Cornelius a Lapide

Joel I

Table of Contents

Synopsis of the Chapter

He predicts the destruction of Judea through the cankerworm, locust, caterpillar, and blight — that is, through the various ravagings of the Chaldean enemies. Hence, from verse 13, he exhorts the priests and the people to repentance and supplication, that through these they may reconcile God to themselves and avert the plagues here threatened by Him.

Vulgate Text: Joel 1:1-20

1. The word of the Lord, which came to Joel the son of Phatuel. 2. Hear this, you elders, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land: has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? 3. Tell your children of this, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. 4. What the cankerworm left, the locust ate; and what the locust left, the caterpillar ate; and what the caterpillar left, the blight consumed. 5. Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you who drink wine in sweetness, for it has perished from your mouth. 6. For a nation has come up against

my land, mighty and innumerable: its teeth are as the teeth of a lion, and its molars as those of a lion's whelp. 7. It has laid my vineyard waste, and stripped the bark of my fig tree: stripping it bare, it has cast it away, and its branches are made white. 8. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. 9. The sacrifice and the drink offering have perished from the house of the Lord: the priests, the ministers of the Lord, have mourned. 10. The land is laid waste, the ground mourns: for the wheat is destroyed, the wine is confounded, the oil languishes. 11. The farmers are confounded, the vinedressers have wailed over the wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. 12. The vine is confounded, and the fig tree languishes; the pomegranate, and the palm tree, and the apple tree, and all the trees of the field are dried up: because joy has withered from the sons of men. 13. Gird yourselves and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar; go in, lie in sackcloth, O ministers of my God: for the sacrifice and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of your God. 14. Sanctify a fast, call an assembly, gather the elders, all the inhabitants of the land, into the house of your God, and cry to the Lord. 15. Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and it shall come as destruction from the Almighty. 16. Have not the provisions perished before our very eyes from the house of our God, joy and gladness? 17. The cattle have rotted in their dung; the barns are demolished, the storehouses are ruined: because the wheat is confounded. 18. Why does the beast groan? The herds of cattle low, because there is no pasture for them; and even the flocks of sheep have perished. 19. To You, O Lord, I will cry: for fire has consumed the beautiful places of the wilderness, and flame has set ablaze all the trees of the region. 20. Even the beasts of the field, like a threshing floor thirsting for rain, have looked up to You: for the springs of water are dried up, and fire has devoured the beautiful places of the wilderness.

Verse 2: 2. HEAR THIS, YOU ELDERS. — At the beginning, the Prophet secures attention for himself with these words, because he is...

2. HEAR THIS, YOU ELDERS. — At the beginning, the Prophet secures attention for himself with these words, because he is about to speak of weighty, unprecedented calamities unheard of even in the memory of the oldest men, which nonetheless most closely concern the Jews, so that it is entirely in their interest to know these things and pass them on to their descendants — that they themselves, warned by these scourges of their fathers, may come to their senses and serve the one God with their whole heart, whose providence and vengeance they see in their parents, and so may escape the same and win His grace and beneficence for themselves.

HAS SUCH A THING HAPPENED — what follows, which I am about to narrate.

Verse 3: 3. TELL YOUR CHILDREN OF THIS — according to the precept of Moses, Exodus 10:2: 'That you may tell in the ears of your...

3. TELL YOUR CHILDREN OF THIS — according to the precept of Moses, Exodus 10:2: 'That you may tell in the ears of your son and your grandson how many times I have crushed the Egyptians, and have wrought my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord;' and of the Psalmist, Psalm 77:5: 'How much He commanded our fathers to make known to their children, that another generation might know. The children who shall be born and shall arise shall tell their children, that they may put their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, and may seek out His commandments.'

Verse 4: 4. WHAT THE CANKERWORM LEFT, THE LOCUST ATE. — Here he lists and threatens four pests and plagues. The first is the...

4. WHAT THE CANKERWORM LEFT, THE LOCUST ATE. — Here he lists and threatens four pests and plagues. The first is the cankerworm (eruca); the Septuagint has kampe; the Chaldean has zachala, that is, a worm which is born after rain and creeps through cabbage stalks, garden herbs, and tree leaves, gnawing and feeding on them with a slow and sluggish but deadly bite. Hence in Hebrew it is called gazam, that is, 'shearer, scraper, gnawer, cutter.' So also in Latin eruca is said to come from 'eroding,' says Isidore, Origins XII.5, though Apuleius would have eruca derive from 'adhering,' because it clings tenaciously to cabbages and other plants it occupies. Hence Columella, On Agriculture XI.3: 'Cankerworms,' he says, 'should either be collected by hand, or the herb bushes should be shaken in the morning: for while they are still torpid from the nighttime cold, if they fall, they will not creep back up to the upper part again.'

The second is the locust, which surpasses the cankerworm in ferocity, flight, and number. Hence in Hebrew it is called arbe, that is, 'very many,' from the root raba, meaning 'to be many': so Arias and Pagninus. For so great is the multitude of locusts that in flying they cover the sun and the sky, and in settling they blanket entire provinces, so that you see nothing but locusts; they even cover and cross the seas in flight, so that having devoured one region, they invade another and another, consuming each in order. Hence the plague of locusts was one of the most grievous plagues of Egypt, Exodus 10:4. See what I said there. Therefore the locust (locusta) is said to be so called as if 'burning places' (loca urens), or 'scorching,' say the grammarians — though Isidore and Lyranus would have it so called because of its long feet; while Albertus Magnus says: 'Locusta is said as if loco stans (standing in place).' So Aldrovandus on the locust.

WHAT THE LOCUST LEFT, THE CATERPILLAR ATE. — This is the third plague, namely the caterpillar (bruchus), for which the Hebrew is ielec, which is found seven times in Scripture, and everywhere our translator renders it as bruchus. Psalm 105:34: 'He spoke, and the locust (Hebrew arbe) came, and the caterpillar' (Hebrew ielec). Jeremiah 51:14: 'I will fill you with men as with caterpillars.' And verse 27: 'Bring up horses as caterpillars.' He translates the same way here, and in chapter 2:25, and Nahum 3:25: 'It will devour you like a caterpillar: gather like a caterpillar, multiply like a locust;' and verse 16: 'The caterpillar has spread out and flown away.' It is called ielec, that is, 'licker,' because it licks, laps, and gnaws herbs: for the root lacac means to lick, to lap. Hence Aquila, according to St. Jerome's testimony, in Nahum chapter 3, translates it as 'devourer.'

You ask: what is ielec and the caterpillar? First, Suidas and Scaliger (Exercise 36) say: The bruchus is the bruyere, that is, the cankerworm, which the Lombards call bruch and the French call bruyere. But here Joel distinguishes the cankerworm from the caterpillar. Second, Ambrosius Calepinus following Sipontinus, and some Latin and Greek lexicons say: The bruchus is a small worm resembling a locust, gnawing herbs, without wings. But Nahum, chapter 3, gives wings to the caterpillar. Third, Rabbi David here thinks the caterpillar is a small winged creature like a hornet, but smaller, which ravages the leaves of trees and devastates in enormous numbers. Hence some think the caterpillar is that insect clothed in a red coat (which in regularly humid years swarms forth) which, when it spreads out, displays wings by which it flies to trees and feeds on their leaves. Farmers are accustomed to collect it and bury it in a ditch, as Isaiah says of the caterpillar in chapter 33:4. But this kind of insect is a beetle, not a caterpillar, nor is it called bruchus by any classical author, even though boys in France call a bruchus, or bruyant, after the buzzing sound it makes in flight, from which the Flemish also call it 'the preacher.'

I say therefore that the caterpillar (bruchus) is a small locust, or the offspring of a locust; for there are various stages of locusts, and, so to speak, species, distinguished according to their ages and growth. First, the locust leaves its seed: from this is born a small locust like a worm, which is called the bruchus (caterpillar), which, as it grows and increases, and is clothed with small wings, is called the attacus or attelabus. This again, as it grows in body and wings, is called the ophiomachus, which, when it is perfected in body mass and wings, is called the locust. Hence the Prophet aptly says: 'What the locust left, the caterpillar ate.' For locusts, being larger, feed only on larger things, but they leave behind small offspring that devour the residue and every smallest shoot down to the roots. That this is so is clear: first, because the Septuagint in Jeremiah 51:14 and elsewhere translates ielec, i.e. the caterpillar, as akridas, i.e. locusts. Second, because all natural historians and classical writers teach that the bruchus is a species of locust, or an incipient and imperfect locust. Hence in Scripture the caterpillar is everywhere joined with the locust, as offspring with mother. And Aristotle, History of Animals V.29, connects and adds the caterpillar to the locust. So also St. Jerome on Nahum chapter 3: 'The caterpillar,' he says, 'is a creature unable to fly at all, devoted only to its belly; the attelabus leaps rather than flies with its small wings; the locust now has fully developed wings.' Albertus Magnus, On Animals XXVI: 'The caterpillar,' he says, 'is the first offspring of the locust, and when it grows larger it is called the attelabus; and when it is perfected, it is the locust. The caterpillar, because it is immobile, devours everything down to the roots, leaving no greenery.' Lyranus writes that the caterpillar and locust differ as the perfect and imperfect in the same species. 'The caterpillar,' says the Gloss, 'is the offspring of the locust before it has wings; then when it begins to fly a little, it is called the attelabus; when it flies fully, it is called the locust; and the caterpillar is much more destructive than the locust or attelabus, because lying in one place, it eats the fruits down to the roots.'

