Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Here begins the second principal part, or section of Isaiah's oracles, joyful and auspicious. For the first part, from chapter I up to this point, comprising five oracles, all sorrowful except the second, was reproving and threatening. This second part extends from this chapter to the end of the book, in which Isaiah is not so much a Prophet as an Evangelist.
Now first, the Jews understand these things as referring to the consolation and joy of the Jews from the relaxation of the Babylonian captivity through Cyrus. But many things are said here too sublime to apply to the Jews and Cyrus. Second, St. Thomas, Hugo, Sanchez and Jansenius and Maldonatus on Matthew III, verse 3, and many more recent authors understand these things literally and historically of the Jews liberated by Cyrus, and allegorically of the liberation of the human race from captivity through Christ. Third, and best of all, Forerius, Adamus and others understand these things literally of Christ and His redemption; yet with an allusion to the redemption and liberation of the Jews from Babylon. For that was a type of this, just as it was a type of Christ. See canons IV and V.
Christ therefore is here the consoler foreseen and promised by Isaiah; hence His type (as all the Fathers teach) was Noah, the restorer of the human race nearly consumed by the flood, and therefore he was called Noah, that is, consoler, Genesis V, 29. For Christ consoled us first, through Himself and His own exhortations and graces while He lived, and because by His labor and death He brought us redemption, that is, justice and eternal salvation. Second, from heaven He daily consoles us, pleading His merits before the Father, and obtaining and sending down new graces. Third, departing from the world He assigned us another Paraclete, or consoler, namely the Holy Spirit. So St. Jerome, Cyril and Procopius.
In this chapter, therefore, first He promises this consolation of Christ, and His precursor John the Baptist, who will be the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and will be commanded by God to cry out: Prepare the way of the Lord, by considering namely that all flesh is grass, but the word of the Lord endures forever; so that men may recognize both their own weakness and God's indulgence and power toward them, and thus prepare themselves to receive it. But because these promises are weighty and grand, hence second, at verse 12, he digresses to describe God's power, greatness and wisdom: which, as it created all things and governs them, so also can accomplish all that it promises. Hence third, at verse 18, he inveighs against those who worship mute and lifeless idols instead of God. Finally, at verse 27, he reproaches the Jews for their distrust in affliction regarding God's help and providence, and teaches that those who hope in the Lord change their strength, and overcome and fly over all things like eagles.
Vulgate Text: Isaiah 40:1-31
1. Be comforted, be comforted, my people, says your God. 2. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call out to her: for her warfare is ended, her iniquity is pardoned: she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. 3. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Pre-
pare the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. 4. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth. 5. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see together that the mouth of the Lord has spoken. 6. The voice of one saying: Cry out. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field. 7. The grass has withered, and the flower has fallen, because the spirit of the Lord has blown upon it. Truly the people is grass: 8. the grass has withered, and the flower has fallen: but the word of our Lord endures forever. 9. Ascend upon a high mountain, you who bring good tidings to Zion: lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah: Behold your God: 10. behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and His arm shall rule: behold His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. 11. He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: in His arm He shall gather the lambs, and in His bosom He shall lift them up, and He Himself shall carry those with young. 12. Who has measured the waters in His fist, and weighed the heavens with His palm? Who has suspended the mass of the earth with three fingers, and weighed the mountains in a scale, and the hills in a balance? 13. Who has assisted the spirit of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor, and shown Him? 14. With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him the path of justice, and taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the way of prudence? 15. Behold the nations are as a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the turning of a balance: behold the islands are as a little dust. 16. And Lebanon shall not suffice for burning, nor its animals suffice for a holocaust. 17. All nations are as if they were not, so they are before Him, and they are accounted by Him as nothing and emptiness. 18. To whom then have you likened God? Or what image will you set up for Him? 19. Has the craftsman cast a graven image? Or has the goldsmith fashioned it with gold, and the silversmith with plates of silver? 20. He has chosen strong and incorruptible wood: the skillful craftsman seeks how to set up an idol that will not be moved. 21. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood the foundations of the earth? 22. He who sits upon the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like locusts: who stretched out the heavens as nothing, and spread them out like a tent to dwell in. 23. Who brings the searchers of secrets to nothing, and has made the judges of the earth as emptiness: 24. and indeed neither planted, nor sown, nor their stock rooted in the earth: He has suddenly blown upon them, and they have withered, and the whirlwind shall carry them away like stubble. 25. And to whom have you likened me, and made me equal, says the Holy One? 26. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things: who brings out their host by number, and calls them all by name: by the greatness of His might, and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing. 27. Why do you say, Jacob, and speak, Israel: My way is hidden from the Lord, and my judgment has passed away from my God? 28. Do you not know, or have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, who created the ends of the earth: He shall not faint, nor grow weary, nor is there any searching of His wisdom. 29. He gives strength to the weary: and to those who are not, He multiplies fortitude and vigor. 30. Youths shall faint, and labor, and young men shall fall in weakness. 31. But those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Verse 1: BE COMFORTED, BE COMFORTED, MY PEOPLE. — The Jews and Haymo, Hugo and the Gloss, refer ...
1. BE COMFORTED, BE COMFORTED, MY PEOPLE. — The Jews and Haymo, Hugo and the Gloss, refer these words to the end of the preceding chapter, namely to the words of Hezekiah: "Let there only be peace and truth in my days," as if to say: Hezekiah, O Jews! seems to have consulted only for himself and his own days, seeking peace for himself; you
however neglected you and your posterity: therefore God Himself will take care of you, and promises saying: "I will comfort you." But from verse 5 and following it is clear that these things pertain to the times of John the Baptist and Christ; yet he alludes to the Babylonian captivity, as I have said. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: I predicted in the preceding chapter, verse 6, that you would go as captives to Babylon; hence you are rightly troubled and grieve: but be comforted, for after 70 years I will snatch you away from there, and restore you to your former, indeed better, state. This I promise you in passing, and as it were briefly touch upon; but under this light consolation, as a type, I intend another far greater one, and promise it to you, namely that which Christ will bring, when He will recall you, who were consigned to death, hell and the devil, to freedom, and restore you to God and heaven.
Note: The word consolamini is taken passively, meaning receive consolation: for it is followed by "my people." The Septuagint however take it actively; hence they render it in the accusative, comfort my people. And so read the Greeks, St. Cyril, Procopius, Chrysostom, and thus among the Latins translate Pagninus and Vatablus. Second, He calls His people the assembly of the faithful, namely Christians, both Jews and Gentiles who believe in Christ.
Verse 2: SPEAK (namely you, O priests! as the Septuagint has, and you, O Apostles) TO THE HEART ...
2. SPEAK (namely you, O priests! as the Septuagint has, and you, O Apostles) TO THE HEART OF JERUSALEM, — as if to say: Announce to her pleasant and sweet things, which may soothe her heart, refresh it, and drive away all sadness from it. "It is an idiom, says St. Jerome, of Scripture, that whoever speaks to one who is sorrowful, and consoles by caressing, is said to speak to the heart." So Shechem spoke "to the heart" of Dinah whom he had violated, and who was therefore sad, as is found in the Hebrew, Genesis chapter XXXIV. So Hosea chapter II says: "I will lead her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her heart."
Finally hear St. Bernard, Sermon 5 on the Nativity of the Lord: "Be comforted, be comforted, says the Lord your God, Emmanuel, God with us, says this. The stable cries this out, the manger cries it out, the tears cry it out, the swaddling clothes cry it out. The stable cries out, that care is being prepared for the man who had fallen among robbers. The manger cries out, that food is being provided to the same man, who had been compared to beasts of burden. The tears cry out, the swaddling clothes cry out, that his already bloody wounds are being washed and wiped clean. For Christ had need of none of these things, nothing of these was for Him on His own account, but rather all things for the sake of the elect." Aptly St. Clement, book II of the Apostolic Constitutions, chapter XV, teaches that Bishops should employ these words of Isaiah among sinners, to recall them to penance, giving them hope of pardon.
AND CALL OUT TO HER. — The Septuagint renders: and console her. So the Holy Spirit is called parakletos, that is, advocate, or consoler; therefore an immense future consolation is signified: for four times he repeats the word comfort: for he says: "Be comforted, be comforted, speak to the heart of Jerusalem, console her."
In Hebrew it is קרו אליה kiru eleha, that is, cry out to her, or call her, so that you may announce to her this wonderful consolation, and thus refresh and comfort her. For the sense comes to the same thing. And so "call out to her" by metalepsis means the same as console her, as the Septuagint translates: for she is called forth for this purpose, that she may receive consolation.
FOR HER WARFARE IS ENDED. — So the Roman edition. For malitia (warfare) the Hebrew has צבא tsaba, that is, military service: but the meaning is the same. For malitia here signifies not wickedness, but labor, affliction and military hardships. Hence the Septuagint translates malitia as humiliation. So it is said in Matthew chapter VI, verse 34: "Sufficient for the day is its malitia," that is, affliction. So the Apostle says: "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil," that is, miserable. Malitia therefore here signifies the tribulation and punishments for sins which the Church has suffered, not so much from the pagan Emperors in the first three hundred years, as some would have it (for these befell her after Christ, not on account of sins, but to sharpen her virtue and glory: but here the Prophet speaks of the consolation brought by Christ; for this is His first consolation), but those which she suffered before Christ, when she still served unfaithfulness, sin and the devil as a pagan; or served the Romans, Greeks and other heathens as a Jewess, who exacted harsh punishments for sins from her and savagely harassed her. This malitia of hers therefore was her militia, that is, the course of her labors, and the time of her military service, servitude and afflictions appointed by God (for thus the Jews formerly had to serve military duty until the age of 50), as if to say: Now the course of your labor and hardship is completed, and the time of penance, in which by enduring adversities, and di-
vine chastisements you have served, exercised yourself, and in a way served as a soldier: for, as follows, "Her iniquity is pardoned." Christ also, just as He put an end to her iniquity, so also to her military service and hardship, or captivity; for as the Poet says of love:
Every lover is a soldier, and Cupid has his own camp.
And of this course of labor and pain you may say:
Every struggle is a warfare, and labor has its own camp, And the cross, and pain, and patience rejoicing in hardships.
So also every penitent serves as a soldier: and penance is a hard military service. So also St. Job says in chapter VII, 1: "The life of man upon earth is a warfare." And explaining this warfare, verse 3, he says: "I have counted wearisome nights for myself," and in chapter XIV, he says: "Man born of woman is filled with many miseries," etc.
You will say: After Christ the Jews, even those converted to Christ, still served the Romans, indeed Christ Himself paid tribute to them; how then did He put an end to their servitude? I respond: Properly and primarily Christ freed us from the captivity of sin, death, the devil and hell. For this spiritual captivity is the greatest and eternal, compared to which temporal servitude is small, and as nothing. Secondarily however He also freed us from temporal servitude. First, because He Himself being born as a prince of peace, brought peace with Him into the world, and caused Augustus Caesar to rule the Jews not in a hostile and tyrannical manner, as Shalmaneser, Nebuchadnezzar, and other devastators of the Jews had done, but politically and peacefully, as a legitimate prince with equal justice, indeed humanely, as he also ruled the other nations subject to him. See the commentary on Isaiah II, 4. Second, because Christ drove away sin from the Jews converted to Him, and consequently servitude insofar as it was a punishment for sin: He therefore made it so that servitude for faithful servants was not a punishment for guilt, but a condition of lot and nature, indeed so that it was for them an exercise of patience and virtue, and material and cause of heavenly freedom and glory. Third, because by His grace He makes it so that servitude for Christians is not forced and harsh, as it was for the Jews, but free and sweet: for He makes them bear it with a calm and willing spirit out of love for God. "For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom," II Corinthians III, 17. This is what Christ says to the Jews: "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed," John chapter VIII, 36. Fourth, because Christ, subjecting Constantine the Great and the subsequent Emperors to His faith, caused them to rule over Christians not as tyrants, nor as Caesars, but as fathers. Fifth, because in the resurrection He will abolish all servitude among the Saints, and will bestow upon them freedom, indeed the heavenly kingdom, so that they may be eternal kings, and lords of the world.
Second, some understand malitia as the most harsh and laborious ceremonies, purifications, circumcisions, sacrifices, etc., by which the Synagogue before Christ served God in the Jewish temple, and as it were waged war: for thus the duties and service of the Levites in the tabernacle, Numbers IV, are often called tsaba, that is, military service, as if to say: God abolished that burdensome military service of the old tabernacle, and caused a new and easy Christian service to succeed it in the Church, about which the Apostle writes, I Timothy I, 18, and admonishes him to fight in it the good fight. Hence St. Justin in Against Trypho, and Tertullian, book I Against Marcion, shortly after the beginning, and from them Leo Castrius and Forerius explain it thus: The warfare is ended, that is, the law of Moses, and the Synagogue of the Jews is no longer the Church militant; but that now is the law and Church of Christ, which is not so much a warfare as peace and rest, and freed from that burdensome warfare of the Jews, easily and sweetly, now aided by Christ and the holy Angels, wages war for God and heaven. This exposition is fitting. Yet the first interpretation is more supported by what is added: "Her iniquity is pardoned."
