Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The Jews think that this chapter contains the words and prayers of the ten tribes, by which they ask and beseech God to descend again to Mount Sinai, and there to perform those miracles which He once performed under Moses, Exodus 19:16, in order to recall the impious Israelites to their ancestral faith and piety. But these people Judaize, and vainly await the descent of God to Sinai, as well as the Messiah from heaven. Secondly, Lyranus holds that Isaiah here prays that Christ would descend into the valley of Jehoshaphat, to carry out the last judgment, in order to abolish the kingdom of the impious and of impiety. Thirdly and genuinely, the Prophet continues here to pray for the people afflicted and oppressed by so many sins and evils, as he explained at the end of the preceding chapter. He therefore prays here that the heavens would be broken open and the Messiah be born, who would free and save the people from so many evils. Hence he describes how happy, salutary, and joyful the coming of Christ will be. Then, in verse 5, saying to Christ: You went out to meet the one who rejoices and does justice -- namely the Gentile people, believing in and obeying Christ -- and foreseeing that the Jews in the time of Christ will refuse to receive Him, and will neither rejoice nor do justice, and will therefore be rejected by God, he grieves and laments, saying in verse 6: We have all become as one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is as a menstrual cloth. Therefore, in verse 8, he prays that Christ would have mercy on Jerusalem, which is desolate, and on the forsaken Jews, and not reject them forever. So say St. Jerome, Forerius, Adamus, and others throughout.
Vulgate Text: Isaiah 64:1-8
1. O that You would rend the heavens and come down! That the mountains might melt before Your face. 2. As fire burns brushwood, as fire causes water to boil, that Your name might be made known to Your enemies, and that the nations might tremble before Your face. 3. When You do marvelous things, we cannot endure them: You have come down, and the mountains have melted before Your face. 4. From of old they have not heard, nor perceived with their ears: the eye has not seen, O God, besides You, what You have prepared for those who wait for You. 5. You went out to meet the one who rejoices and does justice: in Your ways they will remember You. Behold, You were angry, and we have sinned: in these things we have always been, and shall we be saved? 6. And we have all become as one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is as a menstrual cloth: and we have all fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have carried us away. 7. There is no one who calls upon Your name, who rouses himself and takes hold of You: You have hidden Your face from us, and have crushed us in the hand of our iniquity. 8. And now, O Lord, You are our Father, and we are the clay: and You are our maker, and we are all the works of Your hands.
Your hands, all of us. 9. Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember our iniquity any longer: behold, look upon us; we are all Your people. 10. The city of Your holy one has become a desert; Zion has become a desert; Jerusalem is desolate. 11. The house of our sanctification and our glory, where our fathers praised You, has been given over to the burning of fire, and all our desirable things have been turned into ruins. 12. Will You restrain Yourself over these things, O Lord? Will You keep silent and afflict us exceedingly?
Verse 1: O THAT YOU WOULD REND THE HEAVENS AND COME DOWN! As if to say: O that You would break through the barriers ...
1. O THAT YOU WOULD REND THE HEAVENS AND COME DOWN! As if to say: O that You would break through the barriers of heaven and come down to free us from such great evils! It is a catachresis, for he speaks of God in human fashion; for if a man existing in heaven were to descend, he would have to divide and break through the heavens, or the ether, because he has a thick and impenetrable body. But God, who is a most pure spirit and penetrates and pervades all things, divides or breaks through nothing in order to descend. As if to say: O that You would remove all obstacles and delays, and if need be would rend the very heavens, to come down to us -- not in place (since You are everywhere), but by a new operation and assumption of our nature! With a similar catachresis he says above, in chapter 45, verse 8: "Drop down dew, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One: let the earth be opened and bud forth the Savior;" by which he merely signifies how great is human misery, and how much it longs for the coming of salvation and of the Savior who may heal it.
Anagogically, Lyranus, along with Alexander of Hales whom he cites, takes this of the second coming of Christ, namely when He will come for the last judgment; for the extermination of the Antichrist was discussed previously, which will immediately precede it. Therefore what is signified here is the swift coming of Christ to judgment, with the heavens widely rent to terrify the impious; for then the mountains will truly melt, and, as if consumed by burning, they will waste away, and the waters will burn with the fire of the conflagration, so that they seem to reverence the majesty of the judgment, and to tremble and fail before it. For then Christ will bring full salvation and happiness to His elect.
