Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
God commands that Israel be accused of idolatry and ingratitude: because the wine, grain, wool, etc., which he had received from God, he had attributed to idols, whence He threatens to take these things away, and that He will visit upon him the days of Baal. Hence secondly, He foretells Israel's repentance; and consequently, verse 14, He promises that He will allure him, lead him into the wilderness, and speak to his heart, and will be his husband. Finally, verse 18: I will strike, He says, a covenant with them, etc. And I will betroth you to Myself forever. And I will sow her for Myself in the land, and I will have mercy on her who was Without Mercy.
Vulgate Text: Hosea 2:1-23
1. Say to your brothers: My people; and to your sister: She has obtained mercy. 2. Judge your mother, judge her: because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her put away her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts. 3. Lest perhaps I strip her naked, and set her as in the day of her birth: and make her as a wilderness, and set her as a land without paths, and kill her with thirst. 4. And I will not have mercy on her children: because they are children of fornications: 5. for their mother has played the harlot, she who conceived them has been put to shame: because she said: I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread, and my waters, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink. 6. Therefore behold I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will wall it up with a wall, and she shall not find her paths. 7. And she shall follow after her lovers, and shall not overtake them: and she shall seek them, and shall not find them, and she shall say: I will go and return to my first husband: because it was better with me then than now. 8. And she did not know that I gave her grain, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver, and gold, which they made into Baal. 9. Therefore I will return, and will take away my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will set free my wool and my flax, which covered her disgrace. 10. And now I will lay bare her folly in the eyes of her lovers: and no man shall deliver her out of my hand: 11. and I will cause all her mirth to cease, her solemnity, her new moon, her sabbath, and all her festival times. 12. And I will destroy her vine, and her fig tree: of which she said: These are my rewards, which my lovers have given me: and I will make her a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour her. 13. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, on which she burned incense, and decked herself with her earrings, and her necklace, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, says the Lord. 14. Therefore, behold I will allure her, and will lead her into the wilderness: and I will speak to her heart. 15. And I will give her her vinedressers from the same place, and the valley of Achor for an opening of hope: and she shall sing there according to the days of her youth, and according to the days of her coming up out of the land of Egypt. 16. And it shall be in that day, says the Lord: she shall call me: My husband; and she shall no longer call me Baali. 17. And I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and she shall no more remember their name. 18. And I will make a covenant with them in that day, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the air, and with the creeping things of the earth: and I will break the bow, and the sword, and war from the land: and I will make them sleep securely. 19. And I will betroth you to Myself forever: and I will betroth you to Myself in justice, and in judgment, and in mercy, and in compassions. 20. And I will betroth you to Myself in faith: and you shall know that I am the Lord. 21. And it shall come to pass in that day: I will hear, says the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth. 22. And the earth shall hear the grain, and the wine, and the oil: and these shall hear Jezreel. 23. And I will sow her for Myself in the land, and I will have mercy on her that was without mercy. 24. And I will say to that which was not my people: You are my people; and he shall say: You are my God.
Verse 1: SAY TO YOUR BROTHERS.
1. SAY TO YOUR BROTHERS. — These words seem to belong to the end of the first chapter; hence St. Jerome, Lyranus, Vatablus, and others connect them with chapter I, and begin the second chapter from the words immediately following: "Judge your mother." For it plainly alludes to the three offspring of Hosea, namely Jezreel, Lo-ammi, and Lo-ruchama, as if Jezreel, that is, the Seed of God, were speaking to his brother Lo-ammi, that is, Not my people, and consoling him, and congratulating him on so happy a change, by which he has now been made by God Ammi, that is, My people; and likewise to his sister Lo-ruchama, that is, Without mercy, because she is now Ruchama, that is, She has obtained mercy: hence from the Hebrew, if for the vowel-point tsere you substitute chiric, so that instead of achechem you read achichem, you would translate: Say to your brother,
and likewise to your sister on that day; but it comes to the same thing, whether you translate in the singular or the plural: brother or brothers, sister or sisters, your (singular) or your (plural): for each of these names of the children, although singular in form, is nevertheless plural in meaning and representation; for they signify the seed of God, and the Israelite people, among whom there was a multitude and plurality of persons.
From this it is clear that those called brothers and sisters here are the same whom chapter I, 10 called children of Israel and children of the living God. Now since from what was said in chapter I, it is evident that these three children of Hosea signified first, Israel, or the ten tribes, abandoned by God on account of their impiety; second, the Gentiles of equal impiety and idolatry; but who, equally with the Israelites, afterward through the grace of God, being converted to Christ, became the people of God and obtained mercy; hence the meaning of this passage is, as if to say: O you men of Judah, who are the faithful people of God, do not cast off the ten tribes and the Gentiles, who are your brothers through God's predestination, calling, and grace, by which they have been converted to Christ; call them therefore My people and those who have obtained mercy, who formerly were and were called: Not my people, and Without mercy. For the phrase "say to your brothers," namely the Israelites, is the voice of Judah. For he was the brother of Israel, because the two tribes were brothers of the twelve tribes: or, if you prefer, it is the voice of Jezreel; for he was the brother of Lo-ammi and Lo-ruchama. Now by Judah or Jezreel he means the first faithful believers in Christ. For these were from Judah and from Israel: for they rejoiced greatly when they saw the Samaritans, Galileans, and Gentiles being converted to Christ, and as brothers already in Christ and the Church, they applauded them and called them brothers and the people of God and those who had obtained mercy, as St. Peter calls them, I Epistle, chapter II, 10, and St. Paul, Romans chapter IX, 25.
The names Ammi, that is, My people, and Ruchama, that is, She has obtained mercy, demand this meaning; for by these names he plainly alludes to the end of the first chapter, where he assigned these names to the Israelites now converted to Christ. So hold St. Jerome, Albert, Hugo, Haymo, Lyranus, Isidore, Vatablus, and Arias. Hear St. Jerome, who explains it thus, as if to say: "O men of the tribe of Judah, do not despair of the salvation of the ten tribes; but daily by word, by prayer, and by letters, urge them to repentance; because he is called your brother and she your sister; brother, from the fact that he is called My people; sister, from the fact that she is called She has obtained mercy." Then he explains it differently, applying it to the Jews: "You who believe in Christ," he says, "and are from both the Jews and the Gentiles, say to the broken-off branches and the former people who have been cast out: My people, because he is your brother; and: She has obtained mercy, because she is your sister; for when the fullness of the Gentiles has entered in, then all Israel will be saved." And he adds tropologically: "This same thing is commanded to us, that we should not utterly despair of heretics; but
we should urge them to repentance and desire their salvation with the affection of kinship."
But because in the Latin and Greek Bibles these words are separated from the end of the first chapter, so that the second chapter begins from them, hence according to this division they must be explained differently, with the Chaldean and Christophoro a Castro, namely as referring to what follows: "Judge your mother," as if the Prophet here returns to the beginning of chapter I, and through him God here commands the Prophets, and all pious Israelite men, that, while they still retain the name of God's people and have obtained mercy, they should judge, that is, admonish and reprove, the Israelite people, their mother, of whom they individually are members and children; lest, if she perseveres in her impiety, she bring ruin upon both herself and her children. Hence the Chaldean translates: Prophets, say to your brothers: My people, be converted to my law, and I will have mercy on your congregation. The meaning therefore is, as if he were saying: You, O Prophets, say to your brothers, namely to those who are true Israelites, that is, worshipers of God, who therefore are and are called Ammi, that is, My people; and to your sisters, namely the women who are true Israelite women, and therefore are and are called Ruchama, that is, She has obtained mercy; that they should judge, that is, accuse and rebuke their mother, namely the Synagogue, or the assembly of Israelites worshiping idols; and announce to her from me and in my name, that she is no longer my wife, nor am I her husband: let her therefore put away her fornications, that is, her idolatries, so that she may deserve to return to me and be received back into favor and the marriage bed. Hence the Syriac translates: Call your brothers, My people, and your sisters, She has obtained mercy; enter into judgment (judge) with your mother; and the Arabic Antiochene: Say, O My people, to your brother and to your beloved sister, and render judgment upon your mother; and the Arabic Alexandrine in different words but the same sense: Say to your brothers (unfaithful Jews): You are not my people; and to your sister, that she has not obtained mercy: enter into judgment with your mother.
TO YOUR SISTER. — In Hebrew there is the plural yod, laachotechem; hence Vatablus, Pagninus, and other more recent translators render it, to your sisters. But it comes to the same thing, whether you translate in the singular or the plural, as I showed a little earlier. Our translator, however, more fittingly translates in the singular, because there was one daughter of Gomer, named Lo-ruchama, sister of Jezreel and Lo-ammi, the sons of Hosea: for he alludes to her. Moreover, this yod is added to this word even in the singular, as is clear from Song of Songs VIII, 8: "What shall we do for our sister?" in Hebrew laachotenu.
Verse 2: JUDGE YOUR MOTHER.
2. JUDGE YOUR MOTHER. — Here properly, according to St. Jerome and very many others whom I cited a little earlier, the second chapter begins. For here the Prophet returns, as is his custom, from the age of Christ to his own time and to his own Israelites, namely to the depraved morals of his own age, that is, to rebuke the Israelites who, wholly given over to idolatry, were rushing to destruction, and from
The question is asked: who is this mother? Some take it as Judah and Jerusalem, or the Synagogue of the two tribes, as if the Prophet here rebukes the two tribes, just as in the first chapter he rebuked the ten; so Ribera, so that the meaning is, as if to say: You, O pious Jews, who call the pious Israelites brothers and the pious Israelite women sisters; accuse Jerusalem and the Synagogue, or the assembly of the people that is in her, which is as it were your mother (for I began speaking to you); accuse her, I say, because she has begun to imitate the ten tribes, and though she was the wife and worshiper of God, she has again defiled herself with adulteries, that is, with the filth of idolatry: lest I do the same to her as I did to the ten tribes; namely that I repudiate and cast her off. For I am clearly thinking and intending to do this.
Others better understand by "mother" Samaria, or the Synagogue of the Israelites. For he alludes to Gomer the wife of Hosea, who by her fornication represented the idolatry of Israel, as I said at I, 2. The Prophet therefore commands that Ammi and Ruchama, that is, brothers and sisters, namely the faithful Israelite men and women, should accuse this their mother of infidelity and idolatry; hence verse 4, he says: "And I will not have mercy on her children, because they are children of fornications: because their mother has played the harlot," where plainly Gomer and her children are indicated, that is, the impious Israelites. Finally in verses 13 and 14, her children are expressly named, namely Jezreel, Lo-ammi, Lo-ruchama. The Prophet therefore continues here to attack the idols of Israel. Now the meaning is the same as I gave a little before; repeat it therefore and apply it, merely changing the name of Judah to Israel. So St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Albert, Hugo, Arias, and others. From this it is clear that the Prophet here rebukes the idolatrous Israelites of his own age, not the Jews who were to live in the time of the Babylonian captivity, as Theodoret would have it; much less the Jews of the time of Christ. Allegorically, however, you may rightly apply these words to them in this sense, as if the true Israelites here, namely the Apostles, were commanded to rebuke the Synagogue, because it does not receive or acknowledge Christ its Spouse. So Haymo and Vatablus.
Note: For "judge," others translate "contend," that is, strive in judgment, bring a lawsuit against her; Vatablus, "expostulate." To judge here therefore does not mean to pass sentence, but to accuse, or to play the part of the accuser; for this is what the Hebrew ribu signifies. It is a catachresis, or metonymy; for the cause is put for the effect, the antecedent for the consequent; namely, accusation for judgment, or sentence passed: for this is certainly to be passed upon a defendant who is certain and confessed, namely upon the public idolaters of Israel, just as by the law of Deuteronomy chapter XIII, 6, the sentence of death, namely of stoning, was certain and fixed for an adulteress. A sentence therefore which is due by law, and which is certainly to be passed by a judge, is morally considered as already passed.
The Seventy translate it as kritheite, that is, "be judged with your mother," in the same sense; for one who contends in judgment with the opposing party, as the plaintiff or accuser does with the defendant, is said to be "judged" with him, that is, to dispute in judgment, to be tried and examined in judgment, so as to receive from the judge either a favorable or an adverse sentence. Otherwise, a Castro says: "be judged," he says, that is, accuse and rebuke one another. But the former exposition is the genuine one, and the Hebrew word ribu demands it, as does the consensus of the other interpreters.
LET HER PUT AWAY HER FORNICATIONS FROM MY FACE, AND HER ADULTERIES. — It is commonplace in Scripture among the Prophets that fornication and adultery are used to mean idolatry and its acts, especially sacrifices, because through these the soul, or nation, having abandoned God its spouse, joins itself to an idol and a demon, as to a fornicator and adulterer. Fornication is distinguished from adultery as genus from species: for fornication is intercourse both with an unmarried and with a married woman; adultery, with a married woman only. St. Jerome puts it differently: "A fornicatress," he says, "is one who joins herself with many; an adulteress, one who, abandoning one husband, joins herself to another." Hence Psalm LXXII, when the Psalmist had said in verse 25: "What is there for me in heaven, and what have I desired on earth besides You?" — for which the Hebrew, St. Jerome, and Aquila have: What is there for me in heaven? And with You I have desired nothing on earth, namely to have any other spouse, friend, or helper, as Theodoret explains, and, as the Chaldean says, companion; Arnobius reads: What remains for me in heaven, and what have I desired from You on earth? As if to say: I, Christ, placed on earth, so lived a heavenly life that when I ascend into heaven, nothing will remain for me that I did not accomplish while placed on earth: for nothing besides You, O my God, did I desire on earth; therefore I leave nothing on earth except obedience and the fulfillment of Your will; nothing in heaven except love and worship of You: for You are everything that I desire and love in heaven and on earth.