SHE HAS RECEIVED FROM THE HAND OF THE LORD DOUBLE. — "Double," that is, manifold and great, or many and large. So the Chaldean, Origen in Homily 12 on Jeremiah, and others: for thus double is often taken by catachresis for much and severe, as I said on Jeremiah XVII, 18. Now first, the meaning is, as if to say: You have paid double, that is, many and severe, punishments for your sins: you have therefore given enough of punishments; wherefore your warfare and affliction is ended. So Procopius, Theodoret, Cyril. Who also add that the punishments are called double, not because God punishes sins beyond what is deserved, and in double measure: for this is contrary to His justice and clemency: but because out of love for the Church, He seems to Himself to have inflicted punishments twice as heavy as she deserves, just as a father who has chastised his dearest son for a great sin with a very light punishment, seeing his pain and welts, is grieved, and stroking him says: Alas! my son, I have punished you too much, my sudden anger inflicted too severe blows upon you.
Again Forerius thinks these words are said to the Church on account of Christ, who is her head, and who took upon Himself her crimes to be expiated; whose satisfaction is therefore ours, as if to say: Enough, indeed too much, have I punished my Son on account of your crimes. For Christ by His death and cross so satisfied divine justice, that even if men had committed much greater sins, yet by Christ's satisfaction not only are all faults to be extinguished and all sins to be forgiven, but moreover Christ can claim for Himself and for them the most ample rewards, due to His obedience and extreme patience as the Son of God. Through Christ therefore we have given more satisfaction to God than we owed. Finally St. Jerome and Hugo say that the Jews "received double" because first they were destroyed by the Babylonians, and second by the Romans. But against this, among other things, is the fact that the destruction by the Romans was accomplished long after Christ.
Second, this "double" can be understood not of punishments, but of graces, as if to say: God has so pardoned the iniquities of the Church, and so now consoles her through Christ, that from the im-
mense mercy of God she has received double for her sins, and for the punishments of sins which she deserved. So Adamus. For here the most abundant consolation is given to the Church through Christ. The first meaning is simpler; this latter one is more sublime and more divine. For this is a vengeance worthy of and proper to God, that He returns good for evil, and that double; for His most generous goodness is so great that it contends with the malice of men, and overwhelms it.
Morally, learn here how divine it is to console the afflicted, even enemies and foes. Thus Joseph the patriarch consoled his brothers who were grieving over that grave sin by which they had wanted to kill him, Genesis L, 19. Elkanah the father of Samuel consoled his sad mother, because her rival reproached her for her barrenness, I Kings (I Samuel) I. The elder Tobias consoles his wife who was sad because of the longer delay of their absent son, Tobit X, 6. Christ the Lord consoles Martha and Mary Magdalene who were sad at the death of their brother Lazarus, John XI, 23. St. Anthony consoled Didymus the blind man saying: "There is no reason, Didymus, to wear yourself out with grief because you lack eyes, which mice, lizards and lowly little animals have. It is rather fitting that you be carried away with pleasure and joy, you who like the Angels possess vigorous inner eyes, with which you clearly perceive immortal and divine thought, and exactly discern truth itself." So Nicephorus, book IX, chapter XVII.
St. Gregory, book II, epistle 44, consoled Judith who had been expelled from the kingdom of Hungary: "Moreover, he says, let not the adversity which now presses upon you terrify you, nor depress the spirit of your nobility: but if anything sad or grievous has assailed you, hide it with the bearing and gesture of royal constancy, and with the natural virtue of your character patiently endure the troublesome causes (which God avert), having trust and firm hope in God our Savior, for He has care of you, who never forsakes those who hope in Him: and the more keenly He now permits your soul to be beaten by anxieties, the more abundantly He gladdens it with the near and powerful virtue of His consolation. Act therefore so that in all that the kingdom and empire brings, you show yourself all the more excellent, the more you recognize that all these things are subject to change. And may almighty God, who is the consolation of the sorrowful, the strength of the weak, quickly bestow upon you present joy, and grant the true and eternal glory of heavenly happiness."
St. Bernard, epistle 110, thus consoles the grieving parents of Geoffrey upon his entering Clairvaux: "All of us who are in Clairvaux, or from Clairvaux, receive him as a brother, and you as parents. But perhaps you fear the harshness of the life for his body, since you know him to be tender and delicate. But of this kind of fear it is said: There they trembled with fear where there was no fear. Be confident, be consoled; I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son, until the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation, shall receive him from my hands. Do not therefore mourn, do not weep, because your Geoffrey hastens to joy, not to mourning. I will be to him a father, I both mother, I brother and sister. I will make the crooked things straight for him, and the rough ways smooth. I will so temper and manage all things for him, that both his spirit may profit, and his body may not fail. Finally he shall serve the Lord in gladness and exultation, and shall sing in the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord."
Verse 3: THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING, — supply: will be, or will be heard in the wilderness. Now St....
3. THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING, — supply: will be, or will be heard in the wilderness. Now St. Thomas, Hugo, Toletus and Jansenius continue to refer these words literally to the return from the Babylonian captivity, as if to say: I seem to myself to hear the herald of Cyrus: Cyrus sets you free, O Hebrews! Return cheerfully to your homeland: and you, O nations! through whom they will pass, make smooth the ways for them, and fill up the hills and valleys, that is, provide them an easy and convenient passage. It is a catachresis. Similar in this same subject matter is Baruch V, 7. Others however refer this to the liberation of the human race from the power of the devil through Christ, of which that was a type.
But I say that these words are to be understood of John the Baptist, the precursor of Christ, preparing the way for Him in the wilderness; I acknowledge however that there is an allusion to the return from Babylon. That this is so, St. John himself teaches, who when asked: "Who are you?" responded: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, etc., as the prophet Isaiah said." For that preaching properly applies to him: "Prepare the way of the Lord," etc. Finally, all the Evangelists and the whole Church narrate and explain this passage of St. John, as is clear from Matthew III, 3; Mark I, 3; Luke III, 4; John I, 23. So Forerius, Adamus and others. And this will be more evident from the following chapter, where he clearly treats of Christ and the calling of the Gentiles. Hence St. John is called by Tertullian, book IV Against Marcion, chapter XI, "the crier in the wilderness, and the preparer of the Lord's ways, through the proclamation and commendation of penance."
Note first: This "voice of one crying" or calling pertains to that command of verse 1: "Be comforted, and call out to her." For this is its execution, or rather its sign, as if to say: If you ask: How do you know, O Isaiah, that this consolation will come to the Church and to us, that God reconciled to us will forgive sins, and render double! I respond, he says, I know this from the fact that I see and hear the voice of John the Baptist calling out to her, and crying that she should prepare herself for this consolation, remission and grace, which the approaching Christ brings her, who is going to reconcile the world to God, and appease God by His obedience and death.
Note second: John was the voice of one crying, namely of God, and of the divine Word: for God cried out through the mouth and voice of John, just as a king cries out through his herald. So St. Ambrose, Theophylact and others, on Luke III. It can also be translated from the Hebrew as a crying voice: for John was both.
Note third: St. John was a voice, first, because just as through the voice we manifest to others the word hidden in the mind: so the eternal Father through John manifested His Word, namely the Son hidden in the flesh, to the world. So St. Augustine, Sermon 20 On the Saints. Second, just as the voice of a speaker precedes the understanding and comprehension of the hearer: so John by his preaching preceded the knowledge and faith of Christ in the minds of the Jews, and engendered it in them. So St. Gregory, Homily 20 on the Gospel. Third, the voice indeed precedes the word and understanding of the hearer, yet follows the word which preceded in the mind of the speaker: for through the voice the speaker reveals his word and thought to the hearer: so John preceded the Word and knowledge of God in the minds of his hearers; yet this Word of God preceded John, because it was from eternity. So St. Ambrose on Luke chapter III, 4, where he also adds: "Because, he says, John was a voice, therefore at his birth his mute father recovered his voice." Fourth, Epiphanius brings another analogy, in heresy 69, who understands by voice here an imperfect and inarticulate sound, such as heralds are accustomed to make in a crowd, saying for example hush, hush, when they call for silence because the prince is about to speak: for thus John the herald was calling for the people's attention, so that they would receive Christ's teaching, in comparison with which John's preaching was imperfect and as it were inarticulate. Fifth, John is called a voice, because he said nothing from himself: but only those things which he had heard from God. Sixth, just as a voice precedes a word, for by the voice the word is formed: so John preceded Christ: "You shall go before, said Zechariah, before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways." Seventh, he is called a voice, because his office was not to write his oracles, as Isaiah and other Prophets did, who were accordingly both a voice and the pen of a swiftly writing scribe; but to preach with a living voice, and to point out Christ. Eighth, because whatever was in John was a voice; his whole being preached penance and holiness. His eyes, hands, garments, food, and whatever was in him cried out: "Do penance, prepare the way of the Lord: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." So we commonly say: "The nightingale is entirely a voice," because it does nothing else but sing. Hence among the Syrians it is called Spharcolo, that is, bird of voice, meaning a vocal bird, and itself as it were a voice. Let a preacher be such a voice, and he will be "a hammer crushing rocks." Finally John was a voice not feeble and murmuring, but crying out, because with wonderful boldness, constancy, with his whole spirit and the full force of his voice, he preached publicly and cried out against the vices of princes and people. For the morals of men were then most corrupt, and they needed to be terrified and struck with a great voice.
Again, by this crying he signified the preaching of the Gospel to be heard far and wide, and to be spread broadly, according to that of Psalm XVIII: "Their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." Beautifully St. Basil on Psalm XXVIII, the attributes which the Psalmist gives to the great voice, that is to thunder, saying: "The voice of the Lord in power, the voice of the Lord in magnificence, the voice of the Lord breaking the cedars, the voice of the Lord shaking the wilderness of Kadesh,
the voice of the Lord preparing the deer," etc., mystically explains as referring to the most efficacious voice of St. John. Finally St. Ambrose, Sermon 9: "Even today, he says, John cries out by example and word, and by the thunder of his voice shuts up the deserts of our sins."
Fourth, John was a threefold voice: namely a voice, first, foretelling the coming Christ; second, pointing out the Christ who had been born; third, inciting to penance, and thus preparing the way for Christ. Hence in Scripture John has three epithets, namely: "Voice, Angel, Lamp," or: "Preacher, Prophet, more than a Prophet." For John was a voice preaching penance, he was an Angel and prophet preaching and announcing the approaching grace of Christ. He was a lamp, and more than a Prophet, pointing out Christ present. See Francisco de Toledo on chapter III of Luke, note 16.
Finally hear St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 127: "John, he says, is the school of virtues, the mastery of life, the pattern of holiness, the norm of justice, the mirror of virginity, the title of modesty, the example of chastity, the way of penance, the pardon of sinners, the discipline of faith. John is greater than man, equal to Angels, the sum of the law, the sanction of the Gospel, the voice of the Apostles, the silence of the Prophets, the lamp of the world, the herald of the Judge, the precursor of Christ, the quartermaster of the Lord, the witness of God, the mediator of the entire Trinity."
Moreover John was so entirely a voice that before he was born, he spoke in the womb, not with speech, but with a leap of his tongue and whole body, by which he adored and proclaimed Christ present in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, recently incarnate, and announced the same to his mother, who therefore, filled with the Holy Spirit, recognized Him, and for that reason called the Blessed Virgin the mother of the Lord, that is, of God, Luke I, 44. Again this voice could not be shut up and silenced in prison. For in prison John spoke to his disciples, and sent them to Christ, Matthew XI, 2. Indeed even in dying he spoke, bearing witness not with his voice but with his blood to chastity, as well as to Christ. Wherefore his blood still cries out, not as Abel's for vengeance, but for the mercy and holiness of Christ.
Tropologically, St. John was the voice of all virtues. Of penance, saying: "Do penance." Of confession, because "he confessed, and did not deny" that he was not the Christ, but a voice pointing to Christ. Of humility, because he said he was not worthy to loose the strap of Christ's sandals. Of faith, saying: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sin of the world." Of the chastisement of sinners, thundering: "Brood of vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come?" Luke, chapter III, 7. Of justice, saying to soldiers: "Do violence to no man, neither calumniate any man: and be content with your pay," same passage, verse 14. Of chastity, saying to King Herod the adulterer: "It is not lawful for you to have her," namely Herodias, as being your brother's wife, Matthew XIV, 4; and for this voice he fell a Martyr. Of praise and doxology, when
being born he moved his father Zechariah to sing: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and brought about the redemption of His people," and moved the Blessed Virgin, by greeting through his mother the mother of the Lord, to sing: "My soul magnifies the Lord. And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior," Luke I, verses 46 and 68. Let holy men learn from John to be entirely voices of virtues, and voices and trumpets celebrating the glory of God.
IN THE WILDERNESS. — Jansenius and some others refer these words not to voice, but to prepare. For what, he says, the Prophet says in the first hemistich: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord," he repeats in the second, and explains when he adds: "Make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God."
But all the manuscripts of the Evangelists, and likewise of Isaiah, punctuate these words so as to join in the wilderness with "the voice of one crying." For John was a hermit, and a voice crying in the wilderness: nor did John cry out that they should prepare the way for the Lord in the wilderness: for he did not want to empty Judea of its inhabitants and make them hermits; but the Jews went out from villages and cities to him dwelling and crying in the wilderness, to see and hear him. Hence St. Jerome, writing to Therasia, volume IX: "He chose, he says, a place not where no one would hear him, but to which he might draw people back from the conduct of corrupt nature. The place itself therefore is a model of teaching, and the solitude itself is a preaching of virtues: the dwelling works its effect, when the anxious hearer abandons the crowded cities." In reality therefore John was saying, indeed crying out about himself:
Mitres and the honors of the deceitful world become cheap. Only the deserts please me; the world and cities are burdensome. O blessed solitude, O sole blessedness, companion and rival of the Angels!