THAT THE MOUNTAINS MIGHT MELT BEFORE YOUR FACE -- as if to say: If You came down to us, immediately, as of old, the mountains would smoke and melt, as things burned by fire are wont to dissolve and liquefy. He alludes to the descent of the Lord on Sinai, when He gave the law to Moses and the Hebrews, in which that mountain trembled and, as it were, melted before the Lord, out of a mute and natural reverence for God, Exodus 19:18: "The whole Mount Sinai smoked, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire, and the smoke rose from it as from a furnace." Indeed, the Apostle in Hebrews 12:26, and the Psalmist in Psalm 67:9, teach that Mount Sinai was shaken with an earthquake. For this descent of the Lord to the Hebrews was a type of the descent of Christ to mankind, who softens and bends the mountains, that is, the proud hearts of mortals, by the force of His grace as well as His example, to humility, patience, and every virtue, so that they seem to dissolve and melt. So say St. Jerome and Tertullian, in his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 26; St. Justin, and from him Leo Castrius, who teaches that all these things were fulfilled both in the baptism of Christ and at Pentecost; for then, before the face of Christ and the Holy Spirit, the proud hearts of the Jews were softened and melted, and they received the faith of Christ preached by the Apostles; then also the waters, that is, their cold and sluggish hearts, as well as the hearts of the Apostles, burned with the fire of charity; then the nations were troubled, when, hearing the preaching of the Gospel, out of fear of God and hell, they condemned their own unbelief and their former way of life, and, pricked in conscience, entered upon a new and pious life, so that from being earthly they became heavenly.
Verse 2: THAT THE WATERS MIGHT BURN WITH FIRE. Vatablus translates: O that the mountains might melt from the burning...
2. THAT THE WATERS MIGHT BURN WITH FIRE. Vatablus translates: O that the mountains might melt from the burning of fire -- fire, I say, which makes the waters boil and bubble. He alludes, first, to the lightning and thunder that flashed from the cloud heavy with water on Sinai; secondly, to the plague of Pharaoh and Egypt through Moses, in which fire mixed with hail destroyed his crops and cattle, Exodus 9:24. So when Christ descended to us, the waters -- that is, the soft, lust-moistened, and viscous hearts of men -- were dried up and set aflame by the fire of charity and the Spirit. Thirdly, Alcazar, commenting on Apocalypse chapter 10, verse 1, note 3, holds that Isaiah here alludes to the deed of his contemporary, the prophet Elijah, and his fire, of which it is said in 3 Kings 18:38: "Fire fell, and devoured the holocaust, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench." Nehemiah imitated this deed of Elijah, 2 Maccabees 1:20; for when in a dry and deep pit, where the fire of the Lord had been hidden before the Babylonian captivity, instead of fire, thick water was found, Nehemiah ordered this very water to be drawn out, "and the sacrifices and the wood to be sprinkled with it. And when this was done, and the time came that the sun, which before had been in a cloud, shone forth, a great fire was kindled," and consumed "the sacrifice." And when that was done, "Nehemiah ordered larger stones to be sprinkled with the remaining water. When this was done, a flame was kindled from them; but it was consumed by the light that shone from the altar."
The fire of the Lord, therefore, is not extinguished by waters, but is fed and increased. Moreover, Elijah, in commanding the sacrifice to be drenched with an abundance of water, seems to have looked back to the passage in
Song of Songs 8:6: "Its lamps are lamps of fire and flames: many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers drown it." Now the water that is contrary and resistant to fire signifies the contradictions, resistance, and persecutions of the unbelievers and impious who resist the faith and charity of Christ and of Christians, especially the Apostles. But so great was the force of the fire, that is, the efficacy of their charity, that they were fed by this water, indeed they converted the water into their own fire. Such a mystical Elijah and Nehemiah, that is, a consoler of the Lord, was St. Paul, who, the more inflamed by the waters of persecutions, offered to God as a holocaust the waters, that is, the Gentile persecutors themselves, set ablaze by his fire. For this is what he himself says in Romans 15:16: "Because of the grace that has been given to me by God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, sanctifying the Gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles may be made acceptable, and sanctified in the Holy Spirit;" where he calls the nations converted by him his victory, and himself their priest and sacrificer, as I showed in that commentary.
