Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Habakkuk in the preceding chapter, hearing from God that the Chaldeans would destroy Jerusalem because of its crimes, grieved, and deprecated the destruction in verse 12, complaining that it was not fitting that infidels should rule over the faithful and destroy them. Here God meets his complaint, giving a new and joyful oracle concerning the destruction of the Chaldeans. He responds that He will destroy the Chaldeans immediately after He has punished the Jews and other nations through them, and will punish the tyranny which they exercised against the people of God. Whence, in verse 6, composing a mournful song against Nebuchadnezzar, He threatens manifold woe against his arrogance, avarice, and plundering. Finally, in verse 18, He teaches that he trusts in vain in his god Bel, since it is nothing but a mute, painted, and fabricated image: "But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him."
Vulgate Text: Habakkuk 2:1-20
1. I will stand upon my watch, and fix my step upon the fortress: and I will look forth, to see what will be said to me and what I shall answer to him who reproves me. 2. And the Lord answered me, and said: Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets: that he may run who reads it. 3. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, and it shall appear at the end, and shall not lie; if it make delay, wait for it, because it shall surely come, and shall not be late. 4. Behold, he who is unbelieving, his soul shall not be right in himself: but the just shall live in his faith. 5. And as wine deceives the drinker: so shall the proud man be, and he shall not be honoured: who has enlarged his soul as hell: and he himself is as death, and is not filled: and he shall gather to himself all nations, and heap together to himself all peoples. 6. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a speech of riddles concerning him; and it shall be said: Woe to him who multiplies what is not his own! how long, and loads against himself thick clay? 7. Shall not they rise up suddenly who shall bite you: and those who shall tear you be stirred up, and you shall be a spoil to them? 8. Because you have spoiled many nations, all who shall be left of the peoples shall spoil you, because of the blood of men, and the iniquity of the land of the city, and of all who dwell therein. 9. Woe to him who gathers evil avarice for his house, that his nest may be on high, and thinks to deliver himself from the hand of evil! 10. You have devised confusion for your house, you have cut off many peoples, and your soul has sinned. 11. For the stone shall cry out from the wall: and the timber that is between the joints of the buildings shall answer: 12. Woe to him who builds a city with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity! 13. Are not these things from the Lord of hosts? For the peoples shall labour in much fire, and the nations in vain, and shall faint. 14. For the earth shall be filled, that they may know the glory of the Lord, as waters covering the sea. 15. Woe to him who gives drink to his friend, pouring in his gall, and making him drunk that he may behold his nakedness! 16. You are filled with shame instead of glory: drink also yourself, and be stupefied: the cup of the right hand of the Lord shall surround you, and shameful vomiting shall be upon your glory. 17. For the iniquity of Lebanon shall cover you, and the devastation of beasts shall terrify them, because of the blood of men, and the iniquity of the land, and the city, and all who dwell therein. 18. What does the graven thing profit, because its maker has graven it, the molten thing, and a false image? because the maker has trusted in his work, to make dumb idols. 19. Woe to him who says to wood: Awake! Arise, to the silent stone: can it teach? Behold, it is covered with gold and silver: and there is no spirit at all in its bowels. 20. But the Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth be silent before Him.
Verse 1
1. I WILL STAND UPON MY WATCH. — Symmachus: As a watchman I will stand upon the watchtower; the Chaldee: I stand prepared upon my watch, that is to say: I, as a sentinel, will stand watchful at my post, namely I will fix my step upon my fortification; for this is the same as: "I will stand upon my watch." For "fortification" the Hebrew is מצור matsor, which Theodotion translates as circuit; Aquila, as compass; Symmachus, as enclosure; the Septuagint, as rock; all of which come to the same thing. For matsor properly signifies a citadel, or a place fortified by nature or by art, and enclosed and surrounded by walls in a circuit, in which soldiers keep watch, in turrets or battlements, lest the enemy creep in and seize it. It is a metaphor from soldiers and watchmen who keep watch at their station, so as to guard vigilantly and attentively the portion of the fortification or walls entrusted to them, that is to say: I, Habakkuk, will be diligent and attentive in my duty, just as if some fortification had been entrusted to me to guard, like a sentinel at my post, that is, in the circuit of my watches, I will stand vigilant, so that from there I may scan with my eyes, and attend with my ears to what God will answer to my complaint and entreaty concerning the tyranny of the Chaldeans against the Jews, whether by vision or by voice. Hence St. Jerome explains it thus: "I will stand, he says, in my watchtower, that is, in the sublimity of my prophecy, and I will see, after the captivity of the people and the overthrow of the city and the temple, and thereafter, what shall follow; or certainly thus: I will guard my heart with all diligence, and I will stand upon Christ the rock." But this latter interpretation is mystical, not literal.
Finally the Arabic version translates: I will stand, and walk step by step upon the rock, as sentinels do, to drive away the cold and pass the time.
Mystically, the watch is, first, the secrecy and seclusion in which God speaks to the silent and recollected soul. Hear Cyril: "In my exercise and habit I will keep watch, I will again purify my mind, free myself from worldly cares, fly upward in a certain way, as to a rock, that is, to a certain stability, and as it were to a security of thoughts situated on high. There, as from a mountain ridge, I will contemplate through the intellect what God shall have spoken to me." And St. Bernard in his homily on these words of Habakkuk: "Let us too, therefore, brethren, I beseech you, stand upon our watch, for it is a time of warfare. Not in the dunghill of this wretched body, but in the heart, where Christ dwells; in the judgment and counsel of reason let our conversation be: so indeed that we do not have confidence in it, or lean upon a fragile guard; but let us fix our step in the fortification of the firmest rock, leaning with all our strength upon Christ, as it is written: He set my feet upon a rock, and directed my steps."
Second, the watch is the state, rank, and office in which God has placed us, either by Himself or through our superiors, so that we may guard and exercise it. There He speaks, there He works: outside it He is silent and at rest. Therefore whoever wishes to hear God, let him remain in his state, and not seek another: let him not desert the office in which obedience has placed him; but let him discharge it diligently and constantly. So Sanchez.
AND WHAT I SHALL ANSWER TO HIM WHO REPROVES (that is, to the one reproving) ME. — From the Hebrew thus, first, Theodoret, Theophylact, Pagninus, and Vatablus translate: and what I shall answer to my dispute, or to my argument: my, that is, proposed to me by the wicked, who think that God does not have care of human affairs, because He prospers and favours the impious, that is to say: I will await the response of God, so that from it I may answer the wicked, who assail and accuse His providence with this argument of theirs.
Second, the Chaldee translates thus: What will be answered to my supplication. Hence a Castro explains it thus, that is to say: That I may hear what God answers to my humble and mild remonstrance, or argumentation, and the reproof proceeding from a sincere heart. But the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and our Vulgate have, what I shall answer, namely I, not what He shall answer, namely God.
Third and genuinely, our Vulgate translates: "What I shall answer to Him who reproves me," that is, what I shall answer to God, who, as my mind forebodes, will reprove me because I complained about His providence, by which He allows the impious Chaldeans to devastate Jerusalem. But I will immediately consider what I shall answer and reply to God when He reproves me. Hence the Hebrew has, what I shall answer to my reproof, or my refutation, that is to say: I know that God will rebuke my freedom of speech; but I will modestly reply to this reproof of mine what the mind suggests: for the grieving and afflicted spirit is eager to discourse and dispute about this prosperity of the impious. In a similar way Job when afflicted disputed with God, chapter XIII, 3. Just as therefore a soldier and sentinel, besieged by the enemy, disputes with him about the surrender of the fortification with arguments, either of words and reasons, or of blows and missiles; so a philosopher and theologian arguing and disputing with another about some question, for example, about God's providence, about the prosperity of the impious, etc., strains and keeps watch to hear what shall be answered to his argument by the one who defends the thesis; so that he may immediately assail that person's response with a new argument. Ar-
(1) Often the Prophets awaiting what God is about to reveal to them are compared to watchmen observing from elevated places what may happen: cf. Jeremiah VI, 17; Ezekiel III, 17. of the same colour, and because worn out by age, they cannot be clearly discerned and read from there: hence on another tablet the same were formerly transcribed and expressed by the Romans, so that they could be read. More often, however, they would coat these tablets with wax, and write with a stylus on the smoothed wax. Hence Propertius:
No fixed gold had made them precious, The dirty wax was on common boxwood.
With such styluses the boys and pupils of St. Cassian the martyr killed their own teacher by a long and horrible death, as we read in his Life. For more on this matter see Guevara. for his mind burns to discourse, and to contend with arguments, not military but scholastic. So does this Prophet burn to discourse with God, and to reply to Him when He reproves. So St. Jerome, Albert, and Lyra. Moreover St. Jerome observes and says: "He elegantly describes, with wonderful insight, the human impatience which we always tend to have in disputes, so that before someone from the opposite side responds to us, and we know in what he has reproved us, we prepare to respond. From which it is shown that the response is not of reason, but of contention. For if it were reason, the response ought to have been waited for; and thus it should be seen whether one ought to respond, or consent to a reasonable response." Therefore God most benign, by His soft and consolatory response, breaks this ardour of the Prophet for disputing, so much so that he himself, partly confounded, partly full of consolation, has nothing to reply, but falls silent, indeed in the following chapter bursts into a hymn and doxology of God.
Verse 2
2. Write the vision (that is, the thing seen, namely the foreseen prophecy, which I now reveal and show to you concerning the destruction of the Chaldeans, and the liberation of the Jews from Babylon. Write, I say, both for the present generation, and even more for posterity, whom this matter will concern; for they will go into Babylon, and return from there; so that from this oracle of yours they may learn of it, and from it conceive consolation and a sure hope of return: and therefore, so that this may become known to all, I command it to be written, not in a book, which is usually closed and put away; but on open and spread-out tablets, which are publicly set before anyone to read. Hence He adds): Make it plain (namely the vision) UPON TABLETS, THAT HE MAY RUN WHO READS IT — so that the one reading it may most easily run through and read it; Vatablus: He plainly explains it (the vision) on tablets, so that whoever reads it may proceed swiftly and readily; the Septuagint: Write the vision plainly on boxwood, that he who reads it may run.
