Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
In chapter 2 he rebuked the negligence and wickedness of the old priests: in this chapter he assigns the remedy, namely that Christ will come in the flesh, to His own temple, and His forerunner John the Baptist; for Christ, he says, will purge the sons of Levi, etc., and they shall be to the Lord offering sacrifices in justice. By this he simultaneously responds to the complaint of the impious at the end of chapter 2, who say: Where is the God of judgment? For Christ will be the God of judgment, and indeed a swift witness against sorcerers, and adulterers, and perjurers, etc. Secondly, at verse 8, he blames the Jews for defrauding God and arrogating to themselves His tithes and first-fruits. Thirdly, at verse 14, he convicts those who say: Vain is he who serves God, as if the worship of God were useless; and God does not reward His worshippers. To these he responds at verse 18: On the day of judgment you will see the difference between the just and the impious; and between him who serves God and him who does not serve Him.
Vulgate Text: Malachi 3:1-18
1. Behold, I send My angel, and he shall prepare the way before My face. And presently the Lord whom you seek shall come to His temple, and the angel of the covenant whom you desire. Behold, He comes, says the Lord of hosts: 2. And who shall be able to think of the day of His coming, and who shall stand to see Him? For He is like a refining fire, and like the herb of fullers: 3. And He shall sit refining and cleansing silver, and He shall purge the sons of Levi, and shall refine them as gold and as silver, and they shall be to the Lord offering sacrifices in justice. 4. And the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem shall please the Lord, as in the days of old and in the ancient years. 5. And I will come to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, and adulterers, and perjurers, and those who defraud the hireling of his wages, widows, and orphans, and oppress the stranger, and have not feared Me, says the Lord of hosts. 6. For I am the Lord, and I change not: and you the sons of Jacob are not consumed. 7. For from the days of your fathers you have departed from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. And you said: In what shall we return? 8. Shall a man afflict God, for you afflict Me? And you said: In what do we afflict You? In tithes and in first-fruits. 9. And you are cursed with want, and you afflict Me, the whole nation. 10. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, and let there be food in My house, and try Me in this, says the Lord: if I do not open for you the floodgates of heaven, and pour out upon you blessing even to abundance, 11. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sake, and he shall not destroy the fruit of your land; nor shall the vine in the field be barren, says the Lord of hosts. 12. And all nations shall call you blessed: for you shall be a delightful land, says the Lord of hosts. 13. Your words have grown strong against Me, says the Lord. 14. And you said: What have we spoken against You? You said: Vain is he who serves God: and what profit is it that we have kept His commandments, and that we have walked sorrowful before the Lord of hosts? 15. Therefore now we call the arrogant blessed: for those who work impiety are built up, and they have tempted God and are saved. 16. Then those who feared the Lord spoke, each one with his neighbor: And the Lord attended and heard: and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and think upon His name. 17. And they shall be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, on the day that I make My own possession: and I will spare them, as a man spares his son who serves him. 18. And you shall return and shall see the difference between the just and the wicked; and between him who serves God and him who does not serve Him.
Verse 1: Behold, I send My angel
1. Behold, I send My angel. — The Prophet rises to the times of Christ for a twofold reason. The first is that in chapter 2 he rebuked the vices of the priests of his own age. Wherefore here he suggests their corrector, namely Christ the High Priest, who in the New Testament would establish pure and upright priests, and offer a sacrifice most pleasing to God. So Rupert, Ribera, and others. The second reason, that he might answer the Jews who denied God's providence and said: "Where is the God of Judgment?" For he says: Behold Christ the God of judgment, who will shortly become incarnate and show Himself in the temple. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, and others.
Note that this is the voice of the Son of God, not of the Father, not of the Holy Spirit; for John the Baptist was not the forerunner of, nor did he prepare the way before, the Father and the Holy Spirit, but before the Son; for the Son alone descended to us in the flesh. Whence He Himself in the Old Testament promised this very thing to the Prophets, and therefore appeared to them before the other Persons, or revealed Himself, as if preludes to His incarnation. It is confirmed that Zechariah explains it thus, in Luke 1:76, saying to his son John: "You, child, shall be called the Prophet of the Most High: for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways," namely of Christ, "who through the tender mercy of our God has visited us, the rising from on high." So St. Jerome, Albert, Lyra, Vatablus, Ribera, and generally others.
You will ask: How then does Christ in Matthew 11:10, citing this passage, say of John: "For this is he of whom it is written: Behold I send My angel before your face, who shall prepare your way before you?" For Christ could not have said of Himself, "before your face," and "before you," but rather: before My face, and before Me. Jansen answers there that Christ, both as God and as man, is called in Scripture the face of the Father; because He perfectly represents the Father and His gifts and virtues, just as the face represents the whole person: just as for the same reason Christ is called the Word, the mouth, the image of the Father, and the figure of His substance, Hebrews 1:3. Hence the Psalmist prays in Psalm 79:8: "Show us Your face (that is, the Messiah), and we shall be saved." Galatinus proves the same at greater length in Book 3, chapter 12. They therefore give this meaning: Behold I, the eternal Father, send My angel, namely John the Baptist, who may prepare the way before My face, that is, before Christ, who is My face, that is, My image, My likeness, My manifestation. Whence the Father in St. Matthew 11:10, turning to Christ, in turn says of John: "He shall prepare the way before your face," that is, before you, O Christ, My Son: for your face is also My face. But this sense seems more subtle and symbolic, for "before your face" literally means the same as "before you"; for so the Evangelist explains himself, adding: "Who shall prepare your way before you."
The interpreters therefore respond in two ways. First, that St. John was sent by the Father and the Holy Spirit as well as by the Son. For the works of the Trinity ad extra are undivided and common to the three Persons, as theologians teach: wherefore what one does, the other two also do; since all three are of one nature, and likewise of one power and operation. Wherefore the Fathers consider that Isaiah in chapter 6:1, when he says: "I saw the Lord," etc., saw the Most Holy Trinity. And so when Scripture attributes any work to one divine Person, it implies the others. Christ therefore in Matthew 11:10, speaking to the Jews, lest He be accused by them of arrogance, did not wish to say that He Himself had sent John, but out of modesty attributes it to the Father; which custom He constantly observed in disputing with the Jews, as is evident in the early chapters of St. John, where He ascribes all His works to the Father. When therefore the Son here says: "Behold I send My angel before My face;" the Father also says: Behold I send My angel before your face, O Son, as St. Matthew puts it. And the Holy Spirit says the same: Behold I send My angel before your face, O Christ: for the Holy Spirit sent John, as He also sent the other Prophets, and spoke through their mouths. Here therefore in Malachi the Son speaks, but in St. Matthew the Father and the Holy Spirit speak. Whence St. Jerome, commenting on chapter 1 of St. Mark, says John was sent by the Holy Spirit, and that He is to be understood when Christ says: Behold I (namely the Holy Spirit) send My angel before your face, O Christ. For this reason Peter Chrysologus calls John the Baptist the center of the entire Most Holy Trinity, as if each Person of the Most Holy Trinity contends for him and claims him for Himself.
Secondly, Castro responds that the same divine Person speaks here in Malachi and in St. Matthew, namely the Son. The Son therefore says here: I send John before My face, namely the face of My incarnate self. The same says to Himself in Matthew, but to Himself made man: Behold I, the Son of God, send John before your face, O Christ, Son of man. For although in Christ there is only one Person, nevertheless that Person is virtually twofold: for insofar as He sustains the divine nature, He is a divine Person; but insofar as He sustains the human nature, He is a human person. Christ as God therefore speaks to Christ as man, as if to another than Himself: because as man He has a different nature, and one entirely diverse from God; for in Christ the God is one thing (though not another person) and the man is another thing.
ANGEL. — It is a matter of faith that this angel is St. John the Baptist. For Christ explains these words of Malachi concerning him in Matthew 11:10, in the words cited a little earlier. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret, Remigius, and all the rest.
But why is St. John called an angel? One could answer that the Jews, on account of his holy eremitic life, thought him to be an angel, not a man, as Eusebius reports in Book 9 of the Demonstratio, chapter 5, and St. Jerome. Moreover, among Christian doctors, Origen, in his fifth volume on John, held that John the Baptist was truly an incarnate angel. His arguments were two: The first, that John is said to have been sent by God, John 1:6: therefore, he says, he existed previously, not on earth, but in heaven: therefore he was an angel. The second, that the same is here called an angel by Malachi. Origen's words are: "Since we read in Malachi 3:1: Behold I send My angel, we note whether perhaps, being one of the angels, he was appointed as forerunner to the ministry of our Savior. And it is indeed no wonder that some imitators of Christ, incarnate for the love of men, existed, for whom it was sweet to serve that benignity in the same likeness of a body." He thinks therefore that some angels were incarnate, so as to make themselves like God incarnate and serve Him in the flesh.
But this is an error. For that St. John was a man, not an angel, is clear from John 1:6: "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John;" and Luke 1:1, where his parents, conception, birth, etc., are described at length. So St. Cyril in Book 1 on John, chapter 7. To the first argument I respond that St. John was sent by God not before but after his birth, indeed after his infancy and adolescence, already a man, so that by his preaching and baptism he might prepare the minds of men for Christ. In a similar way all the Prophets were sent to prophesy, whom however it is certain were men, not angels. To the second I shall now respond.
You will ask, why then is St. John here called an angel? I answer, because he was an angel not by nature, but by grace: namely, first, he was an angel by office: for he was an angel, that is, a messenger, of God to lead men to Christ. In a similar way Haggai in chapter 1:13, in the Hebrew, and Malachi by his very name; and indeed all priests, in Malachi 2:7, are called malachim, that is, angels of the Lord of hosts. Secondly, because just as the angels had no infancy, but were created with perfect nature, reason, judgment, and the use of free will: so also John had only six months of infancy; for in the sixth month, visited by the Blessed Virgin, he was sanctified in the womb, prophesied, and obtained the use of reason. For he recognized Christ in the womb of His mother, greeted Him, adored Him, and therefore leaped for joy, Luke 1:44.
Thirdly, because he was most sparing of food, and lived almost without food and drink like an angel. Whence St. Basil in his homily On Fasting says that John's entire life was a kind of continuous fast.
Fourthly, because he was most pure and most chaste, and a perpetual virgin like an angel. For, as St. Athanasius says in his book On Virginity, near the end, "virginity is the life of angels." And St. Augustine in his book On Holy Virginity, chapter 13: "Virginal integrity, he says, is an angelic portion, and in corruptible flesh, a meditation of perpetual incorruption." And St. Jerome in letter 22 to Eustochium: "As soon as the Son of God came upon the earth, He established a new family for Himself, so that He who was adored by angels in heaven might have angels on earth." And St. Cyprian in his treatise On the Dress of Virgins: "When you persevere chaste and as virgins, you are equal to the angels of God." And St. Ambrose in Book 2 On Virgins: "Those who neither marry nor shall be given in marriage shall be as the angels of God. Let no one therefore marvel if they are compared to angels, who are united to the Lord of angels." St. Bernard dares further in letter 42: "The chaste man and the angel, he says, differ not in happiness, but in virtue. For although the angel's chastity is happier, that of the man is recognized to be stronger." On account of which struggle and victory, St. Basil in his treatise On Virginity, chapter 79, says that the chaste are angels, not of the lowest order, but the most illustrious and most noble. St. John drew this chastity from God almost with his very nature, since God caused him to be conceived from parents who were elderly and barren, from bodies, I say, purified from concupiscence, so that from them he might be formed pure by a miracle, as if an angel. Finally John died a martyr for chastity, because he rebuked the adultery of Herod with Herodias.
Fifthly, because just as the angels perpetually behold the face of God, Matthew 18:10, so John, withdrawing from boyhood into the desert, devoting himself to holy contemplation, conversed with God and the angels, and from there he absorbed and put on angelic freedom, constancy, charity, zeal, and perfection. For, as St. Chrysostom teaches in homily 32 on the Acts, in the moral section, virtue makes angels, and indeed Gods and sons of God: "Therefore, he says, if virtue makes angels, we can certainly make angels, and if not by nature, certainly by purpose and choice. For when this is absent, there is no benefit in being an angel by nature: as the devil shows, who was formerly an angel. But when this is present, there is no disadvantage in being a man by nature, as is evident in John and Elijah, who ascended into heaven." Again, St. John conversed with the incarnate Word, and stood by Him and served Him, just as the angels stand by and serve God in heaven.
Sixthly, because he never lost the grace he received, because he never sinned, at least deliberately or gravely, but persisted in charity and in his state as if confirmed in grace, like an angel. His austere life and severe penance in food, clothing, sleep, etc. led him to this. Wherefore Peter Damian, in his sermon about him, calls his life a continuous martyrdom. St. Chrysostom in homily 10 on Matthew calls it an angelic life. The same in homily 88: "John, he says, lived on earth as if in heaven. For having overcome the necessity of nature, he accomplished a certain wondrous course, always in hymns, always in prayers: to no man before he came to baptize did he address himself, but to God alone he always offered his conversations."