Verse 3: WHEN YOU DO MARVELOUS THINGS (through Christ, especially in the conversion of the nations) WE WILL NOT BE A...
3. WHEN YOU DO MARVELOUS THINGS (through Christ, especially in the conversion of the nations) WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ENDURE -- this glory and efficacy of Christ, because it will strike and subdue us with love of Him, as well as with trembling and astonishment, so that we give ourselves over and bow our necks. So says St. Jerome. He alludes to the terror of the Hebrews, who, seeing the fire and smoke on Sinai, and hearing the blast of God's trumpet, could not endure it, but, struck with fear, fled from the mountain, Exodus 20:18. For thus the Gentiles too, hearing the trumpet of the Gospel and seeing the miracles, fled -- not from God, but from themselves, that is, from their former vices and ways of life, to Christ and a new life. Forerius interprets differently: as if to say: When the Gentiles are disturbed and moved to repentance, we Jews, seeing the marvels that Christ works among them, will not endure them, but, clinging to our Judaism, will spurn them, indeed will slander them. For the Prophet seems to be gradually transitioning to the subject of the rejection of the Jews.
YOU DESCENDED, AND THE MOUNTAINS MELTED BEFORE YOUR FACE. First, Sanchez explains: If You descend, the mountains will melt before Your face -- so that he repeats and emphasizes what he said in verse 1. There is a double Hebraism here: the first, by which the particle "if" is understood; the second, by which past tenses are used for future ones.
Secondly, more plainly and simply, the Prophet speaks here as if heard by God and having obtained his wish: as if to say: What I desired and prayed for has come to pass; for behold, in spirit I see and foresee that You have descended to us and become man, and therefore the mountains I just mentioned have melted before Your face.
Moreover, Theodoret by "mountains" understands the idols that were worshipped on the mountains. For all idolatry, together with the idols, melted away and was scattered by the preaching of the Gospel. But equally probably, by "mountains" you may understand powerful and proud rulers, for Christ caused them to descend to the humility of the cross.
Verse 4: FROM OF OLD THEY HAVE NOT HEARD. He gives the reason why the mountains melted at Christ's descent, why the ...
4. FROM OF OLD THEY HAVE NOT HEARD. He gives the reason why the mountains melted at Christ's descent, why the nations were troubled, and why the waters were burned with fire: namely because from of old it has not been heard, nor has the heart of man comprehended those good things, graces, and charisms which God has prepared for those who believe in Him, who wait for Him, and, as Paul says, who love Him, through Christ, both in this life and in the future life; for the Prophet looked to both.
For up to this point he has treated of the Incarnation and the present life of Christ and of the Christians to be converted to Him, and in this sense St. Paul (1 Corinthians 2:9), St. Jerome, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, Anselm there, as well as Adamus, Forerius, Leo Castrius, and Sanchez here, likewise Tertullian, Cyprian, Pacian, Theophilus of Antioch, Mark the Hermit, and the Liturgy of St. James (cited and followed by Gabriel Vasquez, Part 1, disp. 2, chapter 2) understand it. Moreover, these good things of Christ were, first, His miracles, as St. Chrysostom and St. Ambrose teach. Secondly and more importantly, His heavenly wisdom, doctrine, and life. For whom does the Word made flesh for our sake not draw to Himself? What proud person will not descend and humble himself, in light of that descent and self-emptying of the Son of God to our nature? What wrathful person will not lay aside his anger, having seen and heard the meekness of Jesus? Who will not bear pains and torments bravely, if he gazes upon Jesus suffering so patiently on the cross? Who will not love Him with his whole heart, when he sees himself so loved by Him? Thirdly, the good things of Christ were His Sacraments and abundant grace -- both the grace that arouses and precedes, and that which justifies, and that which is freely given; as well as peace of mind, consolation, joy, and other fruits of the Holy Spirit. For with these, as with heavenly and divine instruments, He converted the whole world to Himself. The sense therefore is: as if to say: From the ages, that is, from the birth of Adam, no one has ever heard or seen, indeed no one could even think or suspect, such great and magnificent gifts of grace as You have prepared in the new law for those who await You. For there were among the Jews those who, overcome by the long delay of the Savior, had ceased to believe and to wait for the Messiah. But others, such as the Prophets and the devout, although they suffered hardships, remained constant in the faith of the coming Christ and awaited Him. To these, therefore, Christ prepared and brought His gifts, as well as to the Gentiles, who had heard of Christ and eagerly awaited Him. Moreover, the phrase "besides You" means the same as "except for You, You alone excepted," as Vatablus and Forerius translate. Hence St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 2, explains "besides You" as "apart from the Spirit of God," as if to say: God alone, and the Spirit of God, knows these good things, and he to whom He wills to reveal them.