For in ancient times there was no knowledge or use of paper or parchment; but they wrote on wooden tablets, especially of boxwood, because boxwood is soft and easily receives characters. The Egyptians then, in the time of Alexander the Great, began to write, as Pliny attests in book XIII, chapter XI, on tablets, or strips of bark of a tree which is common there and is called papyrus; and from this our paper, which is made from beaten linen (because it offers the same, indeed a more convenient use for writing), is called papyrus: for it succeeded the papyrus of the ancients, as I said on Exodus II, 5. Moreover, on these tablets they wrote either on bare ones, or ones coated with wax. On the bare ones they incised the characters. Thus Bede in his Collectanea and Flores, says the title of the cross of Christ was inscribed on boxwood; and so it truly is, as I have seen with my own eyes. For I have seen many times the title of the cross, which was brought from Jerusalem to Rome by St. Helena, and is deposited in the church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. This title is a small wooden tablet, on which the letters are incised bare, which because the tablets are beyond its own time appointed for it by God, although to the afflicted and impatient Jews it may seem to delay: for to the captives in Babylon the delay of 70 years seemed very long and very slow. This delay therefore was lengthy and late for the Jews; but for God it was brief and swift: for a thousand years in His sight are as yesterday, which has passed. Otherwise Sanchez says, that is: "Wait for it," that is, fear Nebuchadnezzar, who will shortly come to punish the wicked Jews, who, as you, O Habakkuk, complain, violently oppress the poor. For Nebuchadnezzar avenging the oppression of the poor was a type of Christ, as much as Cyrus avenging the impious Chaldeans who oppressed the Jews. Thus "to expect" signifies not to desire, but to fear, as in Psalm LXVIII, 21: "Reproach my heart expected, and misery." And in Aeneid I:
But expect the gods who remember right and wrong.
"Expect," that is, fear. And in book IV:
If I could have expected such great grief.
But this does not seem to be in accordance with the mind of the Prophet, who complains about Nebuchadnezzar as about a tyrant and oppressor of both the pious and the impious Jews, and therefore deprecates his coming. For he cannot be a type of Christ the redeemer, as Cyrus was the liberator of the Jews from Babylon. For here God consoles the Prophet by promising Cyrus, who would free the people of God from the Babylonian captivity, and allegorically Christ, who would free the same from the captivity of the devil; and He commands that He be waited for, because coming He will come, so that by this faith and hope he may live, and sustain himself and his people who are to be afflicted by Nebuchadnezzar.
Verse 3
3. For the vision is yet far off. — The Hebrew: For the vision is yet for a time. God gives the reason why He commands this vision to be written on tablets: "Because," He says, "it is far off," that is: It will come to pass after many times. Write it therefore as a memorial, so that posterity reading it may confidently await its fulfilment: for although it be deferred, certainly it "shall appear at the end." In Hebrew iapheach, that is, it will breathe, aspire, pant toward the end, so that it may quickly be finished and completed, through the event, existence, and appearance of the prophesied thing; it will show itself at the end, that is, at last when the time appointed by God arrives, it will in reality be fulfilled.
You will ask: what is this vision? What prophecy? Whom does it concern, what does it treat of? Some think that literally there is here a prophecy concerning Christ, that is: Christ will come, who on the day of judgment will punish and condemn the Chaldeans who inflicted injury; but will reward the faithful who suffered injury with eternal glory. So St. Jerome, Theophylact, Remigius, Rupert, Clarius, and Ribera. They prove it because St. Paul, citing this passage, understands it of Christ, Romans chapter I, 17, and Hebrews chapter X, 38. But I say this prophecy literally speaks of the overthrow of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian empire by Cyrus, and the liberation of the Jews from Babylon. That this is so is clear from what precedes and follows. For God responds to the Prophet's complaint about the tyranny and prosperity of the Chaldeans against the Jews; and consoles him, promising a swift end to it, which therefore he himself, from his prophetic watchtower, like a sentinel foresees and foretells. So Cyril, Theodoret, Albert, Arias, Vatablus, and a Castro. Allegorically, however, it speaks of the coming of Christ, who, overthrowing the mystical Babylon, that is, the kingdom of the devil full of confusion, rescues from it the true spiritual Israelites, that is, the faithful and Christians, in His first coming in the flesh; and will completely rescue them in His second coming for judgment. This is clear from the fact that the Apostle in the passages already cited understands these things of Christ. The same is implied by "coming He will come." For Christ, who is to come, is usually called by the Prophets ὁ ἐρχόμενος, that is, the one coming, as the Septuagint translates.
IF IT MAKE DELAY, WAIT FOR IT (namely the vision, that is, the vision and the prophecy): BECAUSE COMING IT SHALL COME (because it will certainly be fulfilled), AND SHALL NOT BE LATE — ours, which is God's; for the faith is ours, subjectively: the same is God's, objectively: for its object is God. For the formal reason for believing in faith is the first and uncreated truth of God, which can neither be deceived nor deceive. For we believe with certainty that the things which the Prophets foretold are true, and will in fact come to pass; because God, who is truth itself, revealed and promised them to us through the Prophets.
Anagogically, the rectitude of the soul and the life of the just is perfected in heaven, where on account of the merit of endurance, faith, and hope, eternal glory will be bestowed, which will give complete rectitude to the soul and all its faculties, and a most joyful and most blessed heavenly life.
Morally, learn here how great is the power of faith and hope, which overcomes all adversity, and makes the soul upright, and gives it a serene, joyful, and divine life. The Gentiles saw this through a shadow. Hence Bias, when asked "what was sweet to men," answered: "Hope." Thus hope rouses farmers to constantly endure the labours of ploughing, digging, harrowing, sowing, weeding, etc., in expectation of the harvest. Thus the hope of victory and spoils sharpens soldiers to fight bravely, to receive all blows and wounds generously. Alexander of Macedon, about to engage with the forces of Darius at the Granicus, urged the Macedonians to eat their fill, as if they would dine the next day from the enemy's provisions. To be sure, he had anticipated victory with certain hope, and in turn this hope inflamed the soldiers for the fight, so that by it they might secure victory. The same, having set out for war, when he had distributed the royal treasures among the officers and soldiers, to Perdiccas who asked: "What now remains for you, O king?" he said, "Hope." Then Perdiccas replied: "This will be shared by us your fellow-soldiers;" wherefore he refused the estate which Alexander had designated for him. "So great was the confidence that the expedition would succeed," says Plutarch in his Life of Alexander.
More divinely Jacob the patriarch: "Your salvation, he says, I will await, O Lord," Genesis XLIX, 18; and Job chapter XIII, 17: "Even if He should slay me, in Him will I hope;" the Wise Man, Proverbs III, 5: "Have confidence in the Lord with your whole heart;" and chapter XVI, 20: "He who hopes in the Lord is blessed;" Ecclesiasticus chapter II, 8: "You who fear the Lord, hope in Him: and mercy shall come to you for your delight;" and chapter XI, 22: "Trust in God, and stay in your place. For it is easy in the eyes of God suddenly to make the poor man honourable;" Jeremiah chapter XVII, 7: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence;" Lamentations III, 24: "The Lord is my portion, said my soul: therefore I will wait for Him. The Lord is good to those who hope in Him, to the soul that seeks Him;" Micah chapter VII, 7: "I will look toward the Lord, I will wait for God my Saviour, my God will hear me;" St. Paul, Romans VIII, 24: "By hope we are saved;" and chapter XII, 12: "Rejoicing in hope;" Psalm XXXI, 10: "Mercy shall surround him who hopes in the Lord;" Proverbs XXVIII, 26: "He who hopes in the Lord shall be saved;" Isaiah chapter LVII, 13: "He who has confidence in Me shall inherit the land;" Psalm XXVI, 1: "Hoping in the Lord, I shall not be weakened."
Hear also the Fathers. St. Augustine on Psalm III: "The truly mortal life is the hope of immortal life;" St. Gregory: "Hope raises the mind to eternity, and therefore feels none of the evils it endures outwardly;" St. Bernard, sermon 9 on the Psalm Qui habitat: "You are, O Lord, my hope, whatever must be done, whatever must be avoided, whatever must be endured, whatever must be accomplished, You are, O Lord, my hope: this is the one cause for me of all promises, this the whole reason of my expectation. Let another plead his merit, etc., but for me it is good to cling to God, and to place my hope in the Lord God;" and again: "If battles rise against me, if the world rages, if the evil one roars, if the flesh itself lusts against the spirit, in You will I hope. Why do we hesitate to altogether cast away wretched, vain, useless, deceptive hopes; and to cling to this one hope, as solid as it is perfect, as blessed, with all the devotion of our soul, with all the fervour of hope?" The same, sermon 10: "You are my patience, if tribulation is brought upon me, through You I will hope, You are my hope; if rewards are set before me, through You I will obtain them; if the enemy rises up, in none but You will I hope."
St. Charles Borromeo, about to reform a certain congregation, when he was warned by his associates not to go there, for ambushes and death were being prepared for him there, responded: "Is God then in the world for nothing? Indeed I will go: God whose cause I pursue will protect me; but if He should not wish it, I will willingly die for Him." Accordingly he received from God this reward for his faith and hope, that when he was shot at with a musket there, the iron ball penetrated his garment but stuck in his skin, as if repelled by divine power, so that it would not penetrate into the body of the Saint.
St. John the Silentiary, when Alamundarus the king of the Saracens was attacking, while the others were fleeing, did not wish to leave his cell, saying: "If God does not have care of me, why do I live?" Hence, as a reward for this confidence of his, God sent a lion, which constantly attending him, protected him against the barbarians. St. Father Ignatius, the founder of our Society, used to say: "You do not know how great are the powers that hope in God possesses." These powers he himself experienced continually, when relying on the help of God alone, he spread the Society throughout the world so successfully. He had indeed learned that saying of St. Peter, epistle I, chapter V, and from it that of St. Bernard, sermon 3 on Christmas Eve: "Casting all your care upon Him, for He has care of you. For to trust in oneself is not of faith, but of perfidy; nor of confidence, but rather of diffidence, to have trust in oneself. He indeed is faithful, who neither trusts himself nor hopes in himself, becoming to himself as a vessel that is destroyed; but so losing his soul, that he may keep it unto life eternal. Moreover, this is done solely by humility of heart, so that the faithful soul does not lean upon itself, but abandoning itself ascends now from the desert, leaning upon her beloved, and indeed overflowing with delights."