St. Chrysostom on that passage in Psalm 104:34, 'The locust came, and the caterpillar,' says: The locust and caterpillar do not usually exist at the same time; for either the preceding locust produces the caterpillar, or the caterpillar, having grown, eventually becomes a locust. 'Brouchos,' says Varinus, 'is a species of locust, so called from vorare (to devour); the same is also called mastax, from masasthai (to chew). Also, brouchos is a newly born cankerworm, and a wingless locust.' Likewise Hesychius in his Lexicon says the bruchus is a species of locust, and that the Cyprians call a green locust a bruchus, the Tarentines an attelabus. The bruchus (caterpillar) is therefore so called either from bryko (I eat), or from brycho (I grind my teeth and roar), or from boreo (I sip, swallow, devour) — whence gurges (throat) is the gullet, because the caterpillar seems to have nothing but throat and belly; for although it has rather long legs, they are slender. Hence perhaps the Italian broccare for 'to devour,' and the German bruchen, which means to consume and finish off, and the Belgian brocken, which is to mince up, says Aldrovandus. This etymology is truer than the one given by the Anonymous on Psalm 104, who says: Bruchus is so called as if brachys (short), that is, small and little; for it is a small worm generated by the locust. Finally, that caterpillars are a kind of locust is held by Remigius, Pagninus, Forsterus, Marianus (who calls it a cricket — but the cricket is a small locust of ashen or gray color) in the Lexicons, Caelius (III.25), Aldrovandus in his book On Insects under Locust, who also on page 414 depicts all the species of locusts, and specifically the caterpillar, and presents its form in an illustration for viewing. The Syriac translator agrees, rendering: 'What the wingless locust (worm gnawing wheat in the field) left, the flying locust ate; and what the flying locust left, the small locust (or the locust called 'the separated') ate; and what the separated locust left, the sarsur ate' — which is also a species of locust, as I shall soon explain. Hence it is clear that the Syriac version understands Joel's four plagues as four species of locust. Both Arabic versions plainly agree with the Syriac.

You will object: If the caterpillar is the offspring of the locust, like a wingless worm, then how does Jeremiah in chapter 51

verse 14, give it a sting and call it 'the stinging one,' and Nahum chapter 3:16 give it wings and call it 'the winged one'? I respond that the name 'caterpillar' (bruchus) is sometimes extended to other species of locusts, and embraces the attelabi and ophiomachi. For it is opposed to the locust: therefore, just as the locust signifies every perfect locust, so the caterpillar signifies every imperfect locust (such as attaci, attelabi, and ophiomachi, which are winged and have stinging feet, teeth, and tail). Similarly, we sometimes call lambs, kids, and calves not only the recently born young but also the more grown and larger ones — yearling heifers or two-year-olds — until they begin to breed; indeed the Hebrews call young cows that are calving for the first time eglot, that is, 'heifers.' That this is so is clear from St. Jerome, who is the author of our Version: for he himself, writing on Nahum chapter 3, takes ielec, which he here calls the caterpillar, as the attelabus: 'The attelabus,' he says, 'which Aquila more expressively translated as devourer, is a small locust between the locust and the caterpillar, creeping rather than flying with its small wings and always hopping, and for this reason wherever it arises, it consumes everything down to the dust, because until its wings grow, it cannot depart.' And shortly after: 'It is compared to the hopping attelabus,' etc. Hence Aldrovandus, On Insects, chapter On the caterpillar, page 406: 'The bruchus of Sacred Scripture,' he says, 'differs from the bruchus of secular writers, as the perfect differs from that which has not yet attained its perfection.' And Caelius, Miscellaneous Readings III.25, teaches that any locusts that gnaw crops are called bruchi, attaci, and mastaces, as is found in Nicander. And Quinquarboreus on Amos chapter 4 thinks the caterpillar is a kind of locust which, besides being numberless and abundant, excels in swifter flight and spreads more widely than the rest, and more quickly devours and consumes more fields — hence Jeremiah calls it 'the stinging one.' Therefore the Chaldean here translates ielec, or caterpillar, as pircha, that is, 'the one moving about, running about, flitting about' (for the root perach means to move about, flit, run), because it runs and hops here and there devastating the crops. From all this it is clear that the word bruchus signifies the lowest and smallest species of locust when all the other species are enumerated; but when the others are omitted, it is substituted for them, so that the caterpillar is now the attelabus, now the ophiomachus, now any other species of locust. Therefore, when Jeremiah calls the caterpillar 'stinging' and Nahum calls it 'winged,' they extend the name bruchus to the attelabus, ophiomachus, and other larger locust species: Moses enumerates these species in Leviticus 11, where he permits their consumption by the Hebrews.

AND WHAT THE CATERPILLAR LEFT, THE BLIGHT ATE. — This is the fourth pest and plague of crops and sprouts, namely the blight (rubigo). In Hebrew it is chasil, that is, 'the destroyer, devourer, consumer,' from the root chasal, meaning 'he consumed,' because it lays waste and destroys everything and leaves nothing remaining. More recent scholars — Pagninus, Arias, and others — think it is a third species of locust, and the most voracious: for Joel called the first the caterpillar, the second the locust, the third chasil. So for chasil the Septuagint and our translator render 'locust' in Isaiah 33:4 and II Chronicles 6:28. Hence some understand rubigo here as a creature: 'the blight,' they say, 'is a worm that especially follows the dew.' Hence Aldrovandus on the Locust, citing St. Jerome, says: 'The blight follows the night dew, which when it rains down upon the leaves, with the coming of the sun, becomes animated and lives, and harms plants in various ways.' The Syriac agrees, translating chasil as sarsur, about which the Most Illustrious Lord Sergius Risi, Archbishop of Damascus, a Syrian by nation, assured me in Rome as follows: 'The sarsur,' he said, 'is a small creature in Syria like a locust, indeed from the genus of locusts; but it differs from common locusts in that locusts appear sometimes, and in certain years according to the weather and atmospheric conditions, while this creature is continuous and perpetual. And it is twofold: for one kind is domestic, the other wild. It has exactly four legs like a locust, and two other small ones with which it draws food to itself and eats. Its color is black and its back is flat. It also differs from locusts in that the wild kind greatly harms wheat and grasses, but not trees as locusts do, which entirely gnaw away the bark of fig trees and other trees. Moreover, it is troublesome on account of the sound and noise it makes — a tremendous racket, especially at night, particularly near the waters in Egypt, where after the Nile's flooding it is produced together with frogs and remains; so much so that where these creatures abound, people cannot live because of their noise and the damage they inflict. The other kind is domestic, living with humans, which is said to feed on the beams of houses and their dust and droppings, and is also troublesome because of its buzzing and noise.'

But for the Hebrew chasil, here the Septuagint, the Chaldean, Vatablus, and others translate 'blight,' not 'locust,' just as in Psalm 78:4 and elsewhere. For Hebrew names, especially of animals, trees, gems, stones, etc., are of broad and varied meaning, and now signify one thing, now another. Therefore chasil is variously translated as locust, caterpillar, or blight — for blight consumes crops no less than locusts do. Moreover, rubigo (blight or rust) in Latin signifies a disease of crops, not a locust. For blight (rubigo), or jaundice (aurugo) or verdigris (ærugo), is a disease of crops from corrupt air, as it were their royal disease, by which the stalks turn pale like gold or bronze, and thus gradually wither and vanish. 'Blight,' says Albertus here, 'is a heated dew falling from the air, first turning the withered crops to the color of vermillion, then to soot and into a form of dust and crumbly matter.' Farmers call it 'the mist.' It is called rubigo from redness (rubedo), because it makes crops red, just as it does metals when they contract rust.

Hence Apuleius, Florid Discourses III: 'Indeed,' he says, 'the sword is brightened by use, corroded by neglect; so the voice, stored in the sheath of silence, is blunted by long torpor.' And Pliny, Natural History XVIII.17: 'Blight is the greatest plague of crops; when laurel branches are fixed in the field, it passes from the fields into their leaves.' From rubigo (blight) the Rubiginalia were named — that is, the feast days and sacred rites instituted by the pagans to avert blight, similar to the amburbial supplications during Rogation days among Christians, which are performed for the same reason. Hence Pliny, Natural History XVIII.19: 'Numa instituted the Rubiginalia,' he says, 'which are now celebrated on the seventh day before the Kalends of May, since blight usually seizes the crops at that time.' This much for the literal sense.