Seventhly, because just as the higher angels teach the lower, and moreover purge, illuminate and perfect men; so John did the same, according to the words of Gabriel to Zechariah his father concerning John, Luke 1:46: "He shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God: and he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare for the Lord a perfect people." And those words of the Baptist himself, John 1:23: "I am the voice of one crying in the desert: Make straight the way of the Lord," etc. Truly Blessed Peter Chrysologus says in sermon 127: "John is called the school of virtues, the master of life, the pattern of holiness, the rule of justice, the mirror of virginity, the title of modesty, the example of chastity, the way of the fathers, the pardon of sinners, the discipline of faith, greater than man, equal to angels, the sum of the law, the station of the Gospel, the voice of the Apostles, the silence of the Prophets, the lamp of the world, the forerunner of the judge, Christ's quartermaster, the Lord's witness, the center of the entire Trinity." Add that John was the first to explicitly preach the kingdom of heaven, like a heavenly angel, saying: "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Eighthly, because in the desert he had no other teacher than the Holy Spirit, who illuminated him in the highest mysteries of God and Christ, not as a man, but as an angel, as St. Ambrose teaches in his homily On the Birthday of the Baptist, and St. Chrysostom in homily 12 on John. There he received from the Holy Spirit understanding of Scripture, and indeed the power of writing and speaking like a sacred writer. There he drew the wisdom and ardor necessary for so great a teacher and preacher of the world, for winning faith for Christ, and therefore he was like an angel, and not just any angel, but like one of the Cherubim and Seraphim: for in holiness and virtue, as well as in office, St. John surpassed all the lower angels. Wherefore he was nearly adored and worshipped by the Jews as if he himself were the Messiah. See ten privileges of St. John in St. Bernard, in his sermon on the same (if indeed he is its author), page 393. Also 28 excellences of John, which our Barradius enumerates in Book 8, chapters 3 and 4, volume 1. Finally, St. John was the dawn, the morning star, the rainbow, the lamp, the groomsman, the friend, the forerunner, the voice, the witness, the prophet, the boundary of the law, the mediator and clasp of both Testaments of Christ and the Gospel.
In the anagogical sense, the Hebrews, as St. Jerome attests, hold that this angel is Elijah: because just as Elijah once living was a type of St. John, who put on the spirit and zeal of Elijah, as Christ says in Matthew 17:12; so in turn John, running before and preparing the way for Christ, was a type of Elijah, who is to return at the end of the world, so that fighting against the Antichrist, he may prepare the way for Christ coming to judgment. So also Sebastian Barradius in volume 1, Book 8, chapters 3 and 4, where he enumerates 28 prerogatives of St. John.
Finally, the Author of the Opus Imperfectum, in homily 27: "Wondrous, he says, is he who in human nature surpassed angelic holiness, and obtained by grace what he did not have by nature." St. Augustine in sermon 4 On the Baptist: "Whoever is greater than John is not merely a man, but also God." St. Ambrose in sermon 94: "He excels all, he stands above everyone, he surpasses the Prophets, he rises above the Patriarchs: and whoever is born of woman is inferior to John." Gerson in his fourth treatise on the Magnificat: "It seems that John the Baptist is first after Mary, placed in the order of the Seraphim, in the place of Lucifer."
AND HE SHALL PREPARE THE WAY BEFORE MY FACE. — Namely, he who is closest to Me, but nevertheless precedes Me according to the flesh, and is manifested to the world before Me. For this is the meaning of "before the face": one who is closest to another, yet goes before him and precedes his face. He will prepare the way before Me, that is, by his baptism, testimony, teaching, and preaching he will dispose the minds of the Jews, so that when I reveal Myself to the world, they may receive Me as the true Messiah promised in the law. This is what it means to prepare the way for Christ, and to do so before His face, that is, while He Himself is present and already existing in the world through the flesh He assumed. For he will point out Christ and indicate Him with his finger, and will bear witness concerning Him, that He is the Lamb, that is, the Son of God, who takes away the sins of the world.
Note: The other Prophets were sent many centuries before Christ to announce that He would come; but John was sent to point out Him already born and present, and therefore he is said to have been sent before His face. It alludes to the envoys whom a king sends ahead as heralds into the city to which he himself is soon to come, to announce his arrival to the citizens. For John performed this office for Christ in Judea. Wherefore he is called by Christ not only a Prophet, but more than a Prophet, Matthew 11:10, because he conversed familiarly with God incarnate and showed Him to the world, indeed baptized Him. Whence it follows: "And presently" after John "the lord shall come," namely Christ. Wherefore St. John was the horizon of the old and new law, because, as St. Thomas says in Part 3, Question 38, article 1, "John was the end of the law and the beginning of the Gospel;" and as Gregory of Nazianzus says in oration 21, "the mediator of the new and old Testaments." And as Blessed Chrysologus says in sermon 91, "John was the clasp of the law and of grace," that is, "the one at whom Judaism ended and from whom Christianity began," as Tertullian says in Book 4 Against Marcion, chapter 33: "As the morning star is the end of night and the beginning of day."
TO HIS TEMPLE. — Literally, understand the material temple of Jerusalem. For Christ came to this temple as an infant at the feast of the Purification, after the birth and presentation of St. John; but genuinely and most properly, after the preaching, imprisonment, and beheading of St. John, Christ came to the temple, and in it preached and worked miracles, by which He demonstrated to the Jews that He was the Messiah here promised. So St. Jerome, Albert, Lyra, and the rest. Hence it is clear against the Arians that Christ is true God: for this was the temple of the true God. Therefore since this temple was Christ's (for He is here said to be coming to His own temple), it follows that Christ is God. For temples are dedicated to God alone.
Mystically, by this temple some understand: first, the womb of the Virgin, in which as in a most pure and most holy temple Christ dwelt for nine months, while from her He assumed flesh, and celebrated the admirable mystery of the incarnation in it, as in a temple. So St. Cyril.
Secondly, Theodoret and St. Augustine in Book 18 of the City of God, chapter 35, interpret this temple as the flesh and humanity of Christ, in which the fullness of the divinity dwelt bodily, Colossians 2:9. Thus Christ called His body a temple, saying: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," John 2:19. For Christ in His body, as in a temple, carried out His priesthood, says Rupert, especially when He immolated it on the cross to God the Father for the redemption of mankind.
Thirdly, St. Jerome with his followers takes the temple to mean the Church, which is the assembly of the faithful, which is the temple of God, not literal and material, but mystical and spiritual.
THE LORD (in Hebrew haadon, that is, that lord of all, namely by antonomasia, who has full, eminent and transcendent right, dominion and authority over all persons and all things) WHOM YOU SEEK. — Some Hebrews, whom Remigius follows, just as they take the angel to mean Elijah, so they take the lord to mean the Antichrist: for the Jews will desire him and receive him in place of Christ at the end of the world. But St. Jerome rightly refutes this. For the Antichrist will not be the angel of the covenant, which Malachi adds this lord will be. The lord here is therefore Christ the Lord, King of kings and Lord of lords, who soon followed John the Baptist. The Jews therefore wrongly refer these things to their Christ, whom they think will come at the end of the world. For, as St. Jerome rightly argues: "I wonder, he says, how the outcome of events does not teach them the truth. For what temple of His will the Lord find, which has been destroyed to its foundations? Or if it is to be rebuilt by another before Christ comes, what more will their Christ do, when all things have been restored by another?" The Christ of the Jews, therefore, will be none other than the Antichrist; for no other Christ of theirs will come.
AND THE ANGEL OF THE COVENANT. — In Hebrew berit, that is, of the covenant. For "testament" in Scripture often means a pact and covenant, as I said on Hebrews 9:45, and 1 Corinthians 11:25. Whence the Zurich version translates: And the legate of the covenant. Malachi here proposes and promises two angels: one plain, the other of the covenant: the former being the forerunner and pointer to the latter. The former is John the Baptist, the latter is Christ. Whence he says of Him: "And presently," namely after the first angel, that is, after John the Baptist, "there shall come to the temple, etc., the angel of the covenant," that is, of the pact, or covenant, as the Syriac translates. Now since there is a twofold covenant of God with men, the old or Jewish, and the new or Christian, Christ was the angel and legate of both. For Christ, sent by the Father, appeared to Moses on Sinai, and through him entered the old covenant with the Jews, in which He promised them that He would come in the flesh, for the redemption of them and the whole world: for Christ was the angel promised in the old covenant to Abraham and his seed, and especially to Moses. Wherefore St. Paul in Galatians 3:19 says the law was given in the hand, that is, through the hand, of a mediator; where many understand the mediator to be Christ. Whence He Himself also says in Isaiah 52:6: "I who spoke, behold I am here." Wherefore the opinion of SS. Basil, Cyril, Eusebius, Ambrose, and many other Fathers is that whenever in the Old Testament God is said to have appeared, it was the second Person who appeared, namely the Son, to prefigure His real coming in the flesh, and to prelude it in shadow and type in a body assumed in appearance, as I said at the beginning of the Pentateuch, chapter 16.
Secondly, genuinely and properly, Christ was an angel, that is, a legate, intermediary, and mediator of the New Testament, that is, of the covenant which God entered into with men through Christ, in which He bestowed on them not earthly goods, as on the Jews in the old covenant, but spiritual, heavenly, and eternal goods, which were foreshadowed in the old, and which He expressly promised to Abraham, saying: "All nations shall be blessed in your name," Genesis 22:18. For this blessing of Abraham was nothing other than the remission of sins, grace, justice, salvation, eternal life, which Christ conferred first on the Jews, then on all nations, and in this way fulfilled absolutely all the promises of God made to Abraham and the Jews. And this is what he adds, saying: "Whom you desire," whom namely you, O Jews, eagerly await as the Messiah, the redeemer and savior promised to Abraham. So St. Augustine, in Book 18 of the City of God, chapter 35. Wherefore Christ is called by the Septuagint, in Isaiah 9:6: "The Angel of great counsel."
Moreover, Christ was the angel of the New Testament or covenant. First, because He appeased and removed the wrath and enmity of God against men. He was therefore the angel of the covenant, that is, of reconciliation. Wherefore He is called by Isaiah in chapter 9:6: "The Prince of peace," and by the Apostle in Ephesians 2:14: "Our peace;" and in Colossians 2:14: "Forgiving you all offenses, blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us, and He took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross." Secondly, because He truly established a new covenant, the old Mosaic one being abolished, between God and men, by which God obliges Himself to Christians to give grace and eternal glory; Christians in turn oblige themselves to God that they will believe in His Son Jesus Christ, obey Him, and embrace His law, teaching, and way of life.
Thirdly, because He descended from heaven to earth like an angel, so that by assuming flesh He might unite in Himself clay to the Word, earth to heaven, man to God, by the bond of hypostatic union, as by the closest covenant. Fourthly, because at the Last Supper, shortly before His death, He established a testament properly so-called, containing His last will, and ratified it by the institution of the Eucharist, saying: This is the blood of the new testament, etc., as I said on 1 Corinthians 11:25. Fifthly, because Christ brought this covenant and testament to men from heaven like an angel, and established it on earth by laboring for thirty-three years, preaching, working miracles, going about through villages and towns, wearying Himself, sweating, in hunger, thirst, cold, heat, evangelizing; and at last He not only confirmed and sealed it with His blood, but also purchased and acquired it, as if paying a price for so great a reconciliation and so great a covenant, just and fitting, and this for all nations and through all ages, even if the world should last for thousands of millions of years, indeed for all eternity. For the saints and blessed in heaven will share in this covenant through glory for all eternity, for it leads to heaven. Whence it was sanctioned by Christ as the cause of heavenly glory. Wherefore He Himself, having completed this covenant, was the first to ascend gloriously into heaven, as if opening the way of the heavenly covenant, and calling His faithful there, and inviting them to follow Him. Finally St. Augustine in Book 18 of the City of God, chapter 35: Christ, he says, is called "an angel, because of the Gospel which He announced to men. For if we interpret those Greek words, both Gospel means good tidings, and angel means a messenger." For what better message is there than to preach, indeed to open and offer, the kingdom of heaven? Whence the Arabic of Antioch translates, messenger, or apostle of the covenant. As a symbol of this, the angel of Manoah announcing the birth of Samson who was to be born from him, who was to be the liberator and avenger of Israel, and therefore a type of Christ, having completed his mission, ascended to heaven in the flame of the sacrifice, Judges 15:20. For all these reasons it is entirely fitting that all Christians and absolutely all men should receive Christ the Lord, as the angel of the covenant coming from heaven and as a legate sent to them from God, with the greatest devotion, honor, and love; that they should render Him immense thanks, obey Him in all things, emulate His teaching and life, and generously follow Him bearing the cross, certain that through it they are to ascend into heaven after Him: that they should give themselves entirely to Him; offer Him their whole heart and immerse it in His heart and love. So eagerly did the Jews await Him as their Messiah, as they still await Him. Whence Malachi adds concerning them:
WHOM YOU DESIRE. — In Hebrew chaphetsim; the Chaldean, you desire; the Zurich version: In whom you delight; others: In whom you have been pleased. For Christ, as the one who drives away all evils and brings all goods, was supremely desired by the fathers for four thousand years.
Whence by the patriarch Jacob He is called "the desire of the eternal hills," Genesis 49:26; and by Haggai, 2:8: "The desired of all nations." Hence those sighs of the Prophets: "O that You would rend the heavens and come down," Isaiah 64:1. "Drop down dew, you heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One. Let the earth be opened and bud forth the Savior," Isaiah 45:6. The same desire for Christ was felt at His birth by St. Simeon and other holy and faithful people. Whence Luke says of Anna the prophetess, 2:38: "She spoke of Him to all who were awaiting the redemption of Israel." Secondly, Arias thinks the Prophet here is answering the Jews who said in chapter 2:17: "Where is the God of judgment?" For to them he answers: "Presently the lord shall come," who will be terrible to the impious, and "the God of judgment," but to the pious He will be "the angel of the covenant."