Do you also want the maxims of the gentile wise men? Appian, book II of The Civil War: "Nothing, he says, is more effective than hope, for relieving the weariness of men;" Thucydides, book VII: "For the most part the greatest hope provides the greatest boldness and readiness for attacking." L. Florus, book IV, chapter VIII: "It is the mark of a great nature always to hope;" Cicero in his speech against Catiline: "Hope alone is wont to console a man in miseries;" Seneca in his epistles: "Hope is the last solace in adversity; to memory everyone assigns the least, to hope the most;" Seneca in his Medea: "He who can hope for nothing, let him despair of nothing." Ovid, book I of the Pontic Epistles, elegy VII:
This goddess (Hope), when the deities fled the wicked lands, Alone remained on the soil hated by the gods. She makes even the digger bound by fetters live, And think his legs will be free from iron.
Tibullus, elegy II:
Already I would have ended my woes by death, but credulous Hope cherishes life, and always says tomorrow will be better. Hope nourishes farmers, hope entrusts to ploughed furrows Seeds, which the field returns with great increase. This captures birds with the snare, this snatches fish with the rod, etc.
Finally, Lawrence Justinian says admirably in his book On the Tree of Life, chapter II: "Hope is like a column which sustains the whole spiritual edifice, and when it fails the edifice collapses and falls into the abyss of despair. It is also the anchor of the soul, preserving it from being broken by the storms of temptations, of which the Apostle says: That we may have the strongest consolation, who have fled for refuge to hold fast the proposed hope, which we have as an anchor of the soul, safe and firm."
Verse 4
4. BEHOLD HE WHO IS UNBELIEVING, HIS SOUL SHALL NOT BE RIGHT. — For "unbelieving" the Hebrew is עפלון uppela, that is, darkened, narrow, constricted, distrustful, unbelieving, impatient, contentious, proud, presumptuous, rebellious: for all these vices are connected with one another, and one follows from another. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: Behold, the mind of the arrogant and haughty man is not right in itself; Pagninus: The soul of the proud man is not right in him; which Vatablus explains of Nebuchadnezzar, in this way, that is: Nebuchadnezzar who has a soul and mind that is not right but perverse, attributes his victories not to God but to himself, and in them exults and is proud: but the just man who has a right soul, and lives rightly according to God, is humble, not arrogant; because he humbly ascribes all good things to God, not to himself. For to have a right soul is to think rightly about God, to have right faith in God. For he contrasts the unbeliever, who does not have a right soul, with the faithful and just man, who lives in his faith, that is: The faithful man lives confidently and rightly in his right opinion and faith, which he has conceived about God: but the unfaithful and unbelieving man has a perverse opinion and faith about God; whence in it rightly and con- he cannot live confidently. Second, R. Moses, whom Christophorus a Castro follows, explains these things of Zedekiah and Jeconiah thus, that is: Zedekiah and other unbelieving Jews, who at God's command through Jeremiah chapter XXIV, refused to surrender themselves to Nebuchadnezzar, are perverse and will perish. But Jeconiah and his followers, faithful and just, who obeying God's oracle surrendered themselves to him, believing and hoping from the promise of that same oracle for their liberation, life, and happiness in due time, will live happy and fortunate in this faith of theirs, because the good things which they believed and hoped for from God will come to them. Hence R. Moses translates the Hebrew uppela as, he hid himself in the fortress ופל Ophel, which was a high and fortified citadel in Jerusalem, that is: Zedekiah with his people placed himself in Jerusalem, as if in the citadel and tower of Ophel impregnable against the Chaldeans, and neither believed nor hoped in God; therefore he will perish. But Jeconiah, instead of a tower and citadel, instead of his Ophel, had God and God's oracle: because he obeyed it, therefore he will live safe and happy. But this sense seems too narrow; especially because no mention is made here of Zedekiah and Jeconiah.
Third therefore, genuinely and adequately the meaning is, that is: He who is unbelieving in these oracles of mine concerning the liberation of the Jews from Babylon by Cyrus, and allegorically concerning the liberation of mankind by Christ, and is therefore unjust and impious, this person does not have a right soul, and therefore displeases God, as the Septuagint translates, and from them St. Paul in Hebrews X, 38, and consequently will not live the true, right, peaceful, and happy life of faith, hope, grace, and glory, both because he has Me offended, and because he places his hope as well as his fear in men and created things: wherefore now by hope, now by fear he will be tossed this way and that, and will lead a fluctuating, wretched, and unhappy life. But truly the faithful and just man, who believes in God and in these prophecies of mine from God, concerning the liberator Cyrus, and allegorically concerning the Saviour Christ, he will live a right, holy, and happy life, because fixed on God, who is true life, and on His promises, he will be dear to Him, and an object of His heart and care. Hence he translates: Behold the impious say in their heart: All these things will not come to pass, which God foretells and promises through Habakkuk; but the just will be established in His truth, namely in the faith and faithfulness of God. And Symmachus: But the just shall live by his own proper faith. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Rupert, Hugh, and Lyra.
Note: The Hebrew uppela is feminine; yet our Vulgate translates it with the masculine incredulus, because the Hebrews often use an interchange of genders, and put one gender for another, especially when another follows; even though that properly does not refer to or regard what precedes. Moreover, literally, preserving the Hebrew gender and making it agree, you would translate thus: His soul shall not be right, whose soul is unbelieving, or impatient and proud.
Note second the antithesis; for he contrasts the unbeliever with the believer and the just man, in that the former does not have a right soul, but the latter does; namely, he lives in his faith. Hence it follows that soul is here taken metonymically for life, that is: The unbeliever has a soul, that is, a life, that is not right, but twisted, anxious, wretched, and unhappy; but the just man in his faith and hope leads a right life, that is, a joyful, peaceful, holy, and happy one. The rectitude of the soul therefore is the life of the just, which consists in two things.
First, in the constant endurance of adversities and afflictions, for example, the Babylonian captivity, to which the Prophet directly looks here; for he properly wishes to signify that the Jews who will constantly endure it, receiving it from the hand of God, as penance for their sins, and patiently, yet certainly expecting its end after 70 years, according to God's promises: they will have a right soul, that is, in captivity they will lead a patient, tranquil, serene life; while others in the same captivity who are impatient, and distrustful of ever being freed from it, will have a twisted, perverse, and wretched soul, and will live an unhappy life; for by a thousand rumours, a thousand fears, sadnesses, anxieties, and despairs, they will be constantly tossed this way and that, because they do not believe or trust God and His Prophets, such as Habakkuk who promises this liberation. For the faithful, through faith and hope in the promised liberation, bravely endure and overcome all sufferings; for this faith and hope strengthens the mind to endure all sorrows bravely, as the Apostle teaches throughout chapter XI of Hebrews: "Faith, he says, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. By faith we understand that the ages were fashioned by the word of God. By faith Enoch was translated, etc. Who (the heroes of the Old Testament) by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, were stoned, were cut asunder," etc.
Second, the rectitude of the soul, and the life of the just, is higher, namely divine; whereby the faithful soul, sustaining captivity through faith and hope, and the tribulations sent by God, believing and hoping that God, as He promised liberation from them, so also will certainly provide it in His time, is pleasing and agreeable to God, inasmuch as it is patient and resigned to God's will, and therefore godlike and holy; while conversely the unbeliever and the one who distrusts God, through this distrust of his, displeases Him and sins, and therefore deserves to be left in his tribulation, distrust, and despair, indeed to be punished with new afflictions both in this life and in the future. That this is so is clear from the version of the Septuagint: If he withdraw himself, it says, my soul shall not be pleased in him, but the just shall live by my faith. So the Interpreters generally.
The same is clear from the Apostle in Romans I, 17, and Hebrews X, 38, where he teaches that the just lives by faith, that is, is justified. See what was said there.
Note here: The Septuagint reading, namely instead of באמונתו beemunato, that is, in his faith, as the Hebrew, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion read, reading באמונתי beemunati, translate, in my faith; but the meaning comes to the same thing. For the same faith is
Nebuchadnezzar was not satiated with nations and kingdoms: but the more he had conquered and slaughtered, the more he panted to subjugate and slaughter. Moreover Guevara holds, here and elsewhere, that hell and death are the same, for hell is taken for death itself, the queen of the deceased: because, he says, the ancients designated death by the name of Pluto, and called the same Jupiter of the underworld. He proves the same from the fact that Scripture often conjoins and combines hell with death. But St. Jerome, Theodoret, Theophylact, Lyra, Clarius, Vatablus, Ribera, a Castro, and others generally distinguish hell from death, and consider that two comparisons are being made here. For even the pagans distinguish these three: death, hell, Pluto: for although they call the Jupiter of the underworld Summanus, as the chief of the Manes gods, as the president of hell; yet they do not call the place of hell itself Jupiter or Pluto. Now, if hell and death are combined in Scripture, therefore they are two things, not one. You call death a queen — join her in marriage with Pluto the king, and make Proserpina. For a king and queen cannot be the same, says Delrio in adage 1002.
Finally Joannes Alba explains these words remarkably, in his Electorum, chapter XXVII: Hell, he says, is taken for death, and death for the enemy who inflicts death. Therefore he calls the enemy hell. Soul denotes the nobles and princes of the people. "To enlarge" by antiphrasis means to constrict, that is, to afflict, harass, destroy. He said "his own" for "his": for the Hebrew pronoun signifies both. The meaning therefore is, that is: The enemy will constrict and devastate the soul, that is, the princes of the Israelite people, or the enemy will open wide his mouth, to devour the soul, that is, the princes of Israel. But these interpretations are forced and paradoxical.
