Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Christ speaks, and teaches that the Synagogue, that is, the Jews who are unbelieving toward Him, is to be repudiated and rejected by God, because she first repudiated God and Christ. For He demonstrates that He did not lack power, nor wisdom, nor an educated tongue, nor patience, nor labors for saving them. Hence, in verse 6, He says: I gave My body to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked them; but in all things, He says, God assisted Him and turned everything to glory. Therefore, in verse 10, by His own example He exhorts the faithful, that in every tribulation they should hope in God and call upon Him. For He declares that those who despair and are unbelieving, such as the Jews were, kindle for themselves a fire in which they will burn forever.
Vulgate Text: Isaiah 50:1-11
1. Thus says the Lord: Where is the bill of divorce of your mother, by which I dismissed her? Or who is my creditor, to whom I have sold you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and for your sins I dismissed your mother. 2. Because I came, and there was no man: I called, and there was no one to hear. Is my hand shortened and become small, that I cannot redeem? Or is there no strength in me to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke I will make the sea a desert, I will turn the rivers into dry land: the fish shall rot without water, and shall die of thirst. 3. I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and will make sackcloth their covering. 4. The Lord has given me a learned tongue, that I may know how to sustain him who is weary with a word: He rouses me in the morning, in the morning He rouses my ear, that I may hear as a master. 5. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I do not resist: I have not turned back. 6. I have given my body to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who plucked them: I have not turned away my face from those who rebuked me and spat upon me. 7. The Lord God is my helper, therefore I am not confounded: therefore I have set my face like the hardest rock, and I know that I shall not be confounded. 8. He who justifies me is near; who shall contradict me? Let us stand together; who is my adversary? Let him approach me. 9. Behold, the Lord God is my helper: who is he that shall condemn me? Behold, they shall all be worn out like a garment; the moth shall consume them. 10. Who among you fears the Lord, hearing the voice of His servant? He who has walked in darkness, and has no light, let him hope in the name of the Lord, and lean upon his God. 11. Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who are girded with flames: walk in the light of your fire, and in the flames you have kindled. This has been done to you by my hand: you shall sleep in sorrows.
is My helper, therefore I am not confounded; therefore I have set My face like the hardest stone, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. 8. He who justifies Me is near; who will contradict Me? Let us stand together; who is My adversary? Let him come forward to Me. 9. Behold, the Lord God is My helper; who is he that will condemn Me? Behold, they shall all wear out like a garment; the moth shall consume them. 10. Who among you fears the Lord and hears the voice of His servant? He who has walked in darkness and has no light, let him hope in the name of the Lord and lean upon his God. 11. Behold, all of you who kindle fire, who are girded with flames: walk in the light of your fire and in the flames which you have kindled; this has come to you from My hand — you shall lie down in sorrows.
Verse 1
1. Where is this bill of divorce? — In Hebrew it reads: Where is the bill of divorce? As if to say: Let it be produced (for it was kept both by the divorced woman and by the public scribe), and let it be examined and inspected — whether I first gave you the divorce, or you gave it to Me. So Forerius and Vatablus. Now St. Thomas, Hugo, and Sanchez understand these words, up to verse 4, literally of the Jews captive in Babylon, as if they were complaining that they had been dismissed and cast off by God. To whom God responds that He did not dismiss them, but that they first abandoned Him and fell away to idols and vices; yet He still has the hand and power by which He can redeem and free them. But St. Cyril, Procopius, Eusebius (Book II of the Demonstration, chapter 34), Ambrose (Book VIII on Luke, chapter 1, where he says among other things: "You have heard of the divorce — believe in the marriage"), Adam, Forerius, and generally others (so much so that Origen, on Matthew 25, on those words "Prophesy to us, O Christ," asserts this to be the consensus of the whole Church) — these understand the passage of the Jews who came after Christ and refused to believe in Him. These words therefore relate to the complaint of Zion, or of the Jews, in the preceding chapter, verse 14, who said: "The Lord has forsaken me." But with this difference: that there it is the voice of the Jews who believed in Christ, complaining about their small number; here it is rather the voice of the unbelieving Jews, persisting in Judaism. As if to say: O unbelieving Jews! You complain that in the time of Christ you were abandoned by God, repudiated, cut off and scattered, lacking the temple, sacrifices, and the public worship of God, and given as prey to the Romans and other Gentiles. You say: Our Synagogue was a bride, whom God betrothed to Himself on Sinai through Moses (Exodus 19:6); why then has He now utterly cast her off? Why has He given her a bill of divorce? God responds: I rejected and repudiated the Synagogue, your mother, to whom as a husband I had given the marriage tablets of the law, says St. Augustine; I rejected and repudiated her because she first made the divorce from Me. For I repudiated her not from hatred or disgust on My part, to take another wife, but because of her crimes — especially because she rejected and killed My Christ. Nor was it so much I, as she herself who sold and handed herself over to the devil, as to a creditor, because
Or who is My creditor, to whom I sold you? — Ambrose, in his Book on Tobit, chapter 8, reads: to whom did I sell you as a money-lender? He says the same thing with another metaphor of children sold into slavery. Note: Among the Jews it was lawful for a father in necessity, to feed himself, to sell his children into slavery — yet so that he would sell them not to a Gentile, but to a Hebrew or proselyte, and only temporarily; for in the jubilee year, indeed in the seventh year of liberty, they went free, as is clear from Exodus 21:1 and 7; Leviticus 25, where at verses 39 and 47 it is permitted that in necessity one may sell even himself, not only to a Jew but also to a foreigner dwelling among the Jews — but only until the jubilee. The Gentiles did the same, indeed more. For Romulus enacted a law giving parents the right to sell their children freely. The same law existed among the Athenians, which Solon abolished, as Plutarch attests in his Life of Solon. This law and custom prevailed even in the time of Christians. Hence St. Ambrose, in his Book on Tobit, chapter 8, complains gravely about it. Therefore Constantine, in Law 2 concerning fathers who have sold their children (Book IV, title 43), restricted this law and decreed that a son should not be sold in perpetuity, but so that he could be redeemed by paying the price.