Whence tropologically St. Bernard, in his sermon to the pastors in the synod, says: "The temple of God is holy, which you are. The soul of the just man is the seat and temple of God. The Lord works wonders in His temple and delivers oracles. Let the lord whom you seek come to His temple, so that you may master carnal desires and resist diabolic temptations. And let the angel of the covenant, whom you desire, come, who may announce to you His will and confirm the promised inheritance. Let His parents lead Him into His temple, His father, namely, and mother and brothers. Who these are, let Him answer Himself: Whoever does the will of the Father who is in heaven, he is My father, and mother, and brother, and sister. Father, by begetting through the word of preaching, as the Apostle says: I through the Gospel begot you in Christ. Mother, by bringing forth through the example of a holy life. Brother and sister, by loving chastely in fraternal love. These parents are you, or ought to be."
BEHOLD, HE COMES. — The Hebrews, Remigius, Lyra, and St. Augustine in Book 18 of the City of God, chapter 35, take this of the second coming of Christ for judgment, whose angel and forerunner will be Elijah. But this is the anagogical sense. For that the literal sense here treats of the first coming of Christ in the flesh and into the world is clear from what follows: "And He shall purge the sons of Levi," etc. For in the second coming He will not cleanse them, but will judge and condemn the impure. So St. Cyril, Theodoret, Rupert, Vatablus, Arias, Ribera, and others. He says therefore: "Behold, He comes." The word behold signifies first, that this event, namely the coming of the incarnate Word, will be new, admirable, and astounding; secondly, that it will be certain; thirdly, that it will be desired and joyful; fourthly, that it will be swift, as if to say: I seem to see our Messiah approaching: behold He comes, behold He will soon be here.
Verse 2.
Verse 2: And who shall be able to think?
2. And who shall be able to think? — In Hebrew mi mekalkel, that is, who shall bear, who shall sustain, who shall measure, who shall contain, who shall comprehend? Whence the Septuagint and the Chaldean translate: Who shall sustain? Pagninus: Who shall be able to bear the day when He comes? Our Vulgate: "Who shall be able to think of the day of His coming?" as if to say: Who shall be able to grasp, and comprehend by thought, so great an angel of the covenant, that is, God coming in the flesh and into the world, conversing among men, preaching His law in the temple, establishing His sacraments and Church, His power, wisdom, goodness, etc.? Who can conceive in his mind, or express in words, the glory of that day on which Christ will live with us on earth? Who can embrace in his soul and recount with his mouth the graces, virtues, and heavenly charisms and all the good things which Christ will bring us from heaven? For the Hebrew mekalkel is derived from col, that is, all: whence the verb hilkel means to encompass all things, to recount all things. Note: The day of the coming of Christ is put by metonymy for Christ Himself, coming on His day, or rather about to come.
Secondly, according to the Septuagint, as if to say: Who shall be able to bear and sustain so great a light and majesty of Christ? For in comparison with Him, the sight of all angels and men, like owls, grows dim, darkens, and fails. Who shall be able to gaze upon the Sun of justice shining with bright light, with fixed and unwavering eyes? How shall human weakness sustain such power, blindness such radiance, fragility such efficacy, impurity such holiness, chaff such fire? For He is like a refining fire. Who shall not faint and be struck senseless with astonishment, fear, awe, and abyssal reverence at such exaltation? Who shall not melt and waste away, as lead and tin melt and waste away before a most ardent fire, in the furnace where they are refined? Especially when one contemplates and beholds the divine dignity and magnificence in Christ incarnate in such abasement, self-emptying, love, and condescension. This is the genuine sense.
Wherefore Vatablus less accurately refers these words to the tribulations of Christians and the persecutions of the primitive Church, which were most burning, as if to say: Who shall sustain the heat of those tribulations? Certainly no one by human strength, but many by divine strength, supplied by the grace of Christ.
AND WHO SHALL STAND TO SEE HIM? — The Septuagint: Who shall stand at the sight of Him? Who shall be so hard and iron-like that the sight of Christ does not lay him low and break him? Who so rebellious and cold that the fiery power of Christ's eyes does not seize and inflame his soul? So Sanchez. Secondly, as if to say: Who shall be able to stand before Him? Who, thunderstruck with awe and admiration, shall not fall down, seeing with his own eyes such brightness and magnificence of Christ? Whence in Hebrew it is: Who shall stand in seeing Him? Vatablus: Who, when He presents Himself to be seen, shall remain standing?
FOR HE IS LIKE A REFINING FIRE. — The Arabic, like a fire going forth; the Septuagint, like the fire of a smelter; the Zurich version, like a fire that purifies. Thus the Persians considered their god to be fire, when they worshipped fire as God. Moreover, "the Stoics think that God Himself will be dissolved into fire," says St. Justin in his oration to Antoninus Pius. Indeed Plato held that God exists in a fiery substance, says the same Justin in his oration to the Gentiles; and adds: Plato calls the stars a fiery race of gods. But these are established errors. Now the Prophet compares the angel of the covenant, that is Christ, to the fire of a most burning furnace in which metals are smelted, such as gold, silver, iron, tin, etc., to signify that His teaching, law, and grace will be fiery and burning. For first, just as gold is melted in the furnace, so Christ softens and melts hard human hearts by His grace, and dissolves them into sighs and tears of compunction. Secondly, just as fire in melting gold separates other metals and dross from it, so Christ through tears and penance separates from the soul its inveterate vices and concupiscences. Thirdly, just as by this separation gold is purified, perfected, and made to shine, so likewise the soul. Fourthly, just as by the force of fire gold is heated, indeed becomes incandescent, so that it appears to be transformed into fire, so by the force of Christ's grace the soul is set ablaze, so that it appears like fire to inflame itself and others with the love of God. This is what Isaiah foretells in chapter 4:3: "If the Lord shall have washed the filth of the daughters of Zion, etc., by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning." And John the Baptist, in Luke 3:16, says that he baptizes with water, but Christ with fire: "He, he says, shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." For this reason at Pentecost He sent the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in the form of fire and fiery tongues, to signify that the Holy Spirit would set them ablaze with the fire of charity, and give them a heart fiery with love and zeal, and fiery tongues. And Christ Himself says in Luke 12:49: "I have come to cast fire upon the earth. And what do I will, but that it be kindled?" On which see St. Ambrose, sermon 48 on Psalm 118: Your word is exceedingly fiery. Fifthly, just as by fire gold, bronze, and iron, though very hard, are not only softened and bent, but also shaped into a definite form, for example, of a pot, dish, frying pan, etc., so the grace of Christ fashions some as Apostles, others as doctors, others as martyrs, others as confessors, others as virgins, etc., 1 Corinthians 12:4; and from one degree they ascend to a higher, indeed to the very summit of virtue and perfection.
For there are three grades and states of the virtues. The first is the political and common state, such as the ordinary virtue of the faithful who live honestly and piously according to the precepts of God. The second is the more exalted state of those who are advancing and tending toward the divine likeness, whose virtues are called purgative: so that prudence despises all worldly things by the contemplation of divine things, and directs every thought of the soul toward the divine; temperance abandons, as far as nature permits, those things which the use of the body requires; fortitude brings it about that the soul, on account of its departure from the body and approach to higher things, is frightened by no difficulty or adversity; justice finally ensures that the whole soul consents to the way of such a purpose. The third is the state of those already attaining the divine likeness, whose virtues are and are called those of a purified soul; such as exists in the blessed, and in some most perfect souls in this life: so that prudence gazes upon divine things only; temperance knows nothing of earthly desires; fortitude feels no fear and ignores all other passions; justice is united by a perpetual covenant with the divine mind, imitating it. So St. Thomas, I-II, Question 61, article 5, and Vincent, Part 3, Book 1, treatise On Virtue, distinction 7.
Tropologically, the fire by which God purifies and refines souls is tribulation and affliction. For just as the impurities of metals are removed by fire, so sins are removed by afflictions, says Vatablus. Thus the martyrs, like St. Lawrence, purified by the fire of torments, became most pure and most ardent victims to God, according to Psalm 16:3: "You have tried me with fire, and no iniquity has been found in me." For this reason God permitted the fierce persecution of the emperor Decius, so that He might rouse and sharpen the virtue and piety of Christians, which during the peace they had enjoyed under the two Philips, father and son, who were Christian emperors, had grown languid, as St. Cyprian writes was revealed to him in Book 4, letter 4: "For know this also, he says, dearest brothers, that we have been reproached through a vision, because we are sleepy in our prayers, etc. This persecution is a testing and an exploration of our sin; God wanted us to be shaken and proved, as He has always proved His own: nor has His aid ever been lacking to believers in His tests. Finally to His very least servant, etc., He deigned to command out of His goodness toward us: Tell him, He says, let him be at peace: for peace is coming." Moreover, that among the crimes on account of which this persecution came, the chief were the negligence and greed of priests and bishops, the same Cyprian asserts in his treatise On the Lapsed.
In the anagogical sense, just as fire consumes dross, so Christ at the last judgment will condemn the reprobate to hell, and will "burn them with unquenchable fire," as John the Baptist says in Matthew 3:12. Hence St. Jerome explains thus: "He will come like a refining fire: for fire will burn in His sight, and round about a mighty tempest. Then He will call the heavens from above and the earth, to judge His people: rivers of fire will flow before Him, rolling along all sinners. The Lord is called fire, and a consuming fire, Deuteronomy 4:24, to burn our wood, hay, and straw."
And not only fire, but also the herb of fullers. He is a smelting and consuming fire to those who sin gravely; but to those who commit light sins, He is the herb of fullers, to restore cleanliness to those who have been washed." Happy and wise are those who in this life prefer to be cleansed by the herb of fullers rather than in the next life, namely in hell, or in Purgatory, to be refined by fire. Moreover, St. Augustine in Book 20 of the City of God, chapter 25, refers this testing on the day of judgment to the good and pious alone: for they are the sons of Levi offering sacrifices to God in justice. Whence he concludes that on the day of judgment "there will be certain purgatorial punishments of some people." So also Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in his Exposition of the Council of Florence, chapter 8, Against the Greeks, who indeed concede a Purgatory after this life, but deny that there is fire in it, and that the souls of the just are purified by fire, from this passage proves that there is fire in it, and that souls are purified by it: for this fire, he says, refining and cleansing does not pertain to the blessed in heaven, as they are most pure, nor to the damned in hell, as they are incapable of cleansing and amendment: therefore it pertains to the souls of Purgatory: therefore in it there is a refining fire that cleanses the souls of the just from light and venial stains. So he himself in volume 4 of the Bibliotheca Patrum.
AND LIKE THE HERB OF FULLERS. — In Hebrew: Like the borith of those who wash, namely cloths, that is, of fullers. Whence the Chaldean: Like that with which they whiten, namely cloths; the Septuagint: Like the herb of those who wash. From this it is clear that borith is not soap, as Arias and Vatablus would have it, but an herb, as Theodoret, R. Jonah, R. Solomon, the Zurich version, and others assert. Whence St. Jerome on Jeremiah 2:22 reports that the fuller's herb grows in the green and moist places of Palestine, and has the same power for removing stains and spots from cloths as nitre and soap have: whence it is called the soapwort herb both in Latin and Italian, very well known to gardeners, which is commonly used to remove stains from cloths and garments, as I observed with my own eyes in Rome. See what was said on Jeremiah 2:22. Note: Just as a little earlier the Prophet compared Christ to fire that smelts and purifies gold, so here he compares Him to the fuller's herb that cleanses cloths, so as to cleanse the wedding garment of His own, and make it white and splendid. For the souls of the just, through the grace of Christ, shine white like robes and gleam like gold.
Moreover, for borith both the Syriac and the Arabic translate, sulfur, because by its burning it purifies all things: or perhaps they took borith for the similar gophrith, that is, sulfur. Whence the Syriac translates: For He is like a fire that smelts, and like sulfur that whitens; the Arabic of Antioch: For He is like a fire going forth, and like sulfur that grows white; the Arabic of Alexandria: For He will come like a smelting fire, and like sulfur He will burn. The burning of sulfur is well known: whence St. Jerome refers these words to the fire of Purgatory or of hell, where there is fire burning with pitch and sulfur, as I said a little earlier.
Verse 3.
Verse 3: And He shall sit refining and cleansing silver
3. And He shall sit refining and cleansing silver. — "He shall sit," seriously and carefully, not casually and lightly as if in passing, about to refine silver, that is, His faithful, especially the priests, as he adds, so that they may become bright like silver, and shine as silvery priests.
Secondly, "He shall sit" as a discerner and judge, so as to distinguish, separate, and set apart vices, especially those which disguise themselves under the appearance of virtues, namely hypocrisies and deceits, from true virtues, and the truly virtuous from hypocrites. For men judge according to their feelings, and attribute to vice what belongs to virtue, and to virtue what belongs to vice. Justly does Sidonius Apollinaris complain about this in Book 7, letter 9: "Who, he says, would not be ashamed of virtues, when he sees the sincerity of virtues stained by the accusation of vices? If we choose a humble man, he is called abject. If we put forward an upright man, he is judged proud. If one less educated, he is thought to be laughed at for his ignorance. If somewhat learned, he is declared puffed up for his knowledge. If severe, he is dreaded as cruel. If indulgent, he is blamed for laxity. If simple, he is despised as stupid. If sharp, he is censured as crafty. If diligent, he is declared superstitious. If lax, he is judged negligent. If industrious, greedy. If quiet, he is pronounced lazy. If we produce one who is abstemious, he is taken for a miser. If one who feeds others at his table, he is charged with gluttony. If one who fasts while feeding others, he is accused of vanity. They condemn frankness as impudence, they disdain modesty as boorishness. They do not hold the strict dear on account of their austerity; the courteous become cheap in their eyes by their sociability." Christ the Judge refines all these things, and by His keen judgment discerns what is virtue and what is vice: assigning to the one its honor, to the other its shame.