Morally, note here that desire, the more it is indulged, grows all the more immensely, like drunkenness, hell, and death. For desire is like fire: the more wood you throw on it, the more it grows and burns: "So the love of money grows, as much as money itself grows." Desire therefore is like a burning fever, which the more it drinks, the more it thirsts. Desire is like a beast, such as a lion, wolf, leopard, tiger, which the more it preys, the more savage it becomes, and the more it is inflamed for plundering. Desire is a charybdis and an inexhaustible whirlpool; hence the Philosopher called the belly of a glutton the charybdis of life. so that they vied in hurling false parables, taunts, and jeers at him; and at last in his son Belshazzar he lost kingdom, life, and soul. So St. Jerome, Theophylact, Remigius, and Hugh. In the same way ambition, avarice, gluttony, and other desires, like wine intoxicate the minds of men, and cause them, as if deprived of reason, to rush into their own ruin and destruction; for the wine of ambition, for example, the more it is drunk, the more it deranges a man, so that from pride he does many foolish and stupid things; through which he falls from his dignity and rank. Moreover, how wine deceives the powerful, Lucretius graphically describes:
When the sharp force of wine, he says, has penetrated, And its spread warmth has passed into the veins, Heaviness of limbs follows, the legs are hobbled And stagger, the tongue grows slow, the mind swims, The eyes float, shouting, hiccups, quarrels grow.
Accordingly the Wise Man in Proverbs XXIII, 29 says: "Who has woe? whose father has woe? who has quarrels? who has pitfalls? who has wounds without cause? who has redness of eyes? Is it not those who linger over wine, and study the draining of cups? Do not look on wine when it grows yellow, when its colour shines in the glass: it enters smoothly, but in the end it bites like a serpent, and spreads poison like a basilisk." So Chremes in Terence complains of being deceived by wine: "Oh, oh, he says, by Hercules I have been deceived: the wine I drank has won. Yet while I was reclining, how sober I seemed to myself in public; after I rose, neither foot nor mind does its duty properly." So indeed all the pomp of the world, all riches, all allurements, at first by their pleasant appearance and handsome, so to speak, countenance, attract all to themselves; but soon by so many cares, so many dangers, so many troubles, so many envies and rivalries, so many misfortunes and calamities they toss, snatch, and agitate them, until at last they dash them against the rocks, shatter and destroy them. So Guevara.
WHO ENLARGED HIS SOUL LIKE HELL. — The word "enlarged" and the word "soul" denote a great voracity. For soul is the same as the soul's voracity, thirst, desire. Just as a little before he compared Nebuchadnezzar to a drunkard, swelling and bloated with the wine of ambition, and thereupon vomiting, stumbling, and falling; so here he compares the same to hell, because his ambition and avarice were insatiable: for swallowing everything, he was never satiated, but the more he seized, the more he longed to seize, and he was like a Cerberus insatiably opening his hollow throats. Hence the ruler of hell was called Pluto by the Gentiles, because he is rich in the dead, says Lucian. For ploutos in Greek means riches. Hence also hell was called Orcus, from urging; because it urges and hurls all things into destruction, says Festus. Third, he compares the same to death, which dominates all and devours all. For just as death is not satiated with the dead, but the more it has compelled to die, the more it strives to kill: so also Nebu-
Verse 6
6. SHALL NOT ALL THESE TAKE UP A PARABLE AGAINST HIM, AND A SPEECH OF RIDDLES CONCERNING HIM? — He calls it a parable, that is, a funeral song about the destruction of Nebuchadnezzar, who lost the empire in his son Belshazzar. For the Hebrews call every remarkable, pointed, and illustrious saying, such as this song is, a parable, proverb, or riddle, especially when true proverbs, parables, or riddles are mixed in it, as is done here. A similar song about the same was composed by Isaiah chapter XIV, 4. The meaning is, that is: Shall not Belshazzar, slain by Cyrus, become a tale and a taunt to all nations, so that against him this, or a similar song, or rather jeer, they may mock and scoff?
AND IT SHALL BE SAID: WOE TO HIM WHO MULTIPLIES WHAT IS NOT HIS! HOW LONG, AND LOADS AGAINST HIMSELF THICK CLAY? — Note first, "loads" (aggravat), that is, multiplies: so often elsewhere, "heavy" (gravis) is the same as "much" (multus), as is clear from Exodus VIII, 28; Psalm XXXIV, 18; 1 Maccabees I, 18. It is an interchange of continuous quantity for discrete; or a metalepsis: for things that are many are also heavy, and weigh down and degrade a man. Hence the Syriac translates, he loads against himself a cloud of mud; the Arabic, how long shall a cloud of clay grow above you?
Second, by "clay" Guevara understands ceroma, which was made from oil and clay, and was an ointment with which athletes about to compete in the wrestling arena anointed themselves, both to be stronger, and so that, being slippery, they might evade and escape the opponent's hands, that is: Woe to Nebuchadnezzar, woe to Belshazzar! O unhappy one, what a sad end awaits him! Why does he smear himself with others' wealth, like much ceroma, like a boxer, to be stronger and more powerful for raising armies and wars? He does this in vain and harmfully. For this ceroma will weigh him down, like thick clay to his own ruin: for it will invite Cyrus and the Persians to invade and despoil him. Moreover, that ceroma is called clay, is clear from that verse of Persius: "Anointed with thick balsam;" and that of Martial:
Lest dirty ceroma soil your shining hair, With this skin you can cover your damp locks.
Simply, however, ordinary street mud can be understood here. For riches are called thick clay, first because of their worthlessness. For what "are gold and silver? Are they not red and white earth, which only human error makes or considers precious?" says St. Bernard, sermon 4 On the Advent: "What are gems, but stones of the earth? What is fine linen, but the threads of worms, namely silkworms? What are pearls, but the excretions of shells?"
Second, because Nebuchadnezzar was heaping up these riches to forge from them his forces and strength; but in reality he forged from them ruin and destruction for himself. Hence the Septuagint translates: How long does he load his torque heavily? that is: Nebuchadnezzar piles up gold, to make from it golden torques for himself and his people; but these torques will be for them heavy snares and chains, with which the Medes and Persians will bind, ensnare, and strangle them as captives. Otherwise Theodoret; for by torque he understands the burden of tributes and taxes, which Nebuchadnezzar imposed on the nations he had conquered, and was daily increasing.
Third, tropologically, riches are thick clay: because gathered from plunder, usury, and fraud, they defile the soul, weigh it down, and drag it to hell. Hence the Chaldee translates: Woe to him who multiplies riches not his own! how long will you heap upon yourself the weight of sins? And Remigius: "Riches, he says, are thick clay, because they confound the sincerity of the mind, and press upon the mind with the very heavy weight of iniquity." And St. Gregory, part III of the Pastoral, chapter XXI: "For the avaricious man, he says, to load thick clay against himself, is to heap up earthly gains with the weight of sin." The same, book XXXIV of the Morals, chapter XIII: "By clay, he says, is figured the multiplicity of earthly things, as is said through Habakkuk: Woe to him who multiplies what is not his own! how long does he load against himself thick clay? For he who by avarice multiplies earthly things, loads himself with thick clay, and constricts himself with the oppression of his sin. Again, by the name of clay is designated doctrine that savours of filth, as is said through the same Prophet in chapter III:
You made a way in the sea for Your horses, in the mire of many waters; as if He were saying: You opened a path for Your preachers, among the doctrines of this world that savour of sordid and earthly things. By clay is also expressed the desire for sordid pleasure, as the Psalmist praying says in Psalm LXVIII: Rescue me from the mire, that I may not sink in it. For to cling to the mire is to be defiled by the sordid desires of carnal concupiscence." Wherefore St. Bernard wisely admonishes elsewhere: "Do not, he says, love those things which when loved defile, when possessed burden, when lost torment." In a similar way Crates the philosopher, seeing a young man growing fat on wine and meat: "O wretch, he said, stop fortifying a prison against yourself," says Maximus in sermon 27. "For what is all this fatness other than thick clay, with which he burdens himself; and as if with a prison more tightly encloses and incarcerates the glutton's soul."
Verse 7
7. SHALL NOT THEY RISE UP SUDDENLY WHO SHALL BITE YOU? — Namely Cyrus and the Persians, say St. Jerome, Theophylact, Remigius, Lyra, and others generally. Note: He compares the Persians to dogs or beasts pursuing and biting other beasts. For when a dog sees another dog, and a beast another beast in possession of prey, it immediately attacks it, fights with it, snarls, bites, tears, until it wrests the obtained prey from it; so the Persians fought with the Chaldeans for the spoil, and wrested it from them.
Tropologically, the biters are the worms that fed upon the corpses of Belshazzar and the Chaldeans; for these worms Isaiah threatened to Belshazzar in chapter XIV, 11, saying: "The moth shall be strewn beneath you, and your covering shall be worms." So Clarius and Vatablus.
Verse 8
8. BECAUSE YOU HAVE SPOILED MANY NATIONS, ALL SHALL SPOIL YOU, etc., BECAUSE OF THE BLOOD OF MAN (that is, of men, as the Septuagint and the Chaldee have), AND THE INIQUITY OF THE LAND OF THE CITY, AND OF ALL WHO DWELL THEREIN — that is: Because you have shed the blood of many, and iniquitously devastated the land of Judea, and the city of Jerusalem, and its inhabitants, therefore you also shall be devastated. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Rupert, Hugh, Lyra. For Jerusalem was like the city and metropolis of the world, "the joy of the whole earth," Lamentations II, 13, as Rome was afterwards, of which Virgil says:
As much she raised her head above other cities, As cypresses are wont to rise above the pliant shrubs.
Second, the word "land," taken generally as it sounds, can be understood, and "of the city," that is, of cities: for Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar oppressed not only Judea and Jerusalem, but also the whole earth and very many of its cities, and therefore it too was oppressed. So Theodoret and Theophylact.
Verse 9
9. WOE TO HIM WHO GATHERS EVIL AVARICE FOR HIS HOUSE! — He calls evil avarice riches acquired by evil means, namely extorted by force and plunder. Hence the Chaldee translates, wicked and impious riches. Second, "evil," that is, ruinous, "for his house." Hence the Zurich Bible translates: Woe to him who gapes for gain, and that to the evil of his house! that is: Nebuchadnezzar seizes the riches of nations, to build himself a house in which, as in a nest, he may rest securely and softly: but in reality he gathers them for the evil and destruction of his house. For on account of this plunder God will punish him, and will overthrow the house built from plunder. Moreover the spoils heaped up in this house will provoke Cyrus and the Persians to invade it, to plunder these spoils. Now by "house" he means both the palace, which Nebuchadnezzar built as a most magnificent and equally most fortified citadel, to immortalize his name and family and lineage in it; and Babylon itself, of which he boasted in Daniel chapter IV, 27: "Is not this the great Babylon, which I have built as the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the glory of my splendour?" For besides the buildings either built by him, or more magnificently restored, "he constructed three circuits of walls within the city, and surrounded it with as many outside, all of baked bricks. And when he had fortified the city with memorable works, and adorned the gates in the manner of temples, he built another palace contiguous to his father's royal palace, whose foundations, and the rest of its magnificence it would perhaps be superfluous to describe," says Josephus, book X of the Antiquities, chapter XI. Finally, tropologically, St. Jerome says: Evil avarice is so called to distinguish it from good avarice, so that the good avarice is that of an ecclesiastical teacher, who is never satiated by the multitude of his followers; and the more disciples he has, the more he is spurred to the study of doctrine.