To this, then, God alludes, and says: "Who is My creditor?" As if to say: I have no creditors whose money I need, so that I would therefore have to sell you into slavery to them. You therefore, O Jews, have been sold and delivered as slaves to sin and the devil — not so much by Me as by yourselves. For by sinning voluntarily, you voluntarily took on this yoke. For as it says in John 8:34: "He who commits sin is a slave of sin." Moreover, "I sold you" signifies not a simple sin, but the habit of sin, to which carnal people (for example, Jews to Judaism, the ambitious to their ambition, the pleasure-seeking to their delights, fornicators to their concubines) have so bound and attached themselves that they cannot be torn away from it. Thus Ahab is said to have been "sold to do evil" (3 Kings 21:25). O harsh servitude! O miserable bondage! For those who deliver themselves to sin, God too alienates from Himself and sells — that is, hands over and enslaves — to the devil, even though He receives no price from him. For as it says in Psalm 43:43: "You have sold Your people for nothing."
Verse 2
2. Because when I came (into the world, teaching and preaching), there was no man — who would receive Me, who would listen to Me. See here how dangerous and destructive it is to spurn God when He calls, and to render His calling void and fruitless. For this is the reason God repudiated and rejected the Jews.
when "I came" into the world, "there was no man," that is, no one at all. As if to say: Scarcely any of the Jews was willing to hear Me. So the Fathers cited above. On the bill of divorce I have spoken in Deuteronomy, chapter 24, verse 1.
Note morally the word "man." For, as St. Chrysostom observes (Homily 23 on Genesis 3, volume 1), Sacred Scripture calls those who retain the pure image of God, shining with virtue and religion, "men"; the rest, as unworthy of the name of man, it calls beasts and serpents.
Is My hand shortened and made small, so that I cannot redeem? — As if to say: The cause of the repudiation — that is, of the unbelief and rejection of the Jews, as well as of their miserable condition and servitude, and finally of their destruction by Titus — is not the weakness and powerlessness of God or Christ, as you Jews think, and therefore despise Christ as humble, poor, and lowly. For He could, if He wished, dry up the entire sea and all rivers and turn them into a barren desert, so that all the fish, deprived of their element, would rot, decompose, and breathe their last, as He did to Pharaoh in Egypt under Moses (Exodus 7:21). He can also change and darken the heavens and stars, as He did in the Passion of Christ, and will do at the end of the world (Matthew 24:29). For His hand and power is not cut off, broken, or diminished, but remains always strong, vigorous, and omnipotent. So St. Jerome.
Again, the cause of the abandonment and desolation of the Jews is not the folly or imprudence of Christ, because "the Lord gave Him a learned tongue."
Third, the cause is also not the softness of Christ, as if He had evaded the labors and sufferings that had to be undergone for them. For He Himself gave "His body to those who struck Him, and His cheeks to those who plucked them," etc. The true cause, therefore, is the hardness and obstinate malice of the Jews. So St. Jerome, Cyril, and Origen on Matthew chapter 26.
Behold, at My rebuke I will make the sea a desert. — He calls "rebuke" the threatening and terrible command of God. For God seemed as if angry at the Red Sea when He divided it contrary to nature, dried up its channel, and commanded it to yield and give way to His people passing through. So says the Psalmist (Psalm 105:9): "He rebuked the Red Sea, and it was dried up."
I will make. — That is, I can do it whenever and as often as I please, as I did in the Red Sea. For these future tenses are of the potential mood, which is favored by the Hebrews, and must be understood potentially (dynamically), so that they signify not so much the act as the power and capacity for the act.
I will turn the rivers to dry land. — "I will turn," that is, I can turn them, whenever I will, as I did with the Jordan, when I divided and dried it so that the Hebrews could cross under the leadership of Joshua.