He adds in verse 27: "For behold, those who distance themselves from You will perish: You have destroyed (will destroy) all who commit fornication away from You," those namely who depart from You their spouse, and from Your faith, love, and worship, by clinging to idols or creatures, as to adulterers. "Their soul," says Arnobius, "takes another God (as a husband), or mingles itself with falsehood and iniquity, departing from the marriage of truth and holiness." Wherefore the Psalmist adds and infers in verse 28: "But for me it is good to cling to God," in Greek proskollasthai, that is, for me to be glued to God is good. By a threefold bond, says St. Bernard, the soul is bound to God: first, by uprightness and promise, as by a cord; second, by fear of hell, as by nails, of which it is said in Psalm CXVIII, 120: "Pierce my flesh with Your fear: for I have feared Your judgments"; third, by love, as by glue.
FROM MY FACE — is an emphatic expression, as if to say: Are you not ashamed, O brazen harlot and adulteress, that you commit fornication in my sight and before my very eyes? You know that I am jealous, and do you not fear that I will pierce you in the very act, or strike you down or blast you with lightning?
AND HER ADULTERIES FROM BETWEEN HER BREASTS. — By these words he grammatically means the allurements and signs of adultery: namely, every ornament and gesture of a harlot
behavior. For harlots are accustomed to display their breasts bare, and to load them with flowers, gems, medallions, perfumes, love potions, and amorous charms, to entice their lovers into lust for them. Finally, by the touching of breasts, lust is begun, inflamed, and satisfied. Now by these things he literally means the ornaments of the idol — of the head, of the breast — medallions, rings, necklaces, and other things which they wore at their breasts in honor of idols, and especially medals and images of idols, which they carried hanging from the neck, or engraved on a plate at the breast. The same thing the Bridegroom asks of the bride, but with holy and chaste love, saying in Song of Songs VIII: "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm," as if to say: O bride, stamp both your heart and your arm with my image; engrave and wear my image both in medallions hung upon the heart, that is, upon the breast, and in bracelets hung upon the hands and arms, so that these may constantly renew and impress upon you a perpetual memory and love of me, so that you may always think of and love nothing other than me.
Verse 3: LEST PERHAPS I STRIP HER NAKED, AND SET HER AS IN THE DAY OF HER BIRTH.
3. LEST PERHAPS I STRIP HER NAKED, AND SET HER AS IN THE DAY OF HER BIRTH. — He calls the day of the birth of Israel or of the Synagogue the origin or first propagation of the Israelite nation in Egypt: for in Moses and with Moses the Synagogue was as it were born, grew and matured, and as a young woman was betrothed to God, when at Sinai through Moses she received from God the law, the ceremonies, and the rite of sacred worship by which she was to worship God. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rupert, Haymo, Hugo, and others.
Arias puts it somewhat differently; for he believes the Synagogue originated in Chaldea, when Abraham its parent was born there. But there it was not so much the nation itself, as the father of the nation, namely Abraham, who was born.
He calls "nakedness" both the want and poverty of Israel in Egypt, where he was afflicted and lived and subsisted as a slave of the Egyptians; and also the weakness and powerlessness of the same, by which, as it were unarmed and unable to fight, and lacking a leader, he could not defend himself, and therefore was prey and plunder for Pharaoh; and also the fact that, destitute of law, religion, tabernacle, and Prophets, he seemed as if abandoned by God and naked, stripped of every garment both bodily and spiritual. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: In Egypt, Israel was born naked, wretched, poor, helpless, despised, formless; lacking a king, a leader, a law, a religion, a synagogue, a republic — indeed lacking God and every good thing — exposed to plunder and death and the infanticide of Pharaoh. I, having compassion on him in his extreme misery, gathered him through Moses, freed him, led him out, armed him, enriched him with the spoils of the Egyptians, fed him with manna, instructed him with law and sacred rites, formed him into a synagogue and republic, and betrothed him to Myself. But she, now having become wealthy and abounding in luxury, began to grow wanton and to kick back, to commit fornication and worship idols, to spurn me. And so I warn her that, mindful of her former condition and of my beneficence, she should come to her senses; otherwise I will abandon her and allow her to be plunged back into the original misery and nakedness of her infancy:
so that she would be without resources, without a king, without law, without God: so that she would be laid waste and despoiled by the Assyrians, and stripped of all her goods and possessions. This is what he adds: "I will make her as a wilderness"; "her," namely the land, and consequently the nation of Israel: for the desolation of the nation is the desolation of the land; and conversely, the desolation of the land is the desolation of the nation. Wherefore Hosea and the other Prophets speak of Israel now as of a nation, now as of a region and land. Hence he adds: "And I will set her as a land without paths"; the Hebrew and the Seventy have, a land without water; the Chaldean, a desert land: for such a land is pathless. "And I will kill her with thirst," that is, I will make her dry and parched, so that both the land and the nation inhabiting it will perish of thirst. For when fields and meadows lack water, and so thirst and dry up, they yield no crops, no grain, no fruit, no shoots, and consequently cattle and men, then deprived of their food and drink, thirst and waste away. This same image of the Synagogue — as a girl newly born, naked and wretched, clothed by God, enriched and betrothed, and then grown wanton, adulterous, and idolatrous, and therefore to be again abandoned by God, and stripped and laid waste by the Chaldeans — Ezekiel presents vividly and at length in chapter XVI, and Jeremiah in chapter II. See what I said there. Tropologically, in a similar way God strips of all His graces, benefits, and gifts the nations and souls that once worshiped Him, if, having spurned Him, they turn aside to heresy and other crimes; and so He makes them lie uncultivated and useless, and reduces them to a wilderness; and He punishes them with thirst, that is, with a desire for pleasures which they cannot obtain — so that, like Tantalus, thirsting they see and touch the waters but cannot reach them with their lips or drink them. Again with thirst, that is, with a desire for happiness which they cannot attain: for true and solid happiness is destined by God for the just alone, and falls to their lot alone.
Second, just as in arid places there are wild beasts that draw most virulent venom from the excessive heat, such as serpents and dragons and their various species; so a dry and thirsting soul gives birth to nothing but the wild beasts of passions and the venom of vices. Third, dry land generates monsters; hence it is said of Libya: "Libya always brings forth some evil
brings forth"; and of Africa: "Africa always produces something new." Aristotle gives the reason in book II of On the Generation of Animals, chapter V: since the region is hot and dry, it has few springs, to which, for the sake of quenching their thirst, animals and wild beasts congregate, and there they interbreed, and so from the crossing of different species monsters are generated; and from the crossing of monsters, new monsters are in turn produced, and offspring of two forms, indeed three and four forms. So the soul, when it has left God its spouse and wanders through loves of wealth, honors, and pleasures, gives birth to innumerable monsters of sins, as can be seen in courts, cities, and even in colleges of clerics and monks, where ambition, avarice, gluttony, lust, etc. hold sway. So Sanchez.
Verse 4: AND I WILL NOT HAVE MERCY ON HER CHILDREN (He notes parabolically the children o
4. AND I WILL NOT HAVE MERCY ON HER CHILDREN (He notes parabolically the children of Gomer, namely Jezreel, "Not my people, Without mercy," and through them he literally means the idolatrous Israelites, the children of the idolatrous Synagogue, as I said in chapter I. God says He will not have mercy on these, but will cut them off through the Assyrians): BECAUSE THEY ARE CHILDREN OF FORNICATIONS — that is, because they imitated their mother in the worship of idols, which they learned and imbibed from her. Otherwise, if the mother alone had sinned and the children had been innocent and pious, the mother alone would have deserved punishment, not the children: "For the soul that sins, it shall die; and the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father," as God decrees in Ezekiel chapter XVIII, 20. So St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Theodoret, and Lyranus. Note: By "mother" he means the Synagogue, that is, the leaders and elders of the Synagogue; for the younger people and the common folk followed these as their guides in the worship of idols. Hence he adds: "Because their mother has played the harlot," as if to say: The leaders by their example, instruction, and command taught, indeed compelled, the people to commit fornication with them and to worship idols.
Verse 5: SHE WHO CONCEIVED THEM HAS BEEN PUT TO SHAME.
5. SHE WHO CONCEIVED THEM HAS BEEN PUT TO SHAME. — First, Rupert and Albert: "She has been put to shame," they say, not with the shame of modesty, but of ignominy; because she was caught in the sin (of adultery, that is, of idolatry).
Second and better: she was put to shame because she was frustrated in her hope, because she did not obtain what she hoped for. For she hoped to revel with her lovers, that is, with idols and idolaters, and to be enriched by them: but God blocked her way to them. For this is what he adds: "Because she said: I will go after my lovers"; but from God, who blocks the way, she hears: "I will hedge up your way with thorns." So the Apostle says: "Hope does not put to shame," that is, it does not frustrate the one who hopes and desires; but it certainly leads him to the thing hoped for. So often the Psalmist prays and says: "In You, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be put to shame"; that is, let me not fail in my hope, but certainly obtain from You what I hope for from You. For hope and the one who hopes are put to shame and confounded when they are deceived in their hope and do not attain the thing hoped for.
BECAUSE SHE SAID: I WILL FOLLOW MY LOVERS. — This harlot, says St. Jerome, "has come to such shamelessness that she heard through Jeremiah: The face of a harlot has become yours; you are without shame. Is this not the mark of a hard forehead and of harlot-like shamelessness, that she glories in her crime and says: I will follow my lovers, I will go to the idols that have provided me with necessities both for food and for clothing?" So also Theodoret, Haymo, and Vatablus.
Others by "lovers" understand the Gentiles themselves, whose idols Israel worshiped, hoping for protection and help from them against enemies, so that they might securely enjoy their fields and goods, and from them live honorably, indeed sumptuously. So the Chaldean, Haymo, Hugo, and Isidore — not badly. For the Prophets call both the idolaters and their idols "lovers," as is clear from Ezekiel chapter XVI, 36. But it comes to the same thing: for from the idols, as from gods, the Israelites hoped for sustenance, and from the idolaters, friendship and aid.
WHO GIVE ME MY BREAD (in Hebrew, my bread: by bread the Hebrews signify any kind of food, any delicacy whatsoever), AND MY WATERS (both from springs and from rains, for irrigating and making the land fruitful: for drink will follow shortly), MY WOOL AND MY FLAX (from which I may make woolen and linen garments for myself and my household), MY OIL (which I will use for food, for light, and for anointing), AND MY DRINK — both of wine and of sikera, which was made sometimes from water in which wheat or barley flour was boiled and cooked (which the peoples beyond the Alps still use, and call beer); sometimes from crushed apples, pears, cherries, and other fruits; and even from herbs — sage, chicory, oregano, etc. — and from roots, and from incisions in trees: for from these a copious sap dripping provides a drink, as happens in Brazil, which in many places uses no other drink.
Verse 6: THEREFORE.
6. THEREFORE. — This verse and the one immediately following would be correctly placed immediately before verse 14: "Therefore, behold I will allure her." For in this way everything coheres most excellently. For first, God, recounting the crimes of His bride, inflicts punishment on her; she, afflicted, takes refuge as usual with her gods; but God hedges up and blocks the way: she therefore, repentant, returns to God: God in His mercy receives her repentant and returning, and says: "Therefore, behold I will allure her." For this is the correct order, which we see observed everywhere in the reconciliation of spouses. Wherefore some hold that these two verses, namely the sixth and seventh, should be enclosed in a parenthesis. For here there is the vehement passion of God the spouse, indignant at the bride's adulteries; in which therefore the emotions, from their vehemence and abundance, are cut short, mixed, and disturbed.
I WILL HEDGE UP YOUR WAY WITH THORNS. — The Syriac: I will hedge your way with a thorn, namely the Arabian thorn, which is sharp, dense, and abundant in Palestine. The meaning is, as if to say: Because you, O Synagogue, flee to the gods of the nations; because you seek grain, wool, flax, and every good thing not from me, but from your lovers, namely from idols and
idolaters; therefore I will block your way to them, namely I will press you with so many calamities and surround you with so great an invasion and siege of enemies, that you will not be able to go out to your lovers or seek help from them. God did this when He sent against Samaria Pul, Tiglath-Pileser, and Shalmaneser, kings of Assyria. For these with their forces so besieged all the roads that the Israelites could not flee to Syria, or to Egypt, or to the land of the Ammonites, to Damascus, or to Edom.
Morally, God hedges up and blocks the ways for sinners when He restrains them from sins by sickness, troubles, hatreds, persecutions (for these are the hedges and walls by which God blocks their path to sins), or when He removes the very occasions of sin: which is an immense mercy of God, although it is unwelcome and hateful to the sinner who craves his pleasures. So to Adam, who was puffed up with pride and sought omniscience and divinity from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God hedged up the way, placing before paradise the Cherubim with a flaming and turning sword, which would prevent him from entering paradise, lest he could approach the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So He hedges up the way for the lustful, when He exposes and reveals their hidden lusts to the world; striking them with the French disease, so that they are publicly shamed and undergo grievous torment as well as ignominy and infamy: for this is the hedge and wall by which they are restrained from sins and amend their life. So He hedged up the way for the Israelites fornicating with the daughters of Moab, by killing 24,000, Numbers XXV, 9; and for the Sodomites, by blasting them with heavenly fire, Genesis XIX. So He hedges up the way for gluttons from delicacies and wines, when He afflicts them with poverty or disease, so that they are nauseated at all food; as He did to the children of Israel who desired meat instead of manna, Numbers XI, 20 and 34. So He hedges up the way for the greedy from profits, when He destroys merchandise by shipwreck, or plunders it through pirates and robbers. So He hedges up the way for the ambitious from honors, when He takes away from them the favor and good will of patrons through whom they hoped to be advanced; so that those who formerly held them dear now hate them; when He sets rivals against them; when He places before them others possessing greater dexterity, prudence, and favor, as we see happening daily in the courts of both secular and ecclesiastical princes. These are the hedges, these the walls, which constantly cry out to them: "Sons of men, why do you love vanity and seek falsehood" — indeed, thorns and crosses?
Hear St. Gregory, book XXXIV of the Moralia, chapter XI, and homily 36 on the Gospels: "The ways of the elect are hedged with thorns, when they find the stings of sorrows in what they temporally desire. As if a wall were interposed, it blocks their force, since the difficulty of perfection assails their desires. Their souls indeed seek their lovers and do not find them; for in following evil spirits, they by no means lay hold of the pleasures of this world that they crave. Then she says: I will go to my first husband (that is, to God), whom then the mind of each person desires, when it finds manifold bitternesses, like so many thorns, in those delights which it temporally covets. For when the soul begins to be bitten by the adversities of the world which it loves, then it more fully understands how much better things were for it with its former husband. Those therefore whom perverse will has corrupted, adversity for the most part corrects," as it corrected the prodigal son perishing from hunger, Luke chapter XV, 17.