THAT HIS NEST MAY BE ON HIGH, AND HE THINKS TO DELIVER HIMSELF FROM THE HAND OF EVIL. — He alludes to the eagle, to which he compared Nebuchadnezzar in chapter I, 8, that is: Just as the eagle places its nest on high, to protect and free itself and its young from men and rapacious beasts, and therefore brings all its prey there, so that it too may be in a safe place: so Nebuchadnezzar placed his citadel in Babylon, to protect himself and his people against all kings by it, and therefore heaped up there the spoils of all nations. But he errs; for from this lofty nest a loftier God will hurl him down. Thus that Roman used to say, "citadels are the nests of tyrants."
Verse 11
11. For the stone shall cry out from the wall. — It is a proverb signifying a public and enormous crime and injury which cannot be concealed, that is: Your tyranny and violence is so great, and so manifest, that even if men were silent, nevertheless the very stones and timbers, even those hidden in the joints, which you plundered, or bought with plundered money, for erecting your palaces and walls in Babylon, when they shall be taken, burned, and devastated by Cyrus, will, as if in equal or alternating harmony, before God and the whole world publicly testify and cry out that you are a wicked plunderer and tyrant; and so they will reproach and insult you, and will call down hostilely God's vengeance and every curse; because you inflicted violence upon them, removing them from their place: for by natural appetite they will desire and as it were cry out, demanding justice from God, that they be restored to their place. It is a prosopopoeia, similar to that of Isaiah XIV, 8: "The fir trees also rejoiced over you, and the cedars of Lebanon." And chapter XXXIII, 9: "The earth mourned and languished: Lebanon was confounded." For the Prophet introduces, as if in a comedy, the stones and timbers of Babylon, like a chorus singing in alternation, and proclaiming the tyranny of Nebuchadnezzar, and exulting over his slaughter and destruction, and saying: the people of Saguntum, he says, renowned for their fidelity and sufferings, greater in the zeal of mortals than in wealth: for even then their half-ruined walls, roofless houses, and scorched walls of temples displayed the Punic hands." Something similar Cicero says to Caesar in the speech For Marcellus: "By heavens, C. Caesar, the very walls of this senate house long to thank you, because shortly that authority will be in these seats of their ancestors, and in their own seats." Then St. Jerome adds: "Moreover, what we have translated as: And the timber which is between the joints of the buildings shall answer, for which the Septuagint put κάνθαρος, that is, a beetle from the wood shall speak these things (meaning: The worm from the wood and beam, together with its beam, shall cry out your injustice and that violence was done to it), Symmachus more clearly in his manner translated σύνδεσμος, that is, the wooden joint of the building shall speak these things. So also Theodotion, and the Fifth Edition. For what in Hebrew is called כפיס caphis, signifies the timber which is placed in the middle of a structure to hold the walls together, and is commonly called among the Greeks ἐμάντωσις. Aquila translates: A mass from the wood shall answer. I have also found another edition: For the stone from the wall cried out like a worm speaking in the wood; and another: For the stone from the wall shall cry out, and the σκώληξ from the wood shall speak these things:" σκώληξ means the same as worm, for example, the wood-worm which breeds in timber. For when houses are devastated, the beams and timbers falling to the ground become corrupt and rot, and generate wood-worms and other worms, which in reality testify and cry out that violence was done to the houses, and thereby their ruin and destruction. So Cyril and Theophylact, who also adds that perhaps the Septuagint called the framework of beams sustaining the ridge- poles "beetles" (cantharos), because they themselves support the roof placed upon them. Delrio also plausibly conjectures in adage 1003 that Aquila translated μάσσα, from μάσασθαι, which in Homer means to seize. For timber of this kind seizes the walls; and perhaps from its bent shape it is called σκωλοξ: because σκωληκιειδής exhibits the appearance of a worm; just as arrows are also called scorpions; and machines battering rams or tortoises; and the heads of beams projecting and protruding in buildings are called dogs. For thus all the versions of the ancients are reconciled, so that they come to the same thing.
Allegorically St. Jerome says: "I know, he says, that one of the brethren understood the stone that cried from the wall as the Lord and Saviour; and the beetle speaking from the wood as the thief who blasphemed the Lord: although this can be piously understood, yet how it can be fitted to the whole context of the prophecy, I do not find."
Tropologically, the stones and beams of temples and monasteries will cry out on the day of judgment against the heretics who demolished or burned them: they will cry out, I say, that they are sacrilegious, and will demand vengeance from God; because they violated God's throne, because they despoiled priests and Religious, God's servants, of their dwellings, because they suppressed God's praises and worship. Thus in England under Henry VIII, the author of the schism.
Ten thousand temples one year destroyed.
Again, the same will cry out against priests and Religious who lived unworthily and irreligiously in places so holy and consecrated to God, and gave scandal to the faithful, and will say that word of Isaiah XXVI, 10: "In the land of the saints he did iniquitous things, and (therefore) shall not see the glory of the Lord." Thus the stone and wall cried out against Belshazzar sacrilegiously profaning the vessels of the temple and drinking from them, when it sent forth from itself a hand threatening him with destruction, which pronounced upon him the sentence of death: Mane, Tekel, Phares, Daniel V, 25.
AND ESTABLISHES THE CITY (Babylon) BY INIQUITY. — "Establishes" (praeparat), that is, as the Zurich Bible has it, restores; Vatablus, props up; others, erects, rebuilds, strengthens, arranges, adorns from plunder and from the sweat of the poor: for all these things are signified by the Hebrew כונן konen, which our Vulgate usually translates as "prepares" (praeparat). Hence Proverbs VIII, 27 says: "When He prepared," that is, formed, founded, "the heavens, I was present." So in Isaiah chapter II, 2 it says: "Prepared," that is, founded, erected, adorned, "the mountain of the house of the Lord," namely Zion, that is, the Church of Christ. See what was said there.
For Nebuchadnezzar among other things "constructed three circuits of walls within the city (Babylon), and surrounded it with as many outside, all of baked bricks," says Josephus, book X, chapter XI. See what was said on Daniel IV, 27.
Verse 12
12. WOE TO HIM WHO BUILDS A CITY (Babylon) WITH BLOOD! — that is, from money obtained by slaughter; likewise from the oppressions of the poor, whom he forces to sweat and labour in this work, and to exhaust their breath and blood in it. So the Chaldee, Albert, Hugh, Vatablus, and others. Hence the Arabic translates: For the stone from the wall shall cry out in blood, and the peg, or stake from the beam shall speak.
Somewhat differently St. Jerome: "The stones, he says, of the walls which you have destroyed, and the timbers of those you have overturned, shall cry out your ferocity." With a similar figure Christ says in Luke XIX, 40: "If these (the children crying out, Hosanna to the Son of David) shall be silent, the stones shall cry out." So also Sallust: "The Sa-
Verse 13
13. ARE NOT THESE THINGS FROM THE LORD OF HOSTS? — "These things," namely what I prophesy against you, O Nebuchadnezzar, that is: These disasters and destructions which I direct against you, I direct not from myself, but from the mouth and decree of God: from God, I say, who is the Lord of hosts, not merely of human armies, as you are, but also of angelic ones, and of all creatures. For all these fight for Him, and at His nod are hurled against the impious. So St. Jerome. Otherwise Theodoret and Theophylact say, that is: Shall not an account of your past life be demanded by God? namely of your tyranny, by which you burned nations and cities with fire, when they vainly resisted you, because they were overcome and crushed by your forces.
FOR THE PEOPLES SHALL LABOUR IN MUCH FIRE — namely the fire with which Babylon will be set ablaze by Cyrus and the Persians, to extinguish it: but in vain and to no purpose. For with all their labour they will not be able to stop or quench it; but rather weary and broken they "shall faint." Second, the Chaldee says: Are not, he says, severe blows coming from the face of the Lord of hosts, and the labour of strong nations is like fire, and kingdoms shall labour in vain? that is: The Chaldeans labour to heap up plunder and riches; but they labour for fire, because they prepare rich material for the fire by which Babylon will be burned by Cyrus. Therefore these labours of theirs will fall into nothing and fail, because they will be consumed by fire. Thus "in the works of their hands the sinner was caught," as the Psalmist says. So Vatablus and a Castro.
14. FOR THE EARTH SHALL BE FILLED, THAT THEY MAY KNOW THE GLORY OF THE LORD, AS WATERS COVERING THE SEA. — So also the Syriac and Arabic, that is: The Chaldeans shall labour in vain to extinguish the conflagration; because their land will be filled with fire and incendiaries, namely the Medes and Persians their enemies, who with their innumerable multitude will cover Babylon, indeed will pour themselves out into the neighbouring nations, and overflow, just as the waters fill and cover the bed of the sea. The Hebrew: as the waters cover over the sea, that is, above the bed and shores of the sea, they overflow and flood into the neighbouring fields. And from this so full and terrible vengeance, all nations shall know the glory of the Lord, who punishes and crushes these tyrants. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Albert, and Lyra. Second, Theophylact says, that is: Just as abundant water flooding and surging overflows into every place on every side; so the fame of this vengeance and destruction of Babylon, and from it the knowledge of God and the avenging Deity, shall fill the earth, and be poured out upon all nations, so that all may acknowledge, celebrate, and fear the glory, that is, the glorious justice and power of God. According to this sense the Hebrew ki, that is "because," signifies not the cause, but the effect and consequence, as also often elsewhere. Yet it can be taken properly, to signify the final cause. For God punished Babylon because He intended through this punishment to make manifest to the whole world His justice and glory.
