Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues to describe the chariots, cavalry, flashing swords, and gleaming spears of the Chaldeans, by which they will destroy Nineveh the harlot, on account of her murders, plundering, and sorceries. Then, in verse 8, he compares her with Alexandria, in population, strength, and wealth, and says: Just as that city was captured by the Chaldeans, so you also will be captured, O Nineveh. Finally, in verse 12, he teaches that God will weaken and demolish all her fortifications, and that her leaders and soldiers will be cowardly, unwarlike, and timid as women; and that her merchants and goods will fly away from her, just as the locust and grasshopper fly away when the sun grows hot.
Vulgate Text: Nahum 3:1-19
1. Woe to the city of blood, wholly full of lies and plunder: the robbery never departs from you. 2. The crack of the whip, and the noise of the rushing wheel, and the snorting horse, and the blazing chariot, and the mounted horseman: 3. and the flashing sword, and the gleaming spear, and the multitude of slain, and the heavy ruin: there is no end of corpses, and they shall stumble over their bodies. 4. Because of the multitude of the fornications of the beautiful harlot, pleasing and practicing sorcery, who sold nations through her fornications, and peoples through her sorceries: 5. Behold, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will lift your skirts over your face, and I will show the nations your nakedness, and kingdoms your shame. 6. And I will cast abominations upon you, and disgrace you, and make you a spectacle. 7. And it shall come to pass: everyone who sees you will flee from you, and say: Nineveh is laid waste; who will mourn for her? Where shall I seek a comforter for you? 8. Are you better than populous Alexandria, which dwells among the rivers? Waters are round about her; whose wealth is the sea; whose walls are the waters. 9. Ethiopia is her strength, and Egypt, and there is no end: Africa and the Libyans were your helpers. 10. Yet she also was led away into captivity: her little ones were dashed to pieces at the head of every street, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her nobles were bound in chains. 11. You also therefore shall be made drunk, and shall be despised: and you shall seek help from the enemy. 12. All your fortifications shall be like fig trees with their first-ripe figs: if they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater. 13. Behold, your people are women in your midst: the gates of your land shall be set wide open to your enemies; fire shall devour your bars. 14. Draw water for the siege, strengthen your fortifications: go into the clay, and tread the mortar, make firm the brick mold. 15. There the fire shall devour you; you shall perish by the sword; it shall consume you like the locust: gather yourself like the locust, multiply like the grasshopper. 16. You have multiplied your merchants more than the stars of heaven: the young locust spreads its wings and flies away. 17. Your guards are like locusts: and your little ones like swarms of locusts, which settle on the hedges on a cold day: when the sun rises, they fly away, and their place is not known where they were. 18. Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: your princes shall be buried; your people are scattered upon the mountains, and no one gathers them. 19. Your wound is not hidden; your injury is grievous: all who hear the report of you clap their hands over you; for upon whom has your wickedness not passed continually?
Verse 1
Verse 1. Woe (that is, to you, O) city of blood — O bloodthirsty Nineveh, who poured out the blood of all nations in order to subjugate them to yourself! Hence the Chaldean translates: Woe to the city of blood! So Theophylactus, Haymo, Rupert, Hugh, and Lyra. Secondly, the word "blood" could be taken for "crimes," as if to say: Woe to you, O wicked city, full and covered with every crime! For since the shedding of blood, that is, murder, is the gravest crime against one's neighbor, hence any enormous crime is called blood, that is, the shedding of blood, by synecdoche, where the part stands for the whole; or by catachresis, where the similar is put for the similar. Hence the Syriac and Arabic translate: Woe to the city of blood, which is wholly a lie, and full of iniquity! He gives the causes of Nineveh's destruction, namely, why God transferred the monarchy from her to Babylon. The first is unjust murders, and those very many. The second, that she is "wholly of falsehood," that is, as the Septuagint has it, wholly false; the Zurich Bible: universally full of falsehood, as if to say: "In Nineveh there is no truth, but all is falsehood," says St. Jerome, because all deceit and fraud reigns in her. The third, that she is "full of plunder," that is, full of robbery and the tearing apart of spoils. Hence Aquila translates: full of neck-breaking; Symmachus: full of cruelty or severity. "In his other edition," says St. Jerome, "I found μελοκοπίας πλήρης, that is, full of the cutting of flesh and pieces hacked limb from limb; and immediately he added: Where there is unceasing plunder," as if to say: Nineveh is filled with robberies, just as the dens of lions are full of the limbs and bones of animals torn apart and devoured by them. For with these He compared Nineveh in chapter 2, verse 11, where He called her "the dwelling of lions." St. Jerome adds: "Moreover, the Hebrew [St. Jerome's teacher in the Hebrew language] interpreted פרק perec as gubernaculum, that is, κυβερνισμόν, to show that the city was royal, and as it were held the helm of all nations as in a ship."
Symbolically, the beautiful Nineveh is this beautiful world, which in Greek is called κοσμός from its beauty and adornment. For this world, wholly set in wickedness, is full and will be even more full at the end, toward the day of judgment (and therefore it will then be overturned and burned) with bloodshed, that is, with murders and crimes, as well as with lies, deceits, and frauds; likewise with calumnies, robberies, and every violence by which it tears apart the reputation or goods or body and life of one's neighbors. So St. Jerome.
The robbery shall not depart (that is, shall never depart) from you — as if to say: Nineveh is wholly intent upon plundering; for the future tense in Hebrew often signifies the continuation, habit, custom, and perpetuity of an action.
Verse 2
Verse 2. The crack of the whip. — St. Jerome, together with Remigius, Albert, and other followers, continues to apply these words to Nineveh and the Assyrians, as though the Prophet here describes their chariots, cavalry, and weapons, by which they inflicted violence upon other nations and plundered and tore them apart. Better, Theodoret, Theophylactus, and Vatablus understand these words of the Chaldeans, who scourged and punished the plundering, murders, and robberies of Nineveh. This is therefore a vivid depiction, or living image and representation, of the war to be waged by the Chaldeans against Nineveh, as if to say: I seem already to see up close and hear the whips of the charioteers in the hostile Chaldean chariots, the course and rush of wheels, horsemen and horses snorting; likewise their flashing swords and gleaming spears, by which they will slay a vast multitude of Ninevites, and bring upon them heavy ruin, that is, a multitude of corpses. Note: "heavy" is here used for "great," that is, "much"; it is an enallage: quality is put for quantity, and continuous quantity for discrete; namely, "heavy" for "great," and "great" for "much." So Antiochus is said to have entered Egypt with a heavy multitude, that is, a numerous and abundant one, 1 Maccabees 1:18. So God sent into Egypt through Moses a very heavy swarm of flies, that is, a very great number, Exodus chapter 8, verse 24. See what was said there. Again, he calls the chariots blazing and burning on account of the speed and force with which they and their wheels grow so hot from the movement and collision with stones that they appear to burn, and indeed actually emit sparks and fire. Virgil gives a similar ardor to chariots in Georgics III:
They press on with twisted lash, And leaning forward give the reins: the blazing axle flies, Now low, now raised aloft they seem To be borne through empty air, and to rise into the breezes.