AND SHE SHALL NOT FIND HER PATHS (by which she used to run to idols and idolaters) — since they have been hedged up with thorns by me. It is an enallage of person, frequent among the Prophets. For he passes from the second person to the third, from "your" to "her." Hence, explaining further, he adds:
Verse 7: AND SHE SHALL FOLLOW AFTER HER LOVERS, AND SHALL NOT OVERTAKE THEM
7. AND SHE SHALL FOLLOW AFTER HER LOVERS, AND SHALL NOT OVERTAKE THEM — that is, she will implore the help of the idols and nations to whom she bound herself by religion and treaty; but she will not obtain it, both because she will not be able to pass through the very roads blocked by thorns set by me, and because without me they are powerless and too weak to help. Wherefore the Synagogue, deprived of all hope in them, will return to herself and to God and will say: "I will go and return to my first husband (to God), because it was better with me then than now." He compares the gods of the nations to lovers, because he has compared the Synagogue to a harlot.
Tropologically, this is what the penitent soul says and feels, when it sees itself abandoned and deceived by its lovers, that is, by its companions, pleasures, and applause. For then it condemns those things and returns to God, in whom it previously experienced true rest and joy. So Mary Magdalene returned to Christ, so the prodigal son, St. Paul, and St. Matthew, and others. Damascene illustrates the deceitfulness of these lovers with beautiful parables in the History of Barlaam and Josaphat, chapters XII and XIII.
Verse 8: AND SHE DID NOT KNOW
8. AND SHE DID NOT KNOW — he returns to verse 5; for these things pertain to that, as I said at the beginning of verses 6 and 7. The Synagogue worshiped the gods, saying: These give me bread, water, wool, flax, oil; and she was so shameless that she did not know, that is, did not acknowledge, that I had given her these things; indeed, the silver and gold which I gave her, she consecrated to Baal, and from them she made images of Baal. In the word "did not know" there is a catachresis: for the Synagogue knew that she had these things from God; but she "did not know," that is, she did not wish to know, she did not acknowledge it, she conducted herself as if she did not know. So Vatablus. So Terence in the Andria says: "By Pollux, if you are wise, what you know you will not know," that is, you will pretend not to know.
Tropologically, St. Jerome says: The bread of heretics is perpetual mourning; the water, their muddy doctrine, with which they suffocate even the baptized; the wool and flax, their simulated holiness and purity, because they come in sheep's clothing; the oil is flattery, whence it is said: Let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head; the drink, Sacred Scripture, which they pervert.
WHICH THEY MADE FOR BAAL. — "Baal" is in the dative case, as is clear from the Hebrew article lamed, lebaal, as if to say: Which they made, that is, offered, and attributed to Baal himself, as to their author and giver; or which they dedicated to Baal himself. Thus among the Latins, "to make" (facere) is the same as "to sacrifice"; hence the word "which" can refer not only to silver and gold, but also to grain, wine, and oil; for these they "made," that is, offered and poured out as libations to Baal; see Ezekiel chapter XVI, 17. Secondly, "which they made," that is, from which they fabricated and adorned "Baal." Hence from the Hebrew it can be translated: they made gold into Baal, as if to say: From the gold of God, and received from God, they fabricated the idol of Baal; for to "make" gold or silver is to engrave it, polish it, or form it into some vessel or image: for "unmade" (infectum) is said of what is rough and unpolished. Hear Isidore, book XV, chapter XVII: "There are three kinds of silver, gold, and bronze: coined, wrought, and unwrought. Coined is what is in coins; wrought is what is in vessels and statues; unwrought is what is in masses, which is also called 'heavy,' that is, a mass."
Tropologically, sinners make their own lusts into their own gods. Hence St. Jerome on Psalm LXXX, 10: "There shall be no new god in you": "He whose god is his belly," he says, "has a new god: however many vices we have, however many sins, that many new gods we have. I was angry — anger is my god; I saw and lusted after a woman — lust is my god. For whatever each person desires and venerates, that is his god." Thus fornicators enslave to their lusts the body, strength, and wealth which they received from God. Hence the Syriac translates: from it (gold and silver) they made Baal; the Arabic: he melted them into Baal. Moreover, Baal, or Baalim, or Bel, Bal, Belus, was Jupiter Belus, who was the chief god of the Chaldeans, of whom I said more in Genesis chapter X, 9, and Daniel chapter XIV, 2.
Tropologically, Origen, in homily 2 on the Song of Songs, takes gold to mean sense and intellect; silver, eloquence and grace of speech; which when we spend for vain glory or for pursuing profits, but not for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, then we offer them to Baalim. "I gave you," says Origen, "sense and reason by which you could both perceive and worship me as God: but you have transferred the sense and reason that is in you to the worship of demons." Similar is Ezekiel chapter VII, 20; see what I said there. The Gloss, following Haymo, says: "By wine is signified spiritual joy, which they ought to have had not in this world but in God; by oil, the illumination of the senses; by silver, the brilliance of speech; by gold, the precept of love of God and neighbor: in all of which they venerated not God, but demons." St. Gregory has similar things in Part III of the Pastoral Rule, admonition 25.
Verse 9: THEREFORE I WILL RETURN, AND WILL TAKE AWAY MY GRAIN.
9. THEREFORE I WILL RETURN, AND WILL TAKE AWAY MY GRAIN. — I will turn from love to hatred, from beneficence to vengeance; I will turn, I say, from the nourishment with which I so liberally fed her and gave her grain, wine, etc., to punishing her with barrenness and famine; so that from this prophecy and from her own experience she may learn and know that the grain and wine are mine and are given by me, not by idols: "I will take," therefore, "and will take away my grain in its time," namely in the time of harvest, "and my wine in its time," namely in the time of vintage; as if to say: I will cause them to gather little grain at harvest, and little wine at vintage, or if much was gathered, it will be worthless and yield little bread and wine; or else I will destroy it by fire, by enemy pillaging, or by some other means.
AND I WILL SET FREE MY WOOL AND MY FLAX. — "I will set free," namely, as if from a captivity, by which they are detained by an unjust or wrongful possessor. Hence the Chaldean translates: I will take away the silken and fine linen garment which I had given her to cover her shame; the Seventy: I will take away my linen cloths and garments, so that they may not cover her shame: shame, that is, nakedness; for this is what the Hebrew erva signifies, and this is shameful and ignominious, as if to say: I will strip and denude her of garments, and expose her naked to ridicule in disgrace, so that she may be laughed at and mocked by all. It is a prosopopoeia; for as if the wool and flax unwillingly served the ungrate-
ful and impious idolaters, as unjust possessors; and from them He says He will set them free. Therefore the word "I will set free" signifies that creatures are forced to serve the impious, the proud, and the ungrateful; for God created them for this end, that they might serve man for knowing and loving God, their creator and giver. Wherefore, when they are deprived of this end for which they were made, and are even taken up against God for pride and luxury, they naturally abhor this very thing, are held captive and suffer violence, and would in reality grieve, groan, and protest against the injury, if they had feeling. This is what the Apostle says, Romans chapter VIII, 20: "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected it in hope." And immediately: "For we know that every creature groans and is in labor until now."
God therefore frees creatures groaning under this servitude by taking them away from the impious and handing them over to the pious, or by causing them to be employed for His own service and obedience, for which they were created and toward which they naturally incline and are borne by the whole weight of their nature.
I heard in Belgium a celebrated preacher who, when certain calumniators objected that some clerics and religious lived sumptuously, responded in his sermon: first, that this was a calumny and a lie; second, even if it were true, it would not be unjust but according to the order of things: for God created creatures to serve the pious, not the impious; His servants, not His enemies. Wherefore, he said, if bread, if wine, if eggs, if partridges could speak, they would cry out: Let holy men, the servants of our God, eat us; let us not be eaten by the enemies of our Lord. Let our substance, our flesh, be incorporated into the saints, so that in them it may rise to glory, not into sinners: for in them it will rise to hell. For what creature would not prefer to be in heaven and glory rather than in hell and fire?
For this reason, at the end of the world, and especially on the day of judgment, all creatures, as avengers of their Creator, will rise up against the impious and destroy them. For this is what the Wise Man says, chapter V, 21: "The whole world shall fight with him against the foolish. Bolts of lightning shall go directly forth, and as from a well-bent bow of clouds they shall be shot forth. And from a hard-as-stone wrath, hailstones shall be sent, and rivers shall run together harshly. Against them shall stand the spirit of power, and as a whirlwind of wind shall divide them."
Verse 10: AND NOW I WILL LAY BARE HER FOLLY;
10. AND NOW I WILL LAY BARE HER FOLLY; — the Seventy have, her uncleanness; Vatablus, her shamefulness; Pagninus, her filthiness; the Chaldean, her disgrace. Properly, the Hebrew nablut signifies something foolish and stupid: hence Abigail, the wife of David, aptly said of her foolish husband Nabal: "Let not my lord the king, I pray, set his heart upon this wicked man Nabal; for according to his name he is a fool, and folly is with him," I Kings chapter XXV, 25.
Moreover, the folly of Israel or the ten tribes (for he is speaking of these, as I said before) was this: that, having abandoned God, the best father and provider, from whom they received grain, wine, flax, and all good things, they worshiped mute and deaf idols, and attributed their grain, wine, etc. to them and gave them the credit: which was certainly an immense stupidity, ingratitude, and impiety. God here threatens to reveal this folly to the whole world, and He actually did so when He stripped Israel of all goods and exposed him to the plunder, captivity, and mockery of the Assyrians (whose gods Israel worshiped).
Similar is the folly of every sinner, inasmuch as he prefers the creature to the Creator, earth to heaven, the devil to God, hell to paradise, sin to holiness, evil to good.
Verse 11: AND I WILL CAUSE ALL HER MIRTH TO CEASE.
11. AND I WILL CAUSE ALL HER MIRTH TO CEASE. — Because I will cause all her crops to cease; likewise all her sabbaths, and all her feast days, as fol-
lows; for on these days both Jews and Christians are accustomed to keep holiday, to rejoice, and to recreate themselves.
Verse 12: AND I WILL DESTROY (Vatablus: I will lay waste, both by hail and storms, and by
12. AND I WILL DESTROY (Vatablus: I will lay waste, both by hail and storms, and by the Assyrians) HER VINE AND HER FIG TREE (as if to say: Not only grapes and figs, but the very vines themselves and the very fig trees I will cut down and demolish. He adds the reason): OF WHICH SHE SAID: THESE ARE MY REWARDS (of harlotry, that is, of idol worship) WHICH MY LOVERS HAVE GIVEN ME — as if to say: They will be cut down, because the crops and riches which I gave her, she ungratefully and stupidly attributed to her idols.
AND I WILL MAKE HER A FOREST. — Ribera, from the Hebrew, Chaldean, and Seventy, contends that it should be read "them," namely the vine and the fig tree; but the Roman edition reads "her," namely the Synagogue and the land of Israel; for this land, having been devastated by the Assyrians, was given to the beasts of the earth to devour; for He continues speaking to her and convicts her of sin. Less genuinely, therefore, do St. Jerome, Theodoret, and Lyranus wish Jerusalem and its destruction to be signified here; for, as I said, the Prophet here treats of the ten, not of the two tribes. The Seventy, reading iaad (testimony) instead of iaar (forest or thicket), translate: I will make her a testimony, so that it might bear witness to the whole world how great is God's wrath, justice, power, and vengeance against the wicked.
Verse 13: AND I WILL VISIT UPON HER THE DAYS OF BAALIM
13. AND I WILL VISIT UPON HER THE DAYS OF BAALIM — as if to say: I will punish the "days," that is, the sins committed on those days, namely on the feasts of the idols, on which she adorned herself and worshiped Baalim, that is, the various gods of the nations, with festive sacrifices and garments, as follows. So the Chaldean, Haymo, Hugo, and Vatablus. Note: Baal in Hebrew, first, signifies lord from the root baal, that is, he ruled: hence second, it signifies bridegroom and husband; for the husband is the head and lord of his wife, I Corinthians chapter XI, 3; hence third, the Gentiles called their Jupiter Baal, as lord of heaven and earth. Baal in the plural has Baalim, as if you were to say, many lords, many husbands, many gods: he opposes these many to the solitude and the one Baal, as I will say presently.
Otherwise St. Jerome, as if to say: I will cause her to be punished and cut off on those very feast days on which she worshiped Baalim. So tropologically, the days of Baalim are those on which one serves Venus, Mammon, the spirit of pride and ambition, as Baalim, that is, as lovers, lords, and masters, indeed as their gods. These God visits when He punishes the sinner with venereal disease, poverty, loss of honor and position.
Again, He visits the days of Baalim when He punishes a penitent sinner with tribulations, adversities, desolations, and especially with temptations of former sins, which return to him as to an old friend; as St. Mary of Egypt was tempted for the same number of years, namely 17, as she had sinned, with obscene thoughts. The same happens everywhere to others. See St. Bernard, sermons 3 and 4 on the Song of Songs.
ON WHICH SHE BURNED INCENSE (namely to Baalim, that is, to idols): AND DECKED HERSELF WITH HER EARRING AND HER NECKLACE — like a harlot who adorns and paints herself for her lovers. But the Jews on feast days put on finer garments, for the honor of the feast and of their idol; just as Christians also do, but in honor of God and of the Saints whose feasts they celebrate.
Verse 14: THEREFORE, BEHOLD I WILL ALLURE HER.