The fish will rot without water — if, that is, I should dry up the sea or rivers, as they rotted and died of thirst in the Red Sea and the Jordan when I dried them up; or rather as they rotted in the Nile when I turned its waters into blood (Exodus 7:18). For then, as is stated in the same passage, the fish both rotted and died of thirst, just as the people did. For thirst is quenched and extinguished by drinking water, not blood. This is what the Psalmist says (Psalm 104:29): "He turned their waters into blood and killed their fish." So St. Jerome, St. Thomas, and Hugo.
Verse 3
3. I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and make sackcloth their covering — as if to say: I will cover and veil the heavens so that they do not appear, as if they were wrapped in sackcloth, as I did in Egypt when through Moses I brought palpable darkness upon it (Exodus 10:22). God did this in the Passion of Christ. So Tertullian, Book IV Against Marcion, chapter 42.
Symbolically, it signifies that the Gospel and Cross of Christ obscured all the glory of Judaism as well as of paganism — whose type and, as it were, matrix was Egypt — just as through the bloody and putrid Nile it signifies that all the world's delights, riches, and pomps have become worthless like filth through Christ's teaching, so that the faithful, with Paul, regard them as dung.
Verse 4
4. The Lord has given Me a learned tongue. — The Hebrews refer this to Isaiah, who in chapter 6, having been purged from polluted lips by the Seraphim, became eloquent and bold in preaching. But St. Jerome rightly refutes this. For the common opinion of the Fathers is that the speech here is about Christ, and the following words prove it. For "learned" in Hebrew is limmudim, that is, "of the learned" — the kind of tongue that learned men have, who have seen, heard, read, studied, and meditated on many things, and have also taught many. He alludes to Moses and sets Himself above him. For Moses, excusing himself from being sent by God to Pharaoh because he was of impeded speech, heard from God: "Who made the mouth of man? Was it not I?" and "Aaron shall be your mouth" (Exodus 4:10, 11, and 16). For Christ did not need an interpreter like Moses, because He had a learned tongue, nor did He excuse Himself from the mission to mankind, as Moses did. For a ruler and teacher of the people needs a learned tongue, powerful and effective for persuading. Christ had this, to such a degree that even the Jews said of it: "Never has a man spoken thus" (John 7:46). And the Apostles: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). Moreover, He was teaching not as the Scribes and Pharisees, but "as one having authority" (Mark 1:22).
Hence Plato asserts that the soul is nourished by the word of God, and that the knowledge of God is the true food of souls. Namely: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). A wise and learned tongue is a great gift of God, for which we should pray daily with the Psalmist (Psalm 50): "Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Your praise." Explaining this, St. Gregory says: "God opens the lips of him who pays attention not only to what he says, but also to when, where, and to whom he speaks. For the Wisdom of God says: The Lord has given Me a learned tongue." He then adds: "Let us therefore bring forth words weighed on the scales of justice, so that there may be gravity in meaning, moderation in words, and weight in speech. Let us not open our mouth in speaking before it is fitting, but let us examine
our words — whether this should be kept silent, whether it should be said against this person, whether it is the time for this speech, and finally whether it does not disagree with the virtue of modesty. Let nothing unseemly, nothing dishonorable, nothing envious burst forth in sound." Diogenes said truly, according to Laertius (Book 6), that the afflicted and despairing should seek not a noose (brochon) but reason (logon) — not a rope, but the rational and consoling speech of a wise man; for the latter is a physician to the sick soul, and the former is the medicine. Hence Demetrius of Phalerum, when he was living in exile among the Thebans, without glory and in lowly estate, and learned that the philosopher Crates had come to visit him, summoned him to himself. When he heard Crates disputing about bearing exile bravely and moderately, he said: "A curse on all the business and occupations through which until now I was not permitted to know such a man!" — signifying that much of his grief had been taken away by the philosopher's discussion. So Laertius, Book 5, chapter 5.
That I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary — so that I may raise up in hope, console, and sustain the wretched and languishing sinners, exhausted, panting, and groaning under the yoke of sin and the devil, and heal all who are oppressed by the devil.
He wakens morning by morning, He wakens My ear. — He teaches here the source of His learned tongue — namely, from the fact that God awakened, that is, aroused His ear, and opened it to hear the teaching and commands of God, and this "in the morning," that is, early and in due time — namely, from the first instant of His conception, as is clear from Hebrews 10:5. He alludes to schoolmasters who open their schools at earliest morning and teach their pupils. He doubles "morning, morning," as if to say: Every single day, or daily at earliest morning. For this doubling signifies both continuity and the haste and diligence of a most watchful teacher. A similar expression is found in Ezekiel 46:14-15 in the Hebrew. For morning study and learning is best, since "dawn is the friend of the Muses" — for after sleep and the night's refreshment, the brain and senses are vigorous.
Moreover, to waken the ear is the symbol of a teacher; for he, having commanded silence and attention from his pupils, sometimes also pinches their ears to rouse them to listen and receive his teachings. This is what the Poet says: "When Apollo plucked my ear." To waken the ear, therefore, is to arouse the listener to hear, so that he pricks up his ears and receives the teacher's voice.