The question is asked: what do these four plagues — namely the cankerworm, locust, caterpillar, and blight — signify? And should they be taken literally as they sound, or symbolically? Many take them as they sound, so that Joel signifies that Judea was truly devastated by these small creatures because of its sins, and from this barrenness and famine were brought upon it. Hence they think that here is predicted the seven-year famine which Elisha also predicted under Joram, IV Kings 8:1-2. For they say this famine was brought on by cankerworms, locusts, caterpillars, and blight succeeding each other over four years, and moreover lasted three additional years during which God closed heaven so that it would not rain. So Remigius, Rufinus, Lyranus, Vatablus, Arias, Rabbi Solomon, and other rabbis. Theodoret, however, thinks the prediction here is of a two-year barrenness and famine, which Amos predicts in chapter 4:9, where he threatens the Israelites with jaundice, or blight and cankerworms, just as Joel does here. But Joel prophesied long after Elisha and Joram, along with Hosea, under Uzziah and his successors, as I said in the Prooemium. Amos, moreover, prophesies to Samaria, that is, to the ten tribes, as is clear from Amos 1:1, not to the two tribes, as Joel does; nor does he mention the locust and caterpillar, which Joel names. Therefore, if you take these literally as they sound — of the actual cankerworm, caterpillar, locust, and blight — they must have occurred at another time in Judea. For the Prophets threaten many things that we know all actually happened, even if they are not narrated elsewhere. Hence Joel, chapter 2:24, consoling his people afflicted by these plagues with the hope of a better lot and fertility, says: 'The threshing floors shall be filled with wheat, and the presses shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust, the caterpillar, the blight, and the cankerworm have eaten — My great army, which I sent among you,' etc. Therefore He truly sent upon them cankerworms, locusts, caterpillars, and blight. Moreover, Moses threatened the Hebrews with these and many other plagues in Leviticus 26:22 and Deuteronomy 28:22, if they should forsake God and offend Him. Therefore since they offended Him in Joel's time, and were consequently destroyed, it is likely that God inflicted those plagues upon them and fulfilled His threats. Furthermore, barrenness and famine brought on by cankerworms, locusts, caterpillars, and blight is God's natural and ordinary scourge.

Beautifully says St. Chrysostom, in his Homily That No One Is Harmed Except by Himself: 'Everything that exists in nature,' he says, 'has something by which it can be corrupted and harmed: wool by the moth, flocks of sheep by the wolf, wine by the change to vinegar, the sweetness of honey by bitterness; tares harm the crops, hail damages the vine; the army of locusts and caterpillars lays waste to shrubs and various plantings, and various kinds of diseases bring corruption to individual bodies.' Pliny, Natural History XI.29, having shown how enormous swarms of locusts carried by the wind cross the seas flying in masses, says: 'As if it were not enough to have crossed the seas, they traverse immense tracts and cover the harvests with a dread cloud, burning many things by their touch, and gnawing everything with their bite, even the doors of houses.' How great the damage locusts have inflicted on various provinces, Aldrovandus teaches with many examples and histories in his work on the Locust, page 422ff. There is an emblem of Alciatus with the motto 'Nothing Left,' explained in these verses: Indeed this was wanting after so many evils: that finally Locusts should snatch whatever was in our fields. We saw innumerable troops advancing under the East Wind's lead, Such as were not the camps of Attila or Xerxes. These consumed the hay, the millet, all the grain: Hope is in a tight place — only prayers remain. Hence among the Egyptians, the locust was a hieroglyph of famine, says Pierius, book 28. Moreover, Theodoret reports in the Philotheus that St. Aphraates protected the field of a certain suppliant from the army of locusts devastating Persia by sprinkling holy water, so that they dared not touch it. The author of his life, book 3 near the end, testifies that St. Vincent Ferrer did the same in the territory of Murcia, a city in Spain. So too Georgius the priest writes in his Life, book 2, that St. Theodore killed by his prayer the locusts devastating the fields.

But granted that these plagues can be taken literally as they sound, nevertheless they symbolically and more properly signify the enemies who would devastate Judea. For Joel himself so explains them, verse 6: 'For a nation has come up against my land, mighty and innumerable: its teeth are as the teeth of a lion.' And verse 15: 'Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and it shall come as destruction from the Almighty!' And chapter 2:1-2: 'The day of the Lord comes, a day of darkness, etc., like the dawn spread upon the mountains, a people numerous and strong.' And verse 4: 'Like horsemen, so shall they run,' etc. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Lyranus, Hugo, Ribera, Emmanuel, Sanchez, and Mariana, who says: Both — that is, famine and war — are signified here. This is therefore an enigma, or a continuous allegory and parable, signifying that enemy will succeed enemy, calamity upon calamity, up to the destruction and annihilation of the Jews. Similar is Isaiah 24,

verse 17: 'Terror, and the pit, and the snare upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall be: he who flees from the terror shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare.' And Jeremiah 48:43: 'Fear, and the pit, and the snare upon you, O inhabitant of Moab. He who flees from the terror shall fall into the pit; and he who climbs up from the pit shall be caught in the snare.' And chapter 15:2: 'Those destined by God to death, to death' they shall go; 'and those to famine, to famine; and those to captivity, to captivity. And I will visit upon them four kinds, says the Lord: the sword to kill, dogs to tear, and the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy; and I will make them a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for all that he did in Jerusalem.' To which Joel perhaps alludes here. Similar is that passage of Homer, Odyssey 5: The South Wind handed this man to the North Wind to carry; Now again the East Wind delivered him to the West to be tossed. And Iliad 19: Sad things are forever succeeded by more sad things for me. So Ausonius in his Epigrams elegantly calls these 'chained labors (and sorrows),' when labor follows labor and sorrow follows sorrow. Hence the adage: 'A festival of evils,' which Pisides uses in Suidas: 'All together, as at a festival of evils, one misfortune held some, another held others.' Here belongs that saying of Diogenianus: 'An evil thrips, and evil ips again,' commonly said of twofold and manifold evil. For the thrips is a small worm that, born in wood, corrupts it; the ips likewise is harmful to dogwood and vines. And that saying of Socrates in Athenæus, book 9: 'Evils come upon evils threefold.' And those expressions: 'An Iliad of evils; a treasure and Lerna of evils; a swarm and sea of evils' — when evil succeeds evil as wave upon wave, surge upon surge, driving the previous one forward. Euripides uses these in the Ion, saying: 'Wretched me, how a vast treasure and store of evils is laid open.' And Aeschylus in the Suppliants: So great a sea of evils do I behold, wretch that I am, That no hope of swimming out gleams forth. In this sea the damned are tossed about in hell.

The reason for the adage is that often cankerworms are followed by locusts, locusts by caterpillars, caterpillars by blight, and these bring immense calamities, and in swarms like a hostile army and battle line. Hence the camps of Midian, which Gideon overthrew, are compared to locusts, Judges 6:5, just as in Apocalypse 9:1 the army of the demon, which will afflict the wicked at the end of the world, is likened to swarms of locusts. Moreover, locusts, caterpillars, and cankerworms not infrequently precede and foretell the coming of enemies and the slaughter of wars, as is clear from history. Hence the locust is called mantis by Hesychius, Nicander, Suidas, Theocritus (Idyll 10), and others — that is, 'prophetess,' 'diviner,' and 'harbinger' — because it always foretells and brings famine, and often also the incursions and disasters of enemies. Although Caelius in book 30, chapter 22, gives another reason as well: 'The mantis,' he says, 'is a type of locust born on stalks, green in color, with a very long body and very long legs, which it moves constantly. Aristarchus writes in his commentary on Lycurgus that this locust, if it gazes upon any animal, immediately predicts some evil for it — hence it is called mantis, being of harmful and troublesome aspect; or it is called mantis because the arrival of locusts is a presage of approaching scarcity.'

Take a few but remarkable examples from the many that Aldrovandus reviews on page 425. In the year of the Lord 1534, he says, those locusts which flew from the East through Illyricum into Italy in stupendous swarms, causing great damage everywhere, seemed to portend the coming of the Turks. For the Turk also seized Reggio, and there was alarm at Rome when he settled at Ostia; he took Nicæa and led many thousands of Christians into slavery. Tamerlane, according to Crantzius, had resolved to storm Jerusalem, but when caterpillars plagued his army, he interpreted this as a warning from God and desisted. The first sacred expedition to Jerusalem (as Sigonius attests), instituted at Clermont in the year of the Lord 1096, was preceded by a sudden great force of locusts that blocked the sunlight like clouds. It is remarkable what Gregory of Tours writes: that two armies of locusts, passing through Auvergne and Limousin, entered the plain of Romaniacum, fought a battle with each other there, and produced great slaughter — when Lothar was about to fight against his son Chramnus, whom he afterward, having defeated, ordered to be burned together with his wife and children.