Secondly, that this passage is also, and indeed more aptly, understood of the future glory of the faithful, is clear: first, from its very words, for that glory no mortal has seen, heard, or comprehended with his mind, because it surpasses and transcends every sense, every intellect, every natural concept; secondly, because he says: "You went out to meet
the one who rejoices and does justice;" therefore he speaks of the fruit of the works of the just, namely eternal life. For the fruit of the Incarnation -- namely, prevenient grace that arouses and excites unbelievers and sinners to faith and conversion -- does not go out to meet those who do justice, but those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. The Prophet, therefore, marveling at such great glory of Christ's faithful in heaven, rises and soars toward it, as is his custom. For this is the end, the goal, and the effect of the Incarnation of Christ. So say St. Jerome and Haymo here, St. Dionysius in On the Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 12; Tertullian in his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 26; Cyprian, epistle 56; St. Thomas and Anselm on 1 Corinthians 2. See the comments there.
Moreover, what and how great are these good things laid up for the Saints in heaven, St. Bernard briefly summarizes in Sermon 11 on the Song of Songs, where citing and explaining this passage of Isaiah, he says: "Tell us, You who prepare, what do You prepare? We shall be filled with the good things of Your house -- but what good things? Wine, oil, grain? But these we know, we see, and we disdain. We seek that which the eye has not seen, etc. God, he says, will be all in all. In this world, reason is often deceived in judgment, the will is tossed by a fourfold disturbance, and memory is confused by manifold forgetfulness. To this threefold vanity the noble creature has been subjected -- not willingly, yet in hope. For He who fills the soul's desire with good things, He Himself will be for the reason the fullness of light, for the will the abundance of peace, and for the memory the continuation of eternity. O Truth, Charity, and Eternity! O blessed and beatifying Trinity, to You my threefold misery pitifully sighs, because it unhappily languishes in exile from You. Departing from You, with what pains and fears has it entangled itself! Alas for me, what a trinity we have exchanged for You! My heart is troubled, and from that comes grief; my strength has forsaken me, and from that comes terror; and the light of my eyes is not with me, and from that comes error. See what a dissimilar trinity, O my exiled soul's trinity, you have encountered!" But hear the consolation: "Yet why are you sad, O my soul, and why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I will yet praise Him; when error has departed from the reason, grief from the will, and all fear from the memory, and there has succeeded that marvelous serenity for which we hope, that full sweetness, that eternal security. The first of these God the Truth will accomplish; the second, God the Charity; the third, God the supreme Goodness, so that God may be all in all: the reason receiving inextinguishable light, the will attaining imperturbable peace, and the memory eternally adhering to unfailing truth."
Hear also St. Jerome urging Eustochium, in epistle 18: "Come forth," he says, "for a little while from your prison, and before your eyes paint for yourself the reward of your present labor, which neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man. What a day that will be, when Mary, the Mother of the Lord, will come to meet you, accompanied by choirs of virgins! When, after the Red Sea, with Pharaoh and his army drowned, she will take up the timbrel and lead those who sing in response: Let us sing to the Lord, for He has been gloriously honored; the horse and its rider He has cast into the sea! Then Thecla will joyfully fly into your embrace. Then the Bridegroom Himself will come to meet you and say: Arise, come, my beloved, my beautiful one, my dove; for behold, the winter has passed, the rain has gone. Then the angels will marvel and say: Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun? The daughters will see you and praise you, the queens and the concubines will proclaim you. Then the little ones, of whom in Isaiah the Savior says: Behold I and my children, whom the Lord has given me -- raising the palm of victory, they will sing with one voice: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest! Then the hundred and forty-four thousand, in the sight of the throne and the elders, will hold their harps and sing a new song, etc. Whenever the vain ambition of the world has delighted you, whenever you see something glorious in the world, pass over in your mind to paradise: begin to be what you are destined to be, and you will hear from your Bridegroom: Place me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm."