Verse 5
5. The Lord God has opened My ear, and I do not contradict; I have not turned back. — He alludes to Moses, who contradicted God when He called him, attempting a third and fourth time to shake off the burden of liberating the people from Egypt, fearing Pharaoh, the hardness of the people, and the difficulties of accomplishing the task (Exodus 4). But Christ, sent by the Father for the redemption of mankind, immediately acquiesced and offered Himself, even to the death of the Cross. As if to say: When God at the beginning of My conception opened My human ears — indeed, My infant ears — that is, when He revealed to Me and sent into the ears of My mind His will and command concerning the economy of My incarnation, and showed Me all and each of the hard and difficult things that He wished Me to do and suffer throughout My whole life, even to the death of the Cross — I did not contradict, but eagerly accepted all, and said: "Behold, I come; in the head of the book it is written of Me, that I should do Your will, O God; My God, I have willed it, and Your law is in the midst of My heart" (Hebrews 10:7 and Psalm 39:9). Nor did I merely say this, but I actually fulfilled it; for I yielded to no difficulty, I never turned back, but persevered steadfastly in this work to My very last breath, at which, when all things were accomplished, I said: "It is finished." Christ here signifies the command imposed on Him by the Father — of suffering and dying, and thus of redeeming mankind. For that the Father imposed this on Christ is clear from John 10:18, and chapter 12:49, and chapter 14:31, and from the passage already cited, Hebrews 10.
St. Bernard says beautifully (Sermon 28 on the Song of Songs): "How blessed is He who says: 'The Lord God has opened My ear, and I do not contradict; I have not turned back!' Here you have both the pattern of voluntary obedience and the example of long-suffering. For he who does not contradict is willing, and he who does not turn back perseveres. Both are necessary, since God loves a cheerful giver, and he who perseveres to the end will be saved. Would that the Lord would also open my ear, and that the word of truth would enter my heart!" etc.
Verse 6
6. My body. — Forerius translates: My back. Hence the Septuagint, and from them St. Cyprian and Ambrose (Book on the Sacrament of the Lord's Incarnation, chapter 5), translate: I gave My back to scourges, and My cheeks to blows or slaps. For the Hebrew word gev signifies both "back" and "body." The Jews understand this of Isaiah, as if he himself suffered these things from the people and rulers whose vices he reproved. So also St. Thomas. But from this and similar passages it is clear that those Commentaries are not his, and are falsely attributed to St. Thomas. For all the Fathers whom Leo de Castro cites understand these words literally of Christ — about whom these words are so clear that they need not explanation but meditation.
Note the word "I gave." As if to say: The Jews did not inflict blows upon Me against My will and by force, but I voluntarily exposed, offered — indeed gave — My body to them to be struck. There stands here in Rome, in the church of St. Praxedes, the column to which Christ was bound when He was scourged. I have seen it many times, and never without immense emotion. It is short and low; hence some think Christ was bound bent over to it and to its ring, so that He presented His arched back, as an anvil, to be struck by the torturers raging from every direction with their whips. Or rather, with His hands tied behind His back, Christ was bound upright to the ring of the column, so that the torturers could freely strike both His chest and His back. For that it is the complete column and not a fragment (as some have thought) is shown by an ancient inscription and title affixed to its top, and Jacobus Bosius proves this more fully in Book I of The Triumphant Cross, chapter 13.
This was His patience, this was His fortitude, this was the love of our Love — namely, "love is strong as death, jealousy is hard as hell" (Song of Songs 8:6). Gaze upon, O Christian, the scourges of Christ, and whatever sufferings you have, you will consider them mild — indeed nothing at all.
"Consider," says St. Augustine (Sermon 114 on the Seasons), "He who paid such a price for us (namely His blood and His life, indeed His entire divine self) — what interest will He exact from us? 'My body,' He says, 'I gave to those who struck Me,' etc. Recognize, O man, how much you are worth and how much you owe, and as you perceive such great dignity of your redemption, impose upon yourself the shame of sinning. Behold: for the wicked, piety is scourged; for the fool, wisdom is mocked; for the liar, truth is slain; justice is condemned for the unjust; mercy is afflicted for the cruel; for the wretch, sincerity is filled with vinegar; sweetness is made drunk with gall; innocence is sentenced for the guilty; life dies for the dead."
And My cheeks to those who plucked them — that is, those who wanted to pluck the hairs of His cheeks and beard, says Vatablus. The Evangelists record nothing of this plucking and depilation of Christ, but from this passage it is established that He suffered it. For Isaiah too is an Evangelist. For Christ was afflicted with every kind of torment and insult. The plucking of the beard involves notable pain as well as humiliation, just as does the spitting on the face. For the beard is the adornment of a man and the mark of virility. Hence, when the Ammonites shaved off half the beard of David's ambassadors, David took this as the greatest insult and declared war on them (2 Samuel 10). For this reason Alexander the Great had his soldiers shave their beards, lest if captured by the enemy they should suffer the ignominy of having their beards plucked or shaved, as Plutarch relates in his Life of Theseus. The Septuagint translates: I gave My jaws to slaps.