But who were these enemies and devastators of Judea, whom the Prophet denotes and represents by cankerworms, locusts, caterpillars, and blight? The Hebrews, followed by St. Jerome, Rupert, Haymo, Hugo, Lyranus, and Dionysius, think the four world monarchies succeeding one another are signified here, which afflicted the Jews: namely, the Assyrians and Babylonians by the cankerworms; the Medes and Persians by the locust; the Greeks, and especially Antiochus Epiphanes, against whom the Maccabees fought, by the caterpillars; and the Romans by the blight. For Daniel similarly lists and depicts these four monarchies in chapters 2 and 7 through four beasts, and Zechariah in chapters 1 and 6 through four chariots. However, the Persians and Medes — such as Cyrus and Darius — did not afflict the Jews; rather, they freed them from Babylon. Cambyses, however, did afflict them by hindering the building of the temple, I Ezra 2. That by the blight Titus and the Romans, who destroyed Jerusalem, are not meant, is clear from the fact that the Prophet in chapter 2:18 says a remedy for these plagues is to be brought by Christ; but Christ did not repair the destruction of Jerusalem inflicted by Titus — indeed He preceded it and predicted it.

Second, Theodoret takes these four plagues as referring only to the Assyrians and Babylonians who devastated the Israelites: namely, the cankerworm as Tiglath-pileser, the locust as Shalmaneser, the caterpillar as Sennacherib, and the blight as Nebuchadnezzar. But the first two devastated only the ten tribes, not the two with which we are here concerned. For Joel prophesies calamity and threatens destruction for Judah and Jerusalem alone, as I showed in the Prooemium, and as I said there, he seems to have done so under Manasseh, when the ten tribes had already been cut off.

Third, therefore, more aptly and truly, St. Jerome understands these four plagues as Nebuchadnezzar, who had various nations in his camps like cankerworms, locusts, and caterpillars, which so devastated Judea that what one left behind, another seized or destroyed. Or rather, more particularly, fittingly, and genuinely, by these four plagues understand the four expeditions of Nebuchadnezzar, by which he gradually ravaged Judea and Jerusalem more and more until he destroyed it. The first was in the first year of his reign (which was the third year of Jehoiakim king of Judah), when he, like a cankerworm creeping over the land, only lightly scratched and grazed Judea; for he merely carried King Jehoiakim with Daniel and his companions to Babylon, Daniel 1:1. The second was in the eighth year of his reign (the eleventh and last of Jehoiakim), when he sent his troops into Judea like winged and powerful locusts, and cropped the highest shoots. For he captured and killed the rebellious King Jehoiakim, and set up his son Jehoiachin in his place, whom after three months he carried off to Babylon, appointing his uncle Zedekiah as successor. The third was in the eighteenth year of his reign, which was the eleventh of Zedekiah, when like a caterpillar he gnawed away the remaining shoots, even the smallest. For he either killed or captured the entire people, destroyed the city, blinded King Zedekiah, killed his sons, and overturned the kingdom of the Jews. The fourth was when, after four months, he sent Nebuzaradan, who like blight burned the temple along with the palace and the houses of the princes, and reduced everything to ashes and cinders.

Closely related — indeed dealing with nearly the same matter — is the interpretation of Christopher a Castro, who applies these four plagues to the four sons of Josiah: namely Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, who on account of the sins of Manasseh were ravaged, killed, or carried into captivity. Specifically: the cankerworm, which lightly touches the ground, signifies Pharaoh Necho, who carried off Jehoahaz to Egypt, leaving Judea untouched, indeed appointing Jehoiakim, the brother of Jehoahaz, over it; the locusts signify the bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, who like locusts invaded Judea in swarms and killed Jehoiakim; the caterpillar signifies Nebuchadnezzar, who after them, like the offspring of locusts — namely the caterpillar — took Jerusalem and carried off Jehoiachin the offspring, that is the son of Jehoiakim, to Babylon; the blight is the same Nebuchadnezzar, who eleven years later again took Jerusalem with King Zedekiah, burned the temple and palaces, and like blight reduced them to ashes, utterly overthrowing the kingdom and commonwealth of the Jews.

Allegorically, Hugo of St. Victor, writing on this passage of Joel, takes these four plagues as four persecutions of the Church: the first was that of the pagan emperors — Nero, Domitian, Decius, Diocletian, etc. The second was that of Arius and the heretics, who proudly leap up high like locusts, which soon succeeded the first when it ceased through the reign of Constantine. The third was that of wicked Christians, who are carnal and slaves to their bellies, like caterpillars. The fourth is that of the Saracens and the Antichrist, which like blight devastates and will devastate everything with sword and flame. Hence nearly the same four

horses — namely, first white, second red, third black, fourth pale — St. John represents in Apocalypse 6:2ff., as I explained there. Tropologically, these plagues succeeding one another signify that one vice succeeds another — indeed, sometimes even succeeds virtue itself — and that when one departs, another attacks us, so that what the former left behind, the latter devours and destroys. Specifically, after the cankerworm, which represents lust by creeping along the ground with its whole body — once overcome or withdrawing — the flying locust succeeds and invades us, that is, vainglory and pride. For the locust cannot walk on its feet, and though it scarcely has wings, it strives to fly, and so makes vain leaps. So also Lucifer aspired to equality with God, to which he could not rise, but fell. The proud man does the same. After this follows the pot-bellied caterpillar (for its whole body is almost gathered into its belly), that is, gluttony. After this succeeds the fiery blight, which sets ablaze whatever it touches — namely anger and impatience — whose flame causes all the fruits of virtue to waste away. Therefore, what the cankerworm (i.e. lust) leaves behind is chastity; what the locust (i.e. vainglory) leaves behind is humility; what the caterpillar (i.e. gluttony) leaves behind is sobriety; what the blight (i.e. anger) leaves behind is patience. Therefore what the cankerworm leaves, the locust eats; what the locust leaves, the caterpillar; and what the caterpillar leaves, the blight — because it often happens that from continence and chastity arises vainglory, humility is followed by drunkenness and excess, sobriety gives way to anger and impatience. So Hugo in the passage cited, and St. Gregory, Morals XXXIII.27. Others take the blight or verdigris as signifying avarice, which deals in those things that verdigris and moth destroy: for verdigris corrodes gold and silver. Moreover, the first, namely lust, corrupt nature taught; the second, namely pride, Lucifer invented; the third, namely gluttony, destroyed our first parents, Adam and Eve; the fourth, the giants and tyrants descended from Cain devised.

Symbolically, or in a physical sense, St. Jerome takes these four as four passions and infirmities of the soul — namely joy, sadness, hope, and fear — which form, as it were, the four-horse chariot of the course and changeability of our life. For sadness soon succeeds joy, hope succeeds sadness, fear succeeds hope, and by these four affections, in continuous succession, the human soul is driven and tossed about, especially the worldly and sinful soul. The cankerworm represents the malady of sadness, the locust joy, the caterpillar fear, the blight hope. Hear St. Jerome: 'The illustrious Poet encompassed these disturbances in a single, not even full verse: These fear and desire (this about the future), grieve and rejoice (this about the present); nor do they look up to the breezes, shut in by darkness and blind prison. For those who are enveloped in the darkness of passions cannot behold the clear light of wisdom. We must therefore be on guard lest sadness like a cankerworm consume us; lest the locust lay waste in joy, flitting here and there and tossing itself about with exultant gladness in various directions; lest the caterpillar, that is, dread and fear of the future, devour the roots of wisdom; lest the blight and desire for future things covet useless things and carry us to ruin — but rather, let us steer the four chariots and four horns and four horses — red, dappled, white, and black — that is, adversity, prosperity, or a combination of both — with the reins of wisdom.' He then adds: 'I think the cankerworm is a foolish passion in the soul, which is sluggish and cannot move about, and by its very slowness and persistence drinks up and sucks out all verdure; which, if we do not kill it, grows in us and flies away, and now devours whatever it touches, now leaving things half-eaten passes on to others, and returning to its former seat becomes a caterpillar, so that not only the fruits and leaves and bark, but even the very marrow it devours by its slowness.' By these words, I note in passing, St. Jerome indicates that the cankerworm is a small worm which as it grows becomes a caterpillar, and then turns into a locust. So also some others call the offspring of the locust a worm and cankerworm.