Tropologically, Nineveh is the sinful soul, full of bloodshed, that is, of crimes; she is wholly of falsehood, because she leaves no place in herself for God, who is Truth; but imbued with deceptive opinions and deluded by the devil's tricks, she thinks that wealth, pleasures, and honors are solid realities, when they are only shadows.
She tears apart the reputation and goods of her neighbors, and even turns others from the way of God, and plunders their good works, nor does she cease from this robbery. Many evils threaten her. The first is "the crack of the whip," that is, of conscience scourging the mind within, about which Juvenal says in Satire 13:
Do you think they have escaped, whom the mind, conscious of dreadful guilt, Holds in terror, and beats with a silent lash; The hidden torturer shaking the scourge in the soul?
So Ribera.
Verse 3
Verse 3. They shall stumble (the Ninevites and Assyrians) over their bodies — that is, among the bodies and corpses of their own. So the Chaldean. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: They shall fall over their own bodies. Somewhat differently Pagninus and Vatablus translate: They shall stumble (namely the Chaldeans) over their bodies, namely those of the slain Assyrians, as if to say: So great will be the slaughter of the Ninevites, so great the multitude of corpses, that they will block the way both for the fleeing Assyrians and for the pursuing Chaldeans, and both sides will stumble upon them and fall.
Verse 4
Verse 4. Because of the multitude of the fornications of the beautiful harlot. — Fornication among the Prophets signifies idolatry, for an idol is like an adulterer; Nineveh is like a beautiful harlot, as if to say: The Assyrians shall fall because of the multitude of Nineveh's idolatry, which both in reality and in name suggests beauty, and therefore on account of her beautiful wealth, pleasures, and splendor, was pleasing to all, as if to say, says St. Jerome: Nineveh will fall, because she worshipped the idols and magical sorceries of the whole world subject to her; because she was wholly devoted to magic, superstition, and idolatry, and to these she enticed, indeed compelled, all nations. Hence it follows:
Who sold nations through her fornications — as if to say: Nineveh handed over other nations and peoples to their enemies, namely the Chaldeans; because she herself taught them her idolatries and sorceries, namely magical incantations and superstitions, on account of which they were handed over by God to the Chaldeans. For it was for this reason that God sent the Chaldeans as executioners against all nations, to punish their idolatry and crimes, as is clear from Jeremiah chapter 25, verse 17.
Note: The word "sold" signifies, first, that Nineveh, like a queen but a harlot, compelled other nations subject to her, now by force, now by enticements, now by lies and other harlot-like arts, to follow her idols and crimes. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rupert, Hugh, and Lyra. Secondly, that she reduced nations to servitude and abused them as slaves, inasmuch as she sold them to the enemy, when she compelled them to go forth with her into battle against the Chaldeans; and thus she exposed them like sheep to be slaughtered together with herself by the swords of the Chaldeans. So Theophylactus. Here the saying of the poet is true:
Whatever madness kings commit, the Greeks suffer for it.
Cyril and Theophylactus add that fornication is here called sorcery, through which they sold nations and tribes, saying: Give us a reward and a price, and we will curse the nations hostile to you, and so we will make it so they cannot resist you, and you will easily conquer them — as Balaam the soothsayer did for Balak king of Moab, Numbers 22 and 23. Thirdly, in Scripture Ahab, 1 Kings 21:25, and others are said to be sold or given over to do evil; because, that is, they were handed over like slaves into the power of sin and the devil, to be driven at his nod like slaves into every crime; handed over, I say, directly by themselves and their masters and lords; indirectly by God permitting and punishing their previous crimes.
And peoples (that is, nations) through her sorceries. — He calls sorceries what the Septuagint translate as enchantments, wealth, splendor, pleasures, incantations, and love potions, that is, the enticements by which Nineveh, like a harlot, allured all to love her and worship her gods. For this is what the Hebrew כשבים kesaphim signifies.
Symbolically, St. Jerome says: Nineveh is the alluring world, possessing sorceries; the Septuagint says, the leader of sorceries, that is, of enchantments and enticements, by which she drives people mad: "The sound of whips is heard in the world, because many are the tribulations of the just, by which they are scourged, cry out, and attest to the magnitude of their pain with a mournful voice. When one is seized by a demon, another by anger which resembles fury, another by lust, hatred, envy, or pride, the whip of the Assyrian king sounds in them. But also in bodily ills we understand the whip of the devil, about which it is said to the just in Psalm 90: And the scourge shall not come near your dwelling. When we see this man rotting with jaundice and surviving his own corpse; another swelling with dropsy and his body bloating in nature, and as his limbs increase, the form of the former man decreasing; that one discharging certain putrid matters and the wounds of a damaged lung; this one feeling the bitterness of urine and the torments of the bladder as the humor dries into stones — let us not hesitate to say that the sound of whips is Nineveh."
So St. Jerome, who also adds: "And the sound of the moving wheels, while the human race is dragged here and there, and in uncertain courses through all things we know not where danger is or where safety lies; of which wheel we read in Ezekiel 1:16 and Psalm 76: The voice of Your thunder in the wheel. Nineveh also has a pursuing horse, namely the devil, of whom Job 39 says: From afar he smells the battle. The chariots, and their four horses, are the four disturbances, about which Virgil says: These desire and fear, grieve and rejoice. With these horses and this chariot Nineveh disturbs all things. And just as the four shields with which we fight and protect ourselves are the virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude; so conversely, the four vices are folly, injustice, lust, and cowardice, by which we are struck by the enemy. Each of which, as they sprout, has in itself multiple kinds of arrows by which wounds are inflicted — indeed, the wounded are plunged down even to the underworld. There is no end to her nations. Her malice has no end, and as many as the kinds of sins, so many are the nations of Nineveh, who will be weakened in their bodies by the multitude of fornication. Nor will one wonder that Nineveh is most pleasing to her lovers, who has seen such a multitude of people fornicate with her, and by her sorceries and certain enchantments almost all are drawn to love her. She sold nations through her fornications, which take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot; and she does this by her three sorceries. For she makes them love things they should have hated, and detest things they should have loved; so that when they have been deceived, they also supplant others by the same art." Hence, alluding to this, St. John in Revelation 17:3 depicts his Babylon (which is a type of the world) as another Nineveh, in the guise of a queen but a harlot: "I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and gilded with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of abomination and the filth of her fornication. And on her forehead a name written: Mystery: Babylon the great, the mother of fornications and of the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." See what was said there.
St. Bernard says excellently in Epistle 103: "Woe, woe! It is a vapor appearing for a moment, which blocks the entrance to eternal happiness. How long will you put forth as the object of such great glory hay which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven? I mean the flesh and its glory: For all flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. If you are wise, if you have a heart, if the light of your eyes is with you, cease now to follow those things which even to attain is miserable. Blessed is he who did not go after her, whose possessions burden, whose loves defile, and whose losses torment." And in Epistle 107: "The world will not long be able to keep these things in you, and indeed it will not possess even you yourself for long. For short are the days of man. The world indeed with its concupiscences passes away; but it sends you forth before it itself passes. The love that delights you without end is soon to end."
