with St. Thomas, Part III, Question XIV, article 4.
Furthermore, that honey is not only food for children, but also serves to maintain health and promote longevity, physicians and experience teach. Thus that vigorous old man, when asked by what means he had attained such a great and robust old age, replied: "By using honey within the body, and oil externally."
Hence, symbolically, milk signifies the motherhood and fruitfulness (for it is the effect and sign of this) of the Blessed Virgin; honey signifies virginity, for honey comes from bees which are generated without bodily union. Hence it is said of the Blessed Virgin in Canticles IV, 11: "Honey and milk are under your tongue." For although there have been various opinions about the generation of bees, and some have thought they are produced from the union of male and female, and Pliny is uncertain about this, Book XI, XVI; nevertheless, the nearly universal opinion is that bees are virgins, because they have never been seen to mate, as Pliny acknowledges; and therefore they lack sex, and some are not female and others male, but they lay an egg or seed from themselves and incubate and hatch it, so that from it first a little worm is born, then a little bee called a nymph. So think Aristotle, in his book On the Generation of Animals, chapter X; Virgil in the Georgics; St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, Prudentius, Albertus Magnus, Scaliger, and others, whom Ulysses Aldrovandus cites and follows in Book I On Insects, chapter On the Generation of Bees.
Symbolically also, Richard of St. Victor, Book I, Part I On Emmanuel, chapter XIV: "If the Lord of Angels," he says, "by eating and drinking became a sharer with beasts for the sake of men, why should not man, conversely, much more become a sharer with Angels for His sake? He shall eat butter and honey, he says; why does He not rather say bread and meat? What are honey and butter but the delicacies of flies? And certainly the one of unclean flies, the other of venomous ones. For bees carry a sting and have venom. And see how they labor and fight for honey, so that they often lay down their lives in the wound. And flies thrust themselves into milk and plunge in, sometimes even laying down their life. Our Emmanuel, therefore, ate butter and honey, and for our sake descended to participation with flies. Was it not enough for God to share with beasts for the sake of men, unless He would share for our sake also with flies?"
Mystically, the same author in the same place, Part I, Book II, chapter XXX: "Honey," he says, "comes from heaven through dew, butter from flesh through milk. For what is butter but a certain richness of milk? And what is honey but a certain sweet-flowing thickness of dew? In milk is understood sweetness of heart, in butter the exultation of the heart: butter is gathered from milk, and true exultation of heart is generated from true sweetness of heart. According to the abundance of kindness, so also will be the abundance of joy. If we consider the heart of Christ, nothing is sweeter than it, nothing kinder; no heart ever exulted more abundantly than that heart." Hence in chapters XXIII and XXIV, he teaches that from the Father and the Holy Spirit all sweetness of grace, consolation, and glory was instilled in our Emmanuel from the hour of His conception.
Tropologically, St. Ambrose, or whoever is the author of the latter book On the Faith of the Resurrection, at the beginning: "The child," he says, "will be filled with the Holy Spirit, whose teaching is sweeter to us than honey and the honeycomb; for honey is the symbol of wisdom, Proverbs XXIV, 13; milk of innocence." Hence Homer calls just men galaktophagous, that is, milk-eaters, as Clement of Alexandria testifies in Book I of the Pedagogue, VI. And this is mystically indicated here in verse 22, as the Chaldean testifies; this is what Christ says in Matthew XI, 28 ff.: "Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart."
Beautifully, St. Bernard, Sermon 2 On the Advent: "In this lamb," he says, "that is, in Christ, you will find a nature sweet, a nature good, and very good, like butter, but not the curdled milk or cheese of sin. So also Christ is the bee that feeds among the lilies, that inhabits the flower-bearing homeland of the Angels; hence He flew to Nazareth, which is interpreted as 'flower,' to the flower of the virginity of Mary, and He brought us only the honey of mercy, but reserved His sting for the impious on the day of judgment."