Note: Outstanding and contemplative men have always sought out desert places. For the desert is like a school of paradise. Hence God said, Hosea chapter II: "I will lead her into the wilderness: and I will speak to her heart." Hence St. Anthony, Hilarion, Jerome and countless others, leaving the cities, cultivated the solitude, where free from the company and crowds of men, and from the allurements and dangers of the world, they devoted themselves to studies and prayers, and burning with charity and ablaze with desire, aspired to heaven. On this account St. Augustine, epistle 76, does not hesitate to say: "He will not be a good cleric who was not a good monk." So, to pass over others in silence, St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his Sermon on the Holy Lights of Epiphany: "I cannot, he says, contain the delight of my joy; but I am lifted up in mind, and forgetting my own littleness, I strive or eagerly desire to undertake the office of the great John, or rather his service: and although I am not a precursor, yet I come from the desert," namely from the solitude of Pontus, to which he had retired with St. Basil from desire of the heavenly life. See the commentary on Lamentations III, 28, and Jeremiah IX, 2. Therefore our deserter Innovators, the enemies of monks and anchorites, who would have this wilderness of John inhabited and cultivated, are in error.
as though John lived in his father's house which was in the hill country. Indeed these soft and delicate reformers of the faith transform John's desert into a city, his garment of goat hair and sackcloth into wavy fabric (commonly called camlet), and his locusts into sea crabs. But Isaiah teaches far otherwise, who explains this desert by the word solitude, and the Evangelists, who teach that he lived in the desert places of Judea, and the Church, which sings:
The caves of the desert in your tender years, Fleeing the throngs of citizens, you sought, Lest even by the slightest blemish of reputation You might stain your life.
And all the Fathers, whom see in Canisius, book On the Corruption of the Word of God, chapter II.
Cedrenus and Nicephorus, book I, chapter XIV, report that when John was a year and a half old, he was led by his mother into the desert, apparently to escape Herod's persecution. Cedrenus adds that John hid in a cave, and that his mother died there, and that an Angel took charge of the little John. This cave was later cared for by hermits, as is evident from Sophronius in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter I.
Moreover the reason why John withdrew into the desert was, that after the manner of Moses and Elijah he might emulate the spirit and virtue of Christ, namely, that in this withdrawal from the world and the world's vices he might prepare for himself the purity and reputation of holiness, so that consequently all would rightly believe him when he pointed out Christ. Hence the Fathers everywhere call John the prince of Monks and Hermits. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact and Euthymius on Matthew III, 5; Jerome, epistle 22 to Eustochium; Cassian, Conference XVIII, chapter VI.
The second reason was, to signify that the Gospel was not to be preached in Judea and Jerusalem; but in the solitude of the Church, and in the desert multitude of the Gentiles. On this account this wilderness of John's was the most famous one in Judea along the Jordan, both for its abundance of waters, and for the dwelling and miracles of Prophets near Aenon and Salim, John III, 23.
The third reason was, to signify that the morals of his age and of the world were corrupt, and that he lived in this world as if in a desert among wild beasts and serpents. Hence he says: "Brood of vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come?" Matthew III, 7.
So Diogenes the Cynic, carrying a lantern in the marketplace at midday, said that he was looking for men; since those whom he saw he considered to be not men, but beasts and cattle.
PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD. — For prepare the Hebrew has פנו pannu, which first, Forerius translates as give face, that is, appearance, to the way of the Lord; namely take care that this way has nothing of filth, unevenness, roughness or unseemliness, but that it be clean, beautiful and attractive. For the Hebrew root
panim, signifies face, hence the verb pana signifies to look, to turn the face. Second, Vatablus and Forerius say this word has a contrary signification: for pana in the Qal signifies to turn the face toward, while pinna in the Piel signifies to remove from the face, to purge. Hence they translate: Cleanse the way of the Lord, namely from mud and filth. Third, it could aptly be translated, in keeping with what follows, pannu as make angular, that is, make even to the angle, that is to the plumb line, that is, exactly level the way of the Lord. For פנה pinna signifies an angle. Hence repeating and explaining the same thing, he adds: "Make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God," as if to say: Behold your Christ is about to come, to be inaugurated as king; therefore level the ways for Him, that is, remove all impediments which might offend or be unbecoming to Him, namely remove errors, vices and sins, and bring it about that He be received readily and eagerly, diligently preparing your hearts for His faith, grace and all holiness. Therefore "Prepare the way of the Lord" is the same as "Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" for this was the voice and preaching of St. John, as is clear from Matthew III.
Maldonatus and others, who think that this passage refers to the return from Babylon, hold that there is an allusion to the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, for whom God opened a way in the Red Sea and in the wilderness, as if to say: A way will be prepared for the captive people returning from Babylon, no differently than God prepared and opened a way through the sea and through the desert for the same people when they entered the promised land.
IN THE WILDERNESS. — Forerius refers these words not to "make straight," but to "the voice of one crying:" for he himself repeats this here, as if to say: The voice of one crying in the desert and in the wilderness. But this repetition, in such a displacement of words, is harsh. Second, Vatablus says that he calls a solitude the mind that is barren and uncultivated by the word of God. This is symbolic and mystical. Third, and most plainly, as if to say: You go out to me in the wilderness: here therefore, with me exhorting you, correct your ways, and prepare the way for Christ. The solitude itself invites this, so that, removed from the crowd, you may devote yourselves to the word of God and your salvation. So St. Jerome.
Verse 4: EVERY VALLEY SHALL BE EXALTED. — There is an enallage of mood: for these future tenses ...
4. EVERY VALLEY SHALL BE EXALTED. — There is an enallage of mood: for these future tenses are to be expounded as imperatives: "shall be exalted," that is, let it be exalted; "shall be made low," that is, let it be made low; "shall be," that is, let them be. For he explains the manner of making straight, or of leveling, the way of the Lord, namely if the valleys be filled up and raised, the mountains and hills be cast down and lowered: the "crooked," that is the oblique, winding and twisted ways, or detours, "be made straight; and the rough," that is the steep and uneven, be made level and even, as if to say: Remove from your minds everything that is crooked, twisted, uneven, too lofty, or too depressed: for example, whoever bears the mountain of pride in his heart, let him lower this swelling; whoever contains within himself the valley of pusillanimity and sloth, let him fill-
it up, raise and level it by magnanimity and trust in God; whoever is harsh in manner, let him compose himself to sweetness and modesty. Again, as Tertullian says, book V Against Marcion: "Christ will level the hills with the valleys, and will direct the crooked into straight lines and plains: because He will convert all the difficulties of the law into the ease and equity of the Gospel." And this is the reason why he used the future rather than the optative, saying: "It shall be filled," not, let it be filled. So Cyril.
Verse 5: AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD SHALL BE REVEALED. — "And," that is, for: for this is what th...
5. AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD SHALL BE REVEALED. — "And," that is, for: for this is what the Hebrew vav often signifies: it gives the reason why the way must be prepared.
GLORY. — That is, the glorious humanity of Christ, and the divinity hidden in it, will be visible to the eyes of all, announcing to all the glorious Gospel, and through it showing the way to eternal glory, and preaching the kingdom of heaven. For all these things are the glory of the Lord. Formerly the cloud, or smoke, from the midst of which fire flashed, and the terrifying voice of the Lord was heard, was called "the glory of the Lord," Exodus XIX, 9 and 16. But now in the new law, God made man, reconciling the world to the Father, teaching everywhere, and working miracles, is called "the glory of the Lord," revealed to the whole world.
AND ALL FLESH SHALL SEE TOGETHER (that is, will be able to see and experience) THAT THE MOUTH OF THE LORD HAS SPOKEN, — as if to say: Then every person will see actually rendered and fulfilled what the Lord now promises through me and other Prophets about Christ the Savior. Hence St. Luke, chapter III, 6, clearly explains saying: "All flesh shall see the salvation of God," that is, Christ the Savior, as if to say: All will see that the promises so magnificent concerning Christ made by the Prophets were promises of God, and they will understand that it was God who was making those promises, when they behold with their own eyes the truth of the promises, namely God Himself in the flesh. This salvation or savior therefore is that glory of God which they assert will be revealed.
Verse 6: THE VOICE OF ONE SAYING (as if to say: I Isaiah hear a voice inwardly saying and sugges...
6. THE VOICE OF ONE SAYING (as if to say: I Isaiah hear a voice inwardly saying and suggesting to me): CRY OUT. AND I SAID (that is, I responded): WHAT SHALL I CRY (To which the voice says: Cry out)? ALL FLESH IS GRASS. — To what end is Isaiah commanded to cry this out? What does this have to do with what precedes? First, Sanchez and others who think this passage deals with the return from Babylon explain it as if to say: Let not this consolation of your return seem impossible to you, O Jews, because of the power of the Chaldeans, who hold you and are masters of affairs: because this power of theirs, although it seems to be at its height, is nevertheless fleshly, and similar to a spring flower, which soon withers, dries up and falls away as the sun grows hot, and becomes grass, because the spirit, that is the wrath and fury, of the Lord like a burning wind has blown upon and blasted it.
Second, Forerius refers these words to the cessation of Judaism and the legal ceremonies which the Apostle, Hebrews IX, 10, calls "justifications of the flesh," because they purified and justified the flesh, not the soul, as if to say: The Jews, as the Apostle says, in the flesh
glory, and think that circumcision and their other carnal purifications and ceremonies are solid, and will be eternal, and from them they hope for justice and salvation. I want therefore, O Isaiah, that you preach to the carnal Jews that all these things, since they are flesh and lack spirit, are like grass or hay, earthly and fleeting, and therefore will soon be dried up and abolished.
Third and genuinely, Isaiah here prescribes the manner of preparing the way for the Lord, and teaches that it is humility; namely that men should consider and judge themselves to be flesh, and all flesh to be grass, and the glory of the flesh to be like the flower of grass. For this humble meditation levels all that is lofty, crooked and rough in our soul, removes all vices, implants all virtues, and draws all God's grace to itself: "For, as Sanchez rightly says, when the humble person sees, or thinks he sees, everything in himself as empty and deep, this causes God, who suffers nothing to be empty in the universe of natural things, and likewise in that of spiritual things, to fill that which the lowly thought finds empty in itself." And just as, as daily experience teaches, there is nothing in a humble person against which people stumble, dash themselves and take offense: so in the humble there is nothing that deters God from lodging there, whereby God establishes His house and temple for Himself in him.
Again Isaiah is commanded to cry out: "All flesh is grass," so that men may understand how much the Word of God lowered and emptied Himself for their sake, and how immense the divine goodness was, which willed that His Christ should descend to men so weak and fragile as to be like grass and a flower that immediately withers. At the same time so that men may know that they arrive at this immortal grace and glory of Christ not by the powers of nature, but by the gift of God, provided they are joined with the grass, that is, with the flesh of the Word, which endures forever. So Theodoret, Procopius, St. Jerome and others.
See here therefore: the Word, when He was made flesh, was made grass; because all flesh is grass, and therefore to foreshadow this, He willed to be placed in a manger and on hay, and, as the Church sings:
He did not shrink from the manger, He endured to lie on hay.
Because, as St. Bernard says, Sermon 33 on the Song of Songs, man through sin had been made like the beasts: "Recognize therefore, he says, as a beast, Him whom you did not recognize as a man. Adore in the stable Him whom you fled in paradise. Honor the manger, whose rule you despised. Eat the hay, you who disdained bread, and the bread of angels." For that these things pertain to Christ is clear from what precedes. For he commanded the way to be prepared for Him by preaching penance, to which he incites by considering that all flesh is grass, and a flower which, when the spirit of the Lord, that is, a burning wind blows, soon withers and dries up.
Moreover, he calls it not mown and dry hay, but living grass, sprouting in the meadow: for this is called chasir in Hebrew, and this soon dries up when the sun burns, especially when it is mowed. This is what the Psalmist says, Psalm LXXXIX: "In the morning let it pass like grass, in the morning let it bloom and pass: in the evening let it fall, harden and wither." See what follows, and Psalm CI, 12: "My days have declined like a shadow: and I have withered like grass."
Morally, note here the worthlessness of the flesh and of man, who is like grass, or vegetation, and a flower soon vanishing. Beautifully and piously St. Jerome says: "Truly if anyone considers the fragility of the flesh, and that by the moments of hours we grow and decline, and do not remain in the same state, and the very thing that we speak, dictate and write, flies past as part of our life; he will not hesitate to call the flesh grass, and its glory like the flower of grass." He proves this by induction: "He who was lately an infant is suddenly a boy, he who was a boy is suddenly a youth, and is changed through uncertain intervals all the way to old age: and he understands he is old before he marvels that he is no longer young. The beautiful woman who drew troops of young men after her, is furrowed with wrinkles on her brow; and she who formerly was an object of love, is afterward an object of disgust."
Truly the Poet says:
Gather new flowers, while the flower is new and youth is new; And remember that your lifetime hastens on thus.
Truly it is said to man: "You are like the leaf of an apple, which in the morning appears white, at midday purple, in the evening blue." The son of Adam is like an Adam's apple, as the Italians call it, which on the outside is large and handsome, on the inside cheap and tasteless. And St. Augustine on that passage of Psalm CII: "Like a flower of the field so shall he bloom: All, he says, the splendor of the human race, honors, powers, riches, vanities, threats, swellings — it is the flower of grass. That house flourishes, and it is a great house, that family flourishes, and with how many does it flourish, or how many years do they live? Many years to you, a brief time to God. In comparison with the long and far-living ages, every flower of whatever house is the same as a flower of the field; scarcely annual is all the beauty of the year. Whatever thrives there, whatever shines there, whatever is beautiful there, does not last forever; indeed it cannot be drawn out through the whole year." Then he adds: "How quickly the flowers pass, and this is what is beautiful in plants. What is very beautiful quickly falls. Because therefore the Father knew our frame, because we are grass, and can bloom only for a time; He sent us His Word, and His Word which endures forever; He made a brother to the grass which does not endure forever. Do not wonder that you will share in His eternity: He first became a sharer in your grass. How great therefore is the hope of the grass, when the Word was made flesh! That which endures forever did not disdain to take on grass, lest the grass should despair of itself."