Verse 15
15. WOE TO HIM WHO GIVES DRINK TO HIS FRIEND, POURING IN HIS GALL, AND MAKING HIM DRUNK THAT HE MAY BEHOLD HIS NAKEDNESS! — For "his gall" the Hebrew is חמתך chamatecha, which first can be translated as your wineskin, so Pagninus and Vatablus; second, your fury, or his, so Aquila and Symmachus; or turbid overthrow, so the Septuagint; or your outpouring, so Theodotion; or as others have it, your madness, or your poison, or your gall, or his, by an interchange of person, so our Vulgate. The Syriac and Arabic translate: Woe to him who gives his friend to drink the dregs (or the turbid portion) of his fury. Now various interpreters give various senses here. First, the Hebrews and from them St. Jerome, Lyra, Hugh, and St. Thomas report that Nebuchadnezzar, on the day of a solemn feast and public banquet, ordered that Zedekiah the king of Judah, his captive, be given to drink a καθαρτικόν, that is, a potion that would loosen the bowels, and when it had worked and opened his belly, he ordered that he be brought into the banquet hall, so that before the eyes of all the princes he might be mocked as he discharged filth; from which occurrence, they say, he was so affected by shame that, led back to prison, he died of grief, and this is what Habakkuk here reproves in Nebuchadnezzar. They add that this was customary among the Chaldeans at banquets, to amuse themselves with the drunkenness, nakedness, and foulness of others, as if it were part of a splendid table. This is what the Hebrews write in the Seder Olam, chapter XXVIII. "Zedekiah perished, they say, and concerning him they established this lamentation: Alas, who died King Zedekiah, drinking the dregs of all ages!" Which Genebrardus in his Chronology expounds thus, that is: Who paid for the sins of all previous ages. But St. Jerome here laughs at this as a rabbinical fable, especially since Scripture has nothing of the sort, nor Josephus in book X of the Antiquities, chapter XI, where he indicates that Zedekiah died a natural death and was honourably buried by Nebuchadnezzar.
Second, Theophylact, Clarius, Vatablus, and Abulensis on chapter XXV, book IV of Kings, question XXXVIII, consider that Nebuchadnezzar is here accused because he made Zedekiah and other princes he had captured drunk, to this end, that when drunk and inflamed with wine they might tear their tunics (for the Hebrews and Chaldeans did not use trousers), and thus expose their private parts, so that by this means and disgrace he might mock them, and present them as objects of ridicule to all the guests, just as Noah when drunk was mocked by his son Ham, Genesis IX, 21, to which there is an allusion here.
Third and genuinely, that is: Woe to Nebuchadnezzar and his followers, who pours out his gall, that is, his bile and bitterness, and, as Aquila has it, his fury unto drunkenness, even to kings who are his friends! that is, who harasses them with cruel tyranny, until he shamefully strips and lays bare of kingdom, riches, honour, and finally liberty itself, to their mockery. Woe, I say, to him! for by the law of retaliation he himself will in like manner be stripped by others, and punished with equal ignominy and mockery. It is a metaphor from a drunkard, who from drunkenness and heat is accustomed to be stripped naked, and therefore to be mocked, as I have already said of Noah. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Theodoret, Hugh, and Ribera.
Some read this verse 15 thus: Woe to him who gives his neighbour to drink a turbid overthrow, and makes him drunk! Woe to him who makes the blind err in the way! So Blessed Orsiesius, a disciple of St. Pachomius, in his Monastic Instruction, whom St. Jerome mentions in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, and which is extant in the appendix of the Library of the Holy Fathers, where he himself applies this saying to those who defend their subjects and their errors when they are reproved by superiors: "For such persons, he says, err, and will make others err, while they transfer the obedient to pride; and those who could walk in the sweetness of charity, they turn to bitterness, and corrupt those subject to the rules of the monastery with evil counsels, and cause them to hate and be grieved against him who was teaching them the Lord's discipline, sowing quarrels and discords among the brethren, and instead of obedience they sow obstinacy in the hearts of their hearers." Hence tropologically, the devil's associates and diabolical men give their friends gall to drink, who by their bitter doctrine kill the minds of men: "For those whom they foresee they cannot supplant through the vices of the flesh and desire, they destroy with the poisonous cup of perverse doctrine, lest they alone be tormented in eternal punishments," says Apponius, book II on the Canticles, volume I of the Library of the Holy Fathers.
Verse 16
16. YOU ARE FILLED WITH SHAME INSTEAD OF GLORY: DRINK ALSO YOURSELF, AND BE STUPEFIED — and from your stupor be laid bare, that you may be mocked. Our Vulgate seems to have read, with the Septuagint and the Zurich Bible, הרעל herael, that is, be stupefied: now by metathesis they read הערל hearel, that is, uncover the foreskin. So the Chaldee and Pagninus. The meaning is, that is: You also, O Nebuchadnezzar, shall drink from the cup of God's wrath, you shall be made drunk with the wine of anguish, perplexity, ignominy, and confusion: you shall be stupefied like drunkards who expose their private parts, that is, you shall be punished severely and even to the point of stupor, so that all your foulnesses are laid bare, and displayed for all to mock: indeed you shall be so filled that shameful vomiting will follow, and flow over your glory, so that by vomiting you may soil your glorious garments, and all your honour and glory, that is, so that you may shamefully vomit forth into the hands of Cyrus and the Persians all that you had greedily swallowed and possessed gloriously. Hence Pagninus translates: Drink also yourself, and your foreskin shall appear; the cup of the right hand of the Lord shall turn upon you, and shameful vomiting shall come upon your glory.
Symbolically, note here the foulness of pleasures, gluttony, and debauchery; seeing that they immediately turn into vomit, filth, and excrement. Accordingly St. Gregory Nazianzen, oration 38, says that "pleasures are nothing other than precious dung"; precious because they are prized by the glutton, and procured by him with great labour and cost. Following his master Nazianzen, St. Jerome, epistle 13 to Paulinus, says: "He who desires Christ, and feeds on that bread, does not greatly inquire from how precious foods he makes dung. Whatever is not felt after the gullet, let it be the same to you as bread and vegetables." And Nicetas on oration 38 of Nazianzen, near the end: "All pleasure, he says, that is not received from God or in God, is the excrement of pleasure." They themselves learned this from St. Paul in Philippians III, 8, who says: "For whose sake (Christ's) I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as dung, that I may gain Christ." Wherefore rightly St. Eucherius in his epistle to Valerianus says: "Will anyone, he asks, from that school of Aristippus see the truth, who by his nature differs nothing from swine or cattle, since he places blessedness in bodily pleasure, whose God is his belly, and whose glory is in his shame?" Hence also that saying of Horace: "A pig from the herd of Epicurus."
THE CUP OF THE RIGHT HAND OF THE LORD SHALL SURROUND YOU. — He alludes first to the cup going around the guests, that is, circulating in the round of the banquet, that is: The cup of God's vengeance has been served to the Jews, Moabites, Egyptians, and other nations: at last it will also be served to the Chaldeans and their king, that he may drain its dregs, and that it may make him drunk, and compel him to burn and vomit. For Jeremiah expressly says this in chapter XXV, 17. Similar is Lamentations IV, 21, and Psalm IV, 21. So Theophylact and Sanchez.
Second, and more forcefully, he alludes to drinkers who, when they wish to make some strong drinker drunk, and throw him off his mind, table, and bench, assail and surround him on every side by serving him cups, until they overwhelm him with wine and sleep, so that he is compelled to strip himself naked and vomit. So God with the cups of His wrath and vengeance, namely the Persians and Medes, surrounded the Chaldeans on every side, until they were overwhelmed at their throats, and driven to stupor and madness. Moreover, lest any Italian marvel at this contest of cups more fierce than of weapons, and their Bacchic, indeed bestial siege, and that he may know how bibulous and wine-loving some people are, let him hear that verse of Martial, book IX, epigram LXXIV:
Now tell me who it shall be, for whom, Calathiscus, of the gods I bid you pour six cups? It shall be Caesar;
And of Ovid, Fasti III:
You will find there one who drinks away Nestor's years, that is, who drinks as many cups as Nestor had years, namely three hundred, or, as others say, ninety. And of Horace, book III, ode XXI:
Kings are said to press with great cups, And to torment with wine those they labour to examine.
And of Juvenal, satire VI:
As if a long serpent had fallen Into deep vats, drink.
Verse 17
17. THE INIQUITY OF LEBANON — that is, committed by you in Lebanon. He calls Judea and Jerusalem "Lebanon," both because Lebanon was the boundary and the beginning of Judea toward the north; and because Jerusalem, with the multitude and loftiness of its houses and towers, resembled Lebanon dense with cedars, cypresses, and other tall trees, and was built from them, so Theodoret, Theophylact, Vatablus, Arias, and Clarius; indeed St. Jerome, the Chaldee, Remigius, Hugh, Lyra, and Ribera think Lebanon here means the temple: because it was constructed from the cedars of Lebanon, and because Lebanon is named from the whiteness of the snows that cover it (for Lebanon in Hebrew means the same as white); so also the temple, because of the whiteness of its stones, appeared like a snowy mountain, as Josephus testifies in book VI of the Wars, chapter VI. The meaning is, that is: The iniquity and violence with which you, O Nebuchadnezzar, devastated Judea, destroyed Jerusalem, and burned the very temple of God, shall overwhelm and destroy you, so that in like manner your Babylon, with your son Belshazzar, may be devastated, destroyed, and burned by the Persians and Medes. Here that common saying is true: "He who seeks to harm another, harms himself."
AND THE DEVASTATION OF BEASTS SHALL TERRIFY THEM. — The Hebrew: The devastation of beasts, that is, of wild animals, shall terrify, or crush them, namely the beasts. Our Vulgate translates "them"; because by animals, that is, beasts, he calls both the Chaldeans, who like leopards, bears, and lions devastated Lebanon, that is, Judea, so Arias and Vatablus; and also the Medes and Persians, who like beasts against beasts, that is, against the Chaldeans, attacked. So Theodoret and Theophylact. The meaning is, that is: Because the Chaldeans savagely, like beasts, devastated Jeru- salem, therefore in turn they will be savagely struck down, devastated, and crushed by the Medes and Persians, like beasts.