I did not turn My face from those who rebuked Me — from those who insulted, mocked, and sneered: "Hail, King of the Jews! Save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross. Ha! You who would destroy the temple of God! He saved others; He cannot save Himself," etc.
And from those who spat upon Me. — The Septuagint, and from them St. Ambrose and others, read: "I did not turn My face from the shame of their spitting." This is what Jeremiah says (Lamentations 3:30): "He will be filled with reproaches." Ponder these things, meditate on them, O Christian, when you suffer mockery, insults, and calumnies: "endure and hold firm" — you have not yet borne the sneers and insults of Christ; you have received only words, not blows; you have not yet given your body to those who would strike it, nor your cheeks to those who would pluck them, as your Christ gave His for you. Christ gave His whole self as prey to God the Father — indeed, to His torturers and enemies — so that you in turn might give yourself as prey to God, offering your whole self to Him, resigning your whole self into His hands, that He may dispose and do with you and all that is yours whatever He pleases. Give Him your body as prey to sickness, pains, and torments; give Him your soul as prey to obedience, to love, to songs of jubilation, and to divine praises.
So St. Lawrence, Vincent, and other Martyrs gave their whole selves as prey to God, and for God's sake to the executioners, to fires, racks, gibbets, and beasts. So St. Eusebius, Bishop and Martyr of Vercelli, in the year of the Lord 371, was imprisoned and suffered many harsh things from the Arians. Writing to his Church of Vercelli, among other things by which he encouraged them to constancy in the faith, he says: "The heretics said many things to me, boasting of their power and might. But I showed them that it was nothing, and that they could do nothing against me, who willingly gave my body to them as prey, as if to executioners. And for the several days in which they tortured me, I showed with what spirit and courage I received their injuries — with deep and continuous silence — while they were more cruel than the Pagans and Gentiles who persecuted Christians."
So St. Agatha said to the tyrant: "If it pleases you to draw the sword against me, behold my neck. If scourges, here is my back. If fire, behold my whole body for you — burn, cut, bind, tie, stretch, tear, rend, torture, slay! The more cruelly you rage against me, the greater the benefit you will confer upon me, and the greater the crown my Bridegroom Christ will adorn for me."
The Sibyl also predicted these very things about Christ clearly and expressly — for the faith, love, and shame of all, and for the instruction of the Gentiles, that they might believe in Christ who suffered and was crucified. St. Augustine cites her verses (Oration Against the Jews, Pagans, and Arians, chapters 16 and 17, volume 6). They are as follows:
Into wicked hands and those of unbelievers He shall afterward come. They shall give God slaps with unholy hands, And with unclean mouths they shall spit poisonous saliva. But He, wholly innocent, shall give His back to scourges, And receiving blows He shall be silent, lest anyone recognize Him, And He shall wear a crown of thorns. For food they gave gall, and for thirst, vinegar: This table of inhospitality they shall display. For you yourself, O foolish one, did not recognize your God Playing upon mortal minds; but with thorns You crowned Him with a crown, and mixed horrid gall. But the veil of the temple shall be torn, and at midday Darkest night for three hours. And having taken upon Himself the sleep of death, He shall end it in three days, And now, having returned from the dead, He comes into the light. Called back, He shows the first beginning of the resurrection.
Verse 7
7. The Lord God is My helper — as if to say: In these extreme insults and blows, God was at My right hand, animating and strengthening Me, and gave Me such patience and constancy that I counted all things as nothing. I bore them with such spirit that I stood immovable, as if they were striking a rock — indeed, I contended with their very cruelty and rage and far surpassed and overcame it. For while the Jews, My frenzied executioners, poured out wagon-loads of torments and insults upon Me, I received all things as though they were not pains but joys, not insults but praises — as indeed they truly were.
For God turned all these things to My praise and glory.
Therefore I was not confounded — I was not put to shame, knowing that I suffered these things by God's will, for His honor and love. It can be translated with Forerius: Therefore I was not affected by ignominy — that is, I did not consider Myself affected by ignominy, but with joy set before Me I gladly endured all things. From this you see that if God assists and strengthens, insult is not insult, pain does not bring pain; but the athlete of Christ endures all things with an unconquered spirit, and in them rejoices and glories with Paul.
Therefore I set My face like the hardest stone. — Forerius translates: like steel. For in Hebrew it is challamish. Hence, he says, the Latin word chalybs (steel) is derived — not from the peoples called the Chalybes, who dwell near the river Thermodon and are said to have discovered the use of iron and steel (for chalybs is the core or kernel of iron, as Pliny teaches, or the hardest iron, as Aristotle calls it). But the Septuagint, our Vulgate, Vatablus, Pagninus, and others translate challamish here and elsewhere as rock, stone, or flint. Hence Vatablus translates: Therefore I harden My face like flint. Christ therefore in His Passion stood unmoved, unconquered, and unshaken — like steel, like flint, like a cliff against which the crashing waves rebound and dissolve into foam; like a diamond, which is not broken by iron and hammers, but rather breaks those who strike it. Hence with an undaunted face, as if of diamond, He answered the Jews, Pilate, Annas, and Caiaphas. Such we ought to be for Christ and the faith:
and so in all calumnies, pains, anguishes, persecutions, and adversities, nothing is better than to set one's face firm as stone, and to receive all these things bravely through God's help, hope, and love. For thus we shall feel them less; indeed, repelled as it were by our virtue and constancy, they will rebound.