And St. Gregory, book XI of the Moralia, chapter XXVI, on that passage of Job
chapter XIV: Who goes forth like a flower: "What are men, he says, born into the world, but certain flowers in a field? Behold, the world is as full of men as of flowers. Life therefore in the flesh is a flower in the grass; whence it is said through the Psalmist: Man, his days are like grass, and like a flower of the field so shall he bloom. Isaiah also says: All flesh is grass, and all its glory like a flower of the field." He adds the reason: "For man, after the manner of a flower, comes forth from hiddenness, and suddenly appears in public, and immediately from public life is withdrawn through death to hiddenness. The greenness of the flesh shows us, but the dryness of dust withdraws us from sight. Like a flower we appeared who did not exist, like a flower we wither who appeared for a time." In a similar manner Clement of Alexandria, book II of the Pedagogue, chapter X, and his disciple Origen, Homily 4 on Psalm XXXVI, and St. Basil, Homily 5 on the Hexaemeron, and from him St. Ambrose, book III of the Hexaemeron, chapter VII, piously philosophize about the flower and grass, whose words Delrio collects and recites, adage 765.
For this reason St. James, in his epistle, chapter IV, 15: "For what is your life? It is a vapor appearing for a little while, and afterwards it will vanish;" and David, Psalm CI: "My days have declined like a shadow; and I have dried up like grass." That saying is true: "Man is a bubble, life is a tale." Homer compares the life of man to the falling leaves of trees; Pindar called man "a dream of a shadow;" Aeschylus compared the life of man not to smoke, but to the shadow of smoke, than which nothing is more insubstantial and fleeting.
The damned in hell feel this, but too late: "What has pride profited us, they say? Or what has the boasting of riches brought us? All those things have passed away like a shadow, and like a messenger running past, and like a ship which passes through the surging water, of which, when it has passed, no trace can be found; or like a bird which flies through the air, of whose flight no evidence is found; or like an arrow shot to a destined place," etc. How wise is he who tastes this while he lives here! Why, O wretch, do you seek the favor of a man who will die tomorrow? You are grass, and you seek grass. Why do you lust after a beautiful woman? You lust after grass. Think: "All flesh is grass." Why do you gape at the meats of chickens at the table? You gape at grass, you eat grass like an ox: "For all flesh is grass." Why do you nourish your flesh and skin so lavishly? You nourish grass, indeed the ashes of grass. "Remember, O man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall soon return." Oh if today we had more Isaiahs, who at the crossroads, marketplaces and pulpits would cry out with stentorian voice and spirit to mortals: "All flesh is grass: sons of men, why do you love vanity?" Why do you attribute lusts to the flesh? You accumulate grass, but grass that will burn forever in the eternal fire. Did not Democritus rightly always laugh, and Heraclitus perpetually weep and lament the vanity and foolishness of men, who captivated by these fleeting pleasures
and pomps neglect and lose the future and eternal? "All flesh is grass:" therefore also Princes, and Kings, and Emperors, and Bishops, and Cardinals, and Popes are grass. This is what is proclaimed to the Pope when he is inaugurated, with burning tow whose flame quickly vanishes: "Most Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world, remember that you are a man." Shortly you will die, and all your glory with you. Brilliantly St. Jerome in the Epitaph of Nepotian, snatched away in the flower of his age: "O wretched, he says, human condition, and without Christ all that we live is vain! All flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. Where now is that beautiful face? Where the dignity of the whole body, with which the beauty of the soul was clothed as with a beautiful garment? Alas, the lily was withering when the south wind blew; and the purple of the violet was gradually passing into paleness." And further: "We ought therefore ourselves also to meditate in advance on what we shall someday be, and what, whether we wish or not, cannot be far off. Even if we should exceed nine hundred years of life, and the days of Methuselah were granted to us, yet the past length which would have ceased to be would be nothing. For between him who has lived ten years and him who has lived a thousand, after the same end of life has arrived, and the inescapable necessity of death, all that has passed is the same; except that the old man departs more burdened with the load of sins." Finally a poet in leonine verse, plainly but truly:
Speak, O man, vessel of ashes, what does the flower of your face avail? What does the abundance of things avail? Death is the last boundary of days. Flowers? You will wither. Do you hear? You will grow deaf.
Verse 8: THE WORD OF OUR LORD ENDURES FOREVER. — This word is that which, as he said in verse 5,...
8. THE WORD OF OUR LORD ENDURES FOREVER. — This word is that which, as he said in verse 5, "the mouth of the Lord has spoken," and which He promised; it is namely Christ, and the Gospel of Christ, about which St. Peter, citing this passage, says: "This is the word which has been preached to you as the Gospel." This is what David says in other words, Psalm CXVIII, 96: "I have seen an end of all perfection; your commandment is exceedingly broad." This is the word about which Isaiah said, chapter II, verse 3: "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
Verse 9: ASCEND UPON A HIGH MOUNTAIN, YOU WHO BRING GOOD TIDINGS TO ZION. — So the Roman edition...
9. ASCEND UPON A HIGH MOUNTAIN, YOU WHO BRING GOOD TIDINGS TO ZION. — So the Roman edition. "Zion," that is, to Zion, meaning to the Church: for earthly Zion was on a high mountain, nor was there one higher upon which a herald could ascend. The Hebrew however reads: ascend upon a high mountain, O evangelizing Zion, whereby Zion, that is, the Church, is commanded to bring good tidings to her faithful of what follows: "Behold your God," etc. But the meaning of both readings is the same. For the Church does not evangelize by herself, but through her Apostles and preachers; nor do they evangelize anyone other than the Church, that is, the faithful. The preacher therefore evangelizes Zion, that is, the faithful in the Church. Add that the Hebrew מבשרת mebasseret, that is, she who brings good tidings, can be taken as the masculine me-
basser, that is, evangelist. For the Hebrews are accustomed to use the feminine gender for the beauty of expression, as if to say: This evangelist will be most beautiful and most gracious. So Ecclesiastes is called in Hebrew with the feminine form cohelet, that is, preacheress, meaning a most elegant preacher, Ecclesiastes chapter I, verse 1. Moreover the phrases ascend upon a mountain, lift up your voice with strength, do not fear, by catachresis merely signify and command that the heralds should proclaim Christ and the Gospel of Christ with the greatest eagerness, and effort of soul, and with all their strength, and fearlessly, as if to say: Come, O John the Baptist, and you Apostles, precursors of Christ! Publicly, strongly and courageously preach that God, promised so many ages ago, now incarnate, is coming to save you.
Second, Leo Castrius from St. Ambrose, book VIII on Luke, chapter XVII: "Your mountain, he says, is Paul, your mountain is Peter, your mountain the other Apostles; upon their faith set the foot of your mind, and grow in virtues to the height of a mountain, so that you may be a holy mountain of God, and raise yourself from earth to heaven, that from there, visible to all nations, places and times, you may cry out, and call all to Christ and salvation." But this meaning is mystical.
Morally, Forerius rightly concludes from this passage: "Those, he says, who preach the Gospel perfunctorily, or softly, or timidly, still do not know what the dignity of the Gospel is. Those also who seek in preaching something other than the fruit of the Gospel, still do not understand how great a gain and of what great dignity it is to announce Christ. Legitimate preachers of the Gospel bring God, offer God, give God. What can compare to this dignity?"
Mystically St. Bernard, Sermon 1 on the Feast of All Saints, teaches that preachers should ascend the mountain with Christ, that is, by desires of the soul, and by holy conduct tend toward the sublime, and ascend the mountain of virtues.
SAY TO THE CITIES OF JUDAH, — say to the particular Churches: hence therefore it is clear that they depend on one primary Church, namely the Roman, and must hearken to her: for thus the cities of Judah depended on Jerusalem. Therefore what Zion and Jerusalem were in Judea, Rome is in the Church.
Verse 10: BEHOLD THE LORD GOD SHALL COME WITH STRENGTH, — Christ shall come with great power, and...
10. BEHOLD THE LORD GOD SHALL COME WITH STRENGTH, — Christ shall come with great power, and with a resolute spirit, to rout the demons, overcome tyrants, and subject all nations to His faith. For these things are to be understood of the first coming of Christ. So Cyril, Procopius, St. Thomas, Lyranus and Forerius, although St. Jerome and Haymo refer these words to the second coming of Christ, when He will cast the demons and all the wicked into hell. This too is said truly and rightly: for then the strength and victory of Christ will be completed. Hence it is clear against the modern Jews that the Messiah or Christ is properly and truly God. For in the Hebrew He is called not only Adonai, but also Jehovah.
AND HIS ARM SHALL RULE. — "Arm" in Scripture is a symbol of strength and power. Moreover this arm of Christ belongs not only to His divinity, but also to His humanity. For by this He redeemed us and conquered our enemies: for this, although as flesh it is grass, as he said in verse 6; yet as flesh of the Word, which endures forever, it participates in the strength, arm and might of the Word. Hence again "His arm," that is, His powerful grace, "shall rule," that is, shall make us rule over our lust, and other passions and vices, and thus may He give us not only the ability to do good, but also the will and the accomplishment, says Leo Castrius.
BEHOLD HIS REWARD IS WITH HIM. — There is a threefold meaning here. First, as if to say: Christ will always have before His eyes the reward prepared for Him by the Father, namely that as the reward of His death undergone and His labor, He will have dominion over all nations, according to that of Psalm II: "Ask of me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as Your possession;" and Isaiah chapter LIII: "If He shall lay down His life for sin, He shall see a long-lived seed; therefore I will distribute to Him very many, and He shall divide the spoils of the strong." For those who have the prize and reward of their labor before their eyes, labor and strive hard for it. So also Christ "having joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame." So Forerius. The reward of Christ therefore is the faithful, whom the Father handed over to Him as sheep for His reward; of whom it follows: "He shall feed His flock like a shepherd," etc. Second, the reward, that is, the price of our redemption, is with Christ; because Christ redeemed us from the captivity of the devil, sin and death not freely, but by the ransom of His blood. So Sanchez. Third and most plainly, as if to say: Christ is a king, not avaricious, but generous, who has at hand an ample reward, which He displays and will give to His servants, especially preachers, indeed He Himself will be for them "a reward exceedingly great." For thus commanders in war are accustomed to kindle their soldiers by setting before the victors an ample reward and prize. This Christ also does.
AND HIS WORK BEFORE HIM. — This work can be taken in two ways. First, properly, as if to say: Therefore Christ will receive an ample reward from the Father, because (for כי is a causal particle meaning because) the work of our redemption and salvation enjoined upon Him by the Father, al-
ways will be before His eyes, and He will be wholly intent upon it. This is what He Himself says, John XVII, 4: "I have finished the work which You gave me."
Second, by metonymy "work" means the reward of work, so that in the Hebrew manner the same thing is said in the second hemistich as in the first. So it is said in Leviticus XIX, 13: "The work (that is, the reward of the work) of your hired servant shall not remain with you until the morning."
Verse 11: HE SHALL FEED HIS FLOCK LIKE A SHEPHERD. — The Prophet explains the phrase shall rule, ...
11. HE SHALL FEED HIS FLOCK LIKE A SHEPHERD. — The Prophet explains the phrase shall rule, as if to say: The dominion of Christ will not be a tyrannical lordship, but a pastoral one, so that as a shepherd He will govern not so much by fear as by love, with great care and kindness, indeed He will feed His sheep, so that He may seem to be not so much a king as a shepherd. So Homer calls Agamemnon poiména laón, shepherd of peoples, because a good king should rule his people as a shepherd does his sheep. And Cyrus, in Xenophon, book VIII, asserts that a good prince is similar to a good shepherd. Tiberius Caesar held the same view, adding: "It is the part of a good shepherd to shear the flock, not to flay it." Those who do otherwise are not shepherds, but butchers and tyrants. Such are those today who are lions toward the sheep, lambs toward the wolves; they nourish the wolves, they slaughter the sheep.
IN HIS ARM HE SHALL GATHER THE LAMBS. — Shepherds are accustomed to embrace in their hands and arms the little lambs which the ewes have brought forth in the fields or mountains, and to carry them to the fold. Christ will show similar care and love to the faithful. Hence, Luke XV, 5, He compares Himself to a shepherd who lifts the straying sheep onto his shoulders and brings it back to the fold. Hence in this image He is seen painted in Rome in the most ancient churches and cemeteries.
Morally, a lamb and sheep is an innocent, gentle, submissive, humble animal, useful for its wool, milk and flesh. Such should Christians be: let them be sheep and lambs, not goats, not foxes, not bulls, not bears, not wolves, not lions.
HE HIMSELF SHALL CARRY THOSE WITH YOUNG (those who carry offspring in the womb, or have recently given birth) — He shall lead them gently, as if carrying them, that is, He shall drive them step by step, lest they grow tired, and therefore will let them rest at intervals, and will even refresh their strength with food, and if need be, lifting them up into His bosom or onto His shoulder, will carry them. So Vatablus and Forerius, as Jacob did, Genesis XXXIII, 18, to whom Isaiah here alludes. See the duties of a good shepherd in Ezekiel chapter XXXIV. The meaning is, as if to say: Christ with the utmost providence, vigilance and gentleness, as a shepherd will nurture "the lambs," that is, the simple people recently reborn in baptism; and "those with young," that is, the Apostles and Preachers who bear children for Christ, He will strengthen and support with His grace and spirit, as a shepherd carrying them in his arms, or gently leading and sustaining them by hand through every hardship and adversity, and as it were carrying them. So St. Jerome, Cyril and Procopius.