Verse 5: YOU WENT OUT TO MEET THE ONE WHO REJOICES AND DOES JUSTICE. This is a benefit of Christ, not so much as new...
5. YOU WENT OUT TO MEET THE ONE WHO REJOICES AND DOES JUSTICE. This is a benefit of Christ, not so much as newly born, but as reigning in His members, as if to say: These good things, which no one has heard or seen, You have bestowed upon those who rejoice at Your coming, believe in You and obey You, and do justice, and walking in the ways of Your commandments, always have You present and remember You (there is an enallage -- a shift from the collective singular to the distributive plural, namely from "the one who rejoices and does" to "they will remember"). For these You advance in grace and love, and heap upon them new and marvelous gifts and graces day by day; these You save, these You glorify, from whatever nation or region they may have come. But alas for our wretched Jews, who did not rejoice at Your coming, but rather were saddened and embittered, and became worse; and therefore You were angry with them, as follows. So say Adamus, Forerius, and others.
Secondly, Vatablus explains it thus: O Lord! You met them, namely in prayer -- that is, You are accustomed to hearing those who rejoice in Your laws and do justice, that is, keep Your precepts, and remember Your ways.
Thirdly, others translate: You took away from the midst those who rejoiced in Your precepts, because the world was unworthy of them, and they themselves were worthy of heaven.
BEHOLD, YOU WERE ANGRY, AND WE SINNED -- as if to say: You went out to meet the Gentiles who rejoice in You; but with us Jews You are angry, "and" -- that is, because -- we sinned and transgressed against You, by spurning, tormenting, and killing You, and by persistently continuing in this contempt and hatred of You. For the Prophet here turns to the Jews, and weaves together a long lamentation and prayer about their rejection. So say Forerius and Adamus.
IN THESE (sins -- for they are contained in the word "we sinned" that preceded. See Canon 17) WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN, AND SHALL WE BE SAVED? Forerius reads "shall we be saved" as a question: as if to say: Since we have always persisted, and continue to persist, in sins and in hatred of Christ, shall we be saved? As if to say: By no means, because we reject the Author of salvation. Hence the Septuagint, instead of "and we shall be saved," translates: therefore we went astray. Secondly, "and we shall be saved," that is, we have been saved, because Christ paid the price of our salvation; and in fact "we shall be saved" at some time, namely when we believe in Christ at the end of the world. For the Roman and other Bibles read this without a question mark, as if to say: Christ made satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, and all can be saved if they wish. So therefore we Jews too, insofar as it depends on Christ, have been saved, and shall in fact be saved if we believe in Him. But when we ought to have embraced the Savior who came and the salvation He offered, we spurned it; indeed, we have all become unclean, like a menstrual cloth. Yet there will come a time when we will embrace Him and be saved -- but alas, too late! So says Forerius. Hence St. Jerome also explains thus: as if to say, We who have always been in sins will be saved only by Your mercy. For of ourselves we are unclean, and whatever justice we seem to have is like a menstrual cloth. This sense is plain and obvious, and therefore genuine.
Thirdly, Vatablus translates: In these (sins) we have grown old; otherwise salvation would have come to us.
Fourthly, Sanchez: as if to say: Behold, of old You were angry with us, and yet we sinned; and though we were always living in sins, yet we were saved from our enemies, captivities, and calamities. But now we have all become unclean, rejected, abandoned, and reprobate.
Verse 6: AND WE HAVE ALL BECOME AS ONE WHO IS UNCLEAN. He alludes to lepers, those with a discharge, and others who ...
6. AND WE HAVE ALL BECOME AS ONE WHO IS UNCLEAN. He alludes to lepers, those with a discharge, and others who were made unclean and contaminated by touching a corpse or any other unclean thing, according to the old law, whom therefore everyone avoided, lest they too be polluted. As if to say: We Jews have become unclean, guilty, and contaminated before God and men, whom therefore not only Christians but even the Gentiles shun and abhor. So says Forerius.