Verse 5
Verse 5. Behold, I am against you — O Nineveh, armed and furious I come in the Chaldeans, to strip you, expose you, and punish you like an infamous harlot, and to set you before the whole world to be mocked and hissed at. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: Behold me as your enemy, says the Lord of hosts.
I will lift your skirts over your face. — The Zurich Bible, Pagninus, and Vatablus: I will uncover your fringes, or your borders; that is, I will strip you of your fringes and beautiful and precious garments through the Chaldeans, so that, stripped and bared of everything, you will be laughed at and mocked by all, while everyone will see not only your nakedness and poverty, but also your hidden filth, sores, and cancers, which you covered with a trailing robe and golden garment (for he calls these "shameful parts" because she was ashamed on account of them), that is, her hidden impurities, vices, and deformities will be seen openly. For he continues in the metaphor of the harlot. Hence, explaining, he adds:
Verses 5 and 6. I will show the nations your nakedness, and kingdoms your shame. And I will cast abominations upon you — that is, I will impose upon you, reveal, and make public all your abominable crimes; by which it will come about that all will vie with one another to abominate you, and devote you with a thousand curses: for so sharp will be the vengeance of God, by which He will punish and overthrow you, that it will show everyone that you were the most rapacious and criminal of tyrants. Hence follows: "and I will disgrace you," just as all mock harlots publicly exposed in a ring or tied to a hook, and throw filth, mud, and dung at them; and so "I will make you an example;" the Zurich Bible: I will make you a spectacle; Pagninus: I will make you a defilement; the Chaldean: I will make you accursed, and I will make you most foul in the eyes of all who see you.
Morally, it is a great grace of God when He reveals to the sinner his own turpitude and the filth of illicit pleasure, for example, of a harlot. For just as outwardly and publicly nothing seems more beautiful and elegant than a harlot, so inwardly and at home nothing is more putrid, filthy, vile, miserable, and poor — so much so that the young men who are carried away by their showy display, when they see their inner filth, feel nausea and abominate them. Such is sin and the sinful soul: she is like a decorated harlot and a whitewashed tomb; outwardly gleaming, inwardly stinking and reeking; outwardly Venus, inwardly a hag; outwardly beautiful as Lais, inwardly deformed as Thais; publicly more splendid than Cyrus, at home poorer than Irus, scarcely having the dark bread she eats, as Terence says in the Eunuch. I have heard from the courtiers of a certain princess living luxuriously that her body exhaled such a stench that it seemed intolerable, and you would say it was not so much a body as a three-day-old corpse.
Verse 7
Verse 7. Everyone who sees you will flee from you. — Pagninus: they shall distance themselves from you; the Zurich Bible: he shall flee from you, and say: Nineveh is laid waste; the Chaldean: Nineveh is plundered; the Septuagint: Whoever sees you will come down from you and say: Wretched is Nineveh. In a similar way, at the destruction of Babylon it is said in Revelation 18:15: "The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, shall stand far off for fear of her torments, weeping and mourning, and saying: Woe, woe, that great city, which was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet! etc.: for in one hour such great riches have been laid waste." So of Tyre Ezekiel says in chapter 26:47: "How you have perished, you who dwell in the sea, O famous city! etc. Now the ships shall be stunned in the day of your terror, and the islands in the sea shall be troubled, because no one goes forth from you." And in chapter 27:28, he describes sailors and merchants wailing at the desolation of Tyre.
Tropologically, St. Jerome says: "As long as we honor earthly things and think them sublime, we are as it were on a certain pinnacle of pride, and we admire the beauty of Nineveh," that is, of the world. "But when we have considered her nature and have despised all bodily goods as lowly things, submitting ourselves to the power of God's hand, then we shall pity Nineveh, and judge all earthly goods worthy of lamentation, and say: Wretched Nineveh, how many are ensnared in your nets! How many do you hold bound in your chains! Who do you think will flee from you, and descend from your pride, and judge you wretched?" As if to say: Few there are, but wise and clear-sighted, who judge thus. Nineveh, then, is a beautiful wife, beautiful sons and daughters, the beautiful pomp of servants, beautiful wealth, beautiful honors, which captivate and drive many mad with their beauty. But the prudent, who consider their brevity, instability, fleetingness, cares, troubles, anxieties, and dangers, see that this beauty is painted and masked: for the fashion of this world passes away immediately, as the Apostle says. Therefore they despise these things and say: "O how much emptiness there is in things!" and they yearn for the beauty of the heavenly world, which endures forever and is divine and blessed.
A remarkable example in this matter was given by St. Eucherius, bishop of Lyon, in the year of the Lord 440. As Ado records in his Martyrology on November 16, although he was a senator most distinguished in talent, wealth, eloquence, learning, and rank, and had a wife who was illustrious and wealthy, and by her beautiful children, many sons and daughters, he despised all these things and taught all his family to despise the same. For leaving everything behind, he withdrew to the monastery of Lerins; from there into solitude, and there in a cave he devoted himself entirely to fasting and prayers, until — when the episcopal see at Lyon fell vacant — he was designated bishop of Lyon by the admonition of an angel. Therefore, when sought by the clergy and people for this office, and he himself absolutely refused and rejected it, he was dragged by force from his cave, bound, and led into the city, and was forcibly placed in the episcopal chair, which he administered with marvelous faith, holiness, and learning. His learned commentaries on Genesis, the Books of Kings, etc. still survive, which he dedicated to his sons Veranius and Salonius. For he took care that these should be educated from boyhood in the monastery, and they were likewise later called from the monastery to the episcopate on account of their distinguished virtue and wisdom. His wife, named Galla, withdrew to her husband's cave when he was carried off to the episcopate, and succeeded him both in the rigor of his life and of the place; for there she consecrated herself entirely to penance and prayer. Their daughters, Consortia and Tullia, imitating their father and mother, vowed their virginity to God, and were renowned not only for the grace of their virginity but also for the glory of miracles, as was their father — namely St. Eucherius himself, who among other miracles, encountering in the Alps a man with contracted limbs, and at the command of St. Caesarius, bishop of Arles (as is recorded in his Life), extending his hand to him and raising him up, restored him to health and the use of his limbs. So Baronius at the year of Christ 441 and 463. Hence Claudianus in Book 2 of On the State of the Soul, speaking of St. Eucherius, who, he says, "in the freshness of youth and maturity of mind, spurning earth, yearning for heaven, humble in spirit, exalted in merit, most subtle in talent, full of learning, flowing in eloquence, by far the greatest of the great bishops of his age, having published many volumes of various works for the cause of the faith, also preached to the people on the state of the soul." Whoever therefore is wise, with St. Eucherius spurn the earth, reach for the stars, look down upon the ground, look up to heaven, despise vain things however beautiful, pursue things true and eternal, and spitting upon all earthly things say: Phew, phew, O earth, how you are filth to me when I behold the heavens!