Let the priest, especially the confessor, remember that he sits as a vicar of Christ at the tribunal, so that he may not perform this judgment lightly, and say to every penitent: I absolve you; but let him maturely examine the faults, and strive not to cover them, not to gloss over them, not to superficially erase them, but to root them out thoroughly; just as the goldsmith by fire removes every bit of dross from the gold, and the fuller by the borith herb removes from the cloth every blemish and stain, even the most deep-seated. For what good is it for the penitent to be absolved, if the root remains, namely the same inclination and proximate occasion of sinning, which will immediately drive him again to sin and to relapse? Surely what is commonly said will happen: The dog returns to its vomit, and the washed sow to the mud. Do you want to know whether someone is a good confessor? See what his penitents are like: if they change their lives, or greatly advance in holiness, if they undertake heroic works, know that he is an outstanding confessor; but if the penitents remain the same, that is, in the same state of vice or virtue, know that he is a feeble confessor, and one of the common crowd. "Often, says St. Gregory in Book 8 of the Moralia, chapter 11, even the reprobate confess their sins, but disdain to weep for them: but the elect pursue the faults which they open by the words of confession with the tears of strict self-examination." And further: "The Psalmist not only had uncovered the wound of his heart, but also applied the medicine of sorrows to the wound he had uncovered, saying: I will declare my iniquity, and I will think on my sin. For by declaring, he uncovers the hidden wound, and by thinking, what else does he do but apply the medicine to the wound?" The same, in homily 34 on the Gospels: "To do penance, he says, is both to bewail the evils committed and not to commit things that must be bewailed: for he who so deplores some sins as yet to commit others, does not yet know how to do penance, or pretends not to."
St. Ambrose, when hearing penitents, was so moved toward them with a pious feeling of compassion and help that he would burst into tears, and weeping, would compel them to weep and change their lives. So his Life records. His follower was St. Charles Borromeo. See St. Ambrose, sermon 35, On the Manner of Truly Doing Penance. To the same belongs that fearful statement in Book 2 On Penance, chapter 10: "More easily have I found those who have preserved their innocence than those who have fittingly done penance. One must renounce the world, etc. One must live in such a way that we die to this vital use of life: a man must deny himself and be completely changed: just as a certain young man, the stories tell, having gone abroad on account of his love for a courtesan, and having returned with his love destroyed, afterwards met his old beloved, who, when not addressed, marvelled at thinking herself unrecognized, and meeting him again said: I am she; he replied: But I am not he."
Mystically, a person sits on the sabbath, that is, on the Lord's Day and feast days, when he rests from other works and devotes himself to God. For just as a person becomes wise by sitting and resting, as Aristotle says in Book 7 of the Physics, so likewise by resting he receives the illuminations of God, by which he is purified and made divine, according to Lamentations 3:28: "He shall sit solitary and hold his peace, because he has taken it upon himself." And Psalm 45:11: "Be still and see that I am God." For just as quiet water, when the impurities have settled, becomes clear and transparent like a mirror; so also the quiet soul, when the passions have settled, perceives the truth, and becomes capable of spiritual and divine knowledge, especially because, free from tumult and separated from other objects, it devotes itself and attends to the one truth and the one God. For that saying is true: The mind intent on many things has less sense for each one.
AND HE SHALL PURGE THE SONS OF LEVI. — Both because many Levites and priests converted to Christ became saints, indeed preachers, among whom was St. Barnabas, Acts 4:36, of whom St. Luke says in Acts 6:7: "A great multitude also of the priests obeyed the faith." For Malachi had rebuked the Jewish Levites and priests, whom he here predicts will be reformed by Christ, so Theodoret; and also because Christ, having abolished the old Levitical and Aaronic priests, instituted new ones of a holy and angelic life. For such were the Apostles and their disciples and successors. These therefore are the sons of Levi, that is, priests not of the Old but of the New Testament; posterity not of Aaron but of Christ; so St. Jerome, Remigius, Rupert, Hugo, Lyra, and others. In a similar way the Church of Christ is called Zion and Jerusalem, because it was born in Jerusalem and succeeded the Synagogue of Zion and the Jews. He mentions the purification of priests to be accomplished by Christ, rather than of laypeople, both because the highest purity and holiness is required in the priests of Christ, since they are the vicars of Christ, who is the Holy of Holies, and since they handle, confect, and administer the most holy sacraments, especially the Eucharist; and also because the priests purify the people: hence the purer and holier the priest is, the purer and holier the people become. For the priest breathes and instills into them his holiness both by word and by life. Just as conversely an impure priest corrupts the whole Church, as I showed from St. Chrysostom and others at verse 1 and chapter 1:6. Let priests therefore see to it how they guard this their honor, lest what St. Boniface, first bishop of Mainz, apostle of Frisia and martyr, said with a groan about the priests of his age should ever be said of them: "Once golden priests celebrated with wooden chalices; now wooden priests celebrate with golden chalices." So his Life records.
Tropologically, the sons of Levi, that is, spiritual and mystical priests, are the faithful who offer to God the sacrifices of good works, prayer, compunction, almsgiving, and especially a pure heart and holy and ardent desires of love, according to 1 Peter 2:9: "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people, offering spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
AND HE SHALL REFINE. — To refine (colare) is to pour or transmit little by little, drop by drop, some liquid, such as oil, wine, milk, melted gold, etc., through some narrow vessel or linen cloth, so that what is pure passes through and what is coarse and impure is excluded. Whence Pliny in Book 13, chapter 2: "The royal ointment, he says, consists of strained honey." And Manilius: And to strain the wandering rivers with stretched nets. And Apuleius in the Florid.: "They did not know, he says, how to cultivate a field, or to refine gold." Here for "He shall refine," the Chaldean translates, He shall purge; Pagninus, He shall smelt; others, He shall cleanse; the Septuagint, He shall pour out, as from a smelting furnace melted and purified gold is usually poured out drop by drop. Now Christ refines and purges priests through the Holy Spirit, as He refined the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, for the Holy Spirit gives them the spirit of compunction and tears, and also charity and zeal. Tropologically, through tribulations and persecutions, says Vatablus, such as the priests endured in the primitive Church, when nearly all were seized for death and were leaders of the people to martyrdom.
That Pope St. Cornelius did this at Rome in the persecution of Decius, St. Cyprian narrates and celebrates in Book 1, letter 1 to Cornelius: "It cannot be expressed, he says, how great was the exultation there, etc., that he had been for his brothers a leader of their confession; but also that the confession of the leader grew from the confession of the brothers, so that, as you preceded them to glory, you made many companions of glory, and persuaded the people to become confessors, while you were the first prepared to confess for all." And shortly after: "There the virtue of the preceding Bishop was publicly approved, the unity of the following brotherhood was shown, since among you there is one heart and one voice, the whole Roman Church confessed. You taught them greatly to fear God, to adhere firmly to Christ, that the people should be joined to their priests in danger, that in persecution brothers should not be separated from brothers, that harmony once joined together can in no way be conquered: that whatever is asked at once by all, the God of peace grants to the peaceful." And a little later: "What a glorious spectacle that was under the eyes of God, what a joy for Christ and His Church, that to the fight which the enemy had tried to bring, not individual soldiers but the entire camp at once came forth?"
Morally, let Bishops and their examiners see here how careful they must be in admitting those who present themselves for sacred Orders, to see whether they are of a proven life worthy of such a rank, and whether they have the learning by which to duly discharge so great an office and instruct the people in faith and divine matters. For if goldsmiths with such care and labor, namely through fire, refine gold and silver, to separate the dross from it and collect only what is pure and genuine: how much more must a Bishop refine those to be ordained, so that he may ordain for the people golden priests, not ones of tin, or iron, or wood? For on the priests depend the entire discipline, life, and holiness of the Church. Let them read and put into practice on this matter the decrees of the Council of Trent, session 23, chapters 7 and 14, and session 24, chapter 18.
Sophronius narrates in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 149, and from him Baronius, volume 6, in the year of the Lord 491, that when the abbot Amos was ordained Patriarch of Jerusalem, he said: "Pray for me, Fathers; for a great and intolerable burden has been imposed on me. It belongs to those like Peter and Paul to govern rational souls, but I am wretched and a sinner; for more than all else I fear the burden of ordination." He then adduces the example of St. Leo: "For I found it written that the blessed Leo, Pope, equal to the angels, persevered for forty days at the tomb of the Apostle Peter, devoted to vigils and prayers, and asking the Apostle to intercede for him before God, that his sins might be forgiven. When the forty days were completed, the Apostle Peter appeared to him, saying: I have prayed for you, and all your sins have been forgiven, except those of the imposition of hands." He speaks of the forgiveness not of guilt; for all guilt is forgiven at once, but of punishment, says Baronius. Therefore St. Leo remained bound by the punishments of those sins which those had committed whom he had unworthily promoted to Orders, according to the Apostle's words in 1 Timothy 5: "Impose not hands lightly upon any man, neither be partaker of other men's sins."
For this reason priests are not ordained except with prior prayer and fasting of the entire Church; and God in former times often designated by heavenly sign those whom He wished to be chosen as bishops, as He designated St. Matthias, Acts 1:26. Thus St. Fabian was designated by God as pope through a dove flying down from on high upon his head: for the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ in the form of a dove when He was baptized. So Eusebius reports in Book 6 of the History, chapter 22. A similar thing happened to St. Chrysostom; for when he was being ordained patriarch of Constantinople, a white dove flew down and stood upon his head, as Leo Augustus narrates in his Life, and from him Baronius, volume 6, in the year of the Lord 456. So also St. Gregory, fleeing the pontificate, was recognized by the sign of a shining dove continually hovering over him from heaven, was seized and brought to the basilica of St. Peter, and created pope. So also Remigius, bishop of Rheims, when he was only twenty-two years old, was created bishop by heavenly intervention. For a ray of new light descended upon the crown of his head, as if the very sun, moved from heaven, had fallen upon him; because he was being prepared as the light to illuminate souls. Indeed, illuminated by that ray, he felt the liquid of sacred ointment poured upon his head, with which his whole head was anointed, says Hincmar in his Life.
When the Patriarch Menas of Constantinople died, the Emperor Justinian entered into the assembly of Bishops and Clergy and narrated to them a heavenly vision: When, he said, sleep overtook me in the church of St. Peter the prince of the Apostles, where the senate was being held, in my repose I saw the prince of the Apostles showing me the great Eutychius and saying: See to it that this man becomes Bishop. When the emperor had sworn to this, Eutychius was acclaimed Patriarch by the Bishops and Clergy. So Eustathius in the Life of St. Eutychius. Thus St. Ambrose was declared Archbishop of Milan by the voice of a child and the people exclaiming: "Ambrose for Bishop!" So Socrates in Book 4, chapter 30. Thus St. Athanasius, summoned by Alexander, the dying Bishop of Alexandria, to succeed him, when Athanasius was fleeing, Alexander exclaimed: "Athanasius, do you think you can flee? Nevertheless you shall not escape." Wherefore he was seized by the Clergy and people for the episcopate: so Sozomen in Book 2 of the History, chapter 16. That St. Amphilochius was consecrated Bishop of Iconium by angels, Nicephorus narrates in Book 11, chapter 20. Those therefore who are about to create priests or Bishops, let them devote themselves to prayer and implore heavenly light and the nod of God, lest they err in a matter of such great moment to the common good of the Church, but let them designate those who will serve the glory of God, the building up of the Church, and their own salvation.
Sacrifices. — In Hebrew mincha, that is, a grain offering, namely the Eucharist under the species of bread and wine, of which he spoke in chapter 1:11. For this, being most pure, he opposes to the impure sacrifices and Aaronic priests. So Theodoret, Rupert, Lyra, and others.
In justice, — that is, justly, purely, holily, according to that saying of Zechariah in Luke chapter 1:14: "Let us serve Him in holiness and justice before Him, all our days." For priests, as embodied angels, ought to walk and proceed before God in all justice and holiness.
Verse 4: And it shall please
4. And it shall please. — The Chaldean: It shall be received willingly; Pagninus and Vatablus, it shall become sweet (for this is the meaning of arebu), that is, the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem shall be sweet, pleasing, and savory to the Lord — that is, of the Christian Church, which is the new Zion of God, arisen from the old Zion passing away, so that in it the old seems to rise again and be reborn like a phoenix. Hence precisely through Jerusalem, which was the capital and chief city of Judah, one could understand the Roman Church and the Apostolic See, which is the head and capital of the whole Church, which is Judah, that is, confessing God.
As the days of old, — that is, as the ancient days, as follows, in which the holy men of old — Abel, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, Aaron, etc. — were pleasing to God and holily offered their sacrifices to Him. Hence the priest in the Canon of the Mass says and prays: "Upon which (namely the consecrated bread and chalice) deign to look with a favorable and serene countenance, and to accept them, as You deigned to accept the gifts of Your just servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham, and that which Your high priest Melchizedek offered to You, a holy sacrifice, an immaculate victim."