ALL OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS IS AS A MENSTRUAL CLOTH -- as if to say: All our forms of righteousness are polluted, like a cloth defiled with menstrual blood. This is the voice of the impious Jews, who, sinning, sought the expiation and justification of sins in their purifications and sacrifices for sin. For these are called "justifications" or, as Paul says, Hebrews chapter 9, verse 1: the justifications of the old law, which have now been abolished and are dead through Christ, indeed deadly. And therefore God abhors them as unclean and putrid, just as we abhor a menstrual cloth. Hence the Arabic translates: We have all become like an abomination (abominable), and all our righteousness has become like a piece of cloth
of a corpse. So say St. Jerome, Cyril, Procopius, Theodoret, Forerius, Sanchez, Adamus, and others throughout. And that this is so is clear from the fact that Isaiah speaks of the Jews in the time of Christ, rejected and reprobated by God on account of their sins. The first of these sins, and the origin of the rest, was a stubborn love of the Mosaic law and Mosaic justice, that is, of Judaism, and hence the hatred of Christ and Christianity. Because therefore the Jews rejected the true justice brought by Christ, and sought it in their own justifications of the flesh and of sacrifices -- rejected by God -- they themselves, as unclean, faithless, and rebellious, were rejected and proscribed by God. Hence it is clear that by "justifications" here are understood the purifications and rites of the Jews. Hear St. Jerome: "It should be noted that the justice which is in the law, in comparison with Evangelical purity, is called uncleanness." And he confirms this with various passages of Scripture, and finally concludes: "If anyone therefore, after the Gospel of Christ and the coming of the Son of God, observes the ceremonies of the law that was a schoolmaster, let him hear the people confessing that all that justice is compared to the filthiest rag."
From these things it is clear, first, that the subject here is not the justice of Christians, but of Jews who are still Judaizing; secondly, that Isaiah here speaks in the person of these Jews, not his own. For the words: "Behold, You were angry, and we sinned; in them we have always been" -- it is clear that these apply not to Isaiah and similar holy men, but to the impious Jews already mentioned. And this is admitted even by Musculus, Luther's disciple, as cited by Marloratus. Calvin too admits the same: "If anyone," he says, "should ask how the Prophet, speaking of the defilements of sins, includes all the Jews without exception, the easy answer is that he does not speak of individuals, but of the entire body, which, since it was cast down below all men and afflicted with the most extreme disaster, could rightly be called unclean and polluted."
Note: Viegas on Apocalypse chapter 20, at the end; Vatablus and others translate: All our righteousness is like a garment made of patches, as if to say: Just as a garment entirely made up of various and worthless patches is variegated and cheap, so too all our forms of righteousness, and the whole life of the just, seems to be woven together from various weak, imperfect, and, as it were, worthless acts of virtue.
Rabbi Abraham translates: Like a garment of plunder -- that is, a garment that is seized as plunder, or snatched by a robber by force, which in the very conflict and struggle must necessarily be torn and ripped apart. For thus the demons, like treacherous robbers, try to snatch from our hands our good works, like a cloak; and indeed those works, through that violence and struggle, are, as it were, torn and ripped apart -- that is, stained with certain minor blemishes -- so that they may rightly be called garments of plunder.
Calvin, Luther, and their followers therefore wrongly conclude from this passage of Isaiah that all good works, not only of unbelievers and the impious,
but even of the faithful and the saints, are polluted by some sin and some stain of concupiscence. For Luther, in the articles condemned by Leo X, affirms that every human action is evil. Hence in article 31 he says: "In every good work the just person sins;" yet he adds in its defense that this sin is not imputed to him as mortal guilt, on account of the faith by which the justice of Christ is imputed to him; but in those who do not have this faith, he maintains it is mortal sin and imputed as sin. Calvin teaches the same in book 3 of the Institutes, chapter 3, paragraph 12: "So vitiated and corrupted," he says, "are all the faculties, that in all actions there is a perpetual disorder and intemperance." But Leo X rightly condemned these doctrines as heretical, and so did the Council of Trent, Session 6, chapter 7. They wrongly, I say, abuse this passage; for first, as I said, the Prophet does not speak of the faithful and just, but of the Jews who do not believe in Christ and who are impious. Secondly, he calls their "justifications" not just works, but expiatory sacrifices, which now stink and are putrid. Add thirdly, that even if we were to understand "justifications" here as works and acts of justice, the heretics would gain nothing. For Isaiah would then have to be explained as speaking of these works not individually but collectively, as if to say: These Jews have contaminated their good works with various sins; therefore their entire life is polluted, all their acts taken collectively are mixed and defiled with many stains of sin -- just as a menstrual cloth is stained with various marks of menstrual blood, although here and there some part of the same cloth is left clean. For the Prophet only wishes to teach that these Jews are impure, impious, and variously contaminated by various sins, and therefore forsaken and rejected by God. Finally, St. Macarius, in Homily 20 (and from him Delrio, adage 808), says: All good works and justifications, even of the saints, if they are separated from the grace of God and taken as proceeding only from the fallen nature's free but vitiated will, are all unworthy in the eyes of God, and are considered as a menstrual cloth. For God evaluates works from the character of the one who performs them. But this worker is a fallen, vitiated, concupiscent, and sinful man.