14. THEREFORE, BEHOLD I WILL ALLURE HER. — The phrase "therefore" is difficult: for what is the cause, indeed what is the consequence and connection in saying: The wife has committed adultery, and therefore I will punish and destroy her, therefore I will allure her. First, some connect and explain it thus, as if to say: Because Israel has sinned so gravely, because she errs and raves so seriously, because she is in such great miseries of soul and dangers to salvation, that she moves me rather to compassion than to wrath and anger; for this reason, after her chastisement, I will turn my wrath into mercy; and I will show her the riches of my power and mercy; namely I will allure her and speak to her heart; and so I will convert and bring her back to me: so Ribera. Second, Lyranus connects these words with the beginning of the chapter: "Say to your brothers, My people; and to your sister, She has obtained mercy."
But I say there is a hysterology here, as I showed at verse 6. These words therefore, "therefore behold I will allure her," are to be referred to and connected with verses 6 and 7. For thus everything coheres and flows in order. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: I said in verses 6 and 7: "I will hedge up her way with thorns"; I will vex and chastise her; so that my bride the Synagogue may not be able to go to and worship foreign nations and gods; whence she will return to herself, and repenting of her former life, she will say: "I will go and return to my first husband. Therefore" — because she, repentant, returns to me — "behold I will allure her," as if to say: I, forgetting her former crimes, will receive her returning, as a most loving spouse, and will rush into her embrace, as the father rushed into the embrace of the prodigal son returning to him, Luke chapter XV.
St. Bernard beautifully teaches in sermon 83 on the Song of Songs that the love of God our Spouse is so great that a soul, however much corrupted by vices, can still through chaste and holy love return to the wedding and the chamber of the Spouse: "Love is a great thing; the bride's possession and hope is love alone. This the bride abounds in; with this the Bridegroom is content; He seeks nothing else, nor does she have anything else. Hence He is the Bridegroom, and she is the bride." And below: "Why should not the bride love, and the bride of Love at that? Why should not Love be loved?" See what follows.
BEHOLD I WILL ALLURE HER. — Ruffinus says: "I will allure," that is, I will give manna to the Hebrews in the desert; for manna is called milk, because it was similar to milk in color and flavor. But God had given this manna long ago; here, however, He says "I will allure" in the future. Again, "lactare" here does not mean to give milk or to nourish with milk; but it is a frequentative verb, derived from the primitive "lacio"; whose meaning is clear from the compounds allicio (entice), illicio (lure), pellicio (seduce), and from the frequentatives lacto (allure), illecto (charm), delecto (delight): to "lactare" therefore is the same as to entice, persuade, seduce, and as it were by giving milk to bait, deceive, and catch, as Festus Pompeius teaches in book X. Thus we commonly say: My master entices me with this hope; I am lured by great promises, etc. So in Proverbs I, it is said: "If sinners shall allure you" — that is, wish to seduce and lead you astray — "do not consent to them." And this is what the Hebrew patha signifies; hence the Greek peitho, that is, I persuade. Wherefore the Seventy translate: I seduce her, and will make her as a desert; Vatablus: I will seduce her; the Syriac: behold I deceive her; the Arabic Antiochene: I will cause her to err; the Arabic Alexandrine: I will destroy her; others: I will bait her, as fish and birds are baited with food given to them and so caught.
Now first, Theodoret and Theophylact take this in a bad sense, and from the Seventy give this meaning, as if to say: Behold, I will cause her to be seduced and entangled in errors, and to be given over; so that she may be led into captivity (into Assyria), and having been made captive, I will cause her to be deprived of all these goods. But that these words are to be taken in a good sense, and signify joyful promises, not sad threats, the other interpreters commonly teach; and it is clear from what follows. For He says: "I will speak to her heart; I will give her her vinedressers; she shall sing there according to the days of her youth; she shall call me, My husband: I will take away the names of Baalim: I will make a covenant with them: I will betroth you to Myself forever."
"I will allure her therefore," that is, I will persuade, entice, and as it were by a holy stratagem bait and captivate her: so that she may freely despise her idols and devote and surrender herself entirely to me as her spouse and God. Hence the Chaldean translates: Behold, I will subject her to the law, and I will work for her miracles and great deeds, such as I did for her in the desert. This is what Ezekiel says in chapter XXXVI, 26: "I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh."
Tropologically, so Christ allured St. Magdalene, that she might loathe wealth, pleasures, sensual delights, and whatever is in
the world; that she might despise the reputation and judgments of the Pharisees, who thought her not only deceived but even insane, when at a public banquet she washed Christ's feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. So God allured Saints Anthony, Hilarion, Francis, Clare, and so many nobles and wealthy people, who, spurning the pleasures of the world, embraced the religious and austere life of penance, and embrace it daily, whom worldly people consider deceived, indeed fools. So allured, St. Paul said: "Lord, what do You wish me to do?" Acts IX. And: "The world is crucified to me, and I to the world." And: "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me." So He allured the first Christians and martyrs, that, enticed — indeed intoxicated — by the sweetness of divine consolation and by love of Christ crucified for them, they would run to martyrdom, would eagerly seek fires, wild beasts, crosses; and on the very scaffolds, gridirons, and in the flames they would exult, and mock the tyrants and torturers, as can be seen in the Lives of St. Ignatius, Lawrence, Vincent, Agatha, and very many others.
AND I WILL LEAD HER INTO THE WILDERNESS. — He alludes, first, to an adulterous wife, who, throwing herself among crowds and wandering through the bedchambers and brothels of many adulterers, is at last brought back home by her husband as a penitent, as if into a solitude, so that there she may dwell alone with her husband alone. Second, he alludes to the Synagogue of the Hebrews, which in Egypt, mingled with the crowds of Egyptians and their idols — namely Apis, Isis, Osiris, Canopus, Hammon, and very many others — was by God's command led out by Moses into the desert of Sinai; and there, receiving from God the law, the tabernacle, and religion, was chosen and taken by Him as His bride, that is, as His Church and commonwealth. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Just as formerly I led you, O Israel, wandering and playing the harlot with the crowd of Gentile nations and gods of Egypt, out of there into the wilderness; so likewise now, from the crowd of Assyrians, Medes, Chaldeans, Persians, and Parthians, among whom, captive and dispersed, you wander about, now worshiping the gods of these, now of those, I will lead you into the wilderness, by which one travels to Judea and to Jerusalem, so that through it I may bring you back to your homeland, your seat, and your religion, as into a solitude. For the Jews in Judea were separated from the nations; indeed after the destruction, Judea was a solitude. This is what Ezekiel says, chapter XX, 34: "I will bring you out from the peoples, and will gather you out of the lands in which you are dispersed, etc. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and I will judge you there face to face; as I judged your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt." This passage is very similar to ours and explains it. So the Chaldean, Haymo, and others.
Third and more importantly, I will lead her into the wilderness, that is, I will lead the Synagogue, namely the Israelites, from Egyptian and Assyrian idolatry, as well as from Jewish superstition, to the Church of Christ, in which, as a bridegroom alone with his bride alone, now separated from her former lovers and sins, and from the multitude and tu-
Note: Rabbi Solomon and the Jews take this passage as referring only to the return from the Babylonian captivity: for then many Israelites returned with the Jews to Jerusalem, and thereafter no longer named or worshiped Baalim, but served the true God in peace and joy. But very many Christians, such as Jerome, Cyril, Ruffinus, Theodoret, Theophylact, Lyranus, Vatablus, Arias, Ribera, and others, take these words as referring to the redemption of mankind from the captivity of the devil, accomplished through Christ.
But I follow the middle opinion and say that the Prophet alludes to the return from the Babylonian captivity and touches on it in passing; but under that as a faint type, he rather signifies the return from the captivity of the devil, through the redemption of Christ. So Theodoret: "These things," he says, "happened typically and in shadow under Zerubbabel: but expressly and in very truth where Christ became man." And this is clear from the words and promises of the Prophet, which are too grand to apply to the Israelites, and to the few who returned from Babylon with the Jews. Such are: "I will break the bow and the sword and war from the land, and I will make them sleep securely." For the Jews, returning from Babylon, soon served the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. And: "I will betroth you to Myself forever." And: "I will say to that which was not my people: You are my people; and he shall say: You are my God." Which the Apostle, Romans chapter IX, 25, and St. Peter, II Epistle chapter II, 10, explain as referring to the Christian people.
You may ask why the Church is called a solitude, when in it there is a multitude of nations. I answer: first, because it worships the one God, who alone is the true God, and therefore is Baal, or Baali (My husband), verse 16. For this one He opposes to Baalim, that is, to the many lovers, lords, and gods whom Israel worshiped in Egypt and in Assyria. In the Church therefore there is a solitude of God, and consequently a solitude of faith and a solitude of religion, whereas among idolaters and heretics there is a multitude and confusion of gods as well as of errors and sects. This is what the Apostle says, Ephesians chapter IV, 5: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." Hence consequently the Church is alone, that is, one, whereas heretics and idolaters have very many synagogues and congregations, mutually contradicting one another.
Second, because just as God led the Hebrews under the leadership of Moses through the Red Sea, after the Egyptians were drowned, into the desert of Sinai, and there formed them into His Synagogue by giving them the law and the priesthood; so also He leads Christians through the Red Sea of Christ's blood in baptism, with sins and vices drowned, into the Church, and there gives them His laws and sacred rites.
Third, just as He fed the Hebrews in the desert with manna and water from the rock; so He feeds Christians in the Church with the Eucharist, and with other sacraments and graces, and with spiritual consolations.
Fourth, just as He gave the Hebrews in the desert victo-
ry over Amalek, Og, Sihon, and other enemies; so He gives Christians in the Church victory over demons, the flesh, and the world.
Fifth, just as He protected the Hebrews through the desert by a pillar of fire by night and of cloud by day from heat and storms, and illuminated them and led them into the promised land: so He leads Christians in the Church through the desert of this life, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who in adversities illuminates and inflames them, in prosperity protects and humbles them, so that they may securely press on toward the land of the living, promised in heaven.
Tropologically, God leads the truly penitent to solitude, and there exercises and perfects them with divine gifts, where they are separated from all the allurements of the world and from the crowd and tumult of men. So He separated Magdalene from the crowd and caused her to follow into the wilderness; and after His death and resurrection He led her into the wilderness, to a mountain near Marseille, where in the Baume, weeping over her former sins, she lived with Christ and the angels, leading a life more angelic than human. Indeed, those who wish to emerge from sins and seriously amend and change their life must necessarily withdraw from the crowd and retire to a solitary place, at least for a time; where they may both unlearn their former vices and avoid the occasions of sins and distractions; and, applying themselves to holy meditations and pious exercises, may learn by what method and manner they ought to correct their life; and finally, where they may be visited, illuminated, and strengthened by God in this resolution for a better life. For, as Job says in chapter IV, 22: "A hidden word was spoken to me, and my ear as if by stealth received the veins of its whisper." For God speaks, says St. Dionysius in the book On the Divine Names, either through a certain light, or through internal inspirations, but rarely through an audible voice. Therefore, that one may hear Him, let him retire into solitude and silence, where he may turn his mind and ears, detached from other things, inward, and direct them to God who is in the center of the heart: there he will receive His silent whisper and murmur. This is the reason that moved Emperor Charles V to abdicate so many kingdoms and retire to a solitary place, where, free from cares and crowds, he might devote himself wholly to himself and to God, and prepare for approaching death and the blessed life, as he actually did and persevered in until the end of his life. Wherefore Francis Borgia, formerly duke of Gandia under him, being asked at his funeral to deliver the funeral oration, proposed this theme and applied it to Charles: "I fled far away and remained in solitude," showing how piously and wisely he had acted who had left the world before the world left him, which was about to happen soon. This was a new and unheard-of example of so great a man in our age. Charles was greater in his hermitage than in his empire: because greater than the world and even than himself. So our Father Sacchinus, volume II of the Annals of the Society of Jesus, at the year of our Lord 1558.
Philip III, King of Spain, followed the sentiments of his grandfather Charles, dying in this year of the Lord 1621; for although he had led his life justly, innocently, and piously, to such a degree that he held this firmly resolved — that he would rather be deprived of all his kingdoms than knowingly offend God even venially — nevertheless, in the agony of death, more deeply considering and trembling at the account of his governance of the kingdom that would soon have to be rendered to God, he burst forth into these words and wishes: "Would that I had never been king! Would that the years I spent reigning I had spent as a private person in the desert! Would that I had led a solitary life with God in the Thebaid! How much more securely I would now die! How much more confidently I would approach the tribunal of God!" So his death, published in print, records, and all who were present attest. Lot heard in the burning of Sodom: "Save your life; do not look back, nor stay in all the surrounding region; but save yourself on the mountain," Genesis XIX. So St. John the Baptist withdrew into the desert, to preach penance there by word and example, and calling the crowds away from the noise of cities, he cried out to all: "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." So Christ the Lord, about to begin the work of His preaching and our redemption, imposed on Him by the Father, was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert, and there prepared Himself for it by forty days of meditation, prayer, and fasting, Matthew chapter IV; and when about to preach, He led the crowds out to the same place, just as He also led the Apostles to the mountain, about to teach them the summit of the Gospel, Matthew chapter V, 1. For solitude makes the mind quiet, present to itself, collected, and pricks it with the thought of heavenly and eternal things. So St. Jerome, as a penitent, went into the wilderness of Syria, and to persuade Heliodorus to do the same, he concluded his letter with this epilogue as a rallying cry: "O desert, blooming with the flowers of Christ! O solitude in which those stones are born from which in the Apocalypse the city of the great King is built! O wilderness, more familiarly enjoying God! What are you doing, brother, in the world, you who are greater than the world? How long do the shadows of rooftops oppress you? How long does the prison of smoky cities confine you?" Tertullian, in the book On the Cloak, chapter V: "I have withdrawn from the people," he says, "indeed my only business is this, and I care for nothing else now than not to care. Enjoy a better life in retirement than in public. No one is born for another; he will die for himself."