For this reason, in ancient times the newly baptized, clothed in white garments, were given milk and honey (the Ethiopians still do the same, as is clear from their Ritual, volume IV of the Library of the Holy Fathers), to signify first, their infancy in Christ; second, the sweetness of the Christian life; third, humility and childlike meekness. Hence also at the first Sacred Liturgy which they attended, namely on the Saturday of Dominica in Albis, that epistle of Blessed Peter was recited: "As newborn babes, desire the rational, guileless milk." So Tertullian, Book I Against Marcion, chapter XIV: "With the union of honey and milk," he says, God the creator "makes His own into infants;" and in the book On the Soldier's Crown, chapter III: "Thence, after being received, we have a foretaste of the harmony of milk and honey." So also St. Jerome on chapter LV of Isaiah. Hence also St. Agnes used to say: "I received honey and milk from His mouth."
Finally, Origen, Homily 2 on these words of Isaiah: "Emmanuel," he says, "eats butter and honey, and seeks from each of us butter to eat. How He seeks butter and honey from each of us, the discourse will teach. Our sweet works, our most agreeable and useful words, are the honey which Emmanuel eats, which He who was born of the Virgin eats. But if our words are full of bitterness, anger, animosity, annoyance, foul speech, vices, and contention, He has put gall in my mouth, and the Savior does not eat of these words. But the Savior will eat of the words that are among men, if their words are honey. Let us prove this from the Scriptures: Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone opens the door to Me, I will come in to him, and I will sup with him, and he with Me. Therefore He Himself promises that He will endeavor from our things to be with us; and it is certain that we also sup with Him, if we sup on Him. For eating of our good words, works, and understanding, He feeds us in return with His spiritual, divine, and better food. Therefore, because it is blessed to receive the Savior, with the doors of our principal heart opened, let us prepare for Him honey and His whole supper, so that He Himself may lead us to the great supper of the Father in the kingdom of heaven, which is in Christ Jesus, to whom is glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."
THAT HE MAY KNOW TO REFUSE EVIL.
Calvin here, from this verse and the following one, contends that the soul of Christ from the time of infancy lacked the use of reason and intelligence. "And of this ignorance of Christ," he says, "Luke testifies when he says: And He advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace before God and men. Therefore it was necessary for Him to be for a time like infant children, so that as to His humanity He would be destitute of intelligence." Bucer and Whitaker agree with Calvin.
But this error is refuted first, from Jeremiah chapter XXXI, verse 22: "A woman," he says, "shall encompass a man." Therefore Christ was a man in the womb, not in the mass of His body, but in wisdom and grace.
Second, from Isaiah chapter IX, verse 6, where this little child is called "Wonderful, Counselor;" and, as the Septuagint translates, the Angel of great counsel. And chapter XI, verse 1: "There shall come forth," he says, "a rod from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise from his root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding," etc. The flower rising from the rod is Christ being born of the Virgin; therefore upon the flower, not only upon the fruit, that is, upon Christ as an infant, not only as a man, the spirit of wisdom rested.
Third, from St. Paul, Hebrews X, 5: "Entering into the world, He says"—namely Christ Jesus, on the day and hour when the Word was made flesh—"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; but a body You have fitted for Me: holocausts for sin did not please You. Then I said: Behold, I come." Finally the Apostle adds: "In which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once." Therefore Christ from the beginning of His incarnation had an act of action and will by which He offered Himself and His death to the Father for the redemption of men. Again, at the first instant of Christ's conception, "the fullness of the divinity dwelt in Him bodily;" therefore also at that time "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge were hidden (in Him)," as the same Apostle says, and St. Luke, chapter II, verse 40: "The child," he says, "grew and was strengthened, full of wisdom." For this fullness of wisdom, as well as of grace and glory, was owed to Him by virtue of the hypostatic union with the Word, from which it flowed, as it were, naturally.
Fourth, St. John the Baptist, sanctified in the womb, possessed the use of reason; hence "the infant leaped in the womb" as soon as the Blessed Virgin greeted his mother Elizabeth; of whom the Church sings: "Reclining in the hidden chamber of the womb, / You had perceived the King abiding in His bridal chamber. / Hence the parent of each child, by the merits of the offspring, / Reveals hidden things." What was given to John, was it not given to Christ?