Who will shake his head over you? — The Septuagint: Who will groan for her? The Chaldean, Pagninus, and Vatablus: Who will condole with you? Because just as before you showed mercy to no one, so now no one will show mercy to you. The Zurich Bible: Who will undertake a journey on her behalf? to help her. In Hebrew the literal meaning is: Who will move for her, or on her behalf? namely, the feet, or rather the head: for the shaking of the head over the afflicted is a sign of condolence and compassion, Job 16:5; Jeremiah 18:16 and elsewhere.
Where shall I seek a comforter for you? — as if to say: Nowhere will one be found to console you, because you are hateful to all, and therefore all who have experienced your tyranny will rejoice at your fall and ruin. So Vatablus.
Verse 8
Verse 8. Are you better than populous Alexandria? — that is, populous, which has many peoples, which abounds in multitude and throngs. So Pagninus, Vatablus, Mariana, and others: for this is what the Hebrew אמון amon signifies; for it is used for הכון hamon. Again, Amon is a surname of Alexandria, because it was situated in the region of Ammonia, not far from the temple of Jupiter Ammon. See what was said at Jeremiah 46:10.
Hence the Syriac translates: Are you better than Jovon Amon (that is, Alexandria, which is also called Amon of the waters, according to the Syriac lexicons) which sits among the rivers? Therefore more distantly the Arabic Antiochene translates: Are you better than the destruction of Moab? And the Alexandrian: Prepare for yourself a lot from the cities of Horod, that is, of the Scythians, or a lot from Tammuz, which dwells among the rivers. Unless you say that Alexandria is called Tammuz from its idol, because it worshipped Tammuz, that is, Adonis the lover of Venus; which is easy to believe, for this city was overflowing with wealth and pleasures, and hence with luxury and licentiousness. The meaning is: Are you, O Nineveh, better, that is, greater, stronger, more populous, more powerful than Alexandria, the most populous and strongest of cities? Since she is surrounded on one side by the Nile, on another by Lake Mareotis, on a third by the sea, and on a fourth by an impassable wilderness, as Josephus teaches in Book 2 of the Jewish War, chapter 16. See its situation and description in Abraham Ortelius's Theater of Cities. As if to say: If Alexandria, which by her situation and by the multitude of her citizens seems most fortified, inaccessible, and impregnable, will nevertheless be stormed and captured, there is no reason for you, O Nineveh, to trust in your strength; for in the same way you too shall be stormed and captured. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Rupert, Remigius, Hugh, Lyra, and others.
Note first: This city in the time of Nahum and Jeremiah was called No, as the Hebrew text has it, which later — that is, after 200 years, namely in the year 320 before the birth of Christ — was restored and enlarged by Alexander the Great, and from him was called Alexandria, as Pliny teaches in Book 5, chapter 10, Solinus in chapter 35, Strabo in Book 14, and others. Nahum here predicts, as does Jeremiah in chapter 46:10, that it would be overthrown by Nebuchadnezzar; although some, like Castro, think this was done before the destruction of Jerusalem, namely in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, it is nevertheless far more true that it was done after the destruction of Jerusalem, in the 23rd or 24th year of Nebuchadnezzar, as I showed in chapter 2, verse 1, and this is what Nahum here sufficiently indicates.
Note second: This city was the most celebrated, the wealthiest, the most fortified, and the most populous of Egypt. Hence Alexander the Great magnificently restored it in the shape of a Macedonian military cloak, says Pliny in Book 5, chapter 10, in a circular form, over the course of seventeen days, as Justin attests in Book 11, with walls built extending six thousand paces. It was the greatest city of all after Rome (hence it is here compared with Nineveh, which Jonas in chapter 3:3 teaches was the greatest), thirty stadia long, ten wide, its very circuit encompassing fifteen thousand paces. Quintus Curtius adds in Book 4 of the Deeds of Alexander: "There is a tradition that when the king had marked out the future walls of the city with barley meal, as is the Macedonian custom, flocks of birds flew down and fed on the meal; and when this omen was taken as ill by most, the seers replied that that great city would be frequented by a throng of strangers, and would furnish sustenance to many lands." For it has an excellent harbor, on whose right side the island of Pharos juts out, supporting a very great tower, shining with fire for sailors up to three hundred stadia away. Therefore, when it was subject to the Romans, it paid more tribute each month than Jerusalem in a whole year, and besides money, it supplied four months' provisions for the Roman people. Alexandria, then, which Strabo in Book 14 calls a powerful and populous city — the work, name, and tomb of Alexander the Great — was the most ancient trading center of all Egypt, situated in a place convenient for commerce, namely on the shore of our sea, near the Canopic mouth of the Nile, facing Africa. A city once magnificent, with the most splendid buildings, both public and private.
Which city the ancients then called the Paradise of the Lord on account of the divine worship flourishing there and the holiness of its people — just as they called Antioch Theopolis. Therefore Augustus Caesar, coming to Alexandria after defeating Antony and reverently viewing the body of its founder, openly confessed that he had preserved the same city, although hostile and favorable to Antony, for a threefold reason: namely, for the memory of Alexander, the beauty of the city, and on account of the philosopher Arius, who was a professor at the University of Alexandria and was held in great honor by Augustus. For in it were the Museum, the Serapeum, and the Iseum, named after the Muses, Serapis, and Isis. St. Mark the Evangelist, finally, sent there by St. Peter, [imbued] the Alexandrians with faith and
the most holy men always presided, such as Pantaenus; then Origen, who, occupying the citadel of philosophy and eloquence, there composed his Hexapla and Octapla of Sacred Scripture, and his illustrious commentaries on it. Heraclas succeeded Origen; then Dionysius, Athenodorus, Malchion, Didymus, St. Athanasius, Cyril, Theophilus, etc. Here St. Jerome, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and other most distinguished men were educated. Philo the Jew was also celebrated here for his writings. How greatly mathematics flourished here, Cicero teaches in Book 1 of On Divination. Concerning the magnificent Library of Alexandria, stocked with books of every discipline, in which there were forty thousand volumes, which Aristotle first established, Strabo is the witness in Book 13. Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second king of Egypt after Alexander the Great, marvelously enlarged it with books sought from Greece, especially from Athens and Rhodes, according to Athenaeus in Book 1, chapter 17; but above all with the Sacred Scriptures, translated into Greek by the Seventy interpreters, whom he himself requested from Eleazar the high priest. This translation, therefore, made and produced by the Seventy Interpreters, was done at Alexandria. So Eusebius in Book 8 of the Preparation, chapter 1, Josephus in Book 12 of the Antiquities, chapter 2, Clement of Alexandria in Book 1 of the Stromata, and others. Finally, St. Catherine was from Alexandria, who, beheaded there, is said to have poured forth milk instead of blood. Rightly, therefore, does Nahum compare Alexandria with Nineveh, both in greatness, in population, in strength, and in the disaster of its destruction.