St. Basil, together with St. Gregory of Nazianzus, devoting himself to prayer and the study of Sacred Letters in the wilderness, wrote a treatise On the Praises of the Wilderness, which he begins thus: "The solitary life is the school of heavenly doctrine and the training-ground of divine arts. There God is everything that is spoken of: the way by which one journeys; everything through which one arrives at the knowledge of the highest truth. The wilderness is a paradise of delights, where the ornaments of virtues breathe: there the roses of charity blaze with fiery redness; there the lilies of chastity glow with snowy whiteness, together with the violets of humility: there the myrrh of mortification, not only of the flesh, but, what is more glorious, of one's own
will overflows: and the incense of ceaseless prayer unceasingly emanates." And shortly after: "O wilderness, delight of holy minds, and inexhaustible sweetness of inner taste! You are that Chaldean furnace where the holy youths repress and extinguish the forces of the raging fire with prayers. You are the forge where the vessels of the heavenly King are formed, and, struck with the hammer of penance and scraped with the file of saving correction, arrive at perpetual brilliance. O cell, storehouse of heavenly merchants! Happy commerce, where earthly things are exchanged for heavenly, and transitory for eternal." And below: "O cell, marvelous workshop of spiritual exercise, in which the human soul restores in itself the image of its Creator and returns to the purity of its origin. You grant that a man may behold God with a pure heart, who, wrapped in his own darkness, was formerly ignorant of both God and himself. You cause a man, stationed in the citadel of the mind, to see all earthly things flowing away beneath him, and to perceive himself also passing away in the very course of fleeting things. O cell, fortress of God, tower of David, spectacle of angels, arena of those who fight bravely! O wilderness, death of vices, kindling and life of virtues! To you Moses gave the decalogue of the twice-received law. Through you Elijah knew the coming of the Lord passing by. Through you Elisha obtained a double portion of his master's spirit. You are that ladder of Jacob, which carries men to heaven and sets down angels for human assistance. O hermit life, bath of souls, purgatory of the defiled! For the cell is the meeting-place of God and men." And near the end: "O wilderness, happy refuge from the persecuting world, rest of the laboring, consolation of the mourning, refreshment from the heat of the world, renunciation of sinning, enclosure of bodies, freedom of souls, gallery of heavenly gems, court of heavenly senators! where the conqueror of demons becomes the companion of angels: the exile of the world is the heir of paradise; he who denies himself is a follower of Christ."
St. Bernard, in his letter to the Brothers of Mont-Dieu: "The cell," he says, "and the dwelling of heaven are kindred; for as heaven and the cell seem to have a certain kinship of name, so also of piety. For both heaven (cœlum) and cell (cella) seem to take their name from concealing (celando): and what is concealed in heaven is also concealed in cells. What is sought in heaven is also sought in cells. What is this? To be free for God, to enjoy God. When this is piously and faithfully practiced in cells according to order, I dare to say: The holy angels of God regard cells as heavens, and delight equally in cells and in heavens." And shortly after: "From the cell one often ascends to heaven; but hardly ever does one descend from the cell to hell: because hardly anyone who was not predestined for heaven persevered in it until death." And below: "The cell is holy ground and a holy place, in which the faithful soul is frequently united with the Word of God, the bride is joined to the Bridegroom, heavenly things to earthly, divine things to human. For just as the temple is the holy place of God, so the cell is the holy place of God's servant." And: "For in the temple and in the cell divine things are transacted,
but more frequently in the cell." The same author, in the treatise On the Manner of Living Well, addressed to his sister, chapter LVIII: "If," he says, "for God's sake you have avoided the company of men on earth, through God you will have the company of angels in heaven."
Moreover, this retirement must especially be sought by one who is deliberating about his state of life and is uncertain which he should embrace. St. Bernard teaches this in letter 107, at the end, advising the provost Thomas that if he desires to hear the voice of heaven, he should withdraw: "If you prepare your inner ear," he says, "for this voice of God, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, flee external care, so that with your internal sense freed and empty, you too may say with Samuel: Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening. This voice does not sound in the marketplace, nor is it heard in public; a secret counsel seeks a secret hearing. It will certainly give your hearing joy and gladness, if you receive it with a sober ear." In this way David was preparing himself when he said: "I will hear what the Lord speaks within me, for He will speak peace to His people, and to His saints, and to those who are converted to the heart" — signifying that God does not speak to those who are outside the heart, poured out into external things, but to those who withdraw to think on interior things. Blessed Peter Damian, in his letter to Teuzo, says that he consulted a certain holy hermit about himself and his state, whether it was advantageous for him to serve the Church and his neighbors in the Cardinalate and the Bishopric of Ostia; or rather, having renounced these, to retire to his monastery, because he felt that that active life distracted and diminished his spirit and impeded its progress. To which the hermit replied: "What good is it for a lamp if it gives light to others, but the devouring flame consumes itself?" Wherefore Peter, having left the Bishopric and the Cardinalate, returned to his monastery and there devoted himself wholly to his salvation and perfection. For this was his first vocation, namely the monastic life.
But indeed bodily solitude is not sufficient if the solitude of the mind is lacking, to which the former leads, namely if the mind wanders through the things it has seen or heard and roams the whole world in its thoughts. God, says St. Bernard, sermon 40 on the Song of Songs, is a Spirit; therefore He requires of us spiritual solitude more than bodily: "Solitude of mind and spirit alone," he says, "is appointed for you. You are alone if you do not think common thoughts, if you do not crave present things, if you despise what many admire, if you loathe what all desire, if you avoid quarrels, if you do not feel losses, if you do not remember injuries. Otherwise, even if you are alone in body, you are not alone." And a little before, teaching how the soul becomes the bride of God: "It is utterly above you," he says, "to be betrothed to the Lord of angels. Is it not above you to cling to God and to be one spirit with Him? Sit therefore solitary like the turtledove; have nothing to do with crowds; forget even your own people and your father's house, and the King will desire your beauty. O holy soul! Be alone, so that you may keep yourself for Him alone out of all, whom you have chosen for yourself out of all. Flee the public; flee even your own household members. Do you not
know that you have a bashful Bridegroom, who will by no means grant you His presence in the presence of others? Withdraw therefore, but in mind, not in body; in intention, in devotion, in spirit."
St. Gregory, book XXX of the Moralia, chapter XII, explaining that passage from Job XXXIX, 5: Who has let the wild ass go free into the wilderness, and who has loosed his bonds? "Contemplative men," he says, "like wild asses, inhabit the solitude of the mind, and free from the tumults of secular affairs, they thirst for God. For what good is bodily solitude, if solitude of heart is lacking? And so to those who are living well, solitude of mind is first granted, so that they may suppress the inner rising noise of earthly desires, so that by the grace of heavenly love they may restrain the cares of the heart boiling up from below, and all the movements of light thoughts intrusively presenting themselves — like so many flies buzzing around — they may drive away from the eyes of the mind with the hand of gravity, and seek a certain secret place within themselves with the Lord, where, with exterior noise ceasing, they may silently speak with Him through interior desires."
Finally, Cornelius Musius, an illustrious martyr of Christ in our age at Delft in Holland, wrote a learned poem in praise of the solitary life, to which he gives this moving conclusion: Live as you will; but when you fall ill, With righteous tears you will condemn All the world's pomp. And when you draw near to death, Then, but too late, you will call out For the blessed little cells. O blessed solitude, O sole blessedness, For pious dwellers in seclusion! How blessed the candidates, Who fly to you on wings, Far from the worldly-minded!
Noteworthy is what John Mauburnus, abbot of Livry, writes in the Rosary, book I, chapter III, near the end: namely that various religious Orders have fallen from their original holiness and splendor for various reasons — the Cluniacs through idleness, the Cistercians through excessive rural business, the Premonstratensians through the excessive burdens of Masses and choir; the Mendicants through excessive familiarity with secular people, because they mingled too much with the populace, according to Psalm CV, 35: "They mingled among the nations, and learned their works: and it became a stumbling block to them"; the Benedictines through excessive wealth, according to the saying: "The daughter of ample endowment smothered the mother of devout religion." He adds that, above all others, the Carthusians have stood firm in their original luster and vigor, on account of their devotion to solitude and silence, and their strenuous observance of visitations. Hence, summing up these three things in verse, he says: By three things — si, so, vi — the Carthusian Order remains in vi (that is, in vigor). Si is silence, so is solitude, vi is visitation. The bish-
op, for the rector, the superior, visiting his subjects, corrects them if they have fallen; if they stand upright, he keeps them vigilant and steadfast. Silence and solitude ensure: first, that subjects do not communicate and spread their murmurings and temptations to one another; second, that they do not fill the mind with earthly and vain fantasies, which are the incitements of lusts; third, they dispose the soul to receive divine plantings. For God does not pour this balsam of His except into a soul that is free, pure, set apart from the dregs of the earth, and attending to God alone; for this is fitting and just. Hear Thomas the God-taught, book I of The Imitation of Christ, chapter XX: "Someone said: As often as I have been among men, I have returned less a man. No one appears securely unless he gladly lies hidden. No one speaks securely unless he gladly keeps silent. No one rules securely unless he gladly submits. He who withdraws himself from acquaintances and friends — God with His holy angels will draw near to him. The greatest of the saints avoided human company wherever they could, and chose to live for God in secret."
The pagans themselves saw this same truth through a shadow, counseled it, and actually practiced it. Scipio Africanus, as Plutarch attests in his Life, used to say "that he was never less alone than when he was alone; nor ever less at leisure than when he was at leisure." Another, on the contrary, used to say "that he was never less a man than when he was among men." Ptolemy's maxim, as found in his Life, in the prologue to the Almagest, was: "The security of solitude removes pain; the fear of the crowd takes away consolation." Cicero, growing old and weary of public life, withdrew to Tusculum, and there philosophized and wrote the Tusculan Disputations, in which he shows himself a second Seneca. Seneca, in letter I to Lucilius, giving him precepts for an honorable and happy life, says: "You ask what I think you should especially avoid? The crowd. For you cannot yet safely entrust yourself to it. I certainly confess my own weakness. I never bring back the same character I took out. Something of what I had composed is disturbed; something of what I had banished returns." And shortly after: "Association with many is hostile. There is no one who does not commend some vice to us, or impress it upon us, or smear it on us without our knowing. Nothing indeed is so harmful to good morals as to sit idle at some spectacle. For then through pleasure vices more easily creep in. What do you think I mean? I return more greedy, more ambitious, more luxurious, indeed more cruel and inhuman, because I have been among men." And below: "A dissimilar crowd could have shaken the mind of Socrates, Cato, and Laelius; so much so that none of us, however much we compose our character, can withstand the assault of vices coming with so great a retinue. A delicate companion gradually enervates and softens; a wealthy neighbor irritates cupidity; a malicious associate, however candid and simple you are, has rubbed his rust onto you." And shortly after: "Withdraw into yourself as much as you can: associate with those who will make you better; admit those
or that God never spoke in a multitude; but whenever He wished to make something known to men, not to nations and peoples, but to individuals, or to very few, and those separated from the common assembly of men, or through the silence of the night, or in fields and solitudes, and on mountains and in valleys, He manifested Himself. Thus He spoke with Noah, with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, and with Moses, Samuel, David, and all the Prophets." And shortly after: "What does it mean that God always speaks in secret, except that He calls us to secret? And what does it mean that He speaks with few, except that He may gather or unite us?"