Fifth, St. Jerome here: "Still wrapped in swaddling clothes," he says, "and fed on butter and honey, He will have the judgment of good and evil, so that through these words we may know that the infancy of His human body did not prejudice His divine wisdom." So also the other Fathers, Interpreters, and Scholastic Doctors, with St. Thomas, who, besides the divine knowledge which Christ had as God, attribute to Him as man, at the first instant of the incarnation, a twofold knowledge: first, beatific, namely the vision of God and of all things in God; second, infused, by which through infused light He knew all things outside God. They add a third, acquired, by which Christ through experience learned and experienced the same things which He already knew through infused knowledge. See St. Thomas and the Scholastics, Part III, Questions X, XI, XII. And it is of this third knowledge that Isaiah and St. Luke speak here. The sense, therefore, is: "that He may know to refuse evil," etc., as if to say: What was said ironically to Adam after sin, Genesis III: "Behold, Adam has become as one of us, knowing good and evil," is truly said of Emmanuel.
Second, St. Jerome, Haymo, and St. Thomas take the word 'that' (ut) for 'although' (quamvis), as if to say: This child will be wiser than other children and will know how to refuse evil and choose good; and although He will be such, nevertheless, after the manner of others, He will eat butter and honey. Vatablus and Adam agree, who take the word 'that' (ut) as accompanying, as if to say: This child will eat honey like an infant, yet at the same time will know how to refuse evil; for He will be the Word as an infant, a wise child. But the Hebrew lamed signifies 'that,' not 'although.'
Third, St. Thomas takes the word 'that' (ut) causally and antecedently, as if to say: This child will eat so as to grow to adult age, at which through experience He will learn and know how to refuse evil and choose good, which He previously knew only through infused knowledge. Hence the Septuagint translates 'that' as 'before He knows,' etc.
Fourth, and most clearly, Sanchez takes 'that' (ut) for 'until;' hence the Chaldean translates it 'until:' for this is what the Hebrew lamed signifies in ledato, as if to say: Emmanuel will eat infant foods, honey and butter, until He grows and develops to that age at which children usually separate and discern between good and evil, as if to say: Not only will Emmanuel be born, but He will also be nourished and grow like other children to adulthood.
Morally, St. Bernard, Sermon 3 On the Nativity, infers from this: Evil, therefore, is bodily pleasure, and likewise praise and honor; but good is affliction, contempt, and reproach, because these the wise child, the infant Word, chose, and those He rejected. For either Christ is deceived, or the world errs; but it is impossible for divine Wisdom to be deceived; therefore the world errs; therefore all the worldly and followers of vanity err, according to that psalm: "I said: These always err in heart." But Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life, teaches by word and example what truly is good, what is evil, what is to be fled, what is to be embraced so that we may attain the blessed life. Would that all Christians would worthily weigh this, as is fitting, imprint it on their hearts, and express it in their conduct! For in this reasoning and its practice lies the marrow of Christian wisdom. The reason is that pleasure inflames the concupiscence of corrupt nature; the cross extinguishes it.
Verse 16: FOR BEFORE THE CHILD KNOWS TO REFUSE EVIL AND CHOOSE GOOD, THE LAND WHICH YOU DETEST SHALL BE FORSAKEN.
The word 'for' (quia), according to the second sense given at verse 14, is to be explained by 'in that;' but according to the first sense, it is to be explained by 'truly, certainly, for indeed.' For this is what the Hebrew ki often signifies, as if to say: For indeed, to confirm my promise about liberating Jerusalem from the hand of Rezin, I moreover assert and promise that, before this child is born and grows up, He Himself, as God, will liberate Jerusalem and the Jews from the two kings whom you, O Ahaz, so greatly dread; indeed, He will utterly desolate their land and kingdom through the Assyrians. So St. Jerome and Haymo; see what was said at verse 14, for Isaiah returns from Christ the child to his own times. Again, because he indicates the reason why this child is to be called Emmanuel, that is, the Mighty One with us: namely, because He will valiantly conquer and desolate the two kings and hostile kingdoms.