WE HAVE FALLEN AS A LEAF -- as if to say: Just as a leaf, green on the tree, when shaken off by the wind is scattered, withers, and is thrown onto the dung heap, so we Jews, who once flourished when the Synagogue stood, now that it has been rejected and overthrown by God on account of sins, especially the killing of Christ, have fallen with it, and have lost all the vigor and sap of wisdom and virtue. We have fallen away through various iniquities, and therefore have become like the refuse and scum of the world; and, scattered by the devil's blast from the face of God, we wander through the whole world as exiles, criminals, and people of ill repute.
St. Gregory says beautifully, in Morals book 11, chapter 22: "Man," he says, "who was a tree in his creation, became a leaf of himself in temptation; and afterward he appeared as stubble in his dejection." And shortly before, explaining Job chapter 13: "Against a leaf that is carried away by the wind, You show Your power" -- "For what is man," he says, "but a leaf, who is carried away by the wind of temptation and lifted up by the gusts of desires? For the human mind, in that it suffers temptations, is moved, as it were, by so many blasts. For anger usually disturbs it; when anger recedes, foolish joy succeeds. Sometimes pride lifts it up; sometimes disordered fear casts it down to the lowest depths, etc. Hence it is well said by Isaiah: We have all fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have carried us away. For iniquity has carried us away like the wind, because, being fixed by no weight, it lifted us up in vain elation."
Verse 7: THERE IS NO ONE WHO CALLS UPON YOUR NAME -- with that faith, mind, holiness, and justice that is fitting, s...
7. THERE IS NO ONE WHO CALLS UPON YOUR NAME -- with that faith, mind, holiness, and justice that is fitting, so as to restrain You in Your anger and Your hand that punishes us, as Jacob, Moses, Daniel, Ezra, and the other Prophets did. For the Jews even now pray to God, but with a faith, mind, and piety -- that is, with a Jewish impiety -- that provokes God more than it appeases Him. Note here that holy men restrain the hands and the wrath of God; they are therefore the salvation and the pillar of the commonwealth. If they fall, the commonwealth falls too, with God avenging its sins -- just as when a column falls, the house collapses, and when the shield is knocked away, the soldier is killed. Hence God, angry with His people for worshipping the calf, says to Moses, who was praying for the people and, as it were, holding and binding God's hands: "Let Me alone, that My fury may be kindled against them, and I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation," Exodus 32:10.
YOU HAVE CRUSHED US IN THE HAND OF OUR INIQUITY -- that is, on account of our iniquity. So says Sanchez. Secondly, better and more forcefully, "in the hand" means "through" or "by means of," as if to say: You have handed us over to sin as to an executioner, to be tormented and crushed. Hence Vatablus translates: You allow us to waste away in the hand of our iniquity. And Forerius: You have melted or dissolved us in the hand of our iniquity -- that is, You have given us over to our sins, so that they, as with their own hand, might crush, dissolve, and exhaust all our strength, so that we could not stand, but would melt away like wax, and our entire commonwealth, kingdom, worship, religion, dignity, and moreover our faith, hope, charity, and all virtues, and whatever strength we have in body and soul, would crumble and vanish. For iniquity has this power over those who produce it: if men or even entire empires are handed over to it, in the shortest time they are ground to pieces, like an earthenware vessel overwhelmed and crushed by a great weight of stones, or as wax melts and wastes away before the face of fire.