Note: The word 'as' compares the Christian sacrifices to the Aaronic ones, not so much with respect to the sacrifice itself, as with respect to those offering. For the sacrifice itself in the new law is far superior to the Aaronic, since its victim is the very body of Christ, which therefore has the power of obtaining grace ex opere operato. But the victim of the Aaronic sacrifice was an ox or a goat, which were only a type and shadow of Christ, and therefore availed only through the work and devotion of the one performing it, not ex opere operato. He says therefore that Christ Himself will purify and sanctify the priests in the new law, so that they may offer sacrifices to God with that purity, devotion, and religion with which Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, and other ancient and outstanding saints offered.
Secondly, however, the word 'as' can signify a likeness in the sacrifice itself. For, as Lyra says, 'as' signifies the analogy that exists between type and antitype, between image and exemplar, between shadow and truth, and therefore, as Clarius says, it signifies the preeminence of the Eucharistic sacrifice over the Aaronic ones, as if to say: The Eucharistic sacrifice will please God wonderfully, as is clear from its types, image, and shadows, namely from the sacrifice of Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, etc. For if these, which were only types and shadows, so pleased God that He blessed their entire families, indeed the whole world, on account of them, how much more will the sacrifice of Christ please Him — which was their exemplar, truth, and antitype, and which gave to those ancient sacrifices all the power and dignity through which they were pleasing to God.
Verse 5: And I will draw near to you in judgment
5. And I will draw near to you in judgment. — He returns to the complaint of the Jews saying, in chapter II, last verse: "Where is the God of judgment?" For to these He responds: Behold, shortly I will come, "I will draw near," and I will approach, as the Zurich Bible translates, from you to judgment — that is, so that I may descend into flesh, and before My own eyes inspect the crimes of the wicked, and thus be an eyewitness of them, which as judge I may condemn and punish. In a similar manner, God says, Genesis chapter XVIII, 20: "The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied, etc. I will go down and see whether they have done according to the cry that has come to Me, or whether it is not so, that I may know." Wherefore in reality three Angels, representing the triune God, went on to Sodom, where, solicited by the inhabitants for sodomy, they rained down fire and brimstone from heaven upon them, by which all were consumed.
The Prophet continues to speak of the first coming of Christ in the flesh, by which Christ came to inspect crimes, and to be a witness of them, which He then partly punishes in this life and at death, and partly will punish at the last judgment. Hence the Chaldean translates: And I will reveal Myself over you, to execute judgment, and My word shall be against you as a witness, etc. So Rupert, Arias, Ribera, and a Castro.
Others generally think that the Prophet here passes from the first coming of Christ in the flesh to the second, when He will come for judgment, when He Himself, as St. Jerome says, will be at once judge and witness, even of the most hidden crimes — adulteries, etc. — which are enumerated here. So also Theodoret, Remigius, Hugo, Lyra, and Vatablus. For Christ the judge will at the same time be a "swift witness;" the Zurich Bible has "speedy;" Vatablus, "ready" — because nothing is hidden from Him, but as God He sees all things, and as man He knows all things through infused knowledge, as well as through the beatific vision. Wherefore He will say to the wicked: I saw, O Judas, your hidden avarice, which drove you to betray Me to the Jews. I saw, O Robert, your hidden defilement, fornication, adultery. I saw, O Nicholas, your hidden wicked desires, your cravings for revenge, your plots of murder. I saw, O Simon, your hidden simonies, ambitions, envies, etc. Is it not so? If you deny it, your conscience will be a witness for Christ, and will cry out that you are lying. Wherefore the whole world will see that Christ's judgment is most just, and the sentence by which He will say: Go, adulterers; go, murderers; go, simoniacs; go, ambitious ones; go, envious ones; go, accursed, into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. Both senses fit this passage. For Christ began to be judge and witness in His first coming, but will bring both to completion in His second, namely on the day of judgment. Therefore 'witness' here by catachresis means the same as judge. So Christ is called the faithful witness, that is, judge, king, and prince, Revelation 1:5. See the comments there.
Who oppress the wages of the hired worker, — that is, as the Chaldean and the Septuagint have it: Who violently take away the wages of the hired worker; Pagninus: Who withhold by force; Vatablus: Who oppress; the Zurich Bible: Who defraud the hired worker of his wages. For the Hebrew asac means to defraud another of his property or right by slander, violence, or deceit. Hence is added: "Widows and orphans" — supply and repeat — "they oppress," defraud, and crush. For the reading 'humble,' which some Bibles have, is expunged by the Roman edition, as well as by the Hebrew. Hence the Septuagint translates: Who oppress widows by power, and strike orphans.
Who oppress the stranger. — The Septuagint and the Chaldean: Who pervert the judgment of the foreigner; Pagninus renders the Hebrew matte literally, those perverting the stranger; the Zurich Bible: who turn away from the stranger.
Verse 6: For I am the Lord, and I do not change
6. For I am the Lord, and I do not change. — The Hebrew lo shaniti, that is, as the Septuagint has it, I have not changed; Pagninus: I have not changed Myself, that is, being immutable, I do not change. For the Hebrews, because they lack a present tense, express it through the past tense.
Now the meaning is, first, as if to say: My threat is firm; I fulfill what I have foretold, says Vatablus. I threaten here vengeance upon adulterers, perjurers, and oppressors of the poor, and I will carry it out. Secondly, as if to say: I am not changeable, fickle, or inconstant, so as to want this now and something else soon after, but I always hate and punish crimes and criminals. Thirdly, St. Jerome says: "What follows, he says — 'I the Lord, and I do not change' — he adds because he had said above: 'He is like a refining fire and like fuller's soap,' lest we think He changes the nature of His divinity, when for our sake He is called angel, or fire, or borith."
Fourthly, others refer it to what follows: "And you, sons of Jacob, have not been consumed," as if to say: I have not consumed you, even though you are perverse, because My mercy, which I promised to your fathers, is constant and immutable: "For I am the Lord, and I do not change," according to Lamentations chapter III, 22: "It is through the mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed, because His compassions have not failed." Or, as if to say: You, O Jews, falsely accuse Me of being changeable, because I have consumed you contrary to the promises made to your fathers; but you err: for I have not changed, nor have I consumed you.
Fifthly, as if to say: You, O Jews, are changeable, and go from crime to crime; but I in My sentence and judgment am constant and immutable. Sixthly, on the contrary, Rupert says, as if to say: I am immutable in good, you are obstinate and immutable in evil: "for from the days of your fathers you have departed from My statutes," as follows. Seventhly, the Chaldean translates: For I the Lord have not changed My covenant which is from of old: and you, house of Israel, think that whoever dies in this world, his judgment ceases — as if to say: You think the wicked are not to be punished, because many remain unpunished in this world. But you err, for I will punish them in the future: for in judgment and justice, decreed by Me from eternity, I am constant and do not change.
Eighthly and most authentically, for the word gives the reason for what precedes, as if to say: You, O Jews, slander Me, brandishing that saying of the preceding chapter, last verse: "Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such please Him." For you think I have changed My character, as though I who formerly loved the good and hated the evil, now with a changed mind hate and afflict the good, and love and enrich the evil — because I have prospered the unfaithful Chaldeans, but have handed you, My faithful ones, over to them for devastation. Hence you say: "Where is the God of judgment?" To this calumny I responded in the preceding verse, and declared: "I will draw near to you in judgment, and will be a swift witness against evildoers," etc. — as if to say: Although for a short time I defer the judgment and vengeance upon the wicked, yet I will certainly and soon proceed to it and carry it out. For I constantly love and reward the good, and constantly hate and punish the evil, but in their proper time. The reason for this is My constancy and immutability, both in nature and in My words and decrees: "For I am the Lord, and I do not change." So St. Cyril, Theodoret, Remigius, Rupert, Hugo, Lyra, and Vatablus.
Note: The cause — or rather, the first reason — of God's immutability, says St. Thomas (I, q. IX), is the fullness and perfection of His nature, namely of the divinity. For since this nature has and firmly possesses all goods in itself, necessarily and naturally, it therefore cannot change, so as to seek or desire some other good, since it has all things in itself essentially. Hence His name is Jehovah, that is, He who is: "I am who I am," Exodus chapter III, 14. See the comments there. Famous is that saying of Trismegistus in the Pimander: "Just as the parts of the world are heaven, water, earth, and air, so the members, as it were, of God are life, immortality, necessity, providence, nature, soul, mind, and the participation in all of these — goodness itself: nor is anything made anywhere, nor has anything been made where God is not present." More divinely Cassiodorus, on Psalm XLVII, 'Great is the Lord,' etc.: "God," he says, "is inexplicable power, incomprehensible mercy, ineffable wisdom, whose definition is to have no end in the praises of the saints." Now because God is immutable by nature, He is therefore also immutable in will, so that what He once wills, He always wills — because the will follows nature, indeed in God the will is the same as nature.
The second reason, because God is pure act, having nothing mixed with potentiality; but whatever is changed is in some way in potency with respect to that into which it is changed, says St. Thomas in the place already cited. Here pertains that saying of the Apostle: "Who alone has immortality," 1 Timothy chapter VI — "because every change is a certain imitation of death," says St. Bernard, to be cited shortly. Hence in Psalm CI it is said: "Like a garment You will change them, and they will be changed; but You are the same, and Your years will not fail." And Numbers XXIII: "God is not like a man, that He should lie; nor like a son of man, that He should change."
St. Gregory of Nyssa writes admirably in his Exposition of the Lord's Prayer, on those words 'Thy kingdom come': "Does He," he says, "now wish to become king — He who is the king of all, who always is what He is, who is firm and immovable against all change, who cannot find anything better into which to pass?"
The third reason: God is immutable because He is most simple, and nothing can be added or accrue to Him. So St. Augustine, City of God book XI, chapter X: "There is therefore," he says, "only one simple good, and for that reason alone immutable, which is God." The same, On the Trinity book VI, chapter VI: "Nothing simple is changeable." And the Author of the book On the Essence of the Divinity, found among St. Augustine's works, at the beginning: "God," he says, "is called immutable because in His nature anger, fury, repentance, forgetfulness, remembrance, and other such things in no way occur. For His nature is simple, and immutable, and undisturbed; nor is He one thing and what He has and what He is another," according to James chapter I, 17: "With whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration."
Wherefore Tertullian, or rather Novatian, in his book On the Trinity, chapter IV: "Change," he says, "is a portion of death. For growth shows an origin, and decline proves death and destruction. And therefore: 'I,' says Malachi, chapter III, 'am God, and I have not changed' — maintaining His state always, since what was not born cannot be converted. For in this whatever it is that can be what it is, it is necessary that God always be, so that He may always be God, preserving Himself by His own powers. And therefore He says: 'I am who I am.'"
The fourth reason is given by St. Anselm, in the Proslogion chapter XXII: "You alone," he says, "O Lord, are what You are. That in which there is something changeable is not entirely what it is; and that which has a past which is no more, and a future which is not yet — that does not exist properly and absolutely. But You are what You are, because whatever You are at any time or in any way, this You are wholly and always; and You are He who properly and simply is." Because what changes loses some being and acquires another being; but God can lose nothing and acquire nothing. Hence St. Augustine, Confessions book XI, chapter X: "Insofar," he says, "as anyone is not what he was, and is what he was not, to that extent he dies and is born."
The fifth reason is given by St. Augustine, Confessions book XI, chapters X and XI, and book XII, chapter XV. Because the will of God is eternal, and whatever He works in time through the whole series of ages, He willed and decreed all at once from eternity. But it is contradictory that what He efficaciously willed from eternity should not happen in time, or that its opposite should happen. For then the eternal decree of God would be overthrown. Famous is that saying of Plato: "In God there is providence and eternal wisdom; in the heavens there is fate; on earth and in particular things there is the contingent and the new."
The sixth reason is given by St. Augustine, City of God book XI, chapter XXI. Because all past and future things are present to God, and God's knowledge, will, and providence extend to all things as present. Just as therefore what I will concerning a present thing I cannot not will, so what God wills concerning future things He cannot not will, because future things are present to Him.
Tropologically, St. Gregory Nazianzen in Oration 17 applies these words to the man who is strong and constant in virtue. For such a man, he says, "feeling something divine, can also use these words of God: 'I am the same, and I do not change.' Wherefore he will neither depart from his own mind, nor be changed with times and circumstances, now putting on one set of manners, now another, and constantly assuming new colors — not unlike polyps which take on the colors of the rocks to which they have attached themselves. But he will always remain the same and like himself, fixed in things that are not at all fixed, unmoved in uncertain and fluctuating circumstances — just as a certain rock is not only not shaken by the force of winds and waves, but even breaks and consumes the waves dashing against it."
Morally, learn this here: The name of God is: I am who I am — always the same, constant and immutable: I the Lord, and I do not change; I am inflexible in My sentence, immutable in My decrees; My threats are certain, My promises sure. Therefore, O pious, believe and hope for eternal glory; O wicked, fear and flee the eternal fire. On the contrary, the title and name of man, of an Angel, and of any created thing is: I am a creature, and I change; I change my plans, I change my mind, I change my decrees, I change my desires and loves; in short, I am engaged in continual change and motion. For created nature, since it is dependent, imperfect, diminished, defective, and mobile, is therefore perpetually changing.