Mystically, Richard of St. Victor, Part I, Book II On Emmanuel, chapter XVIII: Before, he says, the child knows by experience not only how to refuse evil, but also how to choose good, and setting aside lesser goods, to grasp the best; before, I say, He ascends to heaven, "the land shall be forsaken," that is, the kingdom of the devil and his angels on earth shall be destroyed. For this Christ accomplished in His passion; the other in His ascension.
FROM THE FACE OF ITS TWO KINGS.
That is, from its two kings, or on account of the crimes of its two kings, their land shall be forsaken. Second, Vatablus refers this to 'you detest,' as if to say: "From the face," that is, on account of the two kings who plan to besiege and destroy you, you, O Ahaz, detest their land and kingdom. He speaks of the slaughter of Rezin and Pekah. For Rezin was killed by the Assyrians, and Pekah by Hoshea his officer and successor, as will be clear from chapter VIII. Second, in a new way (but properly referring to the time of Christ), the Reverend Father John Decker, a distinguished chronologist as well as theologian, and formerly my colleague at Louvain, by the king of Samaria understands Herod; by the king of Syria, Obodas: for under these kings Christ was born, and while still an infant He despoiled them of their kingdom and life. For Herod died miserably and lived scarcely fifteen months after the birth of Christ; Obodas died a few months before Herod, according to Josephus, Book XVI, chapter XIX, and Strabo, Book XVI of his Geography. Hence he pointedly says: "The land shall be forsaken from the face of its kings"—not of those, namely Rezin and Pekah, but "of its own" (or, as Symmachus, Aquila, Theodotion, and the Chaldean translate, "of him"), namely of Herod and Obodas, of whom Pekah and Rezin were the type and predecessors. For these kings, and especially Herod, were enemies of the Jews and attempted to extinguish the royal line of David and Ahaz. Hence Herod, although he was also king of Judea and Jerusalem, is nevertheless called king of Samaria both by Isaiah and by Appian of Alexandria, Book V of the Civil Wars, because he was a foreigner and a tyrant and enemy of the Jews, as was evident both in the massacre of the Holy Innocents, and in that cruel decree by which, when dying, he ordered the leading men of the Jews, shut up in the circus, to be killed, lest the Jews should rejoice at his death, but be forced even unwillingly to weep over the slaughter of their own. The sense, therefore, is, as if to say: These kings, and especially Herod, will strive to transfer the kingdom of Judea from your line, O Ahaz, to themselves, and to overthrow your descendants; but behold, Emmanuel, about to be born from you, while still an infant, will swiftly overthrow him and slay him with a loathsome disease, and thus will recall the kingdom of Judea to Himself and your line, increase it, and make it illustrious. Isaiah, therefore, alludes to Herod's massacre of the innocents, and asserts that Emmanuel as an infant will overcome and kill the infant-slayer Herod, by whom He was sought for death. That this sense also is literal will be clear from chapter VIII, verse 4.
Note here how aptly Pekah was the forerunner and type of Herod: for each was wicked and unjust; each was excellent in arms, worst in morals; both endowed with a tyrannical disposition; both accustomed to extortions and robberies and the destruction of their own citizens; both laboring under an insatiable desire of ruling, they rose up against their lords: Pekah against Pekahiah king of Israel by killing him; Herod not only against Christ, but also against his own king and high priest Hyrcanus, by whom he had been made governor of Galilee, and whose granddaughter Mariamne he had married; through whom he later gained access to the kingdom of Judea. But this most ungrateful and most cruel man killed this wife of his, and her mother Alexandra, and the two sons he had by her, Alexander and Aristobulus, whom with the consent of Augustus Caesar he had established as heirs of the kingdom. He also drowned another Aristobulus, Mariamne's brother. Again, he killed his son Antipater on the fifth day before his own death. I pass over the Holy Innocents and countless others whom he removed by various punishments: by the sword, by poison, by the noose. In a similar manner, Pekah killed 120,000 of Judah in one day, captured 200,000 women and children, and carried off infinite plunder to Samaria, II Paralipomenon chapter XXVIII, verse 6.
