Книга шестнадцатая

The thought of the most eloquent speaker is wonderful that the arts would be happy if they were subject to the judgment of artists alone. And so that I do not seem to be borrowing an example only from the pagans, [I consider it necessary to say that] this, without a doubt, is also what the prophet says in other words: blessed is he who speaks in the ears of those who listen (Cap. 25:12). You brought me this happiness, daughter of Eustochius, for, having read the preface in the previous book, in which I argued that the apostles and evangelists only cited that of the Seventy Interpreters, or in their own words, that was in accordance with the Hebrew [text], and what was added by others was completely ignored, you immediately asked me a not unimportant question - namely, that the eight verses of the thirteenth The psalms that are read in churches and which are not in the Hebrew [text] were used by the apostle when he wrote to the Romans: Their throats were opened, their tongues were their tongues: the poison of asps is under their lips. whose lips are full of oaths and sorrow. Their feet are quick to shed blood. Contrition and embitterment for their paths: and they have not known the path of peace. There is no fear of God before their eyes (Rom. 3:13–18). When I heard this, as if struck by a very strong fighter, I began to silently worry and discover the astonishment of my mind in the pallor of my face. A Jew, I say, from the Jews, according to the law, a Pharisee and educated at the feet of Gamaliel, (Acts 22; Phil. 3), either did not know this or took advantage of the ignorance of those who were supposed to read. But the first is characteristic of the uneducated, the second of those experienced in wickedness, and not of the one who said: “Even if he is ignorant in word, but not in understanding” (2 Cor. 11:6), and also: “in simplicity and sincerity I have spoken the word to you” (2 Cor. 1). Finally, having come to my senses, I demanded for myself one day of time so that my answer would not be a proof of human intelligence, but the fruit of careful reading. So, reviewing the whole Scripture in my mind, I noticed that just as almost the entire epistle of Romans is built on the Old Testament, so this testimony is compiled from the Psalms and Isaiah. For the first two verses: the grave was opened, their throats were opened, their tongues were taken from the fifth psalia (v. 10); the following: the poison of asps is in their mouths - from the one hundred and thirty-ninth psalm (v. 3), and what is then said: whose lips are full of oaths and sorrow - from the ninth psalm (v. 28). The next three verses: their feet are quick to shed blood. I found contrition and bitterness in their paths, and the paths of peace were not followed by the prophet Isaiah (chapter 57, art. 7) and I will outline them in the sixteenth book of interpretation on him, which I now want to dictate. The last, that is, the eighth verse: there is no fear of God before their eyes is at the beginning of the thirty-fifth psalm (v. 2). Likewise, no one should see the difference if something expressed in the appropriate places in the singular is stated by the apostle in the plural, who wrote to very many and united many examples in one thought. I believe that your question is [now] resolved and that our rule regarding the translation of the Old Testament was more shaken (concussam) than shaken (motam). It was not so much that the apostle borrowed from the thirteenth psalm what was not in the Hebrew, as those who did not have the ability to harmonize the writings of the apostle with each other, looked for a convenient place to include in it the testimony he [the apostle] borrowed, which, as they thought, was given in Scripture not without authority. Therefore, all the Greek scholars who have left us their learned interpretations of the Psalms mark these verses white and pass by in silence, clearly recognizing that they are not in the Hebrew or in the Seventy Interpreters, but [they are] in the edition of the Vulgate, which in Greek is called κοινή and which is different throughout the world. But it’s time to get down to work and get on with the rest. Chapter LVII. Art. 3–4. But come here, sons of the sorceress, seed of the adulterer and the harlot: whom did you mock? To whom did they widen their mouths and stick out their tongues? LXX. But draw near here, you wicked sons, you seed of adulterers and harlots: whom have you mocked? To whom did you open your mouth and to whom did you stick out your tongue? After the taking of the righteous, whose burial is in the world, or rather, after being taken out of the midst, you, sons of iniquity, draw near to Me and listen to what I say (John 8). For just as he who practices iniquity is a slave of iniquity, so he who, like Judas the traitor, is the son of perdition, can be called a son of iniquity. Therefore it is written about the Lord Savior: and the son of wickedness will bring him to bitterness (Ps. 89:23). Instead of lawlessness or lawless ones, as LXX translated, Theodotion put the very word Hebrew onena, which we, in agreement with Symmachus, translated: sorceress, in the precise sense that Jerusalem, the mother of those who listen, was always given over to idolatry. Therefore he calls them the seed of the adulterer or adulterers, and whom it is written: And they committed fornication with stone and with wood (Jer. 3:9), and harlots, without a doubt meaning the same thing about which we read above: what a harlot was the faithful city of Zion (Isa. 1:21)? At whom, he says, you mocked, spitting on His face and tugging at His beard, and at whom you widened and opened your mouth and stuck out your tongue, saying: You are a Samaritan and imashi (Isa. 8:48), and also: This one will not cast out demons, except for Beelzebub, the prince of demons (Matthew 12:24). And after that, during the suffering: crucify, crucify Him (Luke 23:21). And again: his blood be on us and on our children (Matthew 27:23). And in another place: alas, you destroy the church and build