Wherefore those who fix their hope and love on human beings and other creatures are engaged in perpetual hunger, thirst, desire, fear, alteration, and change, according to Lamentations I, 8: "Jerusalem has sinned grievously, therefore she has become unstable." For whoever clings to what is mobile must necessarily be moved with it when it moves. On the contrary, do you wish to be constant and immovable? Cling to the immutable nature and good, which is God. For God in His immutability is immutable, just as on the contrary human beings and creatures in their mutability are immutable — because they perpetually change: for now they want, soon they do not want; now they love, soon they hate; now they please, soon they displease; now they favor, soon they oppose; now they want but cannot; soon they can but do not want; now they are at the top, soon at the bottom; now alive, soon dead.
Truly St. Bernard in Sermon 81 on the Canticle, citing these words of Malachi — 'I the Lord, and I do not change' — says: "Every change," he says, "is a certain imitation of death. For everything that changes, while it passes from one state of being to another, must in some way die to what it is, so that it may begin to be what it is not. But if there are as many deaths as there are changes, where is immortality?"
St. Augustine writes admirably, Confessions book I, chapter VI: "In Him," he says, "stand the causes of all unstable things, and in Him remain the immutable origins of all changeable things, and in Him live the eternal reasons of all irrational and temporal things;" and as Boethius says: Remaining stable, He gives all things their motion. And Prosper, Sentence 145: "His will is eternal and immutable, nor is it varied by alternating counsel; in it there is at once whatever in the creation or ordering of things has preceded or will follow."
To the same point pertains what St. Augustine writes, Confessions book I, chapter IV: "Immutable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; renewing all things, and leading the proud into decay — and they know it not; always acting, always at rest; gathering, yet not in need; carrying and filling and protecting; creating and nourishing and perfecting. You seek, though nothing is lacking to You; You love, yet do not burn; You are jealous, yet secure; You repent, yet do not grieve; You are angry, yet tranquil; You change Your works, yet do not change Your plan; You receive what You find, yet never lost it; never poor, yet rejoicing in gains; never avaricious, yet exacting interest. More is paid to You than is owed, and who has anything that is not Yours? You repay debts while owing nothing; You forgive debts and lose nothing," etc.
This is the primeval and uncreated immutability in God, which is the font, origin, and cause of all stability and immutability, both in angels, the heavens, the world, and in human beings. Ascend therefore to it, O soul; yearn for it; fasten yourself to it, if you desire to be solid and firm. Rise above the waves of this sea; fly over the storms of the world. Let not alluring riches, dignities, and pomps move you — they pass in a moment. Let not poverty, sickness, hardships, or persecutions terrify you — they often end suddenly, and always end in death. Dwell in heaven, abide in God: there, fixed and undisturbed, you will find rest. There, elevated above the spheres of all changeable things, above the paths of the year and the sun, from on high you will look down upon this dot of earth: you will see and laugh at the vain pursuits of humanity, their vain labors, the vain loves and honors of the worldly — like children's toys. You will marvel, indeed you will pity, the meager lot of humanity, their still more meager mind, and the foolish fascination with the trifles of this world, perverting the simple sense, and you will exclaim with the Poet: O the cares of humanity, O how much emptiness there is in things!
St. Gregory writes admirably, Morals book XXVI, chapter XXVIII: "The soul," he says, "is suspended toward Him by whom it was formed. And because it was made to desire God alone, but everything it desires below Him is less, rightly what is not God does not suffice for it. Hence it is scattered here and there, and is removed from each thing as weariness drives it away, etc. But holy men, because they guard themselves with careful watchfulness lest they be mutably dissolved from their purpose, and because they desire to remain the same, diligently bind themselves to the thought by which they love God. For in the contemplation of the Creator they are to receive this gift: that they may always enjoy one stability of mind. No mutability then scatters them, because their thought always perseveres like unto itself. What they now strive with labor to imitate, they will afterward receive with joy as a gift. To this immutability the Prophet had bound himself by the power of love, when he said: 'One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord.' To this unity Paul had clung with his intention, saying in Philippians III, 13: 'One thing, forgetting what is behind, stretching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the prize of the heavenly calling of Christ.'"
And you, sons of Jacob, have not been consumed. — These words fittingly cohere with what preceded, as if to say: I am God who does not change: for just as I do not change My threats, sentence, and vengeance against adulterers, perjurers, and other evildoers, so in turn I do not change the mercy which I promised to your fathers. For I have not consumed you, though I could justly do so: "For from the days of your fathers you have departed from My statutes."
Secondly, as if to say: Although I constantly hate the wicked, nevertheless I have not punished your sins fully and entirely, as they deserved. For I have not consumed you, but have tolerated you out of the love with which I constantly pursue your fathers and you their sons, waiting for you to come to your senses. Hence I exhort you to repentance, and say: "Return to Me, and I will return to you."
Thirdly, the Septuagint translates: You, O sons of Jacob, have not departed from the sins of your fathers; the Zurich Bible: You, O sons of Jacob, by no means desist; others: You make no end, you do not cease (for the Hebrew cala means to finish, complete, cease — namely, to offend and irritate Me), as if to say: I defer the vengeance upon the wicked, waiting for you to repent; but you on the contrary heap sins upon sins. You act like stubborn children who, when gently called by their parents, turn their backs and become harder — like buffaloes, which the more they are pulled by their drivers, the more they resist and pull back. Or, as if to say: I do not change from good; but you do not change from evil: I am immutable in holiness; you are immutable in perversity. So Rupert.
Verse 7: From My statutes return to Me , and I will return to you
7. From My statutes (from My laws; the Zurich Bible: From My statutes; Pagninus: From My ordinances) return to Me (through repentance), and I will return to you — through grace, friendship, and beneficence. For the repentance of the sinner comes before his justification and reconciliation with God; yet the exciting grace of God, by which He strikes the mind of the sinner so that he may return and repent, comes before his repentance. For the sinner lies asleep in slumber, indeed in the death of sins, from which he cannot be roused except by the voice and grace of God touching and awakening his heart, as here He anticipates and rouses the Jews, saying: "Return to Me." So this passage and similar ones are explained by the Council of Trent, session IV, chapter V, where it teaches: "The beginning of justification in adults must be taken from the prevenient grace of God through Christ Jesus, etc., so that those who had been turned away from God through sins may, through His exciting and assisting grace, dispose themselves for their own justification by freely assenting to and cooperating with that same grace." And shortly after: "Hence when it is said in Sacred Scripture: 'Return to Me, and I will return to you,' we are reminded of our freedom. When we respond: 'Convert us, O Lord, to You, and we shall be converted,' we confess that we are preceded by the grace of God." Therefore, that the sinner may rise from sin — since he cannot do this by his own powers, but by God's — let him frequently pray: Convert me, O Lord, to You, and I shall be converted.
Verse 8: Shall a man afflict God?
8. Shall a man afflict God? — So also the Zurich Bible. In Hebrew it is kaba, which is of uncertain meaning; hence it is variously translated by various scholars. Kaba in Hebrew signifies many things. First, the Septuagint and others think that kaba, by metathesis, is the same as akab, that is, he supplanted, trampled upon, oppressed. Hence the Septuagint translates: Shall a man supplant God, because you have supplanted Me? This alludes to the name Jacob, as if to say: You, O sons of Jacob, imitate your father, but perversely. For Jacob seized the rights of primogeniture from his brother Esau, but by the command of his mother and the will of God; hence he was called Jacob, that is, supplanter. But you, against My will, seize My tithes and rights; hence, reversing the name, I call you Kabobaeans, not Jacobeans.
Secondly, Pagninus and Vatablus translate kaba as to seize, defraud, extort, despoil. Hence Pagninus translates: Shall a man seize what belongs to God, because you have seized My things? Vatablus: Should a man despoil God, because you have despoiled Me? A man despoils God when he withholds tithes from His ministers, and other things necessary for their sustenance. Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodoret translate: Has a man defrauded God? — namely, of His tithes and rights.
Thirdly, Rabbi Abraham translates kaba as to corrupt, destroy. Fourthly, the Syriac and the Alexandrian Arabic translate: Does a man oppress God, as you oppress Me? And the Antiochene Arabic: Does a man oppress God, because you have expelled (cast away, despised) Me? Fifthly, kaba in the Chaldean and Syrian language, says St. Jerome, means to affix or nail. All these versions aim at the same point: for the meaning is, as if to say: Is it right, just, and lawful for a man to sadden and afflict his God, as if he were piercing Him with a nail or a lance? To sadden Him, I say, by defrauding the tithes, by which His ministers were to be fed — with the result that they flee because of poverty and abandon God and the worship of God: and so the religion and veneration of God is neglected, trampled upon, and ruined. Does not this afflict God, and as it were nail Him to the cross? So Remigius, Albert, Hugo, Lyra, Ribera, and others. God speaks in human fashion and anthropopathically.
Mystically, St. Jerome (who thinks this is the literal meaning) refers this to the crucifixion of Christ: "Hence we also," he says, "many years ago translated it 'Will affix,' referring it more to the mystery of the Lord's Passion, in which men crucified God, than to writings about tithes and first-fruits." Furthermore, he connects the things that follow to this about the cross, as if to say: "In order that you might nail Me to the cross, in order that you might lay your wicked hands on your God, you prepared beforehand by many actions, withholding tithes and first-fruits — not, I say, from My priests and Levites, but from Me, who commanded through Moses that they be given" — as if to say: You afflicted Me of old by sacrilege regarding the tithes; now you have nailed Me to the cross; and through the former sacrilege you paved the way and made a step toward the latter Christ-murder.
Tropologically, every sinner, when he sins, by his sin — like an arrow shot into heaven — pierces God as far as it is in his power, according to that saying of the Apostle, Hebrews VI, 6: "Crucifying again the Son of God and holding Him up to contempt." This consideration alone should restrain a man, even a raging one, from crime: Do you know where you are rushing, O wretch, when you rush to murder, to lust? You are rushing to the death of Christ, to nail Christ again to the cross. Therefore halt your step, lest you commit so great a wickedness: restrain your anger, your lust, etc., because anger and lust are Christ-murder, indeed God-murder. As many stripes, as many curses, as many defilements as you commit, as many nails as you drive through the body of Christ, with so many daggers do you pierce and stab His heart.
In tithes. — See here how strictly God demands tithes, and how He feels when they are denied — namely, as if someone were piercing Him through with a nail or a dagger.
And in first-fruits. — The Zurich Bible: In magnificent gifts. In Hebrew it is teruma, that is, an elevation, meaning an offering which was offered to God by being raised up, as I said on Exodus XXIII, 27, and especially the first-fruits: for these hold the chief place among offerings. See here again how God rejoices in the offerings of the faithful, and grieves if they cease or are diminished.
Verse 9: And you are cursed with poverty
9. And you are cursed with poverty. — The Zurich Bible: You are cursed with a curse; Vatablus and Pagninus: With the curse itself you are cursed. By the curse he means the denial of rain, and thence the sterility of the earth, famine, and poverty: for the cause of these is the curse of God. Hence shortly after he calls the rain the blessing opposed to this curse: "If I do not open," He says, "the floodgates of heaven, and pour out upon you a blessing." The meaning is, as if to say: I have cursed you and afflicted you with poverty and famine, and — that is, because — in like manner you pierce and afflict Me with want and hunger by denying tithes and offerings; and thus you drive away the priests and overthrow My worship. Nehemiah complained of the same thing to the magistrates at the same time, in chapter XIII, 10, where he narrates that by his command the tithes were restored to the priests, and the priests to their offices and the temple.
The whole nation, — as if to say: Not one, not a few, but all and the whole nation deny the tithes: and thus they pierce Me.
Verse 10: Bring in the full tithe, etc., and prove Me in this, etc., whe...
10. Bring in the full tithe, etc., and prove Me in this, etc., whether I will not open the floodgates. — The Zurich Bible translates: the windows of heaven, that is, as St. Jerome explains, whether I will not pour out such copious rain that the floodgates of heaven will seem to have been opened. Note: Cataracts are called waters flowing down from on high in such great abundance, force, and noise that they seem rather to crash down than to flow (for the Greeks say katarrhattein, meaning to flow down), such as we see the Anio at Tivoli, and such as we read the cataracts of the Nile in Egypt to be, says Pliny, book V, chapter IX. Hence the places themselves from which the waters come out, and especially the barriers and gates by which they are held back and restrained, are called cataracts. The Hebrews and Jerome following Oleaster, Genesis VII, 11, think that these cataracts truly are in heaven, and that they were broken open in the flood in the time of Noah, so that the sky was torn apart into holes and windows, through which the waters rushed down and submerged and overwhelmed the earth. But this is a paradox, repugnant to Sacred Scripture and to physics. It is therefore a Hebrew figure of speech and idiom: for the Hebrews say heaven is closed when it holds the vapors and clouds, so that they are not dissolved into rain and do not fall; but that it is opened and broken when waters burst out of the clouds with great force, noise, and violence, as if they were breaking through cataracts — that is, barriers placed in the way, such as iron gates or windows.
So too the Latins, in great rainstorms, are accustomed to say that the cataracts of heaven have been opened. Hence that verse of Psalm XII, 8: Deep calls to deep in the voice of Your cataracts. Similar expressions are in Isaiah XXIV, 10 and IV Kings VII, 2. See the comments on Genesis VII, 11.
And I will pour out (Pagninus: I will empty out) upon you a blessing. — The Zurich Bible: I will pour out every kind of blessing. He calls the blessing a copious shower, moistening and fertilizing the fields, and thus producing an abundant crop and harvest.