AND I WILL SPEAK TO HER HEART. - The meaning is, first, that is to say: I will speak to her inwardly, not outwardly; I will speak to her in the mind and will, not in the ear, instilling in her shame for her ingratitude and sins, terror, hatred of sin, and hope of pardon, and desire and love of a better life; so that she may return repentant to her spouse, God. Secondly, that is to say: I will soothe her heart with My words, bend it, and turn it to Me and to love and worship of Me. Hence Leo the Hebrew translates: "I will speak into her heart." This is what Ezekiel says, chapter 36, verse 26: "I will give you a new heart and a new spirit." See what was said there. Thirdly, from the Hebrew one may properly translate: I will speak according to her heart, that is, her affection, that is to say: I will address her with gentle words full of consolation, as a bridegroom addresses his bride returning to him; with which I will nourish, as preceded, soothe her heart, that is, her love and affection, and draw her to Me. Just as Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 2, says: "Speak to the heart of Jerusalem," that is, console her, as preceded. Hence the Syriac translates, I will caress her heart; the Arabic: I will speak in her heart, and harm shall not enter her understanding, as happens with carnal and deceitful lovers. So in Genesis 34:3, concerning Shechem consoling Dinah whom he had violated, it is said: "And he soothed the sorrowful one with blandishments," in Hebrew, he spoke to the heart of the girl. So Boaz consoled Ruth: "And he spoke to her heart," Ruth 2:13. God did this for the Synagogue through Ezra, as is evident from 2 Esdras, chapter 8:10, where Ezra, reading the law to the people who were weeping, said: "Go, eat rich foods, and drink sweet wine, etc., for this is a holy day of the Lord, and do not be grieved; for the joy of the Lord is your strength." But most of all He did this for the Church through Christ and the Apostles, especially at Pentecost by sending the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete, that is, the Consoler of the faithful; in whom, as the Apostle says, Romans 8: "We cry out: Abba, Father." Hence he himself, filled with this spirit and exulting, in all his labors and tribulations, would jubilantly say: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our tribulation." And chapter 12:9: "Gladly will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me: for which reason I am pleased with my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities,
Admit those whom you can make better! These things are done mutually, and men learn while they teach. Therefore there is no reason for the glory of displaying your talent to bring you forward in public, so that you wish to recite to them. For whom then, you ask, did I learn these things? You learned them for yourself. Democritus says: One person is a whole people to me, and a people is one. Another, when asked to what end such great diligence in an art destined to reach very few: It is enough for me, he said, to have a few, enough to have one, enough to have none. Epicurus, writing to one of his companions in studies: These things, he said, I write not for many, but for you; for we are a sufficiently great theater for each other." And in Epistle 8: "I have withdrawn not only from men, but also from things, and first of all from my own. The body must be treated more harshly, lest it obey the mind badly. Despise all things that superfluous labor places as ornament and decoration. Consider that in you there is nothing admirable besides the soul: to which, being great, nothing is great." Are these not golden words? Are not these as many pearls as they are maxims? Those, therefore, who are called by God to a solitary or monastic life, let them continually rejoice in this solitude, and lead the life of angels in the praises of God, and use it not only for their own salvation, but also for that of others, by praying, teaching, preaching, writing, etc., each according to his own talent. For they were not born for themselves alone, but also for others. And that is perfect contemplation which flows into action; for action nourishes, delights, perfects, and consummates contemplation. But those who are destined for the active life should from time to time withdraw to this solitude, and recall their minds from the tumult of cares, and restore themselves to themselves, so that both body and spirit may rest; and so that they may examine and correct their many errors; and so that they may unite themselves to God, and from Him speaking to their heart, draw new light, new strength and courage, for sustaining the labors of that burdensome life and bravely overcoming all difficulties, for the public good of the Church and commonwealth. Memorable in this regard was Thomas a Kempis, author of the book On the Imitation of Christ, in the year of the Lord 1441, who, while occupied among the brothers of his Order and conversing with them, whenever he sensed the voice and inspiration of the heavenly Bridegroom calling him like a bride to conversation, would humbly but freely bid farewell to the brothers and withdraw, saying: "Dearest brothers, I must withdraw: for there is One who awaits me in my cell." Immediately rushing to his cell, he would devoutly say, like Samuel: "Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening." So his Life records, written by a serious man who was his contemporary. Read chapter 20 of Book I, and you will see his profound thoughts on the love of solitude and silence, and you will assert that in his cell he drew from God's inspiration that heavenly spirit which he himself continually breathes and inspires upon everyone reading his little book. Finally, Hugh of St. Victor, Book IV of On the Ark of Noah, chapter 4: "Let us search, he says, the Scriptures, and we shall find that hardly
in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am powerful." Thus God consoled hermits in their austere life, Magdalene and penitents in their tears, martyrs in their torments; to such a degree that they preferred these to all feasts. This is what Isaiah says, chapter 10, verse 27: "The yoke shall rot at the presence of the oil!" See what was said there. Mystically, God speaks to the heart of the saints, who betroth themselves entirely to Him, indeed consecrate themselves, while they strive to please Him in all things, to cling to Him continually, to walk and converse with Him. For to these He presents Himself as a bridegroom, speaks, instructs, consoles: "In whose presence," says Richard of St. Victor on the Song of Songs (explaining that passage in chapter 3:4: Shortly after I had passed beyond them, I found Him whom my soul loves), "the soul is renewed, and as if clinging to Him, it senses the sweetness of interior taste, spiritual understanding, the illumination of faith, the increase of hope, the incentive of charity, the affection of compassion, zeal for justice, delight in virtues. In prayer it has familiar conversation with God, sensing itself heard, and for the most part answered, speaking face to face with God, and hearing what the Lord God speaks within it, in prayer compelling God, and sometimes prevailing." Behold, the bridegroom speaks these things to the heart of his bride, and makes her speak, so that He may grant her what she asks. St. Bernard teaches the same in sermons 57 and 58 on the Song of Songs, where, explaining the passage: "Behold, my beloved speaks to me: Arise, make haste, my love," he says that God speaks in the devout soul humility, patience, fraternal charity, obedience, peace, mortification of vices, compunction, and all holiness. "Furthermore, he says, when by this fire every stain of sin and rust of vices has been consumed, if now the cleansed and serene conscience is followed by a certain sudden and unusual expansion of the mind, and an infusion of light illuminating the intellect, either for the knowledge of the Scriptures or for the understanding of mysteries — the former given, I believe, for our delight, the latter for the edification of our neighbors — without doubt this is the eye of Him who looks upon us, bringing forth your justice as a light, and your judgment as the noonday." He adds that the bridegroom urges the bride, that is, perfect men, to the governance of the imperfect, so that they may uproot vices from them and implant virtues, saying: "Arise, make haste, my love." The same, in sermon 74: "Living, he says, and effective is the word of God, and as soon as it came within, it awakened my drowsing soul, moved and softened and wounded my heart, which was hard and stony, and ill. It also began to uproot and destroy, to build and plant, to water dry places, to illuminate dark ones, to open what was shut, to set ablaze what was cold, and also to make crooked things straight and rough ways smooth, so that my soul blessed the Lord, and all that is within me blessed His holy name."
Verse 15: And I will give her her vinedressers from that same place.
15. And I will give her her vinedressers from that same place. -- So also the Chaldean, who accordingly reads in the Hebrew with our text koremeha, that is, her vinedressers. But others with different vowel points read kerameha, that is, her vineyards: hence also the Septuagint translates, her possessions, that is to say: The vineyards which in the land of Canaan begin at the same place, namely in the wilderness of which he spoke previously; and which the Assyrians took from the Israelites, verse 12, I will restore to them there. So Vatablus. And mystically, through Christ I will restore to them grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, who is the pledge of the eternal inheritance, Ephesians 1:23. For these are the vineyards which the faithful possess here in an inchoate way, but will fully possess in heaven. So Arias. But the meaning comes to the same thing, whether you read vineyards or vinedressers: for where there is a vineyard, there is also a vinedresser, and vice versa. Hence Sanchez thinks there is an allusion here to nuptial rites, in which the dowry given to the bride was a dotal field: thus God here gives His bride, namely the Synagogue, as a dowry the most fertile vineyard of Engedi: for that vineyard is either the same as, or adjacent to, the Valley of Achor. Hence the allusion in Song of Songs 1:13: "My beloved is in the vineyards of Engedi." And Song of Songs 8:11: "The peaceable one had a vineyard in that which has peoples;" in Hebrew, in Baal Hamon. For the same place seems to be what is called here the Valley of Achor, and there Engedi, and Baal Hamon. Therefore Hosea mentions the Valley of Achor above the other places of Judea here, because this was like the first dowry given by God to the Synagogue, through which she as it were received the hope and pledge of soon possessing all of Canaan. More fittingly, however, our text reads koremeha, that is, her vinedressers: for God's vineyard was formerly the Synagogue, and now is the Church, as is clear from Isaiah 5:7: "The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel." And in Matthew 21:33, the vinedressers are the Prophets and Apostles. Hence the Chaldean translates: I will establish for her from there her governors. The meaning therefore is, that is to say: Just as formerly I gave to my vineyard, that is, to the Synagogue, namely to Israel going out of Egypt, caretakers and cultivators, namely Moses, Joshua, and Aaron; so afterward to the same returning from Assyria and from Babylon I will give similar ones, namely Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Malachi, etc.; and in the time of Christ I will give her Apostles, Evangelists, and other pastors and teachers, who will first be "from the same place," that is, originating from Israel just as Moses, Ezra, etc.; for afterward their successors will be foreigners and strangers, as Isaiah predicts in chapter 61:5, namely Gentiles converted to Christ; when the Church has been spread and propagated through the nations. These therefore will be vinedressers most diligent and energetic, who will constantly guard, direct, and correct the Church, that is, the faithful; they will stir them up to bring forth the fruits of good works by which they may merit eternal life, just as vinedressers are accustomed to plant, train, prune, dig around the vineyard, etc., so that it may produce an abundance of grapes. So St. Jerome, Emmanuel, Mariana, and others throughout. Morally, let pastors and prelates learn here that they are vinedressers of their parish or diocese, and must cultivate it with as much care and diligence as a vinedresser cultivates his vineyard.
and must cultivate it with as much care and diligence as a vinedresser cultivates his vineyard. AND THE VALLEY OF ACHOR TO OPEN HOPE. -- The Valley of Achor is situated near Jericho: it was called Achor, that is, of trouble, because when the Hebrews were entering the promised land under Joshua's leadership, on account of the sacrilege of Achan, Israel was there troubled and slain by enemies. For Joshua, chapter 7:25, said to Achan: "Because you have troubled us, may the Lord trouble you on this day, and thence the name of that place was called the Valley of Achor to this day." This valley was pleasant, well-pastured, and fertile, as is evident from Isaiah 65:10. Hence Israel entering Canaan first rested there after the long pilgrimage of forty years, and refreshed and restored itself. For "to open hope," the Hebrew has "to" or "into the door of hope," as Vatablus, Pagninus, R. David, and others translate. Thus the Latins say "to open the doors of friendship," when one provides access or occasion for it. Theodotion translates: To open the endurance, that is, the sustaining and expectation of it. For the Hebrew word tiqvah signifies a thread, a line, and an extension, and thence metaphorically a long hope and expectation: for hope is like a line by which the mind of the one hoping extends and prolongs itself toward the hoped-for thing, while yearning for it by hoping. The Chaldean seems to have had this in mind when he translates, "for the delight of the soul." For the soul, attaining the hoped-for thing, delights in it. It is surprising that the Septuagint and the Syriac translate, "to open understanding," or, as the Syriac, "her sense"; which however Theodoret and Theophylact fittingly explain thus, that is to say: Just as from the punishment of Achan and the trouble of Israel in the Valley of Achor, on account of Achan's theft, Israel understood and learned to fear God, and His plagues and vengeance; so likewise from the Babylonian captivity it learned to revere the same and obey Him; much more thereafter do Christians fear Christ, and obey His law, lest they be cast into the valley of Achor, that is, of trouble and hell, where there is no order, but everlasting horror dwells, just as Achan was stoned and burned in the Valley of Achor. So morally the soul is instructed by adversities, and arrives at the hoped-for consolation.
Now, the meaning of our translation is manifold. First, a Castro explains, that is to say: Just as in the most fertile valley, which afterward from the sin and punishment of Achan was called Achor, Israel was refreshed after its long journey, and began to taste and sample the most abundant fruits of the promised land; and from this understood how great the fertility of that entire land was, and conceived it with certain hope and as it were devoured it; so likewise the same Valley of Achor will be the first to greet those returning from Babylon, in which they may rest, and joyfully sample the first-fruits of the land: and in the time of Christ, for the Israelites returning from the captivity of the devil and entering the Evangelical land, the same valley will be the first to greet them, namely the Church of Jerusalem, flourishing with every kind of virtue: and from there the door of hope will be opened, to subject the whole world to Christ and the Gospel in like manner, and to gather from it the most abundant fruits of virtues. For from the fertility of that valley, as the lion from its claw, and the ball from its thread, they inferred, gathered, and understood the fertility of the rest of the land, which they had known and hoped for only vaguely. Hence the Chaldean translates: The Valley of Achor, for the delight of the soul. For the first Christians tasted those delights, who with the Apostles drew the first-fruits of the Spirit. The same is experienced by those who change a bad life for a good one, or a good life for a better and more perfect one: for they sense a wondrous quiet, sweetness, and consolation of soul; and from this they conjecture that those who are more advanced sense far greater ones; and the greatest, those who after struggle are crowned in heaven; "where there will be life without death, truth without error, happiness without disturbance," says St. Augustine, Enchiridion 23, from which they may conceive the hope that the same will happen to them, if they persevere. This meaning is appropriate; but it is not full, nor adequate: for it does not explain, nor apply, why this valley is called Achor: for in the word Achor there is great emphasis, as all interpreters teach. Therefore, Secondly, Vatablus thinks there is here an antithesis between the Valley of Achor and the Church, that is to say: There will not be in this change, namely in the founding of the Church, such a beginning as there was in the entrance to the holy land: for there was trouble; here, namely at the beginning of the Church, all things will be happy and prosperous. Thirdly, most aptly St. Jerome, whom Haymo, Rupert, Lyranus, Ribera, and others follow, thinks there is here an allusion to the deed of Joshua, who killed the sacrilegious Achan and burned everything that was his with fire; and from that gained the city of Ai and all of Canaan. He signifies therefore that "in the first victory of Israel, says St. Jerome, sorrow was changed to joy: and there hope was opened where there had been despair, so that, when those who sinned against Christ and committed sacrilege are punished, those among them who detested the blaspheming Jews and, as far as was in their power, destroyed them, might be saved," that is to say: Formerly in the Valley of Achor, when Achan was punished, trouble was turned to peace, and the despair of Israel was converted to hope. So also in the time of Christ, sacrilegious and Christ-killing Jews will be punished; and then the true Israelites, who detested their unbelief and wickedness, and as far as was in their power removed it, will conceive hope of salvation: for Joshua was a type of Jesus Christ; Achan, of the unbelieving Jews; the Valley of Achor, of Judea and Jerusalem. Hence Bede, and from him Haymo: "Just as, he says, when Achan, the troubler of the people, was killed, all Israel conceived hope of overcoming their enemies and capturing their cities; so when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, the door was opened for the Apostles and other believers to the hope of winning victory over the whole world," namely, that the nations might be subjected to Christ and the Church.
Morally, this signifies first that the Church is punished and troubled on account of the crimes of the wicked, especially the sacrilegious; and therefore it must punish and expel the wicked, and then all things will be prosperous for it: for thus, when Achan was punished, Israel had the greatest victories against the Canaanites.
be punished and troubled; and therefore it must punish and expel the wicked, and then all things will be prosperous for it: for thus, when Achan was punished, Israel had the greatest victories against the Canaanites. So therefore St. Augustine says, in Question 8 on the book of Joshua: "Discipline is established so that each person in the people should not care only for himself, but they should mutually exercise diligence, and as members of one body and one man, should be concerned for one another." For just as when the hand of a thief sins and steals, his whole body is punished: so it happens also in the political body, namely in the Church, that God chastises it on account of the enormous sins of its members, that is, of a few of the faithful, and sometimes of even one. The Valley of Achor, therefore, is the valley of justice and vengeance, and consequently of hope. Secondly, we are taught here that repentance opens the door of hope and salvation: for repentance is the Valley of Achor, by which the mind is struck with the fear of God. For, as Albert and Dionysius say: "When Achan was killed, the weakness of the people was turned to strength, poverty to abundance, sorrow to joy, and all these things are promised in the valley of repentance or contrition: for in it, from the perception of present goods, hope of future ones is opened." Thirdly, we learn here that God permits the Church and the faithful to be tempted, vexed, troubled to the extreme, and driven almost to the noose; and then, if they persist in hope and in the invocation of God, He brings swift and wonderful help: for the Valley of Achor is humiliation and tribulation, which is the door of hope. Thus when Christ was crucified and killed, the Apostles and the Church were troubled, and it seemed about to perish, but soon on the third day Christ rising again raised it to wonderful joy and hope. Thus under Diocletian there was the greatest persecution of the faithful: for he himself had sworn that he would extirpate them, or lay down the empire, which he accordingly in fact laid down; and behold, suddenly God was present, and through Constantine gave the Church freedom and triumph. The same has always been, and even now can be seen, in particular Churches, congregations, Orders, and individual faithful everywhere. Therefore, whoever is in the Valley of Achor, that is, in trouble, temptation, and persecution, let him stand in confidence in God, and know with certainty that consolation is near, that God in His way will soon open the door of hope and salvation. This is God's paradox: "The Valley of Achor opens the door of hope;" namely, despair (a desperate situation) gives birth to hope, trouble to peace, temptation to joy, tribulation to a crown, struggle to triumph. Thus often despair is the stimulus and cause of victory for the conquered. Hence Abner says to Joab in battle, pressing himself and his men too hard: "Do you not know that despair is dangerous?" 2 Samuel 2. Hence that golden precept in battles: "Build a golden bridge for a fleeing enemy." For those who despair of life and safety attempt extreme measures, and driven to fury, lest they die unavenged, they drag the victors with them to destruction. For such men, "the only hope of safety is in daring," says Tacitus, Book 4.