Thus Rezin, king of Damascus, accustomed to plundering, exalted by victories and coveting Jerusalem, was a type of Obodas, king of Damascus, who had made Arabia a den of robbers, who, spreading through the fields, constantly harassed Judea. Moreover, Aretas, Obodas' successor in the kingdom, was hostile to the Jews. Again, just as the king of Assyria, having slain Rezin and Pekah, occupied the kingdom of Damascus and Samaria, so upon the deaths of Obodas and Herod, Augustus Caesar occupied the kingdom of each as spoil and recalled it to himself; hence also Samaria was called Sebaste in honor of Augustus. And although Augustus divided Herod's kingdom among his sons, he nevertheless took from them the name and right of kings. So also in Syria, for a long time he was unwilling that Aretas should succeed Obodas; at last, however, he granted him this kingdom. This is that Aretas whose governor at Damascus wished to seize St. Paul, when Paul, let down in a basket from the wall, escaped his hands, II Corinthians XI, 32.
From what has been said, it is clear that the prophecy of the patriarch Jacob, Genesis XLIX, 9, literally about Judah and allegorically about Christ: "A lion's cub is Judah: To the prey, my son, you have gone up," refers not only to Christ's adult age, but also to His infancy. For the lamb himself at one year old, producing horns and hoofs, killed the lion and the bear, and after the example of his father David, tore the prey from their mouth. The arrows of the little one became their wounds, whose fury drank up their spirit. Finally, the oracle of Micah IV, 13 was fulfilled: "I will make your horn iron and your hoofs bronze; and you shall crush many peoples, and you shall slay their plunder for the Lord, and their might for the Lord of the whole earth."
Second, it is clear that Calvin falsely interprets these words of Isaiah thus: "Before the children who are soon to be born grow up, both the kingdoms of Samaria and Damascus are to be deprived of their kings." For the Prophet does not fix adolescence, which ranges widely, as the limit of his prediction, but infancy, and before Emmanuel can utter articulate words.
Third, it is clear that Eusebius is mistaken, who thinks the Prophet predicts here that Damascus and Samaria, shortly before the birth of Christ, would be left deserted and without a king once their kings were removed. For it is established that when Christ was born, Herod was reigning in Samaria, Obodas in Damascus, and after Obodas, Aretas.
Verse 17: THE LORD WILL BRING UPON YOU.
Here the Prophet passes from Rezin and Pekah to Ahaz and the Jews, punishing their unbelief and crimes with an equal destruction, according to what he had threatened them in verse 9: "If you will not believe, you shall not continue." The sense, therefore, is, as if to say: I foretold the destruction of Syria and Samaria by the Assyrians; now the same I foretell to you, O Judah! namely that the Lord will bring upon you days of unheard-of vengeance, such as you have not experienced in all the calamities you have suffered since the time when Ephraim, that is, the ten tribes under Jeroboam, separated from you. "He will bring, I say, with the king," that is, through the king of the Assyrians (it is a hyperbaton: for 'with the king of the Assyrians' is to be referred to 'He will bring'), whom you yourself summoned as a scourge upon yourself; for when, pressed by the Syrians and Samaritans, you implored not God's help but his, he, seeing the fertility of your land, allured by it, began to covet it, and at length invaded and occupied it.
By the king of the Assyrians, understand Sennacherib, or Nebuchadnezzar, who, having destroyed Nineveh, became monarch and ruled over the Assyrians as well as the Babylonians; and the Babylonians were neighbors of the Assyrians and intermixed with them. Hence many authors treat the monarchy of the Assyrians and Babylonians as the same; and both, having tasted the riches of Judea, coveted them. So St. Jerome.
Verse 18: THE LORD WILL WHISTLE.