BECAUSE OF BLOOD (that is, because of the copious blood of men, which you shed), AND THE INIQUITY OF THE LAND, AND THE CITY — that is, because of the iniquity, violence, and plundering of the land of Judea, and of the holy city of Jerusalem, that is: Because you plundered and desolated Judea and Jerusalem, and all who dwelt therein, therefore by equal lot and right you also shall be plundered and desolated by Cyrus and the Persians. So the Chaldee and others generally.
Verse 18
18. WHAT DOES THE GRAVEN IMAGE PROFIT (Clearly the Septuagint reads: What does it profit the graven image, that they carved it? They formed it a molten image, a false representation: because the maker trusts in his own creation, that is: What will your graven images, that is, your idols, profit you and yourselves, O Chaldeans, then (when you shall be destroyed by Cyrus), in which you glory, as if through them you were invincible, and famous for all spoils and victories?) BECAUSE ITS MAKER CARVED IT? — Namely the idol-maker carved and made this graven image, sculpting it with a chisel: but another (for a graven and a molten image are not one and the same idol, but the former is carved, the latter is melted: therefore the verb "made" or "cast a molten image" must be understood here, so Vatablus) made a molten image, melting and casting it in a furnace; which are nothing other than a false image of God, and a lying divinity, devoid of all godhead, providence, counsel, doctrine, indeed even of life, brute and mute, that is: The elegant sculpture of the sculptor profits the graven image nothing, nor the skilful casting of the caster the molten image: for he himself with all his art could not form a God, or impart or inspire a soul and mind, much less deity, into the stone which he carved into an idol, or the metal which he cast into an idol: therefore he trusts in it in vain, in vain he invokes it saying: Awake, and fight for me: in vain he ascribes strength and victory to it, both he himself and his followers who worship idols: and this will be evident to the eye, when your idols, O Chaldeans, shall be plundered and shattered by the Persians along with you. Note: For "dumb idols," in the Hebrew there is an elegant paronomasia אלילים אלמים elilim illemim, that is, little gods who are tongueless and little mutes. The Septuagint has φαντασίαν ψευδήν, that is, mute idols. Accordingly, opposing the true God to these idols, he concludes the chapter with this exclamation: "But the Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth be silent before Him."
Verse 19
19. WOE TO HIM WHO SAYS TO WOOD: AWAKE, ARISE! — For the Gentiles, because they knew that Jupiter, Saturn, Vulcan, Apollo, Venus, etc., had been human beings whom their ancestors enrolled among the gods, hence they believed that they still had bodies which needed rest and sleep for nourishment, and that they slept from time to time, and therefore needed to be awakened from sleep, in the manner of kings and princes. Hence when about to pray, especially in the morning, they would rouse the gods by calling out to them, so that they might hear their prayers. Hear Arnobius, book VII: "What do those wake-up calls mean, which you sing in the morning with voices joined to the flute? For the gods above fall asleep, so that they need to return to their watches." Hence Elijah in 3 Kings XVIII, 27, mocking the priests of Baal, says: "Cry with a louder voice: for he is a god, etc., surely he sleeps, so that he may be awakened." Lactantius, book VI: "They slaughter, he says, victims for God, as if He were hungry: they pour out wine, as if He were thirsty: they light lamps, as if He were in darkness." Martial, On Isis:
Her crowd announces the eighth hour to the Pharian heifer, that is, to Isis, who had the form of a calf. Apuleius, book XI, about the same: "With the greetings of the dawning light, the devout make noise announcing the first hour." Seneca, quoted by St. Augustine, book VI of the City of God, chapter X, laughing at this foolishness of his countrymen: "One, he says, reports the divine names to God, another announces the hours to Jupiter, another is a lictor, another an anointer. There are women who arrange the hair of Juno and Minerva: there are those who hold the mirror," etc.
Verse 20
20. BUT THE LORD IS IN HIS HOLY TEMPLE — that is: God is not made of carved or molten gold, formed in time by a craftsman, and therefore does not dwell in a carved or molten idol; which idolaters place on earth, namely in their shrines; but in heaven, which is His throne and temple, He dwells gloriously from all eternity; for He is uncreated and eternal. From heaven therefore He looks down and sees, governs and directs the affairs of men at His will. Accordingly, "let all the earth be silent before Him." Let it be silent, out of reverence, fear, admiration, and awe. Hence the Septuagint: Let all the earth reverence Him; the Syriac: Let it be moved, or tremble before Him; the Arabic: Let all the earth fear before Him. For "to be silent" in Scripture by metalepsis often signifies to fear, to reverence, to be astounded, as in Zephaniah I, 7: "Be silent before the face of the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is at hand;" 1 Maccabees I, 3: "And the earth was silent in his sight," that is, of Alexander the Great; because terrified by his arms and victories it fell silent, as mice are silent before a cat, sheep before a wolf, birds before a hawk. Again, Theodoret and Theophylact understand the temple here as the Temple of Jerusalem. For in it, not in idols, God resided, and was present to His people: much more now in the New Law, He is present in churches, and Christ dwells bodily in the Holy Eucharist. Accordingly, rightly does St. Francis, in his exhortatory epistle to the priests of his Order, which is found in volume V of the Library, of the Holy Fathers, at the end, says: "Great, he says, is the misery, and pitiable the weakness, when you have Him (Christ in the Eucharist) present, and you concern yourselves with anything else in the whole world. Let every man tremble, let the whole world quake, and let heaven exult, when upon the altar in the hands of the priest is Christ, the Son of the living God." And our Thomas a Kempis, and therefore an irrefragable doctor, book IV of the Imitation of Christ, chapter III: "O wonderful condescension of Your love toward us, that You, O Lord God, the creator and life-giver of all spirits, deign to come to a poor little soul, and to enrich its hunger with all Your divinity and humanity, etc. Let heaven and earth, and all their adornment, be silent before You, my sweetest beloved; for whatever of praise and beauty they have is from the generosity of Your condescension; nor shall they attain to the beauty of Your name, whose wisdom has no number."
Accordingly, in the Liturgy of St. James, the readers rouse the people to reverence with these words: "Let all human and mortal flesh be silent, and stand with fear and trembling, and think of nothing earthly within itself. For the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, Christ our God, comes forth to be immolated, and to be given as food to the faithful. And before Him go the choirs of angels with all dominion and power." Blessed Aloysius Gonzaga had firmly impressed these words upon himself, and therefore never suffered any wandering of mind in prayer, and especially in holy communion. When asked about this by Cardinal Bellarmine, how it could be possible, he answered: "I would marvel if it could be otherwise. For who, he said, persuading himself that he is conversing with the divine Majesty, and is seen and addressed by It, could turn his eyes and mind to other base and trifling things?" So his Life and the process of canonization record.
Moreover, so great is the majesty of God, so great His power, so great His justice and vengeance, that Nebuchadnezzar, having experienced it, when after being changed into a beast he was afterwards restored to himself, celebrated it with full voice: "For His power, he says, is everlasting, and His kingdom is from generation to generation; and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing before Him," etc., Daniel IV, 31. The impious Antiochus did the same, but too late, when he felt the avenging hand of God, by which he breathed out his wretched soul. For when, struck by God, he could not bear his own stench, he exclaimed: "It is just to be subject to God, and that a mortal should not think himself equal to God," 2 Maccabees IX, 12.
The Prophet therefore signifies here that the majesty of God is so great that we ought rather to venerate it with a chaste and profound silence, as St. Dionysius says in his book On Mystical Theology, than with our feeble proclamation. For the minds, voices, and tongues of all men and angels fail in contemplating, worshipping, and celebrating it. Accordingly Ecclesiasticus, chapter XLIII, 29: "We shall say much, he says, and shall want words," that is: Although we shall have said much, we shall still fall short of worthily celebrating His works (much more Himself). "But the consummation of our words is: He is all things," that is: Let the end and sum of our words be, that God is in all things, or, as the Greek has it, αὐτός ἐστι τὸ πᾶν, that is, He Himself is all things; because He Himself is the beginning, middle, and end of all things; He is the final, preserving, and efficient cause of all things: He is the one who gave and continually gives to all created things their being, and perpetually nourishes it with His sustaining influence. For if He were to relax His hand for a moment, immediately all things would collapse into their own nothingness, from which they were brought forth by Him, and would perish like a shadow. For there is nothing solid, either in bodies or in spirits, except insofar as the power of God intrinsically contains and holds them together, lest like water they flow away, or like smoke be scattered, or like some dream and empty phantom vanish. Accordingly Ecclesiasticus adds: "By glorifying, what shall we be able to do?" that is: How little it is that we can glorify Him, for we can add no glory to Him by our glorification, just as we cannot worthily celebrate His immense glory. "For He Himself is almighty above all His works. The Lord is terrible and exceedingly great, and His power is wonderful. Glorifying the Lord as much as ever you can, He will still surpass (excel, transcend all glorification), and His magnificence is admirable. Blessing the Lord, exalt Him as much as you can: for He is greater than all praise. When you exalt Him, be filled with strength (force, spirit, vigour, that is: Put forth and express all your powers and voices) and do not grow weary; for you shall not comprehend Him. Who shall see Him, and declare Him? and who shall magnify Him as He is from the beginning?"
For this reason the royal Prophet, Psalm LXIV, 1, sings: "A hymn, O God, becomes You in Zion;" the Hebrew: To You silence is praise, O God in Zion, that is: Your works are so great, and much more so is Your majesty, that in comparison with it all our praise is nothing, and appears to be mere silence. So the Chaldee and St. Jerome in the same place. Hence Zechariah, chapter II, 13: "Let all flesh, he says, be silent before the face of the Lord: for He is risen up out of His holy habitation." Indeed St. John, Apocalypse VIII, 1: "There was, he says, silence in heaven." If the inhabitants of heaven are silent and stand in awe at the glory of God, why should not mortals also be silent and stand in awe?