Hear St. Paulinus, Epistle 30, which is the second to Aper: 'See,' he says, 'how these monstrosities of vices correspond in our hearts to the destructive pests that occur in crops. For (by way of example) if I desire something forbidden, and immediately cast away the thought, it is a cankerworm sitting on a leaf, which, when shaken off — if I have indeed cast it away, but the thought returns again, and begins to be cast away and to return with increasing frequency — it is a locust flying away and returning. But if it begins to linger, and spends more time eating than flying away, it is called a caterpillar. And if this caterpillar, which does not fly away sufficiently but rather sits still, has not been cast out, it turns into blight — which, now deeply clinging, is never, or only with difficulty, expelled from the soul, just as from a stalk.'

Whoever therefore aspires to peace of mind and loftiness of soul, let him suppress and subdue these passions continually warring among themselves: thus he will be undisturbed, peaceful, exalted, and happy. See what I said on Apocalypse 3:21, at the end.

Verse 5: 5. AWAKE, YOU DRUNKARDS (literally, from wine, as the Septuagint has), AND WEEP, YOU WHO DRINK WINE IN SWEETNESS (the...

5. AWAKE, YOU DRUNKARDS (literally, from wine, as the Septuagint has), AND WEEP, YOU WHO DRINK WINE IN SWEETNESS (the Chaldean has: undiluted wine; Pagninus and Vatablus: freshly pressed grape juice — for this is asis, from the root asas, meaning 'he pressed, squeezed out'): FOR IT HAS PERISHED (in Hebrew, 'it has been cut off,' i.e. it will soon be cut off) FROM YOUR MOUTH — through cankerworms, locusts, caterpillars, and blight, that is, through the troops, incursions, and ravagings of the Chaldeans, which God will send upon your vineyards and fields. So the Chaldean, Lyranus, and Arias.

Tropologically, all pleasures, as well as passions and disturbances, intoxicate the mind — that is, they madden it, deprive it of right judgment, numb it, blind it, and render it insensible and powerless over itself, just as drunkenness is wont to cause these same effects in the body and head. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Theodoret, Albertus, Hugo. Hear St. Jerome:

'Nothing intoxicates as much as the disturbance of the soul. There is the anger that does not work the justice of God, and being close to fury, renders one powerless over one's own mind, to the point that the lips tremble, the teeth chatter, and the countenance changes with pallor. And rightly is that saying of Archytas of Tarentum praised, who, when angry with his steward, said: I would kill you now, were I not angry. What shall I say of joy and pleasure, and especially of love, which blinds the eyes of the heart, and permits the lover to think of nothing other than what he loves? Is it not to be called drunkenness, when for the sake of a vile harlot and a shameful part of the body, the freedom of the soul is bent into slavish blandishments? When one makes one's own toil the delight of another? When by theft, crime, and perjury one prepares wealth for future pleasure, and though seen by all, thinks oneself unseen, so long as one obtains what one desires? Avarice too blinds the mind of one for whom nothing is enough, as does womanly love and the craving for sweet vices.' St. Jerome adds that God not infrequently takes away from the sinner these sweet things that had deceived him, 'so that those who did not know God in prosperity may know Him in adversity; and those who misused riches may be corrected — nay, compelled — to virtue by want.' Just as virtue, therefore, is the sobriety and wisdom of the soul, so any vice is the drunkenness and madness of the soul, caused by the wine of malice pressed from the grape of desire, which the devil serves to it. Hear also St. Gregory, Morals XXXIII.27: 'Those are called drunkards who, confused by love of this world, do not feel the evils they suffer.' What then does it mean to say: 'Awake, you drunkards, and weep,' but: shake off the sleep of your insensibility, and meet the devastation of your heart, as so many pestilences of vice succeed one another, with watchful lamentation!

Verse 6: 6. FOR A NATION. — St. Jerome takes 'nation' metaphorically as locusts. For the Wise Man spoke of them in a similar...

6. FOR A NATION. — St. Jerome takes 'nation' metaphorically as locusts. For the Wise Man spoke of them in a similar figure, Proverbs 30:25: 'The ants, a feeble people; the rabbit, a weak folk.' And verse 27: 'The locust has no king, and yet it goes forth all together in troops.' And in Apocalypse 9:1ff., the myriads of the demon's army to be sent against the wicked at the end of the world are called locusts. So also Theodoret, Rufinus, a Castro, Mariana, Emmanuel, and others. Hence in chapter 2:4, Joel compares these locusts to horses, horsemen, and chariots: 'As the appearance of horses,' he says, 'is their appearance; and like horsemen so shall they run,' etc. 'Like a strong people prepared for battle.' This is therefore a continuous metaphor, or allegory. For throughout this chapter and the next he speaks of the army of the Chaldeans ravaging Judea, under the allegory of locusts that are wont to devastate fields and everything in their path, wherever they go — 'so that when you read of locusts, you may think of enemies; and when you think of enemies, you may return to the locusts,' says St. Jerome. Hence he consequently compares the people of the Jews to a vineyard and a fig tree, which locusts are wont to gnaw, according to that saying of Isaiah 5:7: 'The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His delightful plant.'

ITS TEETH (of the nation, namely of the locusts, that is, of the Chaldeans) ARE AS THE TEETH OF A LION — that is, the Chaldeans, innumerable in number, strongest in might, will lacerate and cut down everything with their swords as if with teeth, as if they were lions tearing their prey with leonine teeth — eagerly, swiftly, boldly, and cruelly. So St. John gives the teeth of lions to the locusts — that is, to the army of the demon at the end of the world, which will devastate everything — in Apocalypse 9:8, certainly alluding to these locusts of Joel, as their forerunners and antitypes. AND ITS MOLARS ARE AS THOSE OF A LION'S WHELP. — So also the Septuagint and the Chaldean. Understand a larger and more grown whelp (for this is what the Hebrew labim signifies), which, being young, fierce, and strong, grinds, breaks, and crushes everything with its teeth. For it has sharper and firmer teeth, since they are not worn down but fresh and whole. Hence Scripture celebrates the teeth of young lions, as in Job 4:10: 'The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the lion's whelps are crushed.' For the teeth of these are more powerful and violent, since due to age and the constant tearing of prey, the teeth of older lions are often ground down or fall out, as our Pineda teaches in that passage. Theodoret observes that, just as the locust leads behind it smaller and slenderer caterpillars, and just as the lion leads its cubs behind it, so the warlike and vigorous Chaldeans lead with them other nations less strong and less experienced in war, yet no less fierce and harmful, to devastate Judea. Again, just as by 'teeth' understand the swords of the Chaldeans, so by 'molars' understand the ballistae, battering rams, and other siege engines with which they struck Jerusalem. So a Castro. Tropologically, Rupert notes that through the locusts we are taught here that even the weak, vile, and lowly — as locusts are — are strong, invincible, and savage against those with whom God is angry, since God gives them strength, courage, and fury. Hence God is accustomed to crush the arrogance of the proud through such creatures, just as through locusts, gnats, flies, and frogs He crushed the arrogance of Pharaoh in the time of Moses. Again, the slanderer is called a locust: for he appears smooth and slender in his witty narration, but has the tongue and teeth of a lion, as our Viegas teaches on Apocalypse 9:8, Commentary 2, Section 9. Finally, of any sin it is said in Sirach 21:3: 'Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, killing the souls of men.'

Verse 7: 7. AND IT HAS STRIPPED MY FIG TREE. — Locusts are wont to gnaw the bark of trees, which, like garments, nurture and...

7. AND IT HAS STRIPPED MY FIG TREE. — Locusts are wont to gnaw the bark of trees, which, like garments, nurture and contain the sap and warmth of the trees.