Note third: For "Alexandria of the peoples," the Hebrew is מנא אמון minno amon; but the Septuagint, reading with different vowel points מנא mana (whence mina and mna) Amon, translate: the portion of Ammon. For thus they have: tune the string, O portion of Ammon. By Ammon some understand the Ammonites, neighbors of the Moabites. Better, you should take it as the Ammonite region of Egypt, near which Alexandria was situated, as if to say: O Ammonite region, O Alexandria, you shall be laid waste; therefore tune the strings of your lyre, to sing yourself a lyric and funerary song. So St. Jerome, who also explains it differently, namely of Nineveh, as if to say: "O Nineveh, your disordered and unharmonious state, and disagreeing in diverse ways, make concordant like the strings, so that there may be a harmony and a melodious concert in the praises of God; because your beauty and greatness, which you think yourself especially to possess, will profit you nothing unless you fit yourself for singing. For consider every portion of the lot of the sons of Ammon, and how all the goods they were thought to possess did not defend them from going into captivity" — so neither shall your goods defend you. But St. Jerome prefers the former meaning, and rightly: for the discussion here is not about the sons of Lot, Ammon and Moab, but about Ammon of Egypt.
Note fourth: For "Alexandria of the peoples," it can be translated "Alexandria of tumult," as our translator renders it at Jeremiah 46:25. For Amon, or Hamon, signifies both, because a people brings a crowd, a crowd begets tumult, tumult sedition, and sedition slaughter and destruction. Wisely Livy says in Book 2: "Sedition is poison to wealthy cities, and has made great empires mortal." Hence again Thucydides wisely warns in Book 4: "Care must be taken among neighboring peoples that peace be maintained among neighboring peoples," lest their tumult and war bring tumult and war upon their neighbors. For this reason populous cities and regions, in order to preserve themselves in peace, ought frequently to send many of their people abroad to war or to new colonies, especially the idle, the restless, the fierce, and the quarrelsome.
So Justin writes of the Spaniards in Book 44: "The Spaniards prefer war to leisure; if a foreign enemy is lacking, they seek one at home." And Emperor Charles V is said to have told Francis Valois, King of France: "Your French and my Spaniards are so ardent and fiery that if they wage war against no one, they wage it against their own prince." Hence a wise man shrewdly pronounced: "For France to be healthy and preserve herself in peace, it is necessary that she let blood every decade." Indeed, St. Catherine of Siena for this reason urged Pope Gregory XI and Urban VI to wage a holy war against the Saracens and Turks; and when the Pope objected that it was untimely because of internal discord and wars, she replied that the Turkish war would be an effective remedy for quelling these discords; for in it Christians would set aside private quarrels and willingly march with united hearts against the common enemy of the faith. Moreover, they would send forth their idle and quarrelsome men, and with these sent away, there would be peace at home. A wise counsel indeed, which one could only wish the princes of the state and the Church would adopt and practice! For at home they would pacify their own territories, and abroad they would acquire the territories of infidels for themselves and the Church. Ambrosius Catharinus reports this of St. Catherine of Siena in her Life. In the same way, the tumult of its peoples destroyed Alexandria: to signify this, Nahum shrewdly calls her Alexandria of Amon, that is, of peoples and tumult. For the Alexandrians and other Easterners are hot-tempered and cunning: heat makes them volatile, changeable, bilious, quarrelsome; cunning makes them crafty, subtle, deceitful, and industrious in machinating tumults and wars.
Which dwells among the rivers. — Because Alexandria is surrounded from east and west by the Nile, which divides into various streams and flows through the city, making many islands in it.
Waters are round about her. — Vatablus: She is surrounded by waters; because she is defended by the Nile from the east and west, by the sea from the north, and by Lake Mareotis from the south. Hence the waters are her walls; whose wealth is the sea; because through the sea every kind of merchandise is brought to it as if to the trading center of the East, indeed of the whole world. Osorius, Maffeus in Book 1 of On Indian Affairs, and others write that before the Portuguese sailed to India and brought Indian merchandise from Goa to Lisbon, all those goods were customarily brought from India to Alexandria, and from there transported to Venice, and thence distributed throughout Europe. For "wealth," the Hebrew is
chel, which signifies strength as well as wealth. Hence the Chaldean translates: whose wall is the sea; Pagninus: whose outer defense is the sea; the Zurich Bible: whose bulwark is the sea; but the Septuagint, deriving chel from חול chol, meaning to begin, translate: whose beginning is the sea. From this it is clear that Alexandria was most strongly fortified by its waters and situation. For, as Josephus says in Book 2 of the Jewish War, chapter 16: "It is defended on all sides either by impassable wilderness, or by a harborless sea, or by rivers, or by marshy swamps." And Solinus in the Polyhistor, chapter 35: "Alexandria is approached by a treacherous access, with deceptive shallows and a blind sea, and admits ships through only three channels." And St. Cyril, its patriarch: "Alexandria excelled far above the other cities of Egypt, safe from brigands and a secure refuge, because it is surrounded on all sides by waters; and towards the north it is washed by the sea, while towards the south it has a broad and long lagoon, like another sea — I mean the Lake Mareotis — and is moreover fortified and encircled by other rivers and lakes."
Verse 9
Verse 9. Ethiopia is her strength. — For Ethiopia, or Abyssinia, is near and adjacent to Alexandria; hence it is called Ethiopia under Egypt. Alexandria, therefore, easily summoned auxiliary forces from Ethiopia, and more easily still from the nearest Egypt.
And there is no end — namely, of soldiers and forces, which she summoned from neighboring allied nations. For also
Africa and the Libyans were your helpers — as if to say: You had all Africa as an ally, and especially its nearer part, namely Libya. In the word "your," there is an enallage of person common among the Hebrews. For he passes from the third person to the second. Vatablus reads it differently, as if to say: Ethiopia and Egypt were a help to Alexandria, just as Africa and Libya helped you, O Nineveh. But in fact Africa and Libya are near to Alexandria, and very far from Nineveh; hence it was easy and convenient for the Alexandrians to summon help from there, but not for the Ninevites.
Verse 10
Verse 10. Yet she also (Alexandria) was led away into captivity. — Hence Clarius and Arias think that Alexandria had already been laid waste when Nahum wrote this. But from Jeremiah chapter 46:10, it is clear that it was laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, who lived long after Nahum. It is therefore a prophetic enallage of tense; for the past tense is used for the future: "was led away," that is, "shall be led away," "into captivity."
Allegorically, populous Alexandria is the Church gathered from all peoples, which, as St. Jerome says, "dwells above all the Prophets, and has teachers round about her, from whose inmost being rivers flow: whose beginning is the sea," that is, the law which is bitter unless sweetened by the wood of Christ's Cross: "which has Ethiopia in her strength: for Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands to God: and Egypt, into which the Lord came on a light cloud; and the Libyans, who before dwelt in parched lands, and afterwards became her helpers. And therefore this city too, if she does not pay attention to herself and guard her heart with all diligence, shall be led away captive and shall mourn her children. And you therefore, O Nineveh — that is, faithless men, men clinging to the world — shall feel punishments, and shall be lulled to sleep with My cup, since those also have drunk from it who were on My side and fell through their own fault."