Hence Ovid, Book 3 of Epistles from Pontus, elegy 7: The next step to this is to despair well of safety, And to have known once for all in true faith that one has perished. And Seneca in Medea: He who can hope for nothing, let him despair of nothing. And another: The only hope of the conquered is to despair of safety. Truly Triverius, apothegm 50: "Whoever, he says, in the greatest danger abandons all hope of liberation, compares God to a bad commander who takes pleasure in the destruction of his soldier, or places his army on a precipice." Hence Abbot Isidore, according to Sophronius, in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 110, used to say: "It is the work of demons that, when they have cast a soul into sin, they then plunge us into despair, so that they may perfectly destroy us; for the demons always say to the soul: When will he die and his name perish? But the penitent will on the contrary cry out: I shall not die, but I shall live, and I shall recount the works of the Lord. The shameless ones cry out again: Flee to the mountain like a sparrow. Therefore we too must say to them: For He Himself is my God and my Savior, my helper, I shall not depart." The same Isidore, to the demon suggesting despair to him and saying: "For after all these things you are going into torments," would respond: "Although I may be sent to torments, yet I find you beneath me," as Rufinus attests in the Lives of the Fathers, Book 3, number 101, who reports similar things in numbers 102 and following. Furthermore, the reason why God permits His own to be driven to extremes is so that they may utterly distrust themselves and every created help, and wholly trust in God, and cast themselves entirely upon Him; and while they do this, He cannot fail to come to their aid. For He Himself promised, saying: "Because he has hoped in Me, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he has known My name," Psalm 90:14. This is what the Prophet says to King Jehoshaphat besieged by enemies, 2 Chronicles 20:15: "Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed at this multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's. It shall not be you who fight, but only stand with confidence, and you shall see the help of the Lord upon you." So also Moses, encouraging the Hebrews surrounded by Pharaoh and terrified, says in Exodus 14:13: "Do not be afraid: stand and see the great deeds of the Lord, which He will do today. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall be still." This is what the Psalmist sings, Psalm 22:5: "In You our fathers hoped: they hoped, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were saved; they hoped in You, and were not confounded." And Sirach, chapter 2:11: "Look, children, at the nations of men, and know that no one who hoped in the Lord was confounded." And Job 13:15: "Even if He should kill me, I will hope in Him," that is to say: While I breathe I hope, and living and dying I hope in my God. And Joshua, defeated by enemies, chapter 7:9: "What will You do, he said, for Your great name?" And the Psalmist again, Psalm 113:9: "Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory."
the Psalmist again, Psalm 113:9: "Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory." The same, secure and exulting in God: "The Lord, he says, is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?" Psalm 26:1. See what follows. This is what the Greeks say: God from the machine; and the Latins: "A God from the machine, God appearing unexpectedly." And Euripides in Orestes: "Apollo appearing in the midst of tumults, suddenly settles the most troubled affairs." So Priam in Homer, Iliad 24: Some divinity still extends a friendly hand to me. And the old adage: Some god still looks upon us.
Allegorically, Leo Castrius (although he himself thinks this is the literal meaning): The Valley of Achor, that is, the passion and trouble of Christ, and specifically the valley of Gethsemane, where Christ was captured while praying, and the Apostles were troubled and fled, became for believers the hope and door of eternal life: for through it we were redeemed and saved. AND SHE SHALL SING THERE AS IN THE DAYS OF HER YOUTH. -- The Septuagint and the Syriac: And she shall be humbled there; Symmachus: And she shall be afflicted there; Theodotion: She shall answer him; Aquila: And she shall hear; the Chaldean: She gave herself there to my word; our text, Vatablus, and others more correctly translate: "And she shall sing there;" for although the Hebrew word anah signifies both to be humbled, to be afflicted, to respond, to hear, and to sing; and although Israel was afflicted in Egypt by Pharaoh: yet here it is not about affliction, but about liberation, and the resulting joy and singing, that is to say: Just as formerly the Synagogue of Israel, liberated from Pharaoh who drowned in the Red Sea, sang in alternating choruses a thanksgiving song to God saying: "Let us sing to the Lord, for He is gloriously magnified: the horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea," Exodus 15; so likewise she shall sing when, liberated from Assyria and Babylon by Cyrus, she shall return to her homeland; and much more when, liberated from the captivity of sin and the devil by Christ, she shall return to the Church, to journey to her homeland and the heavenly Jerusalem: she shall sing, I say, as in alternating choruses, some leading, others following, as one exulting in so great a gift, rejoicing and triumphing. So St. Jerome, Vatablus, and others. In a similar way, anagogically, the Blessed in heaven who have happily crossed the sea of this world as victors sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb, Revelation 15:3. Note: "The days of her youth" he calls the time of Moses, when the Synagogue, newly born, called forth by God from Egypt and led out through Moses, joyfully sang and gave thanks to God, Exodus 15; hence explaining, he adds: "And as in the days of her going up from the land of Egypt." For the word "and" is explanatory, and means the same as "that is."
Verse 16: AND IT SHALL BE IN THAT DAY, SAYS THE LORD: SHE SHALL CALL ME, MY HUSBAND, AND SHE SHALL NO LONGE...
16. AND IT SHALL BE IN THAT DAY, SAYS THE LORD: SHE SHALL CALL ME, MY HUSBAND, AND SHE SHALL NO LONGER CALL ME, MY BAAL. -- So it should be read with the Hebrew, the Roman editions, and the Septuagint, not Baalim. Note: Baali means the same as "my lord," having or possessing me, my husband. And thus Hebrew wives used to address their husbands, saying: Baali, that is, my lord and my husband, I ask this or that of you; hence Baal is the same as ishi, that is, my husband: in which sense the Bible translates: They shall call me Baali, and not Baalim. But because Baal in the plural with the added letter m, namely Baalim, signifies gods and idols, and because Baal, or Bel, and Belus, was the god of the idolatrous nations; hence in hatred of idolatry, and for its eradication, God abolishes this name, "lest while Israel speaks one thing, it should recall another, and while naming its husband should think of an idol," says St. Jerome, that is to say: Granted that I am your Baal, that is, lord and husband: nevertheless I do not want you to address Me by this name, lest I seem to be Baal, or Baalim, that is, the god of the Chaldeans, Tyrians, and other nations. It would be similar if He were to say: I do not want you to call Me Jehovah, or Jova (as Calvin, Castellio, and other Innovators translate and call God), lest you consider Me to be Jupiter, that is to say: The Israelites returning from Babylon, and much more those believing in Christ, will so detest Baalim, that is, idols, that they will not even wish to name them, nor will they be mindful of them on their lips. So Rupert, Haymo, Dionysius, Vatablus, Emmanuel, and others. Hence the Syriac translates: She shall call Me, My Husband, and not, My Baal. Otherwise R. Solomon, Lyranus, Leo Castrius, Mariana, Isidore, and Arias explain, that is to say: Israel under the new law shall call Me Ishi, that is, My Husband, which is a name of love: for it signifies a most loving spouse; not Baali, which is a name of fear and dominion: for Baal signifies a man, or an imperious lord, dominating his wife and others by master's right. So Augustus Caesar did not wish to be called Lord, because lords are related to slaves, as tyrants, not as kings to subjects, who are to them what a shepherd is to sheep. For lord and slave are correlatives. This is what the Apostle says, Romans 8:15: "You have not received the spirit of slavery again in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as children of God." Therefore for the Jews, God was Baal, that is, Lord: for Christians He is Ishi, that is, Husband and Spouse. But the former meaning is required by what follows: "And I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and she shall no longer remember their name." However, this second meaning may be admitted as accessory and allusive. For the Hebrew words allude to various things. Hence in the word ishi, that is, my husband, there may be an allusion to esh, that is, fire, that is to say: To invoke God
you shall call by the name Ishi, that is, My Husband, as if esci, that is, my fire, my love; for our God is a consuming fire, all love, all ardor: for He burns with love for us. Hence the Hebrews say that a man is called ish, from esh, that is, fire, because he is of a hot nature and fiery constitution, while a woman is of a watery and phlegmatic nature. So at Pentecost God showed Himself to be esci, that is, our fire, when in the form of fire and fiery tongues He descended upon the Apostles, and gave them a fiery heart and a fiery tongue. Others, like Forster, consider that a man is called in Hebrew ish, from the verb yesh, that is, he is, or exists; because a man is prior in being or existence to a woman; for a woman was formed from a man's rib, and hence is called ishah, as if a she-man, or rather a woman from man. Be that as it may, just as in Latin vir (man) is derived from virtus (virtue), in Greek aner from andreia, that is, fortitude; so in Hebrew ish signifies a man who in age, authority, dignity, virtue, strength, judgment, and glory surpasses and is placed above not only women, but also youths and all common people. Man therefore means the same as manly, outstanding, illustrious. Just as therefore homo (human being) is called Adam from adamah, as if earthly from earth, muddy from mud, and enosh from infirmity, as one of desperate life and soon to die: so conversely ish is derived from strength, excellence, virtue. Hence fittingly here God commands the Synagogue to call Him ish, as one who surpasses all things both in time, and dignity, and power, and providence. For His name is Jehovah, that is: "I am who am." And: "Who was, and who is, and who is to come," Revelation 1:4. And thus it is fittingly opposed to Baalim, that is, to idols, which do not have true being, but fictitious; and are gods not true, but false: "For an idol," says the Apostle, "is nothing in the world," 1 Corinthians 8:4. See what was said there.
AND I WILL MAKE A COVENANT WITH THEM IN THAT DAY, WITH THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD. -- For "with them" the Hebrew and the Septuagint have "for them." Hence St. Jerome in his Commentary reads: I will strike a covenant between them and the beasts. He speaks of the Synagogue or Israel now in the singular, now in the plural: because in the people there are many. Theodoret and Theophylact think these things were granted to the Israelites returning from Babylon. For these by God's doing had a covenant and peace with the beasts, that is, with barbarians, namely with the Persians, Greeks, and Romans: also literally with beasts, says Theophylact, because God brought it about that wild animals and beasts would not consume or harm their crops. But these were minor and insignificant things: therefore more fully and more perfectly were these things granted to them through Christ. Note here: Symbolically beasts here signify barbarous and fierce men: birds signify the timid and ambitious: reptiles denote the crafty and those given to the belly, that is to say: All these, cultivated by Christ and the Apostles with contrary virtues and made gentle, will enter into and cultivate peace both with God and among themselves. This is what Isaiah predicted, chapter 11:6: "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid," etc. Hence also St. Peter, Acts 10:13, about to be sent to Cornelius and other Gentiles, saw a sheet full of quadrupeds, serpents, and birds, and heard: "Kill, and eat;" from which he understood that the Gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles, and that they were to be converted to Christ. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Haymo, Albert, Hugh, Vatablus, Ribera, and others. See what was said at Isaiah 24.
Moreover, the Apostles and certain other illustrious Saints, such as St. Anthony and St. Francis, truly and literally received from Christ power over serpents, scorpions, fish, birds, and beasts of the earth, Luke 10:19. So Rupert, Isidore, and Arias. But this was the privilege of a few: while the former applies to all the faithful in common. The former sense, therefore, is the genuine and complete one.
Verse 19: And I will betroth you to Me forever.
19. And I will betroth you to Me forever. -- That is to say: Israel I formerly repudiated for her adulteries, that is, idolatry, and gave over as prey to the Assyrians; but now those returning from Babylon, and much more in the time of Christ, the true Israelites, namely those who from Israel and from the Gentiles will be converted from unbelief and impiety, and will believe in Christ, I will take to Myself as a bride, namely as the Church, which I will never repudiate, but will join to Myself forever; and therefore, to confirm and ratify these espousals and marriage forever, I will give her an excellent and manifold dowry, adorned with which she cannot fail to please Me continually, so that I am compelled always to love her and retain her as My wife. These dowries are justice, judgment, mercy, and faithfulness. Rightly Theodoret, Rupert, Lyranus, Arias, and others throughout infer from "forever" that this concerns the Church of Christ; for the Synagogue has been repudiated and ceased to exist. The meaning therefore is, that is to say: I will betroth the Synagogue to Myself until the time of Christ, and then through Christ I will transform it into the Church, which will be My eternal bride. Hence it is clear that the Church has never failed in faith, nor can it fail. AND I WILL BETROTH YOU TO ME IN JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT. -- First, Sanchez explains, that is to say: I will govern you, and keep you in duty (for this is justice and judgment), and prescribe rules of living, as a husband does for a wife, in the way a daughter is kept in duty by a father, from whom she receives the rules she is to follow, inasmuch as he looks after her modesty and honor, and provides for all necessary things. To whom by paternal name and authority it is permitted to admonish freely, and even severely, if at any time she sins in what conjugal right demands. For the husband succeeds to the place of the father, whom the bride leaves, so that she may transfer all her love and devotion to her husband. Hence in Jeremiah 3:4, the Synagogue hears from God her spouse: "From now on call Me, My Father, the guide of my virginity." This therefore is the mutual justice, or duty, between bridegroom and bride. Again, that is to say: By justifying you and judging, or vindicating you, I will take you as My bride. For justice here, first, signifies the justification of the Church and the faithful, by which God infuses into them justice, that is, grace, charity, and the other virtues, by which sins are abolished, and they are constituted just and pleasing to God, and children and heirs of God; indeed wives and brides, as the Prophet says here. Judgment signifies the right and judicial sentence which God pronounced for the Church against the devil, who as a tyrant unjustly possessed her and dominated her. Secondly, when justice and judgment are joined in Scripture, they signify two parts, or two duties of a just judge and of judgment. For a judge through justice defends the just and gives and preserves to them what is theirs; but through judgment he judges and condemns the wicked, who unjustly harass and persecute the just, that is to say: I will always protect you, O Church, O bride, you and all that is yours; I will punish and destroy your enemies and persecutors.