Verse 12: WHO HAS MEASURED THE WATERS IN HIS FIST? — The Prophet launches into a commendation of ...
12. WHO HAS MEASURED THE WATERS IN HIS FIST? — The Prophet launches into a commendation of divine power and wisdom, to the end that he may show that this wonderful work of the Incarnation of the Word, and all of Christ's economy concerning the redemption of men — that as a shepherd He will feed the lambs, carry those with young, etc. — was very easy for Him, and that everything was foreseen and provided for by God. For He Himself rules and governs the entire universe most easily and most wisely, as if to say: Do not marvel at the wonders I have spoken of concerning the grace and consolation of Christ, concerning God made man, concerning the Gospel, concerning the calling of the nations as His sheep, and their conversion to Him; because God, who is wonderful, most powerful and most wise, will do all these things. So St. Jerome, Theodoret and Tertullian in the Scorpiace.
Note the catachresis: God contains the world in His palm, His fist, with three fingers, that is, most easily; although others say with three fingers, that is, with His three attributes, namely wisdom, goodness and power. But this is symbolic and mystical, as also is that interpretation of Paschasius, book I On the Holy Spirit, chapter II, who understands by the fingers the Most Holy Trinity: "Did He not, he says, here weigh the equality of one power in three fingers, as it were on a certain scale of mystery?" So also the Gloss: "The three fingers, it says, are the Most Holy Trinity." Likewise Christ the Lord represented the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity through a hand holding out three fingers to St. Anno, Archbishop of Cologne. Sigebert narrates the vision in his Life, chapter XVIII: "Christ, he says, with radiant eyes, presenting Himself in a friendly and gentle manner before the face of the astonished man, extending three fingers of His left hand before him, touched the first of them with His right index finger, saying: Behold the Father; and then the second: Behold the Son; and after that the third: Behold the Holy Spirit. And restraining His voice a little within His throat: Behold three, He said, persons to be equally adored in one divinity, to whom equal glory is always said by the universal Church. The Son holds the middle person between the Father and the Holy Spirit, and has no division from the two in any diminution of the same majesty and glory."
Here is a remarkable and vivid description of divine power and majesty: for God contains the most vast and deepest waters of the entire Ocean as easily as a man encloses a few drops of water in his fist. Therefore the entire Ocean is to God a thing as small as the water which we measure and hold in our palm or fist (Aquila translates, with the smallest finger). Likewise He has weighed the heavens with His palm. A palm-span is the extended hand from the tip of the thumb to the little finger: if you close the hand it becomes a fist, as if to say: Just as Atlas is imagined by the Poets to support the heavens on his shoulders, so truly God, the Atlas of heaven and the world — indeed the Creator — not with His shoulders but with His palm, that is, His hand placed beneath, not only measures but also suspends, balances and as it were weighs that immense mass and vastness of the heavens. Likewise He suspends the mass of the earth with three fingers. He alludes to shopkeepers who examine light weights by ounces
namely, many thorns lie hidden beneath the purple, many cares beneath the crown.
Verse 13: Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord? — In Hebrew, who has weighed, that is, examine...
13. Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord? — In Hebrew, who has weighed, that is, examined, considered, penetrated "the Spirit," that is the mind and counsels of the Lord, so as to be able to assist Him by one's own help and counsel in His work? The answer is: No one. For He Himself weighs, measures, and penetrates all things; and, as it is said in Proverbs 16:2: "The Lord is the weigher of spirits;" but He Himself can be weighed, penetrated, or comprehended by no one. Hence the Septuagint, and following them St. Paul, Romans 11:34, translate: "For who has known the mind of the Lord?" whence the same Apostle exclaims: "How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!"
Verse 15: Behold, the nations are as a drop from a bucket. — St. Irenaeus, book V, chapter 29, re...
15. Behold, the nations are as a drop from a bucket. — St. Irenaeus, book V, chapter 29, reads it as a dripping from a jar; St. Ambrose on Psalm I, as a dripping from a pitcher. It is an anticipation of an objection, meaning: Someone will say: Granted that God does not need human help or counsel; yet humans are the image of God, and as it were earthly gods, and therefore are greatly esteemed by Him; wherefore they have reason to be pleased with themselves. He strikes this down saying: "Behold, the nations are as a drop from a bucket," because, as St. Ambrose says at the end of Psalm I: "As the earth compared to the heavens is like a point, so all the nations compared to the multitude of Angels are like a drop from a bucket." "Consider then," says St. Chrysostom on Ephesians chapter 1, sermon 3, and homily 2 On the Incomprehensible Nature of God, at length, "how small a part of this drop or droplet you are, and how small you are in respect to God." St. Athanasius, On the United Substance of the Holy Trinity, book I, at the end, thinks this signifies that no one can hide or flee from the divinity of the Trinity, because the whole world is like a drop. Hence also Plato and Plotinus, when asked: "How can God see all things?" reply: "Because this entire fabric of things is in the sight of God like a point." Thus, according to Clement of Alexandria, Stromata book VII, at the end, Theognis said: "You, Megarensians, are neither third nor fourth, nor twelfth, nor of any number or account, but like dust that the wind casts away, and like a drop from a jar." See then what all earthly things are, and what you yourself are though you rule the whole world. "What is man that You are mindful of him, O Lord? Why does man boast, says St. Jerome, who is like a drop from a bucket, falling and neglected? Indeed the smallest part of this drop, not even a thousandth of a thousandth. As when a little drop flows from a bucket, it is disregarded by the carrier: so the entire multitude of nations, compared with the heavenly ministries and the multitude of Angels, is counted as nothing." Thus far St. Jerome.
Again, just as a drop neither weighs down the bucket if it remains, nor lightens it if it falls out, so men, even if they all perish, leave nothing vacant, nor if they exist in the nature of things do they occupy or fill anything, if you consider the vast expanse of the sea and the world. Thus in Wisdom 11:23, the whole world is said before God to be "like a drop of morning dew,"
Tropologically, mountains and hills are dignities and prelacies, which few know how to weigh in the balance and scale. Hence Isaiah exclaims: "Who has weighed the mountains in a balance, and the hills in a scale?" meaning: Rare and great is the one who weighs them rightly. For dignities have more of burden than of honor; and as great as is the ascent to them, so great is the descent. For if one ascends to a prelacy, one descends to servitude. Therefore the soul of the Saint weighs the mountains in a balance and the hills in a scale, who considers the burden in the honor and the servitude in the prelacy; and so it happens that the consideration of servitude and burden extinguishes every desire for prelacy and honor in his soul. St. Laurence, Archbishop of Dublin, who was a contemporary and defender of St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury and Martyr, and who placed his effort and life at risk for him, is said to have done this, as the author of his Life narrates, chapter 11. It is found in Surius under November 14. Truly Antigonus the king said to his son, who was growing insolent in the kingdom: "Do you not know, O son, that our kingdom is a splendid servitude?"
of the dawn," which descends before the light, and immediately at the rising of the sun and light is dried up, absorbed, and vanishes.
And as the turning of a balance. — Likewise in Wisdom 11:23 it is said: "As the turning of a balance, so is the world before You." "Turning," that is, the slightest inclination or motion: for in Greek it reads thus: ὡς ῥοπή ἐκ πλαστίγγων, that is, as the tipping or inclination of the pans of a balance, which, since they are always being agitated, one pan always inclines more or less upward or downward relative to the other: which the ancients called "momentare" [to tip]. Vatablus understands it of the fulcrum of the balance itself, or the central point, which holds each pan equally and keeps them suspended. And thus Plutarch in his Life of Camillus seems to take ῥοπήν. The meaning is: Just as this inclination of the pan is minimal and of the least moment, so also the world, however vast it is, is the smallest thing in comparison with God.
Second, just as this inclination is unstable and passing, and always being agitated, so is this world before God. Third, just as this inclination can be removed by the slightest movement of the one holding the balance and tipped to the other side, so also the entire world is in every respect in the hand and at the nod of God.
More recent scholars, such as Vatablus and Forerius, translate the Hebrew שחק sachac as "lightness," or as a light speck of dust (such as the atoms we see rolling in the rays of the sun) that does not increase or decrease the weight in a balance: so man is of no value before God, nor does adding him to God increase anything (for God alone, being immense and infinite, is as great and accomplishes as much as God and the world joined and combined together), nor does creating him, and through Christ recreating, reforming, and bringing him to
anyone wishing to increase the weight any help, counsel, weight, or significance.
Behold, the islands are like fine dust. — "Islands" among the Hebrews referred to regions situated across the sea, even if they were the mainland, such as Italy, Spain, Greece, etc. Instead of "like dust" the Septuagint translates "like saliva" or "spit." For the Hebrew דק dac means thin, minute, which suits both saliva and dust. "The earth, says Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy book II, is a point of a point, namely of the world, which is itself a point if compared with God." Forerius translates: "Behold, He will cover the islands like a thin veil" (for יטול from the root טול talal means to cover), meaning: It is easy for God to submerge all the islands, as if a cloud were covering them. Vatablus, however, deriving יטול from טיל til, meaning to cast away, translates: Behold, He will cast away the islands like the finest dust, or transfer them elsewhere; just as we read in histories that islands, floating and drifting in the sea as it were, have often been moved elsewhere. Our translator renders it: Behold, the islands are like dust that is cast away, that is, worthless and insignificant: namely, all are like a light pebble or sand that deceives the eyes.
Morally, consider who you are, and who God is, so that you may know yourself and humble yourself, and admire and reverence God. For man is nothing, and more than nothing before God.
So Abraham: "I will speak, he says, to my Lord, since I am dust and ashes." So Moses, asking the name of God, hears: "I am who I am," meaning: I am, you are not (Exodus 3:14). See what was said there. So St. Francis would meditate through entire nights, saying nothing other than: "Who are You, Lord, and who am I? You are the abyss of essence, wisdom, holiness, and of all good things; I am the abyss of nothingness, ignorance, sins, and of all miseries."
Verse 16: And Lebanon will not suffice. — Meaning: So great is the loftiness and majesty of God t...
16. And Lebanon will not suffice. — Meaning: So great is the loftiness and majesty of God that all the trees, all the frankincense, all the spices, all the animals of Lebanon and of any mountains whatsoever would not suffice for burnt offerings, if they were offered to Him according to His dignity. So say St. Jerome, Cyril, and others. He says this to stir up the Jews, as well as the Gentiles, to the worship and reverence of the true God and to the contempt of idols, meaning: The majesty and holiness of God is immense; therefore it cannot be adequately worshiped or matched by any victims, except by a single infinite victim, namely the one by which the only-begotten Son of God will offer Himself on the cross. He therefore will accomplish what Lebanon, and the whole world, could not do. For He will match the dignity of God: for He who will be offered is God and equal to God, and at the same time will offer Himself to God as a holocaust and an expiation for the world.
Verse 17: And as nothing. — Forerius translates: more than nothing. For if you compare nothing wi...
17. And as nothing. — Forerius translates: more than nothing. For if you compare nothing with any created being, the former is less distant from it (since both are finite, and the distance between finite things is finite) than any being, indeed the whole world, is distant from God; for this distance is infinite. For God infinitely transcends all created beings: and therefore He is distant from them not only negatively, but also positively by an infinite distance: whereas being has only a finite positive distance from nothing. For just as being is finite, so also its opposite, namely non-being or nothing, is finite: for it is the negation or privation of a finite being. Nothing, therefore, in itself, and as it were positively, is finite: because it has less being than being: for it has no being at all, and is absolutely nothing. Negatively, however, nothing is in some way infinite, because it negates every being and every thing, even if those were infinite: it therefore negates infinite things that are or could be; but positively it is finite, and is only finitely distant from created and finite being. But if you compare nothing with God, nothing can be more distant from God than nothing. I speak physically: for morally, sin is more distant from God. And in this sense it is a hyperbole, meaning: All nations, indeed all beings, are supremely and infinitely distant from God, and therefore if there could be a greater distance than that of nothing from God, they would be more distant from God than nothing. The Apostle alludes to this in 1 Corinthians 1:28, when he says: "God chose the things that are not," that is, things that are of no value or importance. See here also how much "the Word made flesh" humbled Himself, and how truly the Apostle says: "He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant." For man is nothing, and more than nothing before God.
poured forth with even greater madness, and began to rage against the worshipers of images and of God. So Zonaras and others relate.
Verse 18: To whom then have you likened God? — He digresses to reproach the idolatry of the Genti...
18. To whom then have you likened God? — He digresses to reproach the idolatry of the Gentiles (for this was hindering them from Christ and salvation: for idols were the crooked and rough things in the way of the Gentiles, which in verse 3 He commanded to be removed, so that the way might be prepared for the Lord), namely that when oppressed by enemies or another nation, or led by the desire for some thing to obtain it, they would flee to golden, wooden, and lifeless idols, when they should have implored the help of God and fixed all their hope on Him, as the most powerful and most benign; whence he concludes, verse 31: "Those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength." This is therefore the epilogue of this entire discourse, namely to teach that one must hope in God, not in idols, and that with the Gentiles one must pass from the worship of idols to the worship of God as set forth in the Gospel of Christ.