So, with Christ as their leader, the Martyrs stood in their torments like diamonds: for they were not dismayed but uplifted, and living more by the spirit than by the flesh, they overcame the weakness of the body by the firmness of the soul. For as Cyprian says (Book 4, Epistle 5 concerning St. Celerinus the Martyr): "Though his body was placed in chains, his spirit remained free and unbound. He lay amid his torments, stronger than his punishments; confined, he was greater than those who confined him; lying down, he was loftier than those who stood; bound, he was firmer than those who bound him; judged, he was more exalted than those who judged him. And although his feet were tied with stocks, the serpent was trampled, crushed, and conquered."
So St. Romanus the Martyr, severely tortured, when the torturers renewed the blows they had inflicted, drawing the iron through the same furrows in his flesh, mocked them as cowards. For he spoke thus, as recorded by Prudentius (Hymn 10):
O unmanly strength! O soft hands! That for so long you have not been able to destroy One crumbling structure of a frail little body! It scarcely holds together now, yet does not completely fall; Overcoming the muscles of your feeble arms.
Dogs tear a corpse more swiftly with their teeth: You languish with a hunger unfit for battle, and you fall apart. Yours is a beastly gluttony, but a sluggish voracity.
So St. Ignatius says: "Would that I might enjoy the beasts that are prepared for me! Fire, cross, beasts, breaking of bones, tearing of limbs, and crushing of the whole body, and all the torments of the devil — let them come upon me, so long as I may enjoy Christ." And when he had already been condemned to the beasts, burning with desire to suffer, when he heard the roaring lions he said: "I am the wheat of Christ; let me be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may be found pure bread."
So St. Lawrence, being roasted on the gridiron, addressed the judge, as Prudentius records (Hymn 2):
It is cooked — devour it, And try the experiment: Whether it is more pleasant raw or roasted.
So the unconquered Vincent, in Hymn 5, addresses the judge amid his torments:
Wrest from me my faith, if you can. Torments, prison, iron claws, The red-hot plate hissing with flames, And even the ultimate punishment — Death — is but sport for Christians.
Nor indeed did he speak more bravely than he actually performed. For when the extension of the rack was dissolving his body joint by joint:
The soldier of God laughed at this, Reproaching the bloody hands, Because the iron claw, though driven in, Did not penetrate deeper into his limbs.
And again:
There is another man within, Whom no one can violate, Free, tranquil, whole, Exempt from sad pains. This that you labor to destroy With such forces of fury Is a vessel, fragile and of clay, That must be broken in any case.
Such were the soldiers that the heavenly Emperor led into battle — stronger than pillars — who pressed upon the flagging torturers, because they believed this delay was an obstacle to them as they hastened toward Christ.
Such also was our own recent Martyr Ogilvie in Scotland, who was once my catechumen at Louvain. As is evident from the account of his martyrdom, to the astonishment of the Calvinists he was unconquered in torments, sharp in his replies, and shut the mouths of all who challenged him. What are we compared to these? We praise the heroes and desire to imitate them — but only up to a point, only up to words and blows, exclusively! How well said John a Kempis, the brother of our Thomas the God-taught, as his biography records: "We wish to be humble without being despised, patient without tribulation, obedient without constraint, poor without want, virtuous without labor, penitent without pain, praised without virtue, loved
without goodness, honored without holiness. But Christ God neither did this nor taught it; rather He promised the kingdom of heaven to those who do violence to themselves, and He will repay glory and honor to those who endure injury, and will leave no evil unpunished."
Verse 8
8. He who justifies Me is near. — This is an anticipation of an objection; for Christ meets a tacit objection. For someone might say: You indeed have praise and reward from God for Your patience and constancy, but nevertheless among men You suffer infamy, since by the public judgment of Pilate and the Jews You were condemned to the cross as a rebel. This infamy will turn many Gentiles away from You and Your faith. For the Jews will boast: "We saw Him condemned, hung on a cross between thieves, and cursed according to the law. God did not rescue Him from this judgment and such an infamous death — how then can He be our Redeemer and the world's?" To these objections Christ responds: Why do you cast in My face the unjust judgment of wicked men and My enemies? Against this I set the most just judgment of God. Behold, God vindicates My cause, showing Me to be just and innocent before the whole world. For on the third day He raises Me from death, soon gloriously bears Me up to heaven, sends the Apostles throughout the whole world, who through miracles and gifts of grace and every virtue celebrate My name everywhere and make it beloved and admirable to all nations. Therefore no infamy, no stain from the Cross and death has clung to My name; rather, God turned all these things to My glory and veneration. This is what Christ said (John 16:10) about the Holy Spirit who was to come, that He would convict "the world concerning justice" — that is, He would prove the world's justice to be false: that of the Jews, because they sought it in the ceremonies of the law; that of the Gentiles, because they placed it in naturally and morally good works. But Christ, whom they had considered unjust, He would prove to be just, and the fountain and parent of all justice, as St. Cyril explains. For Christ's justice was conspicuous to the whole world from this alone: that immediately after death He went to the Father and ascended into heaven, no longer to be seen on earth. For He whom God and heaven received with such glory and acclamation — who would dare call Him unjust and wicked? This is what Christ says, giving the reason in the same passage: "Because I go to the Father." To this St. Paul alluded (Romans 8:33): "Who will bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?" For just as God justified Christ, so too He justifies and absolves the Christians chosen by Christ. See what I have said there.