Her little ones were dashed to pieces — they were smashed against rocks by the Chaldeans, which is evidence of the utmost cruelty as well as misery.
And they cast lots for her honored men — as if to say: The Chaldeans cast lots over the noble men and leaders of Alexandria whom they had captured, and distributed them among themselves by lot as if they were slaves.
And all her nobles were bound (Septuagint: tied; Zurich Bible: chained) in fetters.
Verse 11
Verse 11. And you also therefore (O Nineveh, in the same way as Alexandria) shall be made drunk (with the cup of God's wrath, to be punished and laid waste), and shall be despised — so much so that you will be compelled to seek help even from enemies whom you previously despised. For "despised" the Chaldean translates: overthrown; Pagninus: hidden; the Zurich Bible: obscured, as if to say: You will hide yourself out of fear and trembling; or, as others say, you will be taken out of existence, so that you no longer appear, because you will cease to exist. So Vatablus.
Verse 12
Verse 12. All your fortifications are like fig trees with their early figs. — There are two kinds of early figs on fig trees: the former are the first figs, which are accordingly called fig-blossoms, being the first to ripen and the most delicious; the latter are unripe figs, which fall off by themselves in winter. The former are meant here, as if to say: Just as the early figs, that is, the first premature and ripe figs (for this is what the Hebrew בכורים biccurim signifies), when their tree is shaken by the wind, easily fall from it into the mouth of the eater — that is, of the person standing under the fig tree with mouth open to catch and eat the falling figs — so your fortifications, O Nineveh, when shaken by the Chaldeans, will immediately collapse and fall into their mouth, that is, into their hands and power. In this sense, "fig" here signifies the tree, not the fruit. So the Chaldean, St. Jerome, Haymo, Rupert, and others generally.
Secondly, and better, Vatablus, Castro, and others take "figs" not as trees but as fruit, as if to say: Just as the later figs together with the early ones, or premature ones, which are called grossi, when shaken by the wind fall into the mouth of the eater, so the walls and ramparts of Nineveh will fall into the hands of the Chaldeans, and that easily and without effort; for it is not trees but fruits of the fig that fall into the mouth of the eater. Hence the Syriac translates: Like early figs (the first ones) which, when they have become ripe, fall into the mouth of the eater. The Arabic Antiochene: Like beautiful figs, which, when they have become ripe, fall from the mouth of the one eating them. The Arabic Alexandrine: All your dwellings, swelling like fig trees, in which there remains a residue, which when they are shaken, what is in them falls to the one eating it.
So tropologically, the souls of sinners are like figs and early figs which fall into the mouth of the devil, says Theophylactus, just as Adam fell into his mouth by eating the forbidden fruit, which appears to have been a fig. Likewise anagogically, on the day of judgment, says Rupert: "When our God shall come openly and shall not be silent; when fire shall blaze before Him, and around Him a mighty tempest;" with a great earthquake, the fortifications of the whole world shall fall, however great or of whatever kind, whether spiritual or material — both those whose first builder was Cain, and those which the spirit of error builds against the truth — all shall fall into the mouth of devouring hell, of the swallowing abyss, of the fire of Gehenna.
Verse 13
Verse 13. Behold, your people are women — that is, like women unfit for war, your people have become effeminate, O Nineveh. Hence the Chaldean translates: Behold, your people are weak like women in your midst; because on account of their cowardice and fear of the enemy, etc., the gates will be thrown open. Vatablus: The gates will open of their own accord — that is, as it were spontaneously, which is a hyperbole. Tropologically St. Jerome says: "Nineveh, that is, worldly men, have been so enervated by passions and have so declined in strength that they are compared to the weakness of women. For they possess nothing strong, nothing robust and manly in their souls. Hence the enemies, prevailing against them, opened all their senses, and entered through the bodily gates; because with hands dissolved — that is, through works of pleasure — whatever strength you had, you lost."
Fire shall devour your bars. — I take fire in the proper sense, about which I spoke in chapter 2:13. Vatablus takes it otherwise, as if to say: Your bars, which are normally iron and very strong, will not resist the assaults of the Chaldeans, but will immediately shatter, as though consumed by fire.
Verse 14
Verse 14. Draw water for the siege — as if to say: The siege is at hand for you, O Nineveh; therefore prepare yourself for it, stock up on water and provisions, for the siege will be long and protracted. Certain cities lack wells; hence through aqueducts from outside, from springs or rivers, they collect and store water in cisterns, as is done at Bruges in Flanders; indeed, at Rome most people use not well water but spring water conveyed through aqueducts. Such appears to have been the case with Nineveh. Hence the Prophet warns her to provide herself with water before the siege. Hence the Syriac translates: Draw water for yourself in tribulation (siege). The Arabic: Draw water for yourself in distress.
Go into the clay — that is, as St. Jerome says, by kneading clay make bricks with which to block up the breaches in the walls; but you will do this in vain, because there and in that very work the Chaldeans will lay you waste with fire and sword. Tropologically, St. Jerome says: Our body is clay and brick, "because just as clay is composed of earth, straw, and water, so the body is composed of flesh, blood, veins, sinews, and bones. As if to say: Because once, O soul, you have entered the clay and been enclosed in a body, endure the injury and necessities of the body, and being trampled by enemies, and all things pertaining to the subduing of the flesh, which are worthy of penance, bear them. For once having taken up clay and straw, and having been wrapped up in the empty affairs of this world, you must willingly be trampled through injury. And yet do not utterly despair of salvation: be confident, and reduce your body, that is, your brick, on account of the word you have received, as water into servitude, and subject it to yourself, that you may rule over your brick, lest the living flame of hell consume you."
Verse 15
Verse 15. You shall perish by the sword; it shall devour you like the locust — as if to say: Just as the locust consumes all vegetation, so the hostile sword will destroy all the ranks of your citizens; and, as St. Jerome says, "whatever in you seemed green and sprouting spontaneously by the goodness of nature, it will consume with a greedy tooth, and just as the locust with its reckless flight, weighed down by its own weight, so you also, weighed down by the burden of your sins, shall be dragged down to the earth."
Gather yourself (therefore) like the locust; multiply like the grasshopper — as if to say: Assemble and collect the greatest possible number of soldiers, as great as the number of locusts and grasshoppers usually is, if you wish and can; but in vain, for no forces will be able to protect you; you shall certainly perish. This is irony. The bruchus is a species of locust, about which I spoke at Joel 1:4.