Note: The Gentiles, by fabricating and worshiping statues of Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, etc., in stone and wood, were worshiping idols, not God; yet they are said to have made God like these, because they equated them with God, and worshiped no other God than these statues, and consequently transferred God and divinity to statues, as if God were similar to them and had a similar body — indeed, as if the body of the statue were the body of God: which was certainly a grave insult to God, that they equated statues with God and consequently made God similar, indeed equal, to statues. Hence from the Hebrew Forerius translates literally thus: To whom will you liken God, and what likeness will you compare to Him? And so the phrase "you made like" in verse 26 is explained by "you equated." This is what the Apostle says, Romans 1:23: "They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts," etc., which he explains by adding: "Who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator." You see here that this likeness or assimilation of statues is nothing other than that they transferred the worship of the Creator to creatures, that is, to statues, "and imposed the incommunicable name (of God) on stones and wood," as the Sage says, Wisdom 14:21. The meaning therefore is: Since all the nations compared to God are like a drop, indeed nothing and emptiness, with what rashness, impiety, and sacrilege do you, O Gentiles, compare and equate Jupiter and Jupiter's idol with God, and make God equal to Jupiter, indeed make God into Jupiter and Jupiter into God?
Therefore the Emperor Leo the Armenian, the iconoclast, treacherously misused this passage, having as his accomplice in crime Theodore, whom he had installed on the see of Constantinople after removing Nicephorus. This Theodore was raging against the holy images, and when one day these words of Isaiah were being recited in the Church: "To whom have you likened the Lord? Does a craftsman make an image of Him, or has a goldsmith prepared a likeness?" he drew closer and whispered into the Emperor's ear: "Listen to the Prophet, my lord, and obey him." Then Leo his iconoclasm with even greater
Treacherously, I say: for the images of Christians are not images in the sense of idols of the Gentiles, against which the Prophet here thunders, nor are they worshiped as gods: nor are they equated with God by the faithful, so that God would feel Himself insulted by being likened, compared, and equated with images. For no one among the faithful is so simple or foolish as to worship images as gods, as the Gentiles did. Furthermore, that God does not here reproach these images, not even images of God Himself, is evident from the fact that He Himself assumed this image, appeared in it, and showed Himself to be seen by men; not only when the Word was made flesh, but also when He presented His image to the Patriarchs and Prophets and proposed it for veneration, as He did with Moses by appearing to him in an assumed body, Exodus chapters 33 and 34, and Isaiah 6:1, and Daniel 7:9, and to St. John, Revelation 1:13. If God exhibited an image of Himself to us, why would it not be permitted to reproduce it in a similar image? For the word 'image' (imago) is said as though 'imitago,' from imitating; just as εἰκών is from εἰκῶ, meaning to make like, to represent, as Sanders teaches from the Second Council of Nicæa, book I On the Adoration of Images, last chapter. See Damascus, book IV, chapter 17, and his Oration On Images, and the Second Council of Nicæa, which is entirely in favor of images. See also what was said on Exodus 20:4 and Wisdom 14:21.
Verse 19: Has not the craftsman cast a graven image? — He takes "graven image" for "cast image," ...
19. Has not the craftsman cast a graven image? — He takes "graven image" for "cast image," for this is what a craftsman casts. For the Hebrew פסל pesel, which our translator renders "graven image," means an idol, whether carved, cast, painted, or hewn. He here ridicules the madness of the idolaters, meaning: Are not your idols merely wood or metals hewn, melted, cast, or carved by craftsmen, who seek wood that will not rot for this purpose, so that it may not be eaten by termites or decay; and who fasten them with hammers and nails so they will not be knocked down by wind or some other force, and adorn them with gold and silver? How then do you compare these things to God and make them your gods? Does the craftsman thus fabricate divinities? Does Vulcan thus forge gods?
Verse 21: Do you not know? — So the Roman text reads in the present tense, not "will you know" in...
21. Do you not know? — So the Roman text reads in the present tense, not "will you know" in the future, meaning: Can you not easily know, and hear from the very beginning of the world through the tradition of fathers and ancestors, that the foundations of the earth were laid by God, that is, that the earth itself was established and founded by God the Creator? And therefore that this Creator of the earth is the one and only God, not Jupiter, not Mercury, not statues, meaning: If God created the earth and the metals that are produced in it, who would be so mad as to believe that God is a statue carved or cast from gold or silver?
Note: "The foundations of the earth" are not the hinges or ends of the earth, as Cyril thought, but the earth itself, founded and established in itself by God. For the earth, hanging in the air, has no other hinges or supports than that it was firmly placed there by God.
Verse 22: Who sits above the circle (Vatablus: the globe) of the earth, — meaning: Who in the hea...
22. Who sits above the circle (Vatablus: the globe) of the earth, — meaning: Who in the heavens sits and presides as king of the world, and looks down upon the entire circuit and compass of the earth, and sees men in it walking and hopping about like locusts, cicadas, and ants. For instead of "locusts" Forerius translates "cicadas." For these are akin to locusts, both in nature, and in smallness, and in their noisy chirping.
For the cuckoo cuckoos, the hoarse cicada chirps.
Note that men are fittingly compared to locusts; for both are a small, base, soft, wretched, and perishable creature. For, first, the locust is born from putrefaction; so too is man. Hence St. Job says: "To corruption I have said: You are my mother; and to worms: You are my sister." Second, the locust swells with moisture: so too "what is man but phlegm and bile?" Third, the locust is thin, and in the length of its legs exceeds all animals in proportion to its body: so too does man. Hence Ecclesiastes 12:5, describing the miseries of a man growing old: "The almond tree shall flourish, the locust shall be fattened," that is, gray hair shall come, and swelling of the feet, namely gout. For the locust is so called because it has long feet, say Isidore, Lyranus, and Albert, book XVI On Animals, where he refutes others who say the locust is so called as though "standing in place." With feet fattened and swollen, therefore, the locust swells and is fattened. Fourth, all locusts are female, says Albert, just as all scarab beetles are male: so men have feminine minds, and likewise feminine vices. Fifth, because locusts lack eyelids, they have very hard eyes; indeed there are those who think they lack eyes and sight altogether: hence they are likewise stupid. Whence the proverb: "He has the mind of a locust;" that is, he has little mind or brain; which Lucian uses in Jupiter the Tragedian: so too men are foolish, and regarding divine things and salvation they are hard and blind like moles. Sixth, locusts lack a king, and devour one another, says Aldrovandus, book On Bloodless Insects, chapter On the Locust: so men suffer from disorder and kill one another. "Man is a wolf to man." Seventh, locusts do not so much have their own flight as they are carried by the wind, and when they have raised themselves a little from the ground, with failing wings they fall again: so man, as he flourishes in age and glory, so quickly does he likewise fall. Eighth, locusts are innumerable: so too are men. Again, locusts are extremely light and mobile: so men are fickle and inconstant. Hence Isidore says: "Locusts are wandering souls, leaping into the pleasures of the world." Ninth, the locust is a gluttonous animal, devouring all vegetation; so man is given over to his belly. Hence, tenth, the locust is the most harmful animal to crops, devastating entire kingdoms and provinces; whence by some the locust is called as though "burning places" (loca urens). So much so that Pliny, book XI, chapter 29, writes that in the Cyrenaican region there was a law requiring locusts to be combated three times a year — first by crushing the eggs, then the young, and finally the adults — with the punishment of a deserter
imposed on the one who neglected this duty: so an impious man is most harmful both to others and to himself. Eleventh, because the locust destroys fields, it is a symbol of human corruption. St. Chrysostom says beautifully in his homily That No One Is Harmed Except by Himself: "Everything, he says, that exists in the world has something that corrupts and harms it: the moth corrupts wool, the wolf attacks flocks of sheep, the change to vinegar corrupts wine, bitterness corrupts the sweetness of honey, tares harm the crops, hail damages the vineyard, locusts devastate shrubs and plants."
Finally, locusts, says Aristotle, give birth at the end of spring and die shortly after giving birth; little worms growing around their neck at the time of birthing strangle them: similarly, man is of brief life, and not rarely is killed by his own offspring.
So St. Gregory, on his way to England, encountered a locust and compared himself to it, and from this he understood that he must stand in that place and return to Rome. On this see more at Ezekiel chapter 21:21.
Who stretches out the heavens like nothing. — For "nothing" the Hebrew has דק dac, meaning thin, by which Forerius understands a cloud; Vatablus, a curtain or the thinnest fabric. "Nothing" therefore here signifies something so very thin and light that it seems to be almost nothing, which can be stretched out very easily, as a curtain, a cloud, etc. For thus God stretched out the vast heavens most easily, so that under them men might dwell as under a tent. Hence the Septuagint translates: who stretched out the heavens like a vault, that is, round and solid like a chamber and an arch.
It can, thirdly, be translated as fine and tiny dust, as our translator renders it in verse 15, meaning: God created and made the heavens as easily as if He were making the tiniest atom of dust. So St. Chrysostom, book On the Incomprehensible Nature of God.
Verse 23: Who reduces the searchers of secrets to nothing. — He thus calls the Philosophers, who ...
23. Who reduces the searchers of secrets to nothing. — He thus calls the Philosophers, who search out the secrets of nature, wisdom, and God; or rather the counselors and princes, as the Septuagint translates (hence also our translator renders it "tyrants" in Habakkuk 1:10, and "lawmakers" in Proverbs 8:15), who search out the secrets of state, politics, and government. For these are called in Hebrew רוזנים rozenim. The latter hemistich explains the former according to Hebrew usage. Therefore "who reduces the searchers of secrets to nothing" is the same as "who has made the judges of the earth like emptiness." For the Hebrews call princes "judges," because the primary duty of princes is to maintain justice among citizens and to judge the people, that is, to defend them from the injuries of enemies. Hence Solomon prays to the Lord, 1 Kings chapter 3, saying: "You will give your servant an understanding heart, that he may judge your people." Hence also the book of Judges is so called, that is, the book of defenders and princes of Israel. Isaiah therefore celebrates the power of God, that He can and often does cast kings and princes from their thrones, confound them, destroy them, and reduce them as it were to nothing.
For "emptiness" the Hebrew has תהו tohu, meaning empty, unadorned, unformed: for thus in Genesis 1, the earth is said to have been "without form and void," in Hebrew, tohu vabohu, before God adorned and decorated it with herbs, flowers, and fruits. In the same way God can and often does strip kings of all honor and adornment. Hence explaining further he adds:
Verse 24: And indeed they are not even planted, — meaning: Although the princes of the earth appe...
24. And indeed they are not even planted, — meaning: Although the princes of the earth appear to be supreme, firm, and powerful in it, yet their dominion is like a tree or branch that has neither been sown nor planted in the earth, nor taken root; hence deprived of sap it withers, or is overthrown by a light wind or storm: for thus also the glory of princes is fleeting and painted, which the Lord's breath and command soon casts down and scatters. Again, Forerius gives this meaning: God often takes away kings and tyrants at the very beginning of their reign and removes them from the midst, before they produce offspring, leaving no heir: just as a trunk that has not put forth roots in the earth cannot bear flowers and fruits.
Verse 25: And to whom have you likened Me? — meaning: Why have you made not only Jupiter, Mercury...
25. And to whom have you likened Me? — meaning: Why have you made not only Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, etc., and disgraced princes already rotten, but even serpents and monsters into gods, and equated them with Me?
Verse 26: Lift up your eyes on high. — "Who is there, says Cicero, who when he has raised his eye...
26. Lift up your eyes on high. — "Who is there, says Cicero, who when he has raised his eyes to heaven does not perceive that God exists?" For "the heavens" and the stars "declare the glory of God." Again, the heavens existed before Jupiter and all the gods, created by the true God.
Who created these things? — that is, these heavens. In Hebrew for "who these" it reads מי אלה mi elle, which the Cabalists by anagram read in reverse order as אלהים elohim, as if answering: Elohim, that is, God the Creator, "created these things."
Who leads forth their host by number. — He calls the stars and heavenly bodies "host." Hence the Septuagint translates "their ornament." God leads these forth "by number," that is, numerously; for the stars are very many. Second, "by number," that is, in their own order, in which each has its own place and number, and constantly maintains it, so that this one is first, that one second, another third, just as soldiers in battle constantly maintain their own rank. For the strength of an army and its victory, as well as its beauty, depend on order. It is a catachresis: for "number" is used for a numerous arrangement, harmony, proportion, and order. So a musical number is called the harmony and concert of many voices and sounds. Such also is the ordered battle line of a camp (which is that of the stars). "God, says St. Augustine, letter 28 to St. Jerome, leads forth stars distinguished by so many constellations, with such variety of movements, with such harmony of sounds (he speaks according to the opinion of Pythagoras and the ancients, who believed the heavens produced a most sweet concert by their motion); renowned He brings forth and moves them, so that no creature can sufficiently admire them."
For "who leads forth" the Hebrew has המוציא motsi, which can be translated as "rising" (Oriens), that is, causing to rise. Therefore the name of God, as well as of Christ (Zechariah 6:12), is "the Rising" (Oriens). So Forerius.
And He calls them all by name. — This phrase signifies three things: First, that God has an intimate knowledge of the nature, power, and efficacy of all the stars, so that He can call each by its own most fitting name. It is a catachresis. Second, that God has care and providence for each individual star and for all created things, so that He gives to each what it needs and assigns to each works and duties proportionate and suited to its nature and powers — for example, to the morning star to indicate the light, to the evening star to indicate evening; to the moon to preside over the night, to the sun over the day; yet He commands nothing of any one beyond its capacity and powers. Third, that all the stars obey God in everything, so that when He summons them or commands them anything, all immediately obey and come forth, so that none remains that does not present itself to Him; for this is what he says:
On account of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one was missing. — Some refer "might and strength" to the stars, meaning: The power and strength of the stars, however great, obeys God, and not even one fails in its order and function in which it was established by God. But then it should have said "their" (earum); yet it says "His" (ejus), namely God's, meaning: So great and mighty is the strength, power, and virtue of God, who governs the heavens and the stars, that not even one fails to satisfy His ordination and command in all things.