To abundance, — in Hebrew belidai, that is: To the point of insufficiency — supply: of vessels and granaries, as if to say: I will give such great abundance of all crops that your vessels and granaries will not be sufficient to receive and store them: so Vatablus. Hence Pagninus translates: To the point that vessels will not be sufficient for you, as happened to that woman blessed by Elisha, whose oil jar poured out so much oil that it filled all the vessels borrowed — to the point that she said to her son: "Bring me yet another vessel;" and he said: "I have no more;" and the oil stopped, IV Kings IV, 3. Be therefore generous toward God and His ministers, and you will in turn find God far more generous toward you: for the Creator does not allow Himself to be surpassed in generosity by His creatures.
Hence secondly, more accurately and simply, the Hebrew belidai, that is, non-sufficiency, since it is a single word, is the same as abundance: for abundance is opposed to sufficiency. As if to say: I will give you rains and crops, not merely to sufficiency, but to abundance. Hence Arias translates: Beyond sufficiency — for the Hebrew beli sometimes means 'without' or 'beyond.' Just as therefore we say: I saw ants without number, that is, innumerable, so God promises here rain belidai, that is, without sufficiency or beyond sufficiency — that is, more than sufficient, namely abundant and copious. Or certainly beli here, in composition, is merely enclitic, and is added only for ornament to the word dai, that is, sufficiency, abundance, plenty.
For from dai God is called Shaddai, that is, cornucopia, most rich, most abundant, most munificent. Hence Rabbi Saadia says: "God," he says, "is called Shaddai because He Himself abounds, to such a degree that by His abundance He fills up all the deficiencies of all creatures." The Septuagint seems to have followed this; for they translate: Until it suffices; and the Chaldean: So that you will say: It is enough.
For the Hebrew dai, that is, sufficiency, denotes plenty and abundance, as our translator renders it.
Note: The Jews returning from Babylon were poor; hence they denied the tithes. For the poor, from their narrow family means, contract a narrow heart; hence they become stingy, mean, avaricious, thieving, and especially deny or clip and diminish the rights owed to the Church. Wherefore Solomon wisely prays against both poverty and riches, Proverbs XXX, 8: "Give me neither beggary," he says, "nor riches; grant me only what is necessary for my sustenance: lest perhaps, being sated, I be enticed to deny, and say: 'Who is the Lord?' Or, compelled by poverty, I steal and perjure the name of my God." For necessity is a harsh weapon. Wherefore God, meeting this evil and misery of theirs, strikes open and widens their narrow heart, teaching that if they are generous toward God and His priests, they will receive from God a blessing and abundance of goods.
Know, says St. Jerome, that you have lost your abundance because you have defrauded Me of My portion. I therefore admonish you to restore to Me what is Mine, and I will restore to you what is yours. Haggai promised the same thing to the same people at the same time, chapter II, 20, and Zechariah chapter II, 4. On the duty of paying tithes, St. Augustine wrote Sermon 219 On the Seasons, volume X, where among other things, citing these words of Malachi, he draws from them the following axioms.
The first: "Tithes are the tribute of needy souls. Therefore pay your tribute to the poor, offer your libations to the priests." The second: "The Lord God has no need; He does not demand a reward, but honor." The third: "He deigns to ask for first-fruits and tithes, and do you greedily refuse?" The fourth: "What would you do if, taking nine parts for Himself, He had left you the tenth?" The fifth: "This has certainly already happened, when your harvest, deprived of the blessing of rains, failed and was meager; and either hail struck your vintage, or frost scorched it. Why do you greedily calculate? Nine parts have been taken back from you, because you refused to give the tenth. For this is the most just custom of the Lord: that if you do not give Him the tenth, you will be reduced to a tenth." The sixth: "You will give to an impious soldier what you do not wish to give to a priest." The seventh: "Tithes are required as a debt, and whoever refuses to give them has invaded another's property." The eighth: "For as many poor people in the places where he lives who have died of hunger because he did not give tithes, he will appear guilty of that many murders before the tribunal of the eternal Judge: because he reserved for his own use what was delegated by the Lord to the poor." The ninth: "Behold, the year is already finished; pay the wage to the Lord who sends the rain." The tenth: "He does not demand from you something of your own to be repaid," but His own — indeed, He asks back a tenth part of what is His. See on tithes the Council of Trent, session XXV, chapter XII, and what I said on Deuteronomy chapter XIV at the end, and Numbers XVIII at the end.
Verse 11: I will rebuke the devourer
11. I will rebuke (that is, I will forbid as if rebuking — it is a catachresis) the devourer, — namely, the one devouring your crops — that is, the locust, as if to say: I will command the locusts and restrain them, lest they devour your harvests, lest they devastate your sown fields. Hence, explaining, He adds: "And it shall not destroy the fruit of your land."
Verse 12: For you shall be a desirable land
12. For you shall be a desirable land. — First, the Septuagint understands 'as' implicitly, hence they translate: You shall be like a land of delight, that is, wished for and desirable, as if to say: You will be green, flourishing, prosperous, abounding in all crops and riches. So Cyril; or, as Vatablus says, as if to say: You will be people dwelling in a most fertile and most delightful land.
Secondly, it can be an epexegesis: you, that is, your land will be desirable; the Zurich Bible: wished for, as if to say: All nations will wish to dwell in your land, as one blessed by God and therefore abounding in crops. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Hugo, Lyra.
Thirdly, in Hebrew literally it is: You shall be a land of chephets, that is, of will, delight, desire — in which, namely, God will take delight, and which He will bless and heap with all good things. For since you obey God and worship Him by giving Him tithes and first-fruits, in return God will take delight in you, and because of you in your land, so that through it and its fertility He may enrich and bless you. Hence the Chaldean translates: You shall dwell in the land of the house of My majesty, and My will shall be done in it, says the Lord — as if to say: Because you do My will, in return My will and delight, and consequently My beneficence, will pour itself out upon you and upon your land, and will dwell and rest there. So Judea is called by Daniel, chapter XI, 16, "the glorious land," in Hebrew sebiia, that is, glory, beauty, will, good pleasure, desire, a thing beloved and pleasing like a young deer. See the comments there.
Allegorically, the Church and the holy soul is a land of chephets, in which God takes delight, according to Isaiah LXII, 2: "The nations shall see your just one, and all kings your glorious one, and you shall be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name. And you shall be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no longer be called Forsaken, etc., but you shall be called 'My delight is in her,' and your land shall be inhabited: because the Lord has taken delight in you." The same in Canticle II, 9 is called tsebiia, that is, a lovely and gracious gazelle, because her spouse is Christ, most gracious, like a young deer: "My beloved," he says, "is like a gazelle, and like a young stag." And verse 17: "Return, be like, my beloved, a gazelle and a young stag upon the mountains of Bethel." And chapter IV, 5: "Your two breasts are like two fawns of a gazelle, twins feeding among the lilies, until the day breathes and the shadows decline." And Jeremiah III, 19: "How shall I put you among My children, and give you the desirable land, the goodly heritage of the hosts of nations?" In Hebrew it is: the heritage of tsebi tsiboth, that is, of the glory of gazelles, or of the delight of delights — that is, supremely lovable, most dear, and most delightful.
Verse 13: Your words have been strengthened against Me
13. Your words have been strengthened against Me, — that is, against Me. The Prophet returns to the blasphemy of the Jews in chapter II, last verse, because it was frequent on their lips. For 'strengthened' the Hebrew is chazecu, that is, they have been made strong. First, because you persist contentiously, forcefully, and clamorously — indeed, you grow in your blasphemy, and constantly cry out against Me: "Vain is he who serves the Lord" — so Lyra and a Castro. Secondly, because these continual and quarrelsome blasphemies of yours are very grievous and burdensome to Me, and weigh Me down and oppress Me as with a millstone — so St. Jerome, Remigius, Haymo, and Arias. Thirdly, the Zurich Bible translates: Your words surpass Me — because you with your clamors and blasphemies turn more people away from Me than My Prophets with their sermons convert to Me: just as heretics pervert more than Catholics convert. For all naturally incline, indeed rush, toward the freedom of the flesh that heretics preach, and shrink from the continence and severity of life that Catholics preach.
And you have said: What have we spoken against You? — In Hebrew nidbarnu, being in the niphal, signifies continual and persistent speech. Hence the Chaldean translates: In what have we multiplied words against You? Hear their murmurings against God's providence, justice, and holiness.
Vain is he who serves God. — The Zurich Bible: God is served in vain; the Chaldean: He profits who worships before the Lord — namely: The common crowd tests friendships by utility. Worldly people therefore consider him vain, that is, unrewarded and unrecompensed, because he receives no profit or reward for his service. This is the judgment of the world, by which worldly people consider vain the pious, just, sincere, and austere — especially when they see them impoverished, despised, oppressed, and afflicted — because they are ignorant of the true goods of virtue and eternal glory, but measure everything by present appearance, feeling, and taste, as children, piglets, and brute animals do. And therefore they themselves are the vain ones, because they feed on nothing but what is passing and vain.
So the wife of Job taunted him in his affliction, saying: "Do you still persist in your simplicity? Bless God and die." To whom Job wisely and nobly responded: "You have spoken like one of the foolish women. If we have received good things from the hand of God, why should we not bear the bad?" Job II, 10. Likewise Tobit, blinded on the occasion of his duty of burying the dead, was mocked by his relatives, saying in chapter II, 15: "Where is your hope, for which you gave alms and performed burials?" But Tobit rebuked them, saying: Do not speak thus, for we are sons of saints, and we look for that life which God will give to those who never change their faith from Him.
Certainly, if the just did not have hope for another and better life, they would afflict themselves in vain and would endure the afflictions of others to no purpose. For, as the Apostle says, 1 Corinthians XV, 19: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are the most miserable of all men." But now, because we hope for another life — blessed and eternal — in exchange for the slight tribulations of this life, we are the happiest of all people. So St. Casimir, Duke of Lithuania and son of Casimir, King of Poland, when he had fallen into illness and the doctors asserted that he could not be freed from it unless he married, responded: "I choose to die a virgin: for I know no other life than heavenly immortality." Wherefore, lest he break his resolve of virginity, he preferred to die and to become a victim of chastity to God, so that he might live forever with God and the Lamb, an angel among angels. So his Life relates.
Because we walked in sadness. — In Hebrew kedorannit, that is, as the Zurich Bible has it, clothed in black, as if mourning, afflicted, and penitent; Pagninus: humble; the Septuagint: suppliant; the Chaldean: in lowness of spirit. Hence by antithesis there follows:
Verse 15: Therefore now we call the arrogant blessed
15. Therefore now we call the arrogant blessed, — who dare all things, and therefore exalt themselves, and lord it over the modest, and trample upon and afflict them, as we see daily.
For they are built up, — that is, the impious have been increased in children, and at the same time in houses, estates, wealth, pleasures, and honors. It is a Hebraism.
They tempted God, — that is, they provoked Him to anger. Hence the Septuagint translates: They resisted God. Secondly, more authentically and forcefully: they tempted — in Hebrew bachanu — that is, they tested God, as if to say: The impious, not content with their crimes, added others upon others, enormous both in number and gravity, in order to test whether there was a deity to avenge crimes. They wished therefore, by their boldness and wickedness, to stir the bile of the Deity, to see whether He would be roused to avenge Himself. But when they saw that there was no voice nor response, and that God gave no sign of anger or vengeance, but that on the contrary they sinned with impunity, were free from all punishment, indeed that all things flowed according to their wishes and succeeded prosperously, then — like victors, indeed like conquerors of the Deity, as if there were none, or He were powerless to avenge — they began to live securely in their impiety, to revel, and to indulge in wantonness. So a Castro.
Verse 16: Then they spoke
16. Then they spoke, — as if to say: Then the just and pious took upon themselves the defense of God's cause against blasphemers and atheists — namely, His providence and justice — and exhorted one another to this end, asserting those things which they had learned from their fathers and from Scripture: namely, that God in this life overlooks many things and leaves them unpunished, so that He may punish them more sharply and fully in the next life, and so that on the day of judgment He may exercise a general justice upon all. So St. Jerome and generally others, with the single exception of Arias, who translates: Then those who feared the Lord were devastated — namely, by the impious and atheists who attacked them with impunity — because, he says, the Hebrew dibber, that is, to speak, sometimes means to devastate, destroy, as in Psalm II, 5 and II Chronicles XXII, 10. Hence deber means pestilence and death.
And the Lord heeded. — Some think these are the words of the pious, which they spoke in defense of God's providence, as if to say: God does not neglect, but heeds the words and deeds of both the just and the wicked, and writes them in the book of His memory, so that on the day of judgment He may bring them forth and publicly read and judge them. So Lyra and Clarius. Others better think these are the words of the Prophet, as if to say: God heeded both the blasphemies of the wicked and the defenses of the pious, and wrote them in the book of memorial — that is, of memory — and this for the sake of the pious who fear Him and think upon His name — who, that is, constantly with veneration think upon, invoke, proclaim, and celebrate the name and glory of God; so that on the day of judgment He may show their faith, religion, and piety toward Him to the whole world, and reward it with an eternal crown. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, Rupert, Hugo, and others.