Verse 16
Verse 16. You have multiplied your merchants more than the stars of heaven: the young locust spread its wings and flew away — as if to say: You have gathered a great quantity of merchandise and wealth, but all of it will quickly fly away from you like a locust to the Chaldeans, by whom it will be plundered. Vatablus: You had more merchants than there are stars in the sky: but they shall be like the locust, which flies away once it has consumed everything, as if to say: Your merchants, O Nineveh, as soon as they hear the report of war and siege, will flee with their merchandise and wealth, like a locust that flies away when the vegetation fails. So also Castro and Pagninus, who translates: The locust ravaged and flew away. This is what Zophar says in Job chapter 20:5: "That the glory of the wicked is brief, and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment. If his pride has ascended to the heavens and his head has touched the clouds, in the end he shall perish like dung; and those who had seen him shall say: Where is he? He shall fly away like a dream and shall not be found; he shall pass like a vision of the night." Likewise the saying of the Wise Man in Proverbs 23:5 can be understood in this way: "Do not raise your eyes to riches which you cannot possess (namely, justly and lawfully, as if to say, which it is wrong to possess or retain); because they will make themselves wings like an eagle's and fly away to heaven." Just as birds captured by a fowler, when an exit opens, immediately fly away from him as from an unjust tyrant; for in a similar way riches are held by unjust possessors as if captive and by force detained; hence, that they may assert their freedom from this captivity and serve God and the just for whom they were created, they fly to them, as the Wise Man teaches in Proverbs 28:8.
Verse 17
Verse 17. Your guards are like locusts — as if to say: The commanders and soldiers who guarded you, O Nineveh, shall be like locusts, which, having no leader, in danger run here and there, and which, numb with the cold of night, when the sun rises and they grow warm, fly away; so too your cowardly soldiers, when the Chaldean approaches, as if struck and stricken by fire, will scatter and flee. Note: Among the Hebrews, a "guard" is called a prefect, king, or lord, for it is his duty to guard and protect those subject to him. So Job in chapter 7:20 calls God a guard, that is, the king and lord of men. So Jeremiah in chapter 4:17 calls guards the kings of nations who were about to come against Jerusalem. For "guards" the Hebrew is minnezaraich, which is derived from nezer, meaning crown, diadem, hair, separation, consecration, Naziriteship. Hence Vatablus translates: your crowned ones, that is, as Pagninus says, your magnates and princes. The Chaldean: Your plates blaze like locusts — the plates, namely of crowns and diadems with which these princes were adorned. Others: your Nazirites; others: those separated and consecrated to you. For princes, like priests, were separated from the common people by their rank, as well as by their crown and dress. The Zurich Bible: Your dandies will resemble locusts, as if to say: Your princes wore long hair, and by that hair and flowing locks, as by a crown and diadem, they were set apart from others as if by rank. For hair and flowing locks on a man are like a crown of dignity. Hence the Nazirites among the Hebrews were separated from the common people and as it were consecrated to God by the hair they grew: hair, therefore, was the mark of honor and dignity.
And your little ones are like swarms of locusts. — "Little ones," that is, the inferior and common soldiers, of every kind and nation. For this is what the Hebrew טפסר tapsar signifies, whom accordingly the Septuagint call the mixed, namely from various sorts and nations of people. So St. Jerome. For since they are small and very many and varied, they are rightly compared to locusts, just as the Midianites are compared to them for the same reason in Judges 6:5. Others think tapsar is a compound of טף taph, meaning small, and סף sar, meaning prince. Hence the Chaldean translates: your commanders; Pagninus: your princes; Vatablus: your nobles; the Zurich Bible: your freeborn; the Arabic Antiochene: your armed men; the Arabic Alexandrine: your people; the Syriac: your Nazirites (continent, chaste ones), like a locust clinging to, or fixed in, a hedge.
Better, one should explain tapsar as "the little one of a prince," namely a servant and soldier. So our translator and the Septuagint. Moreover, "locust of locusts" is not a great and very large locust, as Castro thinks — just as "Song of Songs" is the great and distinguished song above all others — but a small one, namely the offspring and brood of the locust, that is, the attelabus, as the Septuagint and the Zurich Bible translate. Hence St. Jerome explains it thus, as if to say: "Just as locusts and the young locust, and the similar offspring of locusts which are called attelabi, fly away when the sun grows warm and are not found, so you, O Nineveh, shall be scattered and shall flee. For it is the nature of locusts that, numb in the cold, they fly about in the warmth.
Furthermore, the attelabus, which Aquila more meaningfully translated as "the devourer," is a small locust between a locust and a young locust, crawling rather than flying with its small wings, and always hopping, and for this reason wherever it appears, it consumes everything down to the dust; because until its wings grow, it cannot go away." See what I noted about locusts and attelabi at Joel 1:4. Note here a Hebraism: for when the Hebrews wish to signify a tender and newly born animal, they add to it the name of its mother, as though it still follows its mother and is nursed or fed by her. So lambs are called "lambs of the sheep," that is, tender lambs following their mother sheep. So Alexander is called "a goat of the goats," that is, a kid following its mother goat, because he was young, Daniel 8:5. So a lion cub is called "a young lion accompanying its mother lioness." So Samson says in Judges 15:16: "With the jawbone of a donkey, with the jawbone of the foal of she-donkeys" — that is, of a young donkey still nursing and following its mother donkey — "I have destroyed them and struck down a thousand men." For it is the mark of a strong man to accomplish great things with a small instrument, just as Samson killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey.
Their place is not known — that is, the locusts themselves are not recognized nor found in their place, because they have perished. This is a hypallage. See what was said at chapter 1:18.
Verse 18. Your shepherds (princes and commanders) have slumbered, O king of Assyria — O king of Nineveh. He indicates that the indolence of the commanders was the reason why Nineveh was captured by the Chaldeans, and that consequently the commanders themselves were killed by the Chaldeans, and the people scattered. For this is what he adds: "Your princes shall be buried" — first in wine, then in the earth, as if to say: The Chaldeans will invade Nineveh buried in sleep and wine, and thus will kill the buried ones and bury them in ditches. The Septuagint translate: He put your mighty men to sleep — namely, your king, O Nineveh, just as Belshazzar put his nobles to sleep with wine; whom therefore Cyrus, having captured Babylon, overwhelmed and killed that same night, Daniel chapter 5:1ff. This St. Jerome explains tropologically of the devil, for he is the king of Nineveh, that is, of the world: "For the devil's effort is always to lull watchful souls to sleep. Finally, he pressed the Apostles' eyes with heavy sleep, both in ordinary sleep and during the Lord's Passion, and the Savior, rousing them, said: Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. And again: What I say to you, I say to all: Watch. Hence those whom the devil has enticed to sleep with the sweet and deadly song of the Sirens, the divine word rouses and says: Rise, you who sleep, and Christ will enlighten you," Ephesians 5. Hence the same Christ will say anagogically in the destruction of Nineveh, that is, at the end of the world, when He will raise up people lulled to sleep in the death of sin, and make them rise to blessed life.
Your people are hidden in the mountains. — The Chaldean, the Zurich Bible, and Pagninus: Your people are scattered through the mountains, namely fleeing the Chaldeans and hiding from them in mountains and caves.