The reason is, first: because the essence of God is most august, most sacred, most sublime, and immense in every direction, and therefore immensely transcends the intellect, conception, and voice of all creatures; so that all our praise is nothing other than the voice of jackdaws and chicks: for the deity is an ocean of essence, majesty, and immensity. Hence God in Hebrew is called Jehovah, that is, He who is, and He names Himself, "I am who I am," Exodus chapter III. From this ocean each individual creature draws a drop, or a single drip of essence. Again, God is a kind of immense sun of brightness and glory, from which each individual man and angel begs a single tiny ray of light and life. Wherefore rightly St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his oration on the Nativity, speaking of God says: "He contains the whole of being in Himself, never begun, never to cease, embracing it as a kind of infinite and unbounded sea of essence." And St. Dionysius in his book On Mystical Theology is entirely devoted to showing that God immeasurably exceeds all essence, and all intellect and knowledge, because of His "superessential infinity." Hence he frequently calls God ὑπερούσιον οὐσίαν, that is, a superessential essence. The same author, in his book On the Divine Names, chapter XIII: "Nothing, he says, of those things that exist, or of those things known to any existing being, can explain that mystery surpassing all reason and intellect, of the superessentially super-existing super-deity above all things." And chapter IV: "In Him is every principle, exemplary, final, efficient, formal, elemental; and simply every principle, every connection, every terminus." Hence "He dwells in inaccessible light," 1 Timothy VI, 16, and yet in Him we live, and move, and are. For He Himself is a kind of foundation and base of all things, upon which all things lean and rest, as St. Dionysius says in his book On the Divine Names, chapter X. Accordingly Job, chapter XI, 7: "Perhaps, he says, you will comprehend the footsteps of God, and will find the Almighty to His perfection? He is higher than heaven, and what will you do? He is deeper than hell, and how will you know? His measure is longer than the earth, and wider than the sea." Let therefore the elements and heavens be silent before Your face, O King of majesty. Let the trees, herbs, flowers, plants, meadows, and fields be silent. Let the birds, fish, cattle, and beasts be silent. Let men, angels, and all creatures be silent: for before You all of them gathered together are no more than a moment of a balance, and a drop of the morning dew, which the rising sun immediately absorbs, Wisdom XI, 23; than a drop of a bucket, than a tiny speck of dust, than locusts, than something empty and nothing, Isaiah XL, 15, 17, and 22; than dust and ashes, Genesis chapter XVIII, verse 27.
The second reason is that, just as in God the essence and majesty are most august; so equally most august in Him are holiness, most august wisdom, most august providence, most august omnipotence, most august mercy, most august justice, most august all other perfections, and these are infinite. For God in Himself formally, or eminently, contains all the perfections of all creatures that were, are, and will be; and in addition infinite other perfections incommunicable to creatures. For just as He is an ocean of essence, so He is also an ocean of perfections. Formally God contains in Himself the absolute perfections of creatures, such as the power of understanding, willing, and working, and other spiritual ones. Eminently He contains the mixed perfections of creatures, that is, those which are conjoined with some imperfection, such as heat, colour, odour, taste, sound, and other bodily ones. Accordingly Ecclesiasticus chapter XLIII, 29, says: αὐτός ἐστι τὸ πᾶν, He Himself is the All. Hence the Gentiles called God τὸ πᾶν, that is, the universe, as Eugubinus attests in book III of the Perennial Philosophy, chapter VIII. The poets imagine that Pan wrestled with the god Love, and was conquered by him: because love conquers all things, indeed even God Himself. For He allowed Himself to be conquered by love, both at other times, and especially when the Word was made flesh, that He might become our brother, indeed our Redeemer and Father. Hence that oracle: "The great Pan is dead," when at the death of Christ the oracles of the gods ceased, which Plutarch mentions in his book On the Failure of Oracles. Indeed God says to Moses: "I, He says, will show you all good," Exodus XXXIII, 19. And the Apostle, Romans XI, 33: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways! etc. For from Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things: to Him be glory forever. Amen." Accordingly St. Cyprian elegantly says in his book That Idols Are Not Gods: "There is, he says, one ruler of the world, who commands by His word all things that exist, dispenses them by reason, and accomplishes them by power. He can neither be seen, for He is brighter than sight; nor grasped, for He is purer than touch; nor estimated, for He is greater than sense; and therefore we worthily estimate Him when we call Him inestimable."
The third reason is that God, as in His essence, so also in each and every one of His attributes, is positively infinite. For He has infinite holiness, infinite power, infinite wisdom, and so of the rest; in each and every one of these, therefore, He is infinite and immense. Again, God infinitely transcends not only all created things and their perfections and endowments, but also all possible and imaginable things, which are infinite; He transcends, I say, all of them, not by one, not by a hundred, not by a thousand degrees, but by a thousand thousands of millions, indeed by infinity. For think of wisdom, power, goodness, etc., as great as you can, and ever greater and growing to infinity; when you have thought all these things, know that all these thoughts of yours, and of all men and angels, God's wisdom, power, goodness, etc., transcends infinitely; know that you have not yet reached the first point of the deity; but you are distant from it by infinity. Let therefore all minds, all tongues, all conceptions, all Seraphic and Cherubic voices be silent in the sight of Your majesty, O Lord, and let them veil their faces and feet, out of shame and reverence, Isaiah VI, 2; because with all their keenness, with all their ardour, they cannot penetrate and comprehend the least degree of Your glory. Truly "great is the Lord and exceedingly to be praised, and of His greatness there is no end," Psalm CXLIV. And Baruch chapter III, 25: "He is great, it says, and has no end: lofty and immense."
From these reasons it follows that to God's immense majesty, holiness, wisdom, etc., immense reverence, worship, and latria are owed: and since we, insignificant men and little worms, cannot render it, we must humble ourselves before it, and lower ourselves into the abyss of our nothingness, misery, worthlessness, and sins, and say with St. Francis from the depths of our heart: Who are You, O Lord? Who am I? You are the abyss of essence, holiness, wisdom, power, and of every good: I am the abyss of nothingness, malice, ignorance, weakness, and of every evil. Therefore the abyss of my misery calls upon the abyss of Your mercy. Accordingly Christ pays this debt of ours, offering Himself on the cross to God for us. For He Himself, since He is the Word of God, is an infinite victim, and of infinite worth, which is commensurate with God's immensity, which therefore He left to us by His testament, so that daily in the Eucharist we may offer the same to God, and thus pay the worship and latria owed to God.
Second, from this we are stirred to love God above all things with the highest and most sincere affection and love that we can render; because He Himself, on account of His infinite excellence, is infinitely worthy of all love, all good, all glory, all praise, all veneration, all obedience and service. From this love follows an immense and burning desire for the glory of God, and a readiness of spirit, to spend our strength, breath, blood, and life for the celebration and promotion of His name and glory everywhere, so that all may know, fear, love, worship, and glorify the majesty, eternity, immensity, holiness, omnipotence, mercy, justice, and providence of God forever. Then from this love is born a wonderful joy, congratulation, and jubilation, by which we rejoice in the great majesty and glory of God, and again and again we cry out in jubilation, saying: "Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honour, and power, and strength to our God, forever and ever. Amen," Apocalypse VII, 12. Thus we begin the angelic and blessed life. For this is the duty of the angels and saints in heaven: this their leisurely business, and busy leisure, to with their whole heart, with the highest joy and jubilation, perpetually honour, praise, and glorify God.
Third, we learn to despise all the allurements and pomps of the world, and to fix our whole heart on God, and to say with the Psalmist: "But for me it is good to cling to God. For what have I in heaven, and besides You what do I want on earth? The God of my heart, and God is my portion forever." Let all riches, all honours, all pleasures be silent before Your face, which blind mortals worship like idols, when in reality they are nothing but a false image, and shadowy likenesses of solid wealth, honours, and delights; because in You alone is every true and all good, all beauty, all delight, all sweetness, all rest, all consolation, all treasures, all dignity, all majesty, all glory, all wisdom, all life, all happiness. You are the infinite sea of essence, goodness, and blessedness: enclosing in Yourself all being, all truth, all good, and from eternity eminently anticipating them, as the fount of all being. You are the foundation of all possibles, the superessential being of all things that are and that are not, without whom not only can nothing be in actuality, but neither in potentiality, nor have any possible, conceivable, or intelligible reason. You are the beginning of all, the end of all, the creator, preserver, and promoter of all; the place of all; the age, duration, order, connection, and consummation of all. In You is all the good of angels, men, and all creatures. My God, my love and my all, I swim in You as in a sea, like fish in the ocean; in the immensity of Your providence, mercy, and goodness may I be immersed, intoxicated, lost, absorbed, and there together with myself may I plunge all my hopes and all my affairs, all my affections and loves, all my desires and prayers.
Finally, from this we learn that the means and best ladder by which we ascend to God is the silence of creatures. A certain holy man, quoted by Tauler, page 685, when asked: "Where did you find God?" answered: "Where I left creatures behind." St. Dionysius, in his book On Mystical Theology, teaches that by two modes and ways we reach the knowledge of God: the first is that of affirmation and comparison, namely by ascending from creatures to the Creator, and affirming of Him all the endowments we find in creatures, because in God the Creator the same exist incomparably more excellently and perfectly; the second is that of negation, namely by denying of God all created things, for example, saying: God is not an animal, not a man, not heaven, not an angel, but infinitely something more excellent and divine: and he asserts that by this second way God is known better and more purely.
By this ladder St. Augustine, book X of the Confessions, chapter VI, ascended to God: "Lord, he says, I love You; yet also heaven, and earth, and all things that are in them, behold they say to me from every side that I should love You; and they do not cease saying it to all, so that they are without excuse. But what do I love, when I love You? Not the beauty of bodies, nor the splendour of time, nor the brightness of light, behold so pleasing to these eyes, not the sweet melodies of songs of every kind; not the fragrance of flowers, and ointments, and spices; not manna and honey, not the limbs delightful to the embraces of the flesh. These I do not love, when I love my God; and yet I love a certain light, and a certain voice, and a certain fragrance, and a certain food, and a certain embrace, when I love my God, the light, voice, fragrance, food, embrace of my inner man; where that shines upon my soul which no place contains, and where that sounds which no time snatches away, and where that gives fragrance which no wind scatters, and where that gives savour which no eating diminishes, and where that clings which no satiety tears away. This is what I love, when I love God. And what is this? I asked the earth, and it said: I am not He; and whatever things are in it confessed the same. I asked the sea, and the depths, and the creeping things of living souls; and they answered: We are not your God, seek above us. I asked heaven, sun, moon, stars, etc., and they cried out with a great voice: He Himself made us. I asked the great mass of the world about my God, and it answered me: I am not He, but He Himself made me," etc.