Who is My adversary? — In Hebrew: Who is the master of My lawsuit? That is, who is the plaintiff who would bring a lawsuit against Me, who would accuse Me, attack Me by litigation, and attempt to prosecute Me as guilty of some crime? Let him come forward and see how insane he is.
Verse 9
9. Behold, they shall all wear out like a garment; the moth shall consume them. — For "moth" Symmachus translates "rust"; Aquila, "worm." As if to say: What do these wretched little men, soon to die and be eaten by worms, dare to pass judgment on the Lord's Christ, or to contend with Him at law as if He were wicked and a criminal — Him whom God has brought to life, exalted, and made the Redeemer of all? For they will all soon be consumed; indeed, they themselves, through their own crimes — and especially through this, that they provoke or condemn the Lord's Christ — will be the cause of their own ruin and punishment from God. They will be like a garment that breeds the moth from within itself, by which it is gnawed away and consumed. For thus the Jews too, by killing Christ, brought upon themselves the scourge and destruction of Titus. For St. Jerome, Cyril, and others explain these words of them. To this pertains what the Prophet adds in chapter 51, verse 7: "Do not fear the reproach of men, and do not dread their blasphemies. For the worm shall eat them like a garment, and the moth shall devour them like wool." For from the human body, so wretched and composed of four elements, qualities, and humors perpetually warring with one another, there come forth many corruptions and putrid humors — like moths — that gnaw and destroy the body itself. We therefore carry death in our very bowels, and we ourselves create and bring it forth, because we carry it with us everywhere. To man, therefore, you may rightly apply that riddle of Plautus about the thrush: "The bird itself creates its own death." For from its droppings birdlime is produced, and entangling itself in it, it is caught.
See here what the fruit of sin is — which, like a moth, indeed like a viper, gnaws and kills its parent, namely the sinner. Again, in the moth, which creeps on gradually and secretly and eats away the garment, is signified that the crimes of the Jews slowly and secretly drove them to destruction. For, as St. Gregory says (Moralia 11.25): "The moth does damage but makes no noise; so the minds of the wicked, because they neglect to consider their losses, lose their integrity as though unknowingly."
Let Religious note this — those who neglect small venial sins and fall into a habit of them, and as it were turn them into second nature. For these, like a moth, will consume the spirit and the strength of their virtue.
Verse 10
10. Who among you fears the Lord? — First, some understand this of the penitent sinner, as if to say: Whoever has hitherto walked in the darkness of error, unbelief, and sin, and now, fearing the wrath of God, hears the voice of His servant — that is, of Isaiah, says St. Thomas, or rather of Christ, as others explain — let him hope in the Lord, and He will illuminate him and cleanse him from his sins. So Haymo, Lyra, Procopius, and St. Jerome, who thinks these are the words of Christ to His crucifiers, as if rousing them to repentance and the hope of pardon.
Second, more aptly Cyril, Forerius, Hugo, Sanchez, and others understand these words of the just man; for he is the one who "fears the Lord" and "hears the voice of His servant," that is, of Him — namely, of Christ. As if to say: Whoever is a faithful and just Christian, who has walked with Christ in the darkness of prison, of pains, of humiliations, and of afflictions, let him hope in the Lord. For if
God will do this — He who strengthened, rescued, and glorified Christ amid blows, spitting, and insults — He will likewise not allow him to be confounded and put to shame, but will strengthen, deliver, and make him glorious. This is the conclusion of Christ's entire discourse, in which He exhorts the Jews and all the faithful that in the midst of evils and storms they should trust not in men but in God, and expect certain help from Him.