Boethius beautifully addresses God thus in book I of the Consolation of Philosophy: O Maker of the star-bearing orb, Who, supported on Your eternal throne, Turn the heavens in rapid whirl, And compel the stars to submit to law!
Verse 27: Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: My way is hidden (that is, the course of ...
27. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: My way is hidden (that is, the course of my life, my state, my condition) from the Lord. — This is mimesis. For he imitates the voice of the Epicureanizing Jews, who, pressed by adversities, thought themselves neglected by God, that God had no care or providence for them, meaning: Since God is so great, so powerful and wise, as even other nations confess, why do you, O Jacob, that is, you, O two tribes already afflicted by the Assyrians! and you, O Israel, that is, you, O
ten tribes already carried off into Assyria by the same people! — do you say: God does not care for our affairs, does not consider how great are the evils with which we are afflicted, by what captivity we are oppressed, does not see, does not attend to our sufferings: "He walks about the poles of heaven," neglects our concerns, and does not look upon them? So St. Cyril.
And my judgment has passed away from God. — He repeats the same thing in other words, meaning: God does not care about our judgment, that is, our cause, our right, and our justice — whether we live justly or unjustly, whether we are afflicted justly or unjustly. Until now we were regarded as the people of God; behold, now we are oppressed by impious enemies and tyrants; God allows them to do this to us, therefore He has no care for us. Note: In the word "has passed away" there is a hypallage: for it is the judgment that passes, because the judge passes it over and goes beyond it, meaning: God passes over my cause, neglects it, does not wish to judge it, does not attend to whether enemies deal with me by right or by wrong. These are the words of a people losing heart in captivity and affliction, distrusting God's providence, and complaining. Second, Sanchez says "has passed away" means has gone by and been hidden. For so we commonly say: That matter passed me by, meaning it is hidden from me.
To these complaints the Prophet responds, and says:
Verse 28: The everlasting God, the Lord. — In Hebrew, Jehovah is the God of eternity, meaning: Go...
28. The everlasting God, the Lord. — In Hebrew, Jehovah is the God of eternity, meaning: God, and God's power and wisdom, are eternal: therefore the same care and providence which He formerly had for you and for all things, He still has now. For since He is eternal, He does not grow weary in governing, does not fail, does not toil, does not grow old; but always equally fresh, vigorous, agile, and ready, He rules all things; especially since, as His power, so also His wisdom is immense and unsearchable; which therefore no things, no human counsels, no deceits, no secrets can elude. For He is God and Lord not of time, not of an age, but of all eternity.
Verse 29: Who gives power to the faint, — meaning: Not only does God Himself not grow weary, but ...
29. Who gives power to the faint, — meaning: Not only does God Himself not grow weary, but He also restores strength and courage to those who are weary. And to those who have no strength (who seem not to exist, who are so weak and feeble that they seem about to collapse and fall into nothingness, God gives) might. — Again, to those who are not He gives being, and at the same time strength, when He creates and brings them forth.
From this verse the Hebrews derived the formula for blessing God: "Blessed is He who gives strength to the weary, and to him who has no might He increases power;" which they customarily inscribe in abbreviated form, using only the initial letters of Isaiah's Hebrew words, at the end of their books, in this manner: בנלכ יאעי.
Verse 30: Young men shall faint. — He declares how much greater are the powers that God gives to ...
30. Young men shall faint. — He declares how much greater are the powers that God gives to His own than those that nature confers: Youths, he says, and young men full of vitality and strength are wearied by toil, broken by weakness and they fall: but those who hope in the Lord and await strength from Him, even if they are languishing, weary, and feeble, will be strengthened, and will nourish in an aged or youthful body powers and spirits more than youthful; this is what he says:
Verse 31: But those who hope in the Lord shall renew (in Hebrew יחליפו iachaliphu, that is, they ...
31. But those who hope in the Lord shall renew (in Hebrew יחליפו iachaliphu, that is, they will renew, restore, make whole: it is a metaphor from weapons that when broken or blunted are exchanged for new and whole ones: for this is what iachaliphu signifies) their strength, — both of soul and of body. St. Paul alludes to this when he says: "When I am weak, then I am powerful." For his weakness was compensated by the power of Christ. Again: "Although, he says, our outward man is being destroyed, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day;" and: "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me." The meaning of the Prophet therefore is: In adversities, O Hebrews, do not lose heart! Strengthen your hearts in God, stand firm in His providence, hope for and implore His help: for those who thus hope in the Lord, even though they be weak, fallen, and almost crushed, will receive their former strength from Him. Again, as St. Gregory explains, Moralia book XIX, 16: "They renew their strength, because they strive to be strong in spiritual work who had formerly been strong in the flesh."
Anagogically, the Saints in heaven will renew their strength, where the body, which here "is sown in weakness, will rise in power," as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 15:43 — namely, the weak will rise strong, the sick healthy, the earthly heavenly, the carnal spiritual. Accordingly, Blessed Denis the Carthusian, who left commentaries on the whole of Sacred Scripture and many other books, a man distinguished equally for his self-contempt and holiness as for his learning, foreseeing the time of his death, which came to him in the year of the Lord 1471, sang three hymns for an entire year before his death, with tears and groans. The first was: "Grant them eternal rest, O Lord;" by which he knew with certainty that he would die that year. The second: "Mary anointed the feet of Jesus;" by which he hoped to obtain forgiveness of sins from Christ. The third: "The Saints who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength;" by which he trusted that with the Saints he would obtain immortal strength, as the Carthusian Chronicle of Peter Dorland relates, book VII, chapter 24.
They shall take up wings like eagles. — For "shall take up" the Hebrew has יעלו iaalu, meaning they will cause to ascend. Hence Vatablus translates: they will raise up their wings, as if they had already had them before but had let them droop and fold from weariness. But the Septuagint translates more aptly and expressively: πτεροφυήσουσιν ὡς ἀετοί, they will grow feathers like eagles, namely new ones, when in old age the old feathers fall from them. This is what our translator means when he renders: "They shall take up wings like eagles."
See how much grace surpasses nature, namely as much as the eagle surpasses other birds, especially in that it renews its strength, feathers, and youth when weak and aging, meaning: Those who hope in the Lord, by the help of grace received from Him, will so bravely and readily overcome all labors, hardships, and adversities, and will traverse the way of the divine law not so much by walking and running as by flying, and will strive toward heaven as if they were eagles, indeed Angels, to whom Scripture gives eagles' wings, and this because Christ fills their hearts with strength. So Procopius, Theodoret, Cyril, and St. Thomas, who understand by eagles not only eagles but also Angels, winged and swift like eagles. So Plato gives wings to just men with which to seek heaven. The Chaldean translates: they will run upon the wings of eagles. This can be explained, first, as meaning they will be swifter than eagles. Second, meaning: Just as the eagle carries its young on its wings and transfers them most swiftly, so God with the wings of His providence will receive and carry the faithful who hope in Him, so that from captivity and all adversities they may fly forth most swiftly. Again, the Saints take up, that is, renew their feathers, and laying aside the old ones they put on new ones like eagles.
is freed from his control, if he exercises dominion over his own up to his last breath. For as I approve of a young man in whom there is something of the old man, so I approve of an old man in whom there is something of the young man: for he who follows this will be able to be old in body but never in spirit: and he teaches that such was Appius, though blind.
Symbolically therefore, eagles are the Saints. First, because they imitate the qualities and habits of eagles. A poet embraces the life and qualities of the eagle in these verses:
It flies high, dwells on rocks, wears down its beak, is king, It hunts, fasts, possesses a gem, the wheel of the sun Alone it tests its young, laps, renews its wings at the fountain, Tawny, seeing its talons, it catches fish and cries over its prey.
So the Saints ascend in mind to the heavens: they dwell on the rock, that is, Christ: they wear down their crooked beak, that is, the perversity of the soul, anger, and rapacity, against the rock, that is, against the cross of Christ (Note: it wears down its beak: for the aging eagle's beak grows so large and hooked that it cannot take food: hence Pliny, book X, chapter 3, says the eagle dies not of old age but of hunger). Again, the Saints, like eagles, are kings of themselves and of the world, they hunt souls, they mortify the body with fasts, they possess the gem of grace and charity: by the gaze of the Sun of Justice, that is, of Christ, they test their young, that is, their children, whether they are truly faithful and genuine. For pious parents do not take their children to heart unless they too cultivate piety and conform themselves entirely to the precepts and will of the divine Sun, according to the counsel of the Sage, Ecclesiasticus 16:4: "Do not rejoice in impious children, etc., if the fear of God is not in them." Furthermore, eagles, that is, faithful Saints, do not guzzle drink, they do not get drunk, but they lap and drink soberly. If they grow old through vices, they renew themselves at the fountain of tears and penance. They are tawny, that is, magnanimous, like eagles and lions: for these are properly tawny. They look at their talons, that is, the lowliness of their nature, in order to humble themselves. Moreover, the eagle while walking contracts its talons so as not to wear down their edge, which admonishes us, says Plutarch, not to dull the sharpness of our genius on base matters, but to apply it to lofty and excellent things. Finally, the eagle watches for its prey; and snatching fish, that is, souls, from the devil, it cries out and exults.
Second, just as the eagle is of a hot and dry temperament, and strong: so holy men are hot with zeal; through voluntary poverty, or also through sobriety and abstinence they are dry, and hence constant and strong in adversity.
Third, the eagle, according to Aristotle, Aldrovandus, and others, ordinarily lays only three eggs, of which it throws the third from the nest, since two are sufficient to preserve the species: so the Saints lay three eggs, namely works of right reason and works of grace; the third egg, namely the work of desires and carnal pleasures, they cast away: for whoever is an eagle does not fasten to the ground the divine particle of the soul. Indeed Aristotle, from Musaeus, in History of Animals book VI, chapter 6, writes of the eagle: "It hatches two (offspring), lays three (eggs), raises one," which, says Aldrovandus, although for the most part true, yet sometimes two chicks have been seen to be raised by it, and sometimes three, as Avicenna and others report. Hence symbolically the one chick signifies that the eagle, that is, the king, should leave the kingdom to one son, not several: for monarchy is the best form of government. Hence Homer, Iliad B, 204, and from him Aristotle, Politics IV, 4: Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη, εἷς κοίρανος ἔστω, εἷς βασιλεύς. The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler, one King; or, as a Latin poet explained: The rule of many is always much confusion, Many lords are a loss; let there be one King alone.
Morally, the one chick we must raise is the work of charity and of the Holy Spirit. For the second chick, that is, works that are only morally good and conformable to right reason, must be left to the Gentiles and Philosophers: a Christian must work from faith and grace.
Fourth, eagles cannot hatch their eggs unless they bring an eagle-stone (Aetites) into the nest. The reason is that they burn so hot that the eggs are nearly cooked (for they grow so hot as if they were boiling); therefore it is necessary that the heat be tempered by the cooling effect of the Aetites, and by its special power the hatching be accelerated. And since they bring only two stones into the nest, namely a male and a female (as some think), they also produce only two chicks. So Aldrovandus. Thus the Saints, in order to produce the works of the Spirit, need an Aetites, that is, prudence and discretion, by which their zeal may be tempered.
Fifth, the noble and lofty eagle is a sign of a lofty and calm spirit that despises all earthly things. Hence the Egyptians, to signify one who despises insults, would depict an eagle unmoved, which threatened no harm with either wing or beak, and beside it a crow that was pestering and harassing it with abuse. The eagle therefore is a symbol of magnanimity, as can be seen in the emblem of Alciati, in which a noble eagle is depicted perched on the tomb of the most valiant Aristomenes, with this inscription: What cause moves you, Saturnian bird, to perch Lofty upon the tomb of great Aristomenes? This I declare: as much as I excel among birds in strength, So much does Aristomenes excel among demigods. Let timid doves perch upon the graves of the timid; We eagles give favorable signs to the fearless.
Hence also Claudius Paradinus in his Heroic Symbols, to show that the greatest industry, labor, and diligence are needed for difficult undertakings, depicts an eagle perched on the head of a stag between its antlers, shaking the dust collected on its wings into its eyes, so as to blind it and finally cast it down from the cliff. The inscription of this symbol is:
Courageous force shakes and topples steep things.
Historically, St. Jerome describes the renewal of youth in the eagle thus: "Eagles, when they have grown old, are weighed down in their feathers and eyes. The eagle seeks a fountain and raises its feathers, gathering heat within itself: in this way its eyes are healed; it plunges into the fountain three times and returns to youth. Hence in Psalm 102 it is said: 'Your youth will be renewed like the eagle's.'" Where St. Augustine writes that the eagle renews itself by striking its hooked beak, which has grown too large to take food, against a rock: "Then it again approaches food, and all things are restored: after old age it is like a young eagle; the vigor of all its limbs returns, the brightness of its plumage, the rudders of its wings: it flies high as before; there occurs in it a kind of resurrection." But Aldrovandus, book I of Ornithology, page 26, gives another manner of this renewal from Epicrates, Athenæus, and Albert the Great: "They say, he reports, that the old eagle, at the time when its chicks are already old enough to fly, if it discovers somewhere a clear and broad fountain, rises straight up above it to the third region of the air: where, having grown hot from the rays of the sun and the warm air, so that it almost seems to be burning, it suddenly drops with folded and retracted wings into the cold fountain, so that by the external cold the internal heat is increased: then leaving the fountain it flies to its nest, which is not far away, and covered by the wings of its chicks it dissolves into sweat, and so sheds old age along with its old feathers and puts on new ones; meanwhile, until these have grown, it is nourished by the prey of its chicks. To this I have nothing to say except that the marvels of nature are many. In the two eagles that were kept among us, I observed nothing of this kind; for they were tame and molted in the manner of other birds of prey."