As if to say: Just as flies and bees, summoned by a whistle from beekeepers, quickly fly up, so here too at the command, that is, the nod and impulse of God willing to punish the Jews, the Egyptians and Assyrians will immediately rush in like lictors. It will be the work of God's mere whistle for them to fly into Judea.
Note first, this whistle of God was not some special revelation made to the Assyrians and Egyptians, but only an internal impulse and inspiration of God, stirring them up, that is, to attack the Jews in war, if they could do so justly, namely if they had a just cause of war. If not, He merely set before those who were ready to invade anyone (to enlarge their borders and wealth) the Jews, as though easily conquered by them; and this is more likely. See Canon XXXVI.
Note second, the Egyptians are called flies: first, because of the harsh buzzing of their voice; second, because of their impudence; third, because like flies they were fetid and unclean; fourth, because like flies they increased and multiplied, for Aristotle teaches that the Egyptians are naturally very prolific, Book VII of the History of Animals, chapter IV; fifth, because Egypt, being a very hot region where it scarcely ever rains, swarms with flies and gnats. But he calls the Assyrians bees: first, because they were powerful with arrows, as bees with their stings—so St. Jerome; second, because like bees they were conspicuous in golden armor and variegated garments—so Cyril; third, because in their wars and actions they were like bees: diligent, industrious, laborious, and steadfast.
Note third: The Prophet speaks here both of the war of Pharaoh Necho, by which Judah fell in punishment for the idolatry of King Manasseh, and Josiah, grandson of Manasseh, IV Kings XXIII; and also of Sennacherib's expedition against the Jews.
Verse 19: AND THEY SHALL COME AND SHALL REST ALL OF THEM IN THE TORRENTS OF THE VALLEYS.
He continues in the metaphor of flies and bees, which so beset the valleys and torrents that they gnaw and defile everything: so the Egyptians and Assyrians laid waste everything in Judea.
Verse 20: IN THAT DAY THE LORD WILL SHAVE WITH A HIRED RAZOR, WITH THOSE.
He continues to say the same thing with another metaphor. It is an apposition, as if to say: With a razor hired for wages, which is none other than those who dwell beyond the river Euphrates, namely the Assyrians with their king.
Note: Sennacherib with the Assyrians is called a hired razor, because he, as if hired by God for the plunder and kingdoms which he was sent to punish and lay waste, most lightly, like a barber, shaved to the skin everything that served as salvation and honor for the Jews and other nations—which are signified by the name of hairs; indeed, the entire body politic: namely "the head," that is, the princes; and "the beard," that is, the priests and counselors; and "the feet," that is, the artisans and the lowly common people of Judea—he shaved and took away, says Cyril. So Egypt was given by God to Nebuchadnezzar as wages for the capture of Tyre, as is clear from Ezekiel XXIX, 18 and 19.
For 'hired,' the Septuagint translates 'drunk' (μεμεθυσμένῃ), that is, intoxicated with hair, that is, with the spoils of enemies; for they read the Hebrew word with a shin. But our version and others read it with a sin, and then it means 'hired for wages,' which word indicates God's clemency: namely, that the merciful God does not maintain these executioners at home, but summons them from elsewhere, hired, to do His work. For, as Isaiah says, chapter XXVIII, verse 21: "This work of His is alien to Him. For God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living. For He created all things that they might be; and He made the nations (creatures) of the world healthful (salutary); and there is no poison of destruction (exterminating and deadly) in them, nor is the kingdom of the underworld on earth," Wisdom I, 13.
Note second: The shearing and shaving of hair was a sign of slaves and servitude, into which the Jews were to be reduced by the Chaldeans. Hence Aristophanes says: "Being a slave, do you grow your hair?" And Pomponius Laetus, On the Triumph of Diocletian: "It was the custom," he says, "for those freed from captivity to follow the chariot of the triumphant general with shaven head, as evidence of their previous servitude." Thus 2,000 Roman captives whom T. Flamininus, who triumphed over Macedonia, had freed, followed his chariot with shaven heads. So also, when St. Peter was preaching at Antioch, his head was shaven by wicked men as a mockery, as if he were a man of vile and servile condition, as Bede testifies in his History of the English. The Church turned this into honor and glory: for she ordered priests and religious to shave their heads and wear the shaven crown as a diadem of the divine and heavenly kingdom. For this is the "royal priesthood" of Christ and of Christians, as St. Peter says, I Epistle, chapter II, verse 9.