Hence when the bark is gnawed or removed, the branches, as if stripped of their garments, having lost their greenness, become white and sapless, and dry up, and as if cast upon the ground they fall. So St. Jerome. The fig tree signifies the priests and princes who were prominent in the Jewish people, as a fig tree in a vineyard, and who nourished and refreshed the people with the divine flavor of Sacred Scripture and the sweetness of holy laws, as fig trees do; these the Chaldeans stripped of either life, or liberty, or wealth, as if stripping their bark. So Ribera. Tropologically, the bark and covering of the virtues is humility, which if you remove, all will perish. So St. Gregory, whose words I shall presently recite. AND CAST IT AWAY — both the fruits, bark, and leaves it gnawed, and the tender shoots and branches; for the locust by gnawing cuts these off and casts them down. And finally, stripping the fig tree of all its clothing and drying it up, it makes it such that it must be cut down by the farmer and thrown into the fire. Such were the Chaldeans to the Jews, just as the Huns, Alans, Goths, and Vandals were to the Christians, and even now the Turks are — who like cankerworms, caterpillars, locusts, and blight, succeeding one another in order, have ravaged and still ravage the Christian world. Tropologically, the demons do the same in the souls of the faithful, says St. Jerome; likewise heretics, such as Luther and Calvin; and procurers, parasites, and corruptors of morals. For they gnaw away all fruits of piety, all ceremonies as if leaves, all the efficacy of the sacraments as if bark, and overturn and scatter all the beauty, wealth, happiness, and glory of the Church and of the soul, making it poor, barren, desolate, and dead, like a fig tree and vineyard gnawed by locusts and reduced to a wilderness. Again, vainglory does the same in good works. Hear St. Gregory, Morals VIII.30: 'When evil spirits (demons) lie in ambush, God's vineyard is turned into a wilderness, when a soul full of fruits is dissipated by the desire for human praise. This nation strips God's fig tree of its bark, because by seizing the seduced mind in the appetite for favor, whereby it drags it to ostentation, it removes the covering of humility (as it were the bark) with which it was clothed, and stripping it, despoils it, etc. Its branches have become white: because its works, displayed to human eyes, gleam bright; the name of holiness is assumed when an upright action is publicized. But when the bark is removed, the branches dry up: because the deeds of the arrogant, displayed to human eyes — the very source from which they seek to please — from that same source they are dried up. The mind, therefore, that is betrayed through boasting is rightly called a stripped fig tree: because it is both white, through being seen, and close to drying up, through being stripped of its covering of bark. Therefore, what we do must be guarded inwardly, if we expect to receive a reward for our work from the internal Judge.'

Verse 8: 8. LAMENT LIKE A VIRGIN GIRDED WITH SACKCLOTH — that is: O Jerusalem, lament bitterly and wail, because you have been...

8. LAMENT LIKE A VIRGIN GIRDED WITH SACKCLOTH — that is: O Jerusalem, lament bitterly and wail, because you have been abandoned by God your spouse, to whom you were married in your youth and virginity (namely, when you were first born in Egypt), and handed over to the Chaldean enemies — just as a newly married virgin is wont to mourn most bitterly when she loses the husband whom she married when she first came of age, and whom she therefore loved most intimately and tenderly. Hence the Septuagint translates: 'for her virgin husband,' that is, the husband to whom she had given herself as a virgin in marriage. 'Lament,' they say, 'for the virgin (that is, more than a virgin) girded with sackcloth, who mourns for her virgin husband, whom death has taken from her.' Note here that the Septuagint translates the Hebrew sac, i.e. sackcloth, as 'haircloth.' For sackcloth was a rough and mournful garment of mourners and penitents, which they used at the funeral of their loved ones for mourning, or in public calamity for the sake of penance, to propitiate God, that He might avert the disaster. Similarly, in Ezekiel chapter 16:8, He exhorts the Synagogue to shame and sorrow for having abandoned God her spouse, who betrothed her to Himself when she was a young girl, wretched and cast out in Egypt, clothing her as a queen with fine linen, bracelets, necklaces, and crowning her head with a crown. So also Jeremiah 2:2: 'I have remembered you,' He says, 'having mercy on your youth and the love of your betrothal — when you followed Me in the desert, in an unsown land.' And chapter 3:4: 'At least from now on call Me: My Father, You are the guide of my virginity.' Moreover, they would lie in sackcloth not only at night but also during the day in a grave calamity, when they made supplication to God, to move Him to compassion by this attire. See Sanchez here.

Tropologically, let the soul lament that has abandoned God through sin — God, to whom it had betrothed itself in baptism, according to the Apostle's words, II Corinthians 11:2: 'I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.' For this soul, in turn abandoned by God, stripped of all the sweetness and beauty of grace and the virtues, like a vineyard and fig tree consumed by locusts, is enslaved and prostituted to the devil, who abuses it as the vilest harlot for his own lust and tyranny, for every evil, injury, disgrace, and misery. 'For the soul,' says Hugo of St. Victor, 'is a virgin by the condition of its nature, a virgin by the privilege of grace, and a virgin also by the reward of glory. Disordered desire makes the soul a harlot; manly repentance restores its chastity; wise innocence restores its virginity. The soul is a fornicator in the brothel, a married woman in the courtyard, continent in the house, a virgin in the bridal chamber. In the first, it is exposed to desire; in the second, it does works of penance; in the third, mourning its husband, it is touched with longing for justice; in the fourth, it delights in the virginal embraces and kisses of wisdom. Therefore the soul is a fornicator

(1) Regarding the incredible voracity of locusts, Ludolfus says in his History of Ethiopia I.13, §16: 'No grasses, no shrubs, no trees remain untouched; whatever is grassy or leafy is approached as if roasted by fire. They even chew the bark of trees with their teeth.' Moreover, all who had witnessed locust plagues testified that locusts are most harmful to vines.

through the iniquity of desire; chaste through the humility of continence; continent through the purity of justice; a virgin through the sublimity of contemplation. The husband of her youth is Christ, the betrothed of her virginity.' So St. Fabiola, a most noble Roman matron, lamented her sin. Having divorced her adulterous husband and married another — thinking this was permissible — when he died, she recognized her error and guilt, made public penance, and having given all her possessions to the poor, devoted herself to the service of the sick in a hospital. Hear what St. Jerome says of her in her Epitaph addressed to Oceanus: 'Who would believe,' he says, 'that after the death of her second husband, having come to herself, etc., she would put on sackcloth, publicly confess her error, and, with the whole city of Rome watching, before Easter day in the basilica formerly of the Lateran — the one truncated by the sword of Caesar — would stand in the ranks of penitents, with the Bishop, priests, and all the people weeping with her, submitting her disheveled hair, her pale face, her soiled hands, and her dirty neck?' And later: 'She was not ashamed of the Lord on earth, and He will not put her to shame in heaven. She opened her wound to all, and weeping Rome beheld the discolored scar on her body. She descended from the throne of her delights, and with bare feet she crossed streams of tears; she sat upon coals of fire. The face by which she had pleased her second husband, she struck; she hated gems, she could not bear to see fine linen, she fled from ornaments.' And shortly after: 'All the wealth she could have (and it was most ample, befitting her rank), she squandered and sold, and having gathered it into money, prepared it for the use of the poor, and was the first to establish a hospital. How often she herself carried on her shoulders those wasting away with the king's disease and foul sores! How often she washed the purulent discharge of wounds that another could not bear to look at! She provided food with her own hand, and bathed the breathing corpse with sips of liquid, etc. Rome was too narrow for her mercy. She therefore traveled through the islands and the whole Etruscan sea; indeed she sailed to Jerusalem,' etc. Therefore St. Jerome rightly calls her 'the praise of Christians, the wonder of the Gentiles, the grief of the poor, the consolation of monks.'

Indeed, St. Paula too, after her conversion, migrating to Bethlehem, so chastised and lamented the pleasures of her former life that she nearly destroyed herself with fasts, tears, and other penances. 'Even in the most serious fever,' says St. Jerome in her Life, 'she did not have soft bedding, but rested on the hardest ground with haircloth spread beneath her — if indeed that can be called rest which joined day and night in almost continuous prayer, fulfilling that verse from the Psalter: I will wash my bed every night, and water my couch with my tears. In her you would have thought you saw springs of tears; so grievously did she lament her slight sins that you would have believed her guilty of the gravest crimes. And when she was frequently warned by us to spare her eyes, to save them for the reading of the Gospel, she would say: That

This face must be disfigured, which against God's commandment I often painted with rouge and antimony; this body must be afflicted, which indulged in many pleasures; long laughter must be compensated by perpetual weeping; soft linen must be exchanged for the harshness of haircloth; I who pleased my husband and the world now desire to please Christ.' Truly says St. Gregory, Homily 10 on Ezekiel: 'In the lives of the saints we learn what we ought to read in Scripture.'

Verse 9: 9. THE SACRIFICE AND THE DRINK OFFERING HAVE PERISHED FROM THE HOUSE OF THE LORD. — For 'sacrifice,' the Hebrew has...

9. THE SACRIFICE AND THE DRINK OFFERING HAVE PERISHED FROM THE HOUSE OF THE LORD. — For 'sacrifice,' the Hebrew has mincha, that is, a sacrifice of meal or bread, as described in Leviticus 2. The 'drink offering' was an oblation of a libation — namely wine and oil — with which both the meal offerings and the animal sacrifices were seasoned. That is: Because the locusts — namely the Chaldeans — devastated the fields, vineyards, and olive groves of the Jews, the wheat, wine, and oil that was customarily sacrificed and offered to the Lord has perished. Therefore 'the priests have mourned,' both because the worship and offering of God in the temple has ceased, and because, with the offerings on which they live failing (for they have no other inheritance), they have no means to sustain themselves. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Ribera, a Castro, and others.

Verse 10: 10. THE WINE IS CONFOUNDED. — This is a personification — that is: The wine has blushed and been as it were suffused...