Verse 8: AND NOW, O LORD, OUR FATHER. The Prophet here turns to supplication, that God may have mercy on the Jews, s...
8. AND NOW, O LORD, OUR FATHER. The Prophet here turns to supplication, that God may have mercy on the Jews, so wretched and so blind. He stirs in Him an emotion of compassion by saying: "Our Father and our maker (potter, as Vatablus translates -- You who formed Adam, the father of us all, from clay) are You, and we are all the works of Your hands."
Verse 9: DO NOT BE ANGRY, O LORD, EXCEEDINGLY. For "exceedingly," the Hebrew has "unto much," that is, beyond measur...
9. DO NOT BE ANGRY, O LORD, EXCEEDINGLY. For "exceedingly," the Hebrew has "unto much," that is, beyond measure, excessively. He prays that the abandonment of the Jews may not last forever.
Verse 10: THE CITY OF YOUR HOLY ONE (in Hebrew, of Your holiness, that is, of Your sanctuary, in which Your holy temp...
10. THE CITY OF YOUR HOLY ONE (in Hebrew, of Your holiness, that is, of Your sanctuary, in which Your holy temple was situated) HAS BECOME DESOLATE. Forerius interprets differently: "the city of Your holy one," namely David, who once reigned there as a holy king. But the Hebrew and what follows favor the former sense: "The house of our sanctification (in Hebrew, the house of our holiness) and our glory, in which our fathers praised You, has been given over to the burning of fire" -- that is, that temple which we thought was holy and inviolable, in which we gloried as being Yours as well as ours and our fathers', has been burned.
Verse 11: OUR DESIRABLE THINGS (Vatablus: our precious things, that is, palaces and other splendid places that we hol...
11. OUR DESIRABLE THINGS (Vatablus: our precious things, that is, palaces and other splendid places that we hold dear) HAVE BEEN TURNED INTO RUINS. By whom? By the Chaldeans, says Vatablus. But I say, by Titus and the Romans. So say St. Jerome, Justin in Against Trypho, Forerius, Adamus, and others throughout. For under Titus all the goods of Israel, both spiritual and temporal, collapsed and perished. Hence, concluding his prayer with a passionate lament of compassion for his nation, so desolate and deplorable, the Prophet says:
Verse 12: WILL YOU RESTRAIN YOURSELF OVER THESE THINGS, O LORD, AND AFFLICT US EXCEEDINGLY? What the Lord will respon...
12. WILL YOU RESTRAIN YOURSELF OVER THESE THINGS, O LORD, AND AFFLICT US EXCEEDINGLY? What the Lord will respond to this, we shall hear in the following chapter.
Hear St. Jerome: "The Jews think that all these things were fulfilled in the times of the Assyrians and Babylonians. But we, according to what follows in the person of the Savior -- 'I appeared to those who did not ask for Me, I was found by those who did not seek Me' -- refer everything to the time of the Roman victory, which Josephus, the Jewish historian, explains in seven volumes, that is, his work On the Fall, or On the Jewish War. And it is superfluous to describe in words what is evident to the eyes, since all their desirable things have been turned into ruins, and the temple celebrated throughout the world has become the refuse heap of a new city, which is called Aelia after its founder, and has passed into a dwelling place for owls. And in vain do they say daily in their synagogues: Over all these things, O Lord, will You endure? And will You afflict and humble us exceedingly?"
Tropologically, the same St. Jerome applies these words to the Church, or to the soul of a holy person: "Which can rightly be called a watchtower and a vision of peace, because the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have dwelt in it. But if, through our fault or that of the people, such a Zion has been abandoned by the Lord, it will immediately be exposed to the conflagration of the devil's fiery arrows. For all of them commit adultery, like an oven are their hearts, Hosea 7. And when the chill of chastity has been driven out, the flame of lust will rage in the temple of God, so that whatever was glorious and renowned in us before may collapse, be destroyed, and perish; and that word of the Psalm may be fulfilled: They have set fire to Your sanctuary; they have profaned the tabernacle of Your name upon the earth. This fire only He can extinguish, from whose belly flow rivers of living water."