Hence the proverb: "The old age of an eagle, the youth of a corydus;" about a vigorous and hardy old age that surpasses the lazy youth of some. For the eagle surpasses the corydus, a small bird, even at full age. Rightly says a Greek sage: That old age is more pleasing which resembles youth: That youth is more burdensome which resembles old age. And Cicero, in his book On Old Age: "Old age is honorable if it defends itself, if it retains its rights, if it is not
And Curtius Gonzaga has an emblem in which an eagle is so depicted that under a stormy and lightning-filled sky, unharmed and untouched, gazing at the sun, it appears from the other side to be heading toward a mountain, with this motto: "It can neither kill me nor terrify me." It signifies a man whom no adversities frighten from persevering in his undertaken love and honorable enterprise. For the bird denotes the man, the mountain virtue, the storm adversities. This is what Isaiah says here: "They shall renew their strength, they shall take up wings like eagles."
Anagogically, the Blessed are eagles. First, because the eagle, which has the keenest sight (and hence is called aquila, because it sees sharply, as many hold), signifies the high, lofty, and intense contemplation of the Blessed. For these, enjoying the divine vision, fix the gaze of their minds upon God, the true sun and the fountain of all light.
Second, the eagle is not struck by lightning, which nevertheless is a terror to all mortals: so the Blessed do not fear damnation or hell, which is a terror to all here below.
Third, the Blessed are like the Angels of God and the Cherubim, who in Ezekiel 1:10 are compared to eagles. For, as St. Dionysius says, Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 15: "The eagle signifies the royal dignity of the Angels, the movement tending toward the heights, the swift flight, the agility and vigilance in seizing the food necessary for restoring their strength, the utmost swiftness and ease, and therefore that singular power of contemplating and gazing freely, directly, without inclining the gaze of their eyes to any side, upon that most abundant and most luminous ray of the Godhead, which He emits from Himself like a sun." All of which also befit the Blessed.
Fourth, which is what Isaiah properly has in view here, the swiftest wings of the eagle signify the gift of agility of the Blessed. For these will be most perfect in the resurrection, when the spiritual body, through this gift, will instantly be wherever it wishes to be, as say St. Augustine to Hesychius, letter 79, and St. Jerome here. Through this gift, with Christ, who is the first and chief eagle, they will fly forth into heaven. For, as it is said in Matthew 24:28: "Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together," that is, where Christ is, there also the Blessed will be.
Hence St. Hilary understands Psalm 138 [139]: "If I take up my wings at dawn," of Christ, who took up His wings in the resurrection, now with a body no longer weighed down. And below he says that these wings pertain to the transformation of earthly bodies into a spiritual nature. And afterward he adds: "He mentions this also elsewhere (Isaiah 40), saying, when he was treating of the tireless eternity of spiritual things: 'They will grow wings like eagles,' being about to receive the nature of flying to heaven in the transformation of the resurrection."
Fifth, the eagle loves the heights: the Blessed are in the empyrean heaven, in the most sublime glory and life. For
on account of the sublimity of his wisdom St. John is called the eagle, Revelation 4:7.
Sixth, "the eagle does not catch flies;" the Blessed do not care about earthly and base things: "Do not allow yourself, O man, to hold first place among jackdaws, if you can be an eagle:" do not seek first place here among men, when by humbling yourself you could be numbered among the Blessed.
Seventh, just as old eagles renew themselves and become young again: so the Saints in the resurrection will become young, and in exchange for a mortal body will receive an immortal and glorious one, and with it, like eagles, will be caught up to meet Christ in the air. For there will be no labor, no tedium, no weariness, no pain, no groaning, no infirmity, no old age, but rest, eagerness, vigor, joy, jubilation, health, and perpetual youth. So St. Jerome, Haymo, Procopius, and St. Augustine, letter 39 to Hesychius, and Hilary on Psalm 138 [139]: "If I take up my wings at dawn;" they take this passage of Isaiah literally as referring to the future life and blessedness.
But this is the anagogical sense. For literally Isaiah is speaking of the living, namely of the faithful, who in this life, pressed by adversities, hope in the Lord, and therefore are renewed like eagles, as I have said.
They shall run and not labor, they shall walk and not faint.
In Hebrew ולא ייעפו lo iiaphu, that is, they shall not be weary; the exhausted shall not faint, but shall press on vigorously in continual walking. More seems to be promised here to those running than to those walking in the way of virtue; for it is more not to labor, that is, not to feel the labor, than not to be fatigued and not to faint from fatigue. For those running are fervent, who on account of their fervor do not feel the labor of the race, because they love and embrace it: "For where there is love, there is no labor, but delight," says St. Bernard. Those walking are less fervent, who therefore feel the labor in works of virtue, but overcome it. So in natural things we see that eager and fervent young men often do not feel labor in running and other activities that are pleasant and agreeable to them, both because the delight they draw from it drives away the sense of labor, and because they undertake it with great spirit, strength, and energy. For this strength and energy bears the weight of labor so easily that it scarcely feels it. For Aristotle teaches in the Physics that a moving force, if it is great and effective, more easily moves a weight that is otherwise great, than a small force and power moves a small weight. So a man more easily carries a burden of ten pounds than a child carries a burden of one pound. Run therefore in the stadium of virtue, and you will make more progress in it, and will merit more, and will feel less labor. For this reason the Blessed Virgin, pregnant with the Spirit and the Word of God: "Rising up... went into the hill country with haste... and greeted Elizabeth," and breathed upon her, as well as upon John, her own fires and spirit, Luke 1:39. So Christ, as the divine sun: "He exulted like a giant to run His course; from the highest heaven is His going forth: and His circuit unto the highest point thereof: nor is there anyone who can hide himself
from His heat," Psalm 18 [19]:6. To those who run, therefore, God breathes great grace and spirit, great courage and strength, as it were wings, which blow away every sense of labor. Hence Paul was running, and urging others to run he says: "So run that you may obtain, etc. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly," 1 Corinthians 9:24. There is also another reason, which Abbot Pimenius gives in the Lives of the Fathers, book VII, chapter 39: "Just as, he says, flies do not approach a pot when it is burning hot, but if it is lukewarm they settle on it and produce worms: so also demons flee from a monk burning with the fire of the divine spirit, but they mock and pursue the lukewarm." Therefore the fervent do not feel labor or trouble, because all of this in the work of virtue comes from the temptation and resistance of the demon, the flesh, or the world, all of which are put to flight by fervor.
Hence Ecclesiasticus wisely admonishes, chapter 31, verse 37: "In all your works be swift, and no infirmity shall come upon you."
Hence, second, St. Gregory, Moralia book XIX, chapter 16, teaches from this passage of Isaiah that the Saints often more fervently pursue and complete a good work that they had begun lukewarmly. For explaining that passage from Job, chapter 29: "Like a palm tree I shall multiply my days," he says: "The palm tree is broader at the top than it began from the root, because often the conversion of the elect accomplishes more in finishing than it proposed in beginning; and if it begins the first things lukewarmly, it consummates the last things more fervently, namely it always considers itself to be just beginning, and therefore perseveres tirelessly in newness." He proves this by adding: "Looking upon this constancy of the just, the Prophet says: Those who trust in the Lord shall renew their strength, etc. They renew their strength, because they strive to be strong in spiritual work who had formerly been strong in the flesh. They take up wings like eagles, because they proclaim to the swift with great speed. They walk and do not faint, because they retain the swiftness of their understanding so as to condescend to the slower. In all things the good gifts they receive, the more willingly they share with others, the more they themselves endure unchangeable in newness, and those who set out with the slender root of beginning grow strong in the fullness of perfection."
So Moschus relates in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 5, that a certain negligent Religious man toward the end of his life assumed great fervor, and when asked the cause of such a great change, said: "I am about to die." And after three days he died. Think every day when you rise: Perhaps today I shall die, and you will be fervent all day long, and will not feel the labor.
Note: The phrase "they shall take up wings like eagles" can be taken in two ways. First, for flying; for eagles, by renewing their feathers and putting on new ones, fly with new speed, meaning: Those who are weary, by hoping in God, will take up new strength, so that with fresh eagerness they may fly to good works, like eagles. Second, for running: for thus the ostrich has feathers not for flying but for running very swiftly. But
the meaning comes to the same thing; for flying properly belongs to eagles, running to men, meaning: Those who hope in God will be so swift on the way of virtue that, when they run in it, they will seem not so much to be running as flying; and will appear not so much as men, but as eagles. Hence he explains the phrase "they shall take up wings like eagles" when he adds: "They shall run and not labor," meaning: For those who hope, eagle's wings and swiftness are prepared by God, by which they may traverse the immense distances of places, works, and virtues with a flight that is always vigorous and fresh, or run with such swift step that they seem not so much to be proceeding on foot as flying on wings. Hence the Chaldean translates: they will run upon the wings of eagles.
Note second, that the phrase "they shall walk and not faint" is practically the same as what preceded, "they shall run and not labor." For in Hebrew it is הלך halach, meaning he went, he walked; for progress is attributed also to Angels, to lightning, and to winds, who do not so much walk as run: so it is attributed to the Cherubim, Ezekiel 1:9, 12, and 13, who nevertheless "went in the likeness of flashing lightning," ibid., verse 14; for to go and to walk in Hebrew signifies progress, whether it is made step by step by walking, swiftly by running, or even by flying.
Therefore in this place these three terms — namely, to fly, to run, and to walk — mean virtually the same thing; but to fly signifies impetuosity and ease, to run signifies swiftness, and to walk signifies continuation and progress, namely the effect of flying and running, which is to advance one's step and position toward the goal and end of the journey. For it is difficult to continue a race, but easy to continue walking; hence, to signify that the Saints continue this race, he adds that they walk, so that they do not faint; in Hebrew, that they are not wearied; in the Septuagint, that they do not hunger (for hunger follows from a lack of strength), but that any weariness they feel, they overcome and surpass by resuming the vigor and strength of their spirit.
Therefore the same Saint, having received from God the wings of grace, flies, runs, and walks the way of virtue constantly even to the end of life, indeed all the way to heaven, and so in the phrase "they shall walk," the discourse does not diminish but rather grows and is perfected, meaning: They will walk continually until they reach the goal, namely heaven.
Note third: These three things can nevertheless be distinguished and applied to three degrees of those who hope; hence from the Hebrew with Pagninus you may translate thus: Those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall ascend on high like eagles, they shall run and not labor, they shall walk and not be wearied; Vatablus: they shall raise their wings like eagles, that is, they shall fly. The first degree, therefore, of those who hope in God is that of those who, burning with the love of God, transcending all human things in their minds, like eagles, indeed like Angels, fly to God in heaven and say with the Apostle: "Our citizenship is in heaven." Such were the Apostles, of whom he says:
Isaiah 60:8: "Who are these who fly like clouds?" Likewise those who lead the contemplative life, such as the Essenes were, and now many Religious are. The second degree of those who hope in God is that of those who are fervent in the active life, and through their fervor run, who therefore on account of their fervor do not feel the labor, as I said a little before. The third degree is that of those who in the same life do not indeed run ardently, but nevertheless walk constantly. You will say: Thus the discourse diminishes, and one descends from the highest degree to the lowest, namely from flight to walking.
I reply first: This has little or no disadvantage; for so we often descend from the more perfect to the less perfect. I reply second: Granted that on one side the discourse diminishes here, on the other side it grows, and perhaps Isaiah hints at a mystery hidden here, namely, meaning: The highest Saints fly by contemplation through raptures and ecstasies to God — they are indeed the highest; but they face the grave danger of delusion, lest they be deceived and fall through Satan transfiguring himself into an Angel of light, as has happened to many. The middle ones run, namely those who, moved by sensible devotion from God, are fervent toward works of charity, mortification, and missions; but for these there is danger from the spirit of singularity, pride, and vanity, by which they secretly presume that they excel and are holier than others. Again, such persons easily collapse when sensible devotion fails, and become sluggish and lukewarm. The lowest seem to be those who walk slowly indeed, but constantly in the way of virtue; these are those who follow the same manner of living in their state of life, for example, those in Religious life who observe all the rules exactly and constantly, who bear the yoke of Religious life constantly even unto death, and overcome all labors, difficulties, and temptations even to their last breath. This degree, although it appears the lowest in excellence, is nevertheless the first in security, and often in fruit: for a race is often interrupted, but a walk is always continued, so that the one who continually walks eventually outstrips the runner, according to Proverbs 13:11: "Wealth obtained in haste will diminish; but that which is gathered little by little by hand will be multiplied." Hence St. Bernard and other Saints urge that he who is zealous for his salvation and progress should choose this degree of walking above the others; for by walking daily, that is, by making progress in virtue, how great is the growth of virtues that occurs over months and years! How great the accumulation of merits that piles up! And perhaps this is what Isaiah wished to note, namely that those who hope in the Lord, if they wish to enter upon the way of God securely, ought not so much to run and fly in it as to walk, that is, to progress constantly in the common manner of living of their state, and to advance; for to walk is to make progress, says St. Bernard, sermon 49 on the Song of Songs; for thus one surely advances to a holy death, and thence to blessed immortality; nor is there here the danger of delusion, or of singularity and pride, which exists for those who fly and run.