10. THE WINE IS CONFOUNDED. — This is a personification — that is: The wine has blushed and been as it were suffused with shame, seeing that it does not answer the wishes and labors of the vinedressers, nor the hope it had given. Hence the Septuagint translates: 'The wine has dried up, the vines have dried up.' For the Hebrew hobise is properly the past tense of the hiphil conjugation, from the root iabase, meaning 'it dried up.' But since the conjugational forms of imperfect verbs in Hebrew are often interchanged, hobise can be derived from bose, meaning 'it was confounded, put to shame.' Moreover, if you read it with different vowel points as hubase, it properly signifies: 'Joy is confounded,' that is, it has perished, has failed, as I already said.

Bochart notes from Muffet's Theater of Insects that locusts harm crops, pastures, gardens, and orchards not by their bite alone, but also by their black, green, caustic, heavy, and especially bilious and acrid saliva, which they pour forth abundantly from their mouths while gnawing.

Secondly, St. Jerome, Haymo, Hugo, and Lyranus say: 'Sanctify,' that is, make holy and enrich the fast through almsgiving, prayers, and other pious works — for example, so that what you take from your belly by fasting, you give to the poor. Hence St. Gregory, Homily 16 on the Gospel: 'To sanctify a fast,' he says, 'is to show an abstinence of the flesh worthy of God by joining it with other good works. Let anger cease, let quarrels be silenced. For in vain is the flesh worn down, if the mind is not restrained from wicked pleasures, since through the Prophet the Lord says: Behold, on the day of your fast your own will is found.' And earlier: 'That fast, therefore, God approves which raises hands of almsgiving to His eyes, which is practiced with love of neighbor, which is seasoned with devotion. Therefore, what you take from yourself, bestow upon another, so that the flesh of your needy neighbor may be restored from the same source by which your flesh is afflicted.'

CALL AN ASSEMBLY. — Symmachus translates: a synod; Aquila: a day of gathering, namely of the people, which was done on a feast day, as on the eighth day of Passover and of the Feast of Tabernacles. Hence this eighth day was called in Hebrew atsara, that is, assembly or gathering of the people. The Septuagint has: 'proclaim a cure (therapeia),' that is, preach a fast by which sins are cured, says St. Jerome; or rather, a cure meaning a public prayer and supplication, by which the worship, invocation, and propitiation of God may be restored — for therapeia means service, obedience, worship. Hence St. Dionysius, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy chapter 10, calls monks therapeutai, that is, worshipers and servants, who constantly attend and serve God. Therefore Tertullian, On Fasting chapter 16, translates: 'Proclaim the offices that tend to God,' and adds: 'Hence also those who flatter by adorning the idols for dining, and in this matter (others read better: the altars) for decorating, and for greeting at each hour, are said to perform a cure.' A cure (curatio), then, is the same as worship (cultura), and a curator is the same as a worshiper (cultor). So parish priests are commonly called Curates or Curators, because they tend the worship of God and carry the care of the Church and parishioners. So Leo Castrius here, following Plato, and Pamelius on Tertullian. So among the pagans, says Tertullian: 'When the sky is stricken and the year is parched, barefoot processions are proclaimed: magistrates lay aside their purple, turn their fasces backward, offer prayers, and renew sacrifices.'

Verse 15: 15. ALAS, ALAS, ALAS FOR THE DAY! — that is: Woe for the day when Jerusalem will be devastated by the Chaldeans! Woe...

15. ALAS, ALAS, ALAS FOR THE DAY! — that is: Woe for the day when Jerusalem will be devastated by the Chaldeans! Woe for Jerusalem, woe for the Jews on that day! In Hebrew it is a single two-syllable word ahah, which is an interjection of grief and despair. Our translator renders it with a single word, but three syllables — A a a — both because among Latin speakers and Europeans this is the cry and sigh of one supremely afflicted, and because the Hebrew aspiration h is often rendered as a, as St. Jerome teaches in his Hebrew Traditions on Genesis: for thus they translate the Hebrew Aharon as Aaron, Habel as Abel, Halleluia as Alleluia. Now, because in the Hebrew ahah there is a double h, and the second is mappiq (sounded within the word) and strong, which therefore must sound and be heard, so that although ahah is a two-syllable word, in effect it is three syllables — hence our translator renders it with a double A, and if you add the first A in ahah, you will have the triple A a a. Therefore the Septuagint likewise has a triple cry for ahah, and repeats three times: ai ai ai, that is, alas, alas, alas — or woe to me, woe to me, woe to me for the day! The Syriac and both Arabic versions have: alas, alas, alas for this day, because the day of the Lord is near, and devastation from God will come!

That is: O mournful day of destruction that threatens us! Hence Hugo of St. Victor thinks the triple A a a signifies a threefold calamity and disaster to be inflicted by God upon the Jews through the Chaldeans: 'For there were three misfortunes of the Babylonian captivity,' he says: 'the overthrow of the temple, the destruction of the city, and the deportation of the people. That is: Alas, the city will be destroyed — but have mercy on the city of Your holiness! Alas, the temple will be overthrown — but hear, O Lord, the prayer that Your servants pray before You today, that Your eyes may be open upon this house day and night! Alas, Your people will be led into captivity — but have mercy, Lord, on Your people upon whom Your name has been invoked.'

Allegorically, the same Hugo with pathos and elegance applies this to the ruin of the Jews in Christ's time, and to their destruction by Titus and the Romans, because of their rejection — indeed their killing — of Christ. As if to say: 'Alas, He will come who will turn away iniquity from Jacob and remove the yoke from Israel. Alas, and there was no beauty in Him, nor comeliness, and we saw Him, and there was no appearance in Him. Alas, and His face was as it were hidden and despised; whence we esteemed Him not, and we thought Him as a leper, struck by God and humiliated. Alas, because we saw and did not recognize. Alas, because we heard and despised. Alas, because we accepted Him working good, and killed Him praying for us. We heard His words, we received His benefits, we saw His miracles, but Alas, we despised His words; Alas, we were ungrateful for His benefits; Alas, we disparaged His miracles. We heard Him teaching on the mountain; but Alas, we passed by with deaf ear: hence sorrow. We saw Him feeding the crowds; but Alas, we cared not: hence grief. We saw Him hanging on the cross; but Alas, we despised: hence terror. We heard the teaching, we received the life, we saw the death. His teaching illuminated our blindness: Alas, which we did not obey. His life shaped ours: Alas, which we did not receive. His death captivated our death: Alas, which we despised — indeed, which we caused.' The same preacher may easily apply this to the soul that is to be condemned at the judgment, both particular and universal.

Symbolically and tropologically, the same Hugo says: 'Alas, alas, alas, for there are also three evils' of the Jews, and of all sinners alike: 'Ignorance, concupiscence, and misery. The transgression of the natural law brought ignorance; the violation of the written law propagated disordered concupiscence; the contempt of prophecy brought misery. Alas, the natural law has been transgressed: hence sorrow; but it was punished in the Egyptian captivity. Alas, the written law has been transgressed: hence grief; but it was punished in the Assyrian captivity. Alas, prophecy is despised: hence terror; and this too You are disposed to avenge by the Babylonian captivity. Alas, we have fallen into the misery You avenged; Alas, we have fallen into the concupiscence You punished; Alas, we have fallen into the dreadful misery You ordained.' Hence, explaining the cause of sorrow more fully, Joel adds that the Synagogue, as well as the soul, by sinning had lost all its

riches and delights: 'Perished,' he says, 'has the sacrifice, that is, the mortification of the flesh; and the drink offering, that is, the tears of compunction; and the land, that is, the serenity of conscience; the ground, the humility of self-knowledge; the wheat, the love of justice; the wine, the fervor of wisdom; the oil, the fragrance of mercy; the fig, the sweetness of contemplation and the delight of eternal things; the barley, the lowliness of penance; the farmers, both the effective preachers and pastors, and the groans and movements of confession; the vinedressers, the desires of compunction and the sighs of contemplation; the palm, the contempt of earthly things; the pomegranate, both the charity of fraternal union and the ardor and thirst for rewards; the simple apple, good affections; the other trees, the desires of the remaining virtues — or rather, the works and progress. When these are lost, joy is confounded; when they are possessed, an ordered and glorious reward is prepared.'

FOR THE DAY OF THE LORD IS NEAR (that is, the day of judgment and vengeance of the Lord, which He will execute upon Jerusalem through the Chaldeans), AND IT SHALL COME AS DESTRUCTION FROM THE ALMIGHTY. — In Hebrew there is a beautiful and forceful wordplay: keschod misschadai, that is, 'as a mighty destruction from the Mighty Destroyer it shall come.' For Shaddai is a name of God, signifying God as either merciful, or powerful and devastating, as I explained on Genesis chapter 17:1.