Note: The book of memorial is the book of memory, as the Hebrew and Greek have it. The Syriac and the Antiochene Arabic translate: A book of remembrance was written; the Alexandrian Arabic: The Lord heard these things; and He wrote a book in which this is, and He made it a memorial (a remembrance) before all who fear the Lord, that they may fear His name. For God in His memory, as in a book of memorial, notes and records the words and deeds of each individual, so that on the day of judgment He may read them from it before all human beings and angels, and decree for each one a reward or punishment according to their merits or demerits. Hence Daniel says of Him, chapter VII, 10: "The judgment (that is, God the judge with the saints, as His assessors) was seated, and the books were opened." And John, Revelation XX, 12: "The books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from those things which were written in the books, according to their works." See the comments there.
Here therefore the "book of those who fear God" is the book of predestination, which is elsewhere called the "book of God." Hence in Exodus XXXII, Moses says to God: "Either blot me out of Your book which You have written;" and "the book of the living," as in Psalm LXVIII: "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living." The same is called the "book of heaven: Rejoice that your names are written in heaven," Luke X, 20. The same is frequently called by St. John in the Apocalypse the "book of life," because in it God has enrolled the saints and the elect for eternal life. But here it is called the "book of memorial;" in Hebrew ziccaron, that is, of memory — meaning of the divine mind — because those elect ones are always before Him, inasmuch as God pursues them with particular love, favor, and care, in order to transfer them in His own time to His kingdom.
So in Deuteronomy chapter XXXII, 43, God says: "Are not these things stored up with Me, sealed in My treasuries?" — namely, in the books of memorial, that is, in the archives of the divine mind. So St. Cyril: "A book of memory," he says, "is written for those who fear God, whom He says will be His familiars and intimates at the time of acquisition — when, namely, Christ will descend from the throne of majesty with the angels accompanying Him, and will set the sheep on His right and the goats on His left."
For there is not properly in God a memory such as pertains to past things: for nothing is past to God, but all things are as if present. He speaks therefore in human fashion: because past things are preserved in memory among human beings, He attributes the same to God. He therefore calls the mind of God, which knows all things, 'memory,' insofar as He knows those things which to us are past, and stores them within Himself, and preserves them in His knowledge. Hence St. Augustine, on Psalm CXXXVII: "Then," he says, "God is said to remember, when He acts; then to forget, when He does not act. For neither does forgetfulness befall God, because He is in no way changed; nor remembrance, because He does not forget." The same, Confessions book X, chapter XIV: "Memory," he says, "is, as it were, the stomach of the mind, etc. Perhaps therefore, just as food is brought forth from the stomach by rumination, so these things are brought forth from memory by recollection." But God remembers nothing, nor draws anything hidden from the belly and bosom of memory, inasmuch as He actually beholds and sees all things.
Again, this is called the book of memory because He will transcribe the saints to eternal memory, fame, and glory, according to Psalm CXI, 6: "The just man shall be in eternal memory;" while all the glory and pomp of the wicked and the world passes like smoke, according to Psalm IX, 8: "Their memory has perished with a crash." And Psalm XXXIII, 17: "He has destroyed their memory from the earth." Do you then desire memory and an eternal name? Seek it not among men but with God; not on earth, where all memory will end with the world, but in heaven, according to Wisdom chapter VIII, 13: "Through this (namely, practical wisdom — that is, virtue) I shall have immortality and eternal memory." And Wisdom IV, 1: "O how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory! For the memory of it is immortal." And Sirach XXIV, 28, Wisdom says: "My memory is unto the generations of ages."
Now what reward God has decreed in this book of memorial for the pious and just, He adds, saying:
Verse 17: And they shall be Mine, says the Lord, as a peculiar treasure,...
17. And they shall be Mine, says the Lord, as a peculiar treasure, etc. — He alludes to the books of memory, namely, to the annals and diaries of kings, of which Esther II, 23, in which the merits of Mordecai were written — on account of which Ahasuerus exalted him. So the Pope has a book of memory, in which he writes the merits of prelates, whom he intends to elevate to the episcopate or the cardinalate.
On the day when I act (that is, when I shall act — namely, in judgment) as a peculiar treasure, — as if to say: On the day of judgment, those who fear Me and believe in and defend My providence will be Mine as a peculiar treasure — that is, as a people proper and peculiar, dedicated to Me, and made blessed through the vision and enjoyment of Me. So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, Rupert, Lyra, and others.
Note: For peculium the Hebrew is segulla, that is, a chosen portion, a rare and dear thing, a precious treasure, an outstanding jewel. It alludes to Exodus XIX, 5: "You shall be My peculiar treasure from all peoples." See the comments there. For just as in the old law the Israelites were a peculiar treasure — that is, the inheritance of God and a people chosen by God from all nations — so in the new law God's peculiar treasure consists of Christians who are just through grace, who therefore in heaven will be God's peculiar treasure through glory — possessed by God, and in turn possessing God. This last point is what Malachi properly intends here, for he is speaking of the day of judgment and the rewards of the saints.
The word peculium is therefore taken here differently than among the ancient Romans and jurists. For peculium, says Festus, is derived from pecus (cattle), and is whatever has been acquired and gained by someone's labor and industry. And it properly belongs to slaves, just as money belongs to heads of families and nobles. Hence among the ancients all patrimony was called peculium, because their entire substance consisted of cattle. Ulpian, On Peculium, in the book On Deposit, says: Peculium is so called as if it were a small sum of money, or a small patrimony. Tubero defined peculium thus: what a slave, with the permission of his master, has separate from the master's accounts, after deducting whatever is owed to the master. Florentinus in the book Peculium, Digest, On Peculium, says: Peculium consists in what someone has procured for himself by his own thrift, or has earned by his service to receive as a gift from anyone, and which someone has wished his slave to have as his own patrimony, as it were. Hence Celsus, in the book Si chorus, Digest, On Legacies, III, writes that money without peculium — that is, without fruit and profit — is fragile. Here, however, peculium is taken for a chosen inheritance and a rare and precious treasure.
The elect can nevertheless be called the peculium of Christ in the former sense, because they were bought by the labor and the price of the blood of Christ, who for their sake assumed a servant's nature, according to that saying: "You were bought at a great price; glorify and bear God in your body," 1 Corinthians VI. This will be the immense glory of the saints, that they will be the peculiar treasure and jewel of God, just as the reprobate will be the slaves and property of the devil, according to that saying of Christ: "Depart from Me, accursed, into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels," Matthew XXV, 41.
Hence this peculiar treasure is called by the Apostle the lot of the saints, the kingdom of Christ, and the family of God: "Giving thanks," he says, "to God the Father, who has made us worthy to share in the lot of the saints in light, who has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love," Colossians I, 12. And: "When He shall have delivered the kingdom to God and the Father," 1 Corinthians XV, 24. And: "You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God," Ephesians II, 19. Foreseeing this, Isaiah says in chapter XLIV, 5: "This one," he says, "will say: I belong to the Lord; and that one will call himself by the name of Jacob; and another will write with his hand: Belonging to the Lord; and will be likened by the name of Israel."
Furthermore, God adorns this peculiar treasure of His — namely, the saints and the blessed — far more than a head of family cultivates his property, or a king or queen adorns his or her jewels. For since He holds them in the highest love as well as honor, He heaps upon them all joy, wealth, happiness — indeed, Himself — and makes them blessed.
Hence St. Augustine, City of God book X, chapter VII: "Rightly," he says, "those established in the heavenly seats, immortal and blessed, who rejoice in the participation of their Creator — firm in His eternity, certain in His truth, holy by His gift." And on Psalm LXXXVII, near the end, explaining the verse: As the dwelling of all who rejoice (or, as he himself reads, of all who are delighted) is in You: "We shall be like Him," he says, "because we shall see Him as He is. There our whole business will be nothing other than to praise God and to enjoy God. And what else shall we seek, where He alone suffices through whom all things were made? We shall be indwelt and shall dwell; all things shall be subjected to Him, that God may be all in all. Blessed therefore are those who dwell in Your house, O Lord; they shall praise You for ever and ever. By this one leisurely business they are blessed."
And in the Soliloquies chapter XXXV: "O how glorious is the kingdom in which with You, O Lord, all the saints reign, clothed with light as with a garment, having on their head a crown of precious stone! O kingdom of everlasting blessedness, where You, O Lord, the hope of the saints and the diadem of glory, are seen face to face by the saints, gladdening them on every side with Your peace, which surpasses all understanding! There is infinite joy, gladness without sorrow, health without pain, a way without labor, light without darkness, life without death, every good without any evil. Where youth never grows old, where life knows no end, where beauty never fades, where love never grows cold, where health never withers, where joy never diminishes — because there the supreme good is possessed, which is to see always the face of the Lord of hosts. Happy therefore are those who from the shipwrecked present life have already merited to arrive at such great joys. Unhappy, alas, are we, wretched ones, who drag our ship through the waves and stormy whirlpools of this great sea, not knowing whether we shall be able to reach the port of salvation! Unhappy, I say, whose life is in exile, whose way is in danger, whose end is in doubt," etc.
And I will spare them. — Among the Latins, parcere properly means to touch lightly, to abstain, to grant pardon, to remit vengeance. Hence by antiphrasis the Parcae (Fates) are so called because they spare no one. The pagans imagined there were three of them — Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos — and Cicero, in On the Nature of the Gods book III, considers them the daughters of Erebus and Night, and holds them to be the fates because they confer good and evil on people at birth. Hence that saying of Cleanthes: Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling. They are imagined to preside over the lives of human beings and to draw them out like a thread and a strand by spinning. For: Clotho holds the distaff, Lachesis spins, and Atropos cuts. Hence Virgil, Eclogue IV: The Fates harmonious in the unchanging power of destiny.
So it can be taken here, as if to say: I will spare your past sins, inasmuch as they are already blotted out through your repentance and My forgiveness, and buried in eternal oblivion, and I will take no vengeance or punishment for them. Wherefore whatever is sad, as if cruel Fates and destinies, I will ward off and drive away from them.
Secondly, parcere means the same as to preserve; and then in the past tense it has parsi, says Donatus — for otherwise it has peperci. So Plautus in the Aulularia: "On a feast day," he says, "if you squander anything, you may go hungry on a workday, unless you have been sparing." And Virgil, Aeneid book X: You speak of a thousand talents of silver and gold. / Spare for your children (spare, that is, preserve).
Hence Cicero, in the oration For Quintius, opposes sparing and destroying as contraries: "No good man," he says, "wants to slay a citizen, even by right: for he prefers to recall that, when he could have destroyed, he spared, rather than that, when he could have spared, he destroyed." The same, in the oration For Caelius, opposes sparing and despoiling: "Let youth," he says, "spare its own modesty, lest it despoil another's." So it is taken here. Hence the Septuagint translates: I will choose them; others: I will have mercy on them; others: I will be indulgent toward them. For the Hebrew chamal signifies an affection of piety, mercy, and indulgence, by which, for example, a father loves his son, has mercy on him, indulges him, protects him, cherishes him, and does not allow him to be afflicted by any evil.
For thus God will protect and preserve His elect on the day of judgment, since He will not allow them to be afflicted by the sentence of damnation, by fire, or by anything else with which the damned will be afflicted — even if they were parents, children, relatives, or friends of the elect. It is therefore a metalepsis: I will spare — that is, I will have mercy on, and I will protect them from the common curse with which I will strike the wicked. For those whom we love and on whom we have mercy, we spare in a common disaster. Hence Theodoret says: I will spare — that is, I will claim them for Myself, and I will free them from the hand of the wicked.
So parcere is used in II Kings XXI, 7: "The king spared Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan" — he spared him, that is, he embraced him with a pious affection of compassion, took him into his care as an orphan, cherished and nourished him as the son of Jonathan, his dearest friend. For Mephibosheth had not sinned, so that David might forgive his sin and properly spare him. And Ezekiel XVI, 5: "No eye took pity on you," that is, no one had mercy on you.
Two general rewards of the elect are signified here by the Prophet: the first, that they will be a peculiar treasure — that is, the peculiar people of God — and therefore will be heaped by Him with all honor, beauty, happiness, and glory. The second, that He will spare them — that is, He will remove from them the fear of damnation, of hell, and of all evil, and will make them certain and secure that they will be blessed for eternity and will never experience any pain or evil. Just as, on the contrary, the punishment of the damned will be twofold: the first, the deprivation of all comfort and good; the second, the abundance of all misery, torment, and evil.
For the joy of the blessed will be immense when they see themselves freed from the crackling fires of hell and from all the other dreadful evils in which they will see so many and such great wicked persons engulfed — especially because they will see that they themselves once deserved the same things through their sins, and would in reality have fallen into them had God not freed them. Wherefore they will sing: "By the mercies of the Lord we are not consumed" — because we are not damned: "Unless the Lord had helped me, my soul would soon have dwelt in hell." And the canticle of Moses: "Let us sing to the Lord, for He is gloriously magnified: the horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea" — He has freed us from the hand of Pharaoh, that is, of the devil, of sin, and of hell, Exodus XV, 1. And the canticle of the Lamb, saying: "Great and wonderful are Your works, O Lord God Almighty; just and true are Your ways, O King of ages. Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and magnify Your name?" Revelation chapter XV, 3.
Verse 18: And you shall return and shall see
18. And you shall return and shall see, — as if to say: You, O wicked, who deny God's providence, on the day of judgment you will change your opinion, though late and under compulsion. For you will see and actually experience how great a difference there is between the just and the wicked, when you see the latter consigned to eternal fire and the former to paradise and heaven, as Malachi explains more fully in the following chapter. So St. Jerome, Remigius, Rupert, Ribera, and others.