AND IN MERCY AND IN COMPASSIONS. -- This is a hendiadys, that is to say: In mercy of the greatest compassion, in the greatest mercy, as proceeding from the innermost depths, and from visceral commiseration; for this is what the Hebrew rachamim signifies. This is the second pledge and dowry of the bride, by which God betroths her to Himself forever; namely, the intimate compassion and supreme mercy shown to her by God, and to be continually shown. This is what Paul says, Titus 3:5: "Not by works of justice which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, which He poured out upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ." These are the tender mercies of God, which He poured out upon us through Christ, Luke 1:78.
Verse 20: AND I WILL BETROTH YOU TO ME IN FAITH.
20. AND I WILL BETROTH YOU TO ME IN FAITH. -- The third dowry of the bride is faith; hence He repeats "I will betroth" a third time, to ratify and signify a certain, full, perfect, and eternally enduring betrothal. Hence the Chaldean translates: I will consolidate and establish My seat in you. For just as in marriage there is a mutual giving of bodies, so here the bride gives herself to God, and in turn God gives Himself to the bride, so that He may establish for Himself an eternal throne in her, on which as king and judge He may dwell and sit, and exercise judgment by protecting the just and punishing the wicked. Hence this throne of God is supported by four virtues as by columns: namely, justice, judgment, mercy, and faith. So Psalm 88:15: "Justice and judgment are the foundation (that is, the support: for this is what the Hebrew mechon signifies) of Your throne." And Proverbs 20:28: "Mercy and truth guard the king, and his throne is strengthened by clemency." Now this faith in God is fidelity and constancy in promises, which in Scripture is called truth. For through this God assures the bride that these nuptials with her will be perpetual, and not to be dissolved by any divorce. So a Castro. In the bride, however, it can be understood as both the same fidelity, by which the bride promises and shows herself faithful to her spouse, so that she loves none besides him; and as the Christian faith, which is the beginning of justice and grace, through which we are betrothed to God. For this faith of Christ had to be especially instilled at the beginning of the Church, so that men might believe in God incarnate and crucified, and thus become faithful, and brides of God and of Christ. See what I said about the betrothal of the soul with God at 2 Corinthians 11:2, on the words: "I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." Behold here the love and zeal of God the Bridegroom for the bride, the Synagogue. Rightly St. Bernard, sermon 5 On the Dedication of the Church, citing
these words of Hosea, adds: "If He did not do what a bridegroom does, if He did not love as a bridegroom, if He was not zealous as a bridegroom, do not consent to consider yourself a bride." Furthermore, Philo, Bishop of the Carpathians, ordained by St. Epiphanius, writing in the time of Emperor Arcadius and Honorius on the Song of Songs, Volume 1 of the Library of the Holy Fathers, explaining that passage in Song of Songs 3:11: "Go forth, and see, daughters of Zion, King Solomon in the diadem with which his mother crowned him on the day of his betrothal," teaches that Christ betrothed the Church to Himself three times, or on three days. First, when He became incarnate: for then He hypostatically united our flesh to Himself, and through it the Church and assembly of mankind. Secondly, in His passion: for then He washed the Church with His blood, and purchased her for Himself as His bride. Thirdly, at Pentecost: for then He gave the pledge of betrothal to the Church, namely the Holy Spirit. Finally, by this saying of Hosea, as by a formula of espousals, Christ the Lord took St. Catherine of Siena as His bride, and visibly betrothed her to Himself. The remarkable event is narrated by the serious author of her Life, Father Raymond, who was Master General of the Order of St. Dominic, Doctor of Sacred Theology, and St. Catherine's confessor. "In order that she might, he says, remain always subject to the heavenly Bridegroom with a certain unchangeable and inviolable fidelity, she greatly aspired to the perfect degree of faith, saying with the Apostles: Lord, increase my faith, and so perfect it in me that it cannot be shaken or overthrown by any force of adversaries. And since often, when she prayed for this, the Lord also often responded: I will betroth you to Me in faith: at last during Carnival, while others were celebrating feasts of the belly, she shut herself in her cell, not looking upon vanities and false madnesses, but most ardently asking the Lord for that perfection of faith of which we spoke. And because the Prophet most truly said: Delight in the Lord, and He will give you the petitions of your heart: Christ appeared to her with His most holy Mother and several Saints, and betrothed her to Himself in a wonderful manner, and exhorted her to act henceforth courageously and without delay in those things which divine providence would lay upon her to do. But after that betrothal, the Lord began gradually to draw her to human society and interaction. For He wished to use her efforts to promote the salvation of many people." From this betrothal there followed a wonderful familiarity and union of the virgin with Christ. For even when she served her family and the sick, "she did not withdraw at all from the chaste embraces of her eternal Bridegroom. For what seemed to her to have become almost second nature was a certain incredible aptitude and readiness to unite her mind with Christ, even at any place and time, so that she might not be hindered from this most blessed union by any external action, always and everywhere tending toward heavenly things. Hence it came about that on almost innumerable occasions she was carried outside herself."
Furthermore, Christ gave this cause for the betrothal and, as it were, its merit: "Because you, He said, have spurned the vanities of the world, embraced the cross and penance, seek the supreme and eternal good, and during these days of Carnival, when worldly people devote themselves to gluttony and luxury, you devote yourself to mortification and prayer: therefore I betroth you to Myself." The manner and rite was this: "The Blessed Virgin, taking Catherine's right hand, extending her ring finger, asked her Son to betroth her to Himself. Christ assented to His Mother, and taking Catherine's right hand, placed on her finger the betrothal ring (which is still preserved in Rome in the monastery of the Dominican Virgins at Magnanapoli, where I clearly beheld it), saying: Behold, I who am your Creator and Savior, betroth you to Myself in faith, which shall endure in you from this hour always unchangeable, until in the eternal nuptials I shall be joined to you in heaven, where you shall see Me face to face, and enjoy Me fully. It remains therefore that you fight manfully, and in the strength of the faith which I have fixed in your heart, overcome all the allurements and distresses of the world, all the stings of the flesh, and every temptation of the enemy." So Raymond in the Life of St. Catherine of Siena, which Ambrose Catharinus translated into the Italian language, Book 1, chapter 23. Hence, morally, Pineda notes here on Job chapter 37, verse 11, number 3, that the universe of creatures conspiring with their Creator for the benefit of men, especially of the faithful and saints, seems to produce a wonderful harmony, and, as the Wise Man says in chapter 19:17: "As in an instrument to keep its own sound," that is to say: Just as when in a musical instrument the sound of one string, from the variation of modulation and tone, produces one harmony after another for the pleasure of the hearers; so, with God playing upon the elements of Egypt, each element retaining its own nature and order, joined to another, seemed to have passed into its condition and use, for the punishment of the Egyptians, for the benefit of the Hebrews. For the land animals of the Hebrews crossing the Red Sea divided by God seemed to have assumed the nature of fish, and swimming creatures, namely frogs, dwelling on land afflicted the Egyptians, as if they had been terrestrial creatures. With a similar figure, Euripides says, as quoted by Aristotle, Book 8 of the Ethics, chapter 1: When the earth is dry, it certainly then loves the rain, When the sky swells with rain, when the heavens are full, It desires to fall into the bosom of the earth.
Verse 21: I will hear the heavens.
21. I will hear the heavens. -- Namely, by commanding that which I command through Ezekiel, chapter 38:8: "You mountains of Israel, sprout your branches, and bear your fruit for My people Israel." God here removes the previous curse, which He threatened against Israel committing adultery with idols, verse 9: "I will take away My grain in its time." Concerning Jezreel I spoke at chapter 1:4. The Chaldean considers that Jezreel here signifies the people of God formerly dispersed, now gathered and blessed by God in the Church. Note secondly, that here there is a continuous allegory. For He alludes to Israel returning from Assyria and Babylon to Judea, to whom God gave rain, grain, oil, and wine, as St. Jerome, Theodoret, Theophylact, Albert, and Hugh note: but under these things God allegorically signifies that in the time of Christ He will give the faithful, according to their prayers, an abundance of grace, sacraments, preaching, and all spiritual gifts. So St. Jerome and Rupert. Both senses are literal; but the former is like a type and shadow of the latter; hence He only alludes to it, and briefly touches upon it; but He intends through it to signify the latter, and rests and fulfills Himself in it, as is customary in allegory. For God and the people of God, namely true Christians, esteem lightly all temporal and perishable goods. For these have learned from Christ to trample upon earthly things and to love heavenly things, and to yearn for them with their whole affection, so that they may live for eternity. Hence symbolically, from Theophylact, Leo Castrius says: Wine,
Note first, for emphasis and elegance here in the heavens, etc., a prosopopoeia through gradation is proposed, that is to say: The heavens, by natural desire, by which they desire the good and benefit of the earth, of men, and of the whole universe of which they are a part, seem to ask of Me, God, for clouds and rain; I will grant it to them, and immediately give it; and so consequently the heavens will respond to the desires of the thirsting earth longing for fruitful rain, by distilling it; and the earth will satisfy the desires of the grain longing to grow abundantly, and the grain will fulfill the desires of Jezreel, that is, the seed and people of God, who longs for these fruits. This gradation signifies both the wonderful fertility of goods, even temporal, which God promises to His people; and the fitting subordination, and the ordered series of secondary causes instituted by God, by which the lowest depend on and are governed by the middle, the middle by the highest, and the highest by God — which the pagans called fate, and the faithful called the harmony of the world, concerning which Job chapter 38:37 says: "Who can make the harmony of heaven to sleep?" So here the life of Israel, that is, the people of God, depends on and is sustained by grain, grain by the earth, the earth by heaven, and heaven by God; hence for "I will hear" the Hebrew is anah, which, as I said, among other things signifies to respond and to sing alternately. Hence here you may translate, I will respond to the heavens, or I will follow their lead and sing along; for the heavens by requesting will sing to God: Lord, give us rain, that the earth may produce grain, wine, and oil, by which Jezreel, that is, Your people, may be fed.
He says, the grain, that is, the Eucharist, and other sacraments, shall hear Jezreel, that is, the seed or arm of God, namely Christ, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and who is the power and arm of the Father, so that the sacraments themselves may do their work, which is to purge, sanctify, feed, and strengthen the faithful of Christ: for it is Christ who through them works these things in the faithful. Again, God the Father, for Christ's sake, rains down from heaven upon the Church an abundance of spiritual goods. The same Castrius, from St. Augustine: I will hear, he says, the heavens, that is, the heavenly ones, namely the angels and saints, who pray to God for Jezreel, that is, for the faithful who are still fighting; and the heavens, that is, the saints, will hear the earth, that is, the Church, so that they may obtain from God the rains of heavenly goods for Jezreel, that is, the faithful. For before Christ and His saints, the heavens had been commanded not to rain: I will command, says God, the clouds of heaven not to rain upon the earth. So he takes it literally, I symbolically. Hence also anagogically Cyril says: "I will hear heaven, he says, that is, I will make heaven, or the heavenly dwellers, a generous dispenser of My gifts, so that they too may be able to exhort those who have obtained mercy. And then clearly the earth will hear the grain, wine, and oil, that is, those who are on earth will bear fruit — hope of life, of joy, of gladness. And the type of life is grain, of joy wine, and of gladness and good health, oil."
Verse 23: And I will sow her for Myself in the earth.
23. And I will sow her for Myself in the earth. -- "I will sow, that is, I will scatter her like seed, says Vatablus, that is to say: I will scatter the Church, and her apostles and leaders, throughout the whole earth, so that they, through the seed of their doctrine and martyrdom, may produce a great harvest of the faithful and saints. So Haymo and Rupert. Note: The word "her" grammatically does not refer to "Jezreel," since that is masculine; but to "his mother," namely the Synagogue: for he treated of her in this chapter. He alludes to and briefly touches upon, as I already said, the Israelites returning from Babylon to Judea, where, like seed cast in the earth, they grew abundantly and multiplied. So the Chaldean, Theodoret, Theophylact, and others. Similar is Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 27. See what was said there. Note: "I will sow" signifies the action and mortification of the seed, namely of the Apostles and their successors. For, as Christ says, John chapter 12:24: "Unless a grain of wheat falling into the ground dies, it remains alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." "The Church is not diminished, says St. Leo, sermon 1 On Saints Peter and Paul, by persecutions, but is increased, and the Lord's field is always clothed with a richer harvest, while the grains that fall individually are born multiplied." The same happens in every faithful and holy soul. AND I WILL HAVE MERCY ON HER WHO WAS WITHOUT MERCY. -- These things were explained at chapter 1:6. Only note: For "I will have mercy," etc., the Vatican Bible reads "I will love her who was not loved." For the Hebrew aracham signifies an intimate affection both of love and of compassion and mercy. Hence St. Paul, citing this passage in Romans chapter 9:25, puts both. For he says: "As He says in Hosea: I will call not-my-people, my people; and not-beloved, beloved; and her-who-has-not-obtained-mercy, her-who-has-obtained-mercy." For what Paul says: "I will call not-my-people, my people;" Hosea says: "I will say to not-my-people: You are My people." For Paul puts first what Hosea puts last. Furthermore, what Paul adds: "And it shall be in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they shall be called children of the living God," he took not from this chapter, but from chapter 1:10. For there Hosea said: "And it shall be in the place where it is said to them: You are not my people; it shall be said to them: Children of the living God."