16. BEFORE YOUR EYES (So also the Septuagint, although the Hebrew and Chaldean have: 'before our eyes' — but the meaning amounts to the same: while you and we watch, Judea will be devastated; therefore) THE PROVISIONS (namely, of the priests — that is, the sacrifices and offerings) HAVE PERISHED (i.e. will perish) FROM THE HOUSE (temple) OF OUR GOD (and consequently) JOY AND GLADNESS WILL PERISH — with which they were accustomed to exult in feasts and sacrifices, and to worship God festively with psalms, hymns, instruments, and timbrels, etc.

Verse 17: 17. THE CATTLE HAVE ROTTED IN THEIR DUNG — that is: This slaughter by the Chaldeans will afflict not only men, but also...

17. THE CATTLE HAVE ROTTED IN THEIR DUNG — that is: This slaughter by the Chaldeans will afflict not only men, but also the livestock. For because of the fear of the enemies besieging Jerusalem, they will not be able to be led out to pasture, but in their stalls and their own dung, with hay and grass failing, they will die of hunger, waste away, and rot. So Remigius, Lyranus, Albertus, Ribera, and a Castro. For 'have rotted,' the Hebrew is abeseu, a word found only here. The Septuagint translates: 'The heifers leaped in their stalls' — not from playfulness, but falling from hunger and striking their feet against the ground, says Theodoret. The Antiochene Arabic: 'The voice of animals over their mangers, and the animals do not leap, and the herds of cattle weep for lack of food.' The Alexandrian Arabic: 'The animals do not taste, and the herds of cattle bellow for want of pasture.' The Syriac: 'The heifers have slept hungry (unfed) in their stalls.' Better, our translator, Rabbi Jonathan, Rabbi David, and Aben-Ezra translate: 'they have rotted,' that is, they have been corrupted by putrefaction.

For 'cattle,' the Hebrew is perudot, or rather with different vowel points pirdot, meaning 'mules,' from the root parad, meaning 'he divided, separated.' For mules are distinguished in species from their father and mother — namely the horse and the she-donkey — for they are neither horses nor donkeys, but a third species, namely mules. Under mules, which were common among the Jews (so much so that the sons of kings used them, as is clear from II Samuel 13:29), understand by synecdoche horses, donkeys, oxen, and other beasts of burden. The Septuagint translates 'calves'; the Chaldean translates 'casks': 'The casks of wine,' he says, 'have rotted under their lids.' The Tigurine version translates: 'seeds scattered and sown in the field': 'The seeds,' he says, 'scattered beneath their clods have rotted,' and therefore from such sowing no harvest could be hoped for.

Tropologically, in the dung and filth of their own lust, the lecherous rot away, says Remigius, Albertus, and Hugo, and St. Gregory, Morals XXIV.6 (or in another edition, chapter 8): 'For the cattle to rot in their dung,' he says, 'is for carnal men to end their lives in the stench of lust. For they are declared to be not men, but beasts, of whom the Prophet says (Jeremiah chapter 5): Each one was neighing after his neighbor's wife. And of whom another Prophet (Ezekiel chapter 23) says: Their flesh was as the flesh of donkeys, and their issue as the issue of horses.' Rupert has the same word for word, and considers this fulfilled in Jason and other apostates, II Maccabees 4, just as in this age we have seen it fulfilled in Luther, Calvin, Peter Martyr, Bucer, and others flying from their Religious Order to marriage. And St. Bernard, Sermon 10 on Psalm 90: 'How is it,' he says, 'that carnal men say to us: Your life is cruel, you do not spare your flesh? Granted we do not spare the seed — but in what way could we spare it more? Is it not better for it to be renewed and multiplied in the field than to rot in the granary? Alas, the cattle have rotted in their dung — is this how you spare your flesh? Let us be cruel for the time being by not sparing, while you are clearly crueler by sparing. For even now our flesh rests in hope; but see for yourselves what disgrace yours meanwhile endures, and what misery awaits it in the future.'

Finally St. Jerome: 'He rots in dung,' he says, 'whose God is his belly, and who says: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.' For just as the lustful man rots in the French disease, so the glutton rots in his inflammations, vomiting, and filth; and thus the Chaldean version may be understood: 'The casks of wine have rotted,' that is, the drunkards and gluttons with their pot-bellies, since their belly is a cask. So Belrio, Adage 679. THE BARNS ARE DEMOLISHED (laid waste or burned by the Chaldeans). THE STOREHOUSES ARE RUINED — that is: The storehouses in which grain and provisions were stored have been overthrown by the enemy, or have collapsed from the neglect of the farmers, because they had no grain to store in them, and consequently no funds to repair their roofs: 'for the wheat is confounded (has dried up, has perished, as I said at verse 10).'

Verse 18: 18. FOR THERE IS NO PASTURE FOR THEM. — The ancient Latins used pascuum (pasture) in the neuter gender, and in the...

18. FOR THERE IS NO PASTURE FOR THEM. — The ancient Latins used pascuum (pasture) in the neuter gender, and in the plural pascua as a substantive; but as an adjective they would call a forest or region pascua (pastoral), just as a pastoral field and pastoral countryside. Hence the adjective word pascua, namely 'a pastoral region or land,' passed into a substantive. For Scripture uses both pascua pascuae (of pasture) in the singular and pascua pascuorum (of pastures) in the plural — as in Psalm 22:2: 'In a place of pasture He has placed me'; Job 39:8: 'The mountains of his pasture'; I Chronicles 4:40: 'They found rich pastures'; Psalm 78:13: 'The sheep of Your pasture'; Isaiah 37:27: 'The grass of the pasture'; Ezekiel 34:18: 'The remnants of the pastures.' Finally, Antonio de Nebrija in his Dictionary notes that one says both pascua pascuae and pascua pascuorum. Let the innovators therefore cease to ridicule our translator as ungrammatical and charge him with barbarism.

The cause of the sorrow and lamentation, says Hugo of St. Victor, 'he adds as great losses. These losses are: the foul rotting of the livestock, the distress of the animals, the death of the cattle, the demolition of the barns, the ruin of the storehouses, the emptying of the pasture — the cause of which is the burning of the beautiful things, the kindling of the trees, and the drying up of the springs.' Mystically the same: There are four 'beautiful things of the wilderness,' namely the spiritual goods of the Church and the holy soul, which the soul loses by sinning: 'precepts, exercises, virtues, and charisms. Precepts are for health; exercises for strength; virtues for beauty; charisms for boldness. Joy is about transitory things; exultation about eternal things. But these provisions, which are exultation and joy, have perished from the house of God, that is, from the Church — because precepts are trampled, virtues are despised, exercises have perished, and charisms have withdrawn.'

Verse 19: 19. TO YOU, O LORD, I WILL CRY. — In so great and incurable evils, one refuge remains: namely, to implore Your help, O...

19. TO YOU, O LORD, I WILL CRY. — In so great and incurable evils, one refuge remains: namely, to implore Your help, O Lord. For You alone are able and accustomed to remedy the most desperate evils, when invoked by Your people with their whole heart. FOR FIRE (kindled by man) HAS CONSUMED THE BEAUTIFUL PLACES OF THE WILDERNESS — that is: The Chaldeans set fire to the beautiful villas, gardens, trees, crops, etc., of the Jews. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Ribera, and others.

Again Hugo of St. Victor: 'Cattle,' he says, 'are the lustful; herds, the curious; flocks, the gluttonous; beasts, the wanton and covetous; wild animals, the simple and uneducated; barns, the authoritative words of Scripture; storehouses, the volumes of commentators; pastures, the passions and deeds of the saints; dung represents vices and sins; springs of water, the teachers of the people; fire, cupidity; flame, lust.'

Verse 20: 20. EVEN THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD — that is: Not only I, nor humans alone, but even the hungry and thirsty beasts — just...

20. EVEN THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD — that is: Not only I, nor humans alone, but even the hungry and thirsty beasts — just as a dry threshing floor is wont to thirst for rain — for example, sheep with their bleating, oxen and cows with their lowing, donkeys with their braying, etc. — look up to You, O Lord, and cry out with diverse sounds of their throats, says Rufinus, like a discordant harmony and a musical concert, silently imploring Your help, begging from You food and drink in such famine and thirst. For the springs 'have been dried up' by the Chaldeans, who either blocked them or interrupted and diverted their streams so they would not flow into the city. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, and Lyranus. Tropologically, Rupert says: Those men are like brutes who know not how to groan except for lack of food, who feel no sorrow for their sins, and think the only thing wretched or lamentable is if something is lacking for their belly.

(1) An extreme drought is described, which was itself the cause of the greater abundance of locusts. For concerning these Pliny says, Natural History XI.29: 'Spring rains destroy the eggs; in a dry spring there is a greater yield.' That drought favors the production of locusts is also taught with many examples by Ignatius de Asso in his book On Locusts.