Verse 19
Verse 19. Your wound is not hidden — as if to say: Your disaster and slaughter, O Nineveh, your destruction, I say, is not secret but public and visible to the whole world. The Septuagint translate: There is no healing of your wound, that is, of the blow and wound inflicted on you by the Chaldeans. The Chaldean: There is no one who grieves for himself over your destruction, as if to say: There is no one who sympathizes with you and your wound. Pagninus: There is no cure for your fracture. The Zurich Bible: Neither is your wound light, but your blow is bitter. Vatablus: There shall be no cure for your fracture, your wound shall be full of pain — that is, your fracture can be cured by no remedy: the wound you shall receive from the Chaldeans shall be full of pain.
All who hear the report of you (that is, the rumor and news of your calamity and destruction — this is metonymy: for the act is put for the object, namely "hearing" for the thing heard, that is, for the report and news) clap their hands over you — that is, as the Chaldean says: They clap their hands over you rejoicing, because your malice and tyranny, through taxes, burdens, and other exactions and oppressions, passed through all peoples and continually vexed them all. As if to say: Because you always afflicted others, therefore now in the same way God will afflict you through the Chaldeans, and all will rejoice and praise the just judgment of God upon you.
Symbolically and tropologically, all that has been said by the Prophet in these three chapters about Nineveh and her splendor, wealth, strength, glory, allurements, paint, frauds, vanity, and destruction can easily be applied — merely by changing the name of Nineveh to the name of the world — to the world and its splendor, wealth, glory, vanity, and ruin, which we see before our eyes daily and shall see fully at its end, namely on the day of judgment. Therefore St. John wisely warns in his First Epistle, chapter 2:15: "Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." And again: "The world passes away, and its concupiscence." On which St. Augustine says: "What do you wish? Whether to love temporal things and pass away with time, or to love Christ and live forever?" The same, in Epistle 36: "The chains of this world have true harshness, false pleasantness, certain pain, uncertain pleasure, hard labor, fearful rest, a reality full of misery, an empty hope of blessedness." St. Ambrose, in On Virginity: "Learn to be above the world in this world. If you carry a body, let the interior bird fly within you." St. Chrysostom, in Homily 77 on Matthew: "Why do you pour water into a perforated cask? For to labor for these present things is nothing other than to pluck at a flame, to beat the air with fists. Certainly you run in vain; for all is vanity." St. Gregory, in Homily 3 on the Gospels: "Let us despise all present things. For those things are nothing which can pass away. It is shameful to love what clearly perishes quickly. Let not the love of earthly things overcome us, let not pride or anger tear us, let not lust pollute us, let not envy consume us." And in Homily 5: "The very ruins of the world proclaim that it is not to be loved. For if a shattered house threatened its own ruin, whoever lived in it would flee; and he who had loved it while it stood would hasten to withdraw as quickly as possible from it as it fell. If then the world is falling, and we embrace it by loving it, we wish to be crushed rather than to dwell in it; because no reason separates us from its ruin, whom love binds to its sufferings." St. Bernard everywhere calls the world a stable, the road of sinners, a prison, the court of the devil, the night, full of thorns, a cross, faithless, loving nothing, driven by the wind of vanity, an enemy of God. "It pushes all," he says in Sermon 85 on the Song of Songs, "but overthrows only its friends, that is, those who agree with it. I do not wish to be a friend of the world, lest I fall. For whoever wishes to be a friend of this world is made an enemy of God, than which certainly no fall is graver."
The same, in Sermon 9 on the Lord's Supper: "The love of the world seeks the whole world and is never satisfied. Indeed, the more it has, the more it always desires to have. The love of God always desires to have one thing alone; it is content with that, and desires to possess nothing else. The love of God seeks nothing other than God alone." The same, in his sermon On Human Misery: "See, wretched man, that all is vanity, all is foolishness, all is madness, whatever you do in this world, except only what you do for God, on account of God, and to the honor of God. You love the world and abandon God; whoever loves the world is always in anguish; to live for the world is death; dead to the world the soul will live. While you live in the flesh, die to the world, so that after the death of the flesh you may begin to live for God," he says in Epistle 105. The same, in his Meditations: "Tell me, where are the lovers of the world who were with us a short time ago? Nothing remains of them except ashes and worms. Consider carefully: those who are and were, like you ate and drank, laughed, spent their days in prosperity, and in a moment descended to hell. Here their flesh is given over to worms, there their soul to fire, until gathered again in an unhappy assembly, they are wrapped in everlasting flames. Those who were companions in vices will be companions in punishments: for one punishment binds those whom one love bound in crime." Boethius, Book 2 of the Consolation, Poem 3:
If the world's own beauty rarely endures, If it undergoes such great changes, Trust in the falling fortunes of men, Trust in fleeting goods — It is established and fixed by eternal law That nothing born shall last.
Indeed, Cicero in the Tusculan Disputations 4 says: "What can seem great in human affairs to one who knows the eternity of all things and the magnitude of the whole world?" And Seneca: "Teach that what is called happiness among men is light and vain, and that one syllable is very easily added to it." This syllable is fel [gall]: for earthly felicity, and its honey, easily turns to gall; or the syllable is in: for felicity easily becomes infelicity. And Pliny in his Panegyric of Trajan: "The condition of mortals has these vicissitudes, that adversity is born from prosperity, and prosperity from adversity."
This is what that courtier of the Emperor was thinking and tasting, who, having read the Life of St. Anthony, turned to his companion and said: "Tell me, I ask you, with all our labors, where are we striving to arrive? What are we seeking? For what purpose do we serve? Can our hope in the palace be anything greater than to be friends of the emperor? And in that, what is not fragile and full of dangers? And through how many dangers does one arrive at a greater danger? And how long will that last? But if I wish to be a friend of God, behold, I become one now." And shortly after: "I have already torn myself from that hope of ours and have resolved to serve God; and I begin from this hour, in this place. If you are reluctant to imitate me, do not oppose me. He replied that he would remain with his companion for so great a reward and so great a service." Both therefore, bidding farewell to the court and the world, devoted themselves there to the service of God. "And both had fiancees, who after they heard this, also dedicated their virginity to You, O Lord." So St. Augustine, Book 8 of the Confessions, chapter 6.
This is what St. Romula understood, who, trampling the world and dedicating herself entirely to God, as she lay dying was escorted to heaven by two choirs of angels singing psalms. Of whom therefore St. Gregory, in Homily 40 on the Gospels, exclaims thus: "O you who in this world either believe yourselves to be rich or actually are, compare, if you can, your false riches with the true riches of Romula. You, on the road of this world, possess everything you are about to lose; she sought nothing on the journey and found everything at the arrival. You lead a happy life and fear a sad death; she endured a sad life and arrived at a happy death. You seek for a time the service of men; she, despised by men, found as companions the choirs of angels. Learn, therefore, brothers, to despise all temporal things; learn to scorn passing honor, and to love eternal glory."