10. He who has walked in darkness — as if to say, says Forerius: Even if you walk in the midst of the shadow of death, even if you see the whole world mixed with darkness, even if you perceive no light shining forth, but all things dark because of the wickedness of the times and of men — as will happen when that Servant of God (Christ) is held to be a deceiver and seized like a robber and crucified like a traitor, and to denote the darkness of minds the sun will be darkened at midday — yet do not abandon faith and hope, but with Abraham your father, believe against hope in hope, and lean upon God, knowing that He can raise both Christ and Isaac, both Christians and Christ, from the dead. For the Prophet knew that many would be scandalized at the Passion of Christ and would cast away their faith in Christ and hope in God. Therefore, turning now to them, he says not without irony:
Verse 11
11. Behold, all of you (most of you, and nearly all of you, O Jews, who either despised, mocked, and killed Christ, or upon seeing His Cross and death cast away your faith and hope in Him) who kindle fire. — What He said earlier in verse 9, "The moth shall eat them," He now says with another, more forceful metaphor, calling them kindlers of fire, stokers, furnace-tenders (who light furnaces and ovens), and charcoal-burners. For these are the titles of the wicked. They prepare for themselves eternal fire and its fuel, already half-scorched, foul, and hideous, like charcoal-burners, says Forerius. As if to say: You, O Jews, with your fire of lust and crimes, to which you were enslaved and refused to acknowledge Christ who opposed them — you kindle the fire of God's wrath and bring upon yourselves the bodily fire that Titus will kindle and burn all Jerusalem; and the eternal fire that My hand will inflict upon you. And therefore you shall sleep in eternal pains and in eternal forgetfulness of Me. So St. Jerome and Cyril.
Girded with flames. — In Hebrew, meatsere zikoth, which Vatablus first translates as "girded" or "surrounded with sparks." As if to say: Everywhere you scatter the sparks of the fire of lust and wickedness, which, as it were falling on straw, will create a vast and eternal conflagration for you. The spark of hell, therefore, is lust, anger, ambition, etc.
Hear St. Jerome: "O hellish fire of lust, whose fuel is gluttony, whose flame is pride, whose sparks are wicked conversations, whose smoke is infamy, whose ash is filth!" Again, at the end of this chapter he says: "In this chapter we learn that each person kindles fire for himself according to the quality of his sin. And just as those who remain in the same
place, and if one may say so, in the same bed, some are healthy while others are inflamed with the heat of fevers, suffering various punishments from the diversity of humors and phlegm — so too the fire that is kindled by sinners has its fuel in sins and iniquity, of which it is written: 'Iniquity shall burn like fire, and shall be devoured like dry grass by the blaze.'"
So the Venerable Bede (Book 3 of his History, chapter 19) relates that St. Fursey, caught up in spirit, saw in the air four fires that were setting the whole world ablaze. When he asked his Angel guide what they were, he heard from him: "The first is the fire of falsehood, when those who promised in baptism to renounce Satan and all his works fail to keep that promise. The second is the fire of greed, when they prefer the riches of the world to the love of heavenly things. The third is the fire of discord, when they do not fear to offend the souls of their neighbors even in trivial matters. The fourth is the fire of impiety, when they consider it nothing to rob the weak and defraud them. The fire, growing greater, became one, and it was approaching him (Fursey), and fearing the threatening fire, he said to the holy Angel: 'The fire is approaching me.' The Angel replied: 'What you did not kindle will not burn you. For although this fire is terrible and great, nevertheless it tests each person according to the merits of his works, because each person's desire will burn in this fire. For just as the body burns through illicit pleasure, so the soul will burn through the punishment it deserves.'"
Second, Forerius translates: bound and tied with cords — namely, of flames, or with fiery chains. For what else does a man do when he sins but kindle eternal fire within himself and bind himself with fiery chains — those, namely, by which demons and the damned are held, bound, and burned in hell? As St. Jude teaches in his epistle, verse 6: "The angels who did not keep their principate, etc., He has reserved in eternal chains under darkness." Forerius adds: "Or perhaps he calls them 'cords,' meaning tied-up bundles." For bundles and heaps of wood are bound together with a rope or cord. As if to say: You, O wicked Jews, by your crimes do nothing other than prepare and bind together for yourselves bundles or heaps of wood with which you yourselves will be burned in hell; "for sins are the bellows and fuel of hell." So the Apostle says that light sins are wood, hay, and stubble for the fire of purgatory (1 Corinthians 3:12). Hence he adds with sarcasm: "Therefore walk in the light of your fire and in the flames which you have kindled" — as if to say: Wallow in the blaze of the inextinguishable fire that you have created and prepared for yourselves. More clearly from the Hebrew it can be translated: Go into the hearth of your fire, and of the bundles which you have kindled! Christ will allude to this when He says to the reprobate: "Depart, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil," etc.
From My hand (as if to say: I, Christ, the just judge and avenger, whom you have treated unworthily, condemn you to this fire by My invincible and eternal hand,
which therefore will feed and sustain this fire for you forever. There) you shall lie down in sorrows. — In Hebrew, tishkebun, that is, "you shall go to bed" — as if to say: You shall go to bed amid fires, pains, and torments; these will be your beds, your mattresses, your pillows. Just as He said of the bed of slain Belshazzar (chapter 14:11): "Beneath you the moth will be spread, and worms will be your covering." For the latter are the pillows of the body, the former of the soul.
This is the lot of the wicked, who refused to hear the learned tongue of Christ and listen to Him: "For He will rain snares upon sinners; fire and brimstone, and a blast of storms, will be the portion of their cup" (Psalm 10:7).
Alternatively, Sanchez reads this as a question: "Has this come to you from My hand?" As if to say: By no means. For as I have shown, you yourselves kindled this fire for yourselves, not I. But all the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew Bibles read this assertively, without a question; therefore the first explanation is to be embraced.