Furthermore, the Rabbis take this one shaved of head and beard to be Sennacherib himself, about whom they tell this story—or rather fable—which St. Jerome reports in his Questions on II Paralipomenon XXXII: "The Hebrews relate," he says, "that his (Sennacherib's) head and beard were shaved by an Angel as a disgrace, and that this was what was said through Isaiah: In that day the Lord will shave with a sharp razor the head and beard of the king of the Assyrians, etc. When he arrived at the temple of his god Nisroch with this same disgrace—whom they say was worshipped in the remains of Noah's Ark—and when he was complaining and praying, asking why his god had not helped him, and offering him even his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer, if his god would ratify this for him; upon hearing this, after so many defeats, ruins, and disgraces, and fearing to be killed by him, they killed him.
Verse 21: A MAN SHALL NOURISH A COW.
After the capture and devastation by Babylon, there will be such a scarcity of people that those who were formerly rich will scarcely have one cow and two sheep. Yet so great will be their scarcity that the milk of one cow and two sheep will suffice not only for drink but also for butter and food for entire families; especially because, with the fields deserted and uncultivated, everything will turn into sprouts and fodder for cattle, which, having been fed and being full, will give abundant milk and hence butter. So St. Jerome and Cyril.
Verse 22: FOR EVERYONE WHO IS LEFT SHALL EAT BUTTER AND HONEY.
Not wheat, not barley, etc., which the earth does not produce unless it is cultivated and sown, as if to say: The land then will be completely deserted, and so men will live not on wheat but on milk and honey.
Verse 23: EVERY PLACE WHERE THERE WERE A THOUSAND VINES WORTH A THOUSAND PIECES OF SILVER SHALL BE TURNED TO BRIERS AND THORNS.
As if to say: The vineyards, because they will be overrun by briers and thorns, will be of so cheap a price that a vineyard can be bought for one piece of silver, that is, as the Septuagint says, a shekel, and a thousand vines for a thousand silver pieces. So Cyril.
Second and better, as if to say: Fields once so fertile that individual vines, that is, the annual produce of the vines, were valued at one silver piece each, and a thousand vines at a thousand silver pieces, will be reduced to thorns and briers. So Forerius and Sanchez.
Verse 24: WITH ARROWS AND WITH BOWS.
As if to say: Into these deserted thickets, into what are no longer vineyards but brier patches and thorn bushes, no one will dare to enter, because of wild beasts and robbers, unless well armed.
Verse 25: AND ALL THE MOUNTAINS THAT SHALL BE DUG WITH A MATTOCK, ETC.
As if to say: The valleys and rich fields will be abandoned; men, fearing the enemy, will flee with their cattle to naturally fortified mountains, and will dig them not with a plow, as they once did the fields, but with a mattock, that is, they will clear them of thorns and briers so they can be sown and cultivated, or serve as pasture. Hence the thorns will not be a terror to them, even though they are pricked and hurt by them, because necessity and hunger will force them not to care about these pricks. And yet, after all this labor of theirs, oxen will graze there and cattle will trample it. So St. Jerome.
Second and more aptly, Sanchez, as if to say: Mountains once bearing vines, which were dug not with a plow but with a mattock, and which were diligently fenced around and defended by their owner with thorns as a hedge, now that the enemy has broken down the thorns and hedge, will be a terror to no one, so that anyone may freely break in. Hence oxen will rush into them as into pasture, and they will be trampled by them and other cattle.
Note the Hebraism: "And all the mountains, etc., the fear of briers shall not come there," that is, it shall not come to all the mountains.