in three days. Save someone else, but he can’t save himself. Let him now come down from the cross and believe in Him (Ibid., vv. 40 and 42). Art. 4–3. Are you sons of criminals, deceitful seed, comforted by gods under every branching tree, slaying children by the streams under the ledges of rocks? LXX. Are you not the sons of destruction, a wicked seed, calling to idols [or to idols] under the branches of the trees, slaying your sons in the valleys among the rocks? You, he says, did what was said in the previous speech. You are sons of crime or destruction, as was Judas the traitor, who is called the son of destruction (John 17), and a lawless or deceitful seed, or [seed] of lies, enjoying the gods under every branching tree and slaying their sons by the streams. This is also evidenced by the history of the Kings and Chronicles, who sacrificed their children to the gods and sanctified them through fire (2 Kings 16, 17; 2 Chronicles 28). This is exactly what, without a doubt, Ahab, the king of Israel, and Manasseh, the king of Judah, did, who went from killing children to shedding the blood of the prophets, about which Hosea says: devour men, so that the bulls become scarce (Hos. 13:2), or, as it is written in Hebrew: “when you slay children, you worship bulls.” And in the Psalms it is written in more detail: mixing with the nations, and becoming accustomed to their deeds, and working with their idols, and being a temptation to them. And he shed his own blood and that of his daughters to the demon. And they shed innocent or innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, even devouring the image of Canaan, and the earth was filled with blood and was defiled in their deeds (Ps. 106:35-39). Since the narrative is clear that the murderers of Christ are the sons of those who do this, we are faced with the question: how are sons called sons of perdition, contrary to those who recognize different natures: one lost and evil and unable to be saved, and another good, unable to perish. For if, as they think, the sons of perdition are of the worst nature, then how was that which was previously lost acquired? Therefore, in the parables of the repentant, the lost sheep out of a hundred sheep, and the lost drachma out of ten, are sought out, and the lost son is found, about whom the father said to the eldest [son], “This brother of mine was lost, and was found, was dead, and is alive again” (Luke 15:32). For only what was before and intact always perishes, and only what lived before dies. So, those who are now called the sons of destruction or lawlessness and crime, but for their own guilt abandoned the Lord and from the sons of the Lord began to be the sons of destruction, according to the words of the same prophet to them: you have abandoned the Lord and angered the Holy One of Israel (Is. 1:4). We can understand this in a figurative sense in relation to heretics, who are the sons of destruction and the seed of the worst or lies. For from the beginning they are deceitful, like the devil, who is her father, who is the father of all lies. They call those seduced by them to idols or to the idols of their teachings under branchy and grove-like trees, promising them pleasures and pleasures or hiding their uncleanness. Therefore, when Adam sinned, he hid in paradise under a tree from the face of God (Gen. 3). And there is no doubt that this kind of sons of destruction and the seed of the wicked have very many sons deceived by them, and they kill them in the depths of the valleys and in the abyss of iniquity under the ledges of rocks that constantly threaten to fall and which, according to the variety of lies and the variety of perverse teachings, are called many rocks. We have one rock that always follows the people, from which the people of Israel once drank when they enjoyed the love of the Lord. Art. 6. In the parts of the stream is your share: this is your lot, and with it you have poured out drink offerings and made sacrifices: will I not be indignant at this? LXX: This is your part, this is your lot, and with it you poured out libations, and with them you prepared sacrifices. So will I not be angry about this? What is said [here] corresponds to the times of Isaiah. For all the mountains, valleys and streams were filled with the cult of demons. The prophet Jeremiah says about this that fathers and sons gather wood and make fire to make pies (chavonas) for the army of heaven, while women grind and knead lard into flour to provoke the Lord to anger (Jeremiah, chapter 7). No one doubts that this refers to cakes or cookies, skillfully prepared. For this is what chavonae are called in our language. Moses foretold about them on behalf of the Lord in the prophetic spirit in the songs of Deuteronomy: You have angered Me because of alien gods and have grieved Me in your abominations. Devoured by the demon, and not by God (Deut. 32:16–17). And they did this of their own free will, because it depends on your will to choose good and bad. Therefore, to those who through their virtues offered themselves to God, it is said: choose for us the property of the world, the kindness of Jacob, which he will love (Ps. 47:5). And in another place: and the portion of the Lord, Jacob his people, became his inheritance Israel (Deut. 32:9). And in the Acts of the Apostles it is reported that very many gave themselves up to the fate and lot of Paul and Silas (Acts 17). Therefore, those who were a part and lot of the Lord like the Levites, they will have a part with the Lord and will be able to say with David: “My part is the Lord” (Ps. 72:26). We can also understand this in relation to heretics, for they, having abandoned the worship of God, honor the idols of their errors, and offer sacrifices to them and pour out drink offerings, doing what is indecent even to talk about, seducing captivated women, burdened with sins, led by various lusts, always learning and never reaching the knowledge of the truth (Tim. 3). So, since the wicked commit both wickedness, is not God justly angry with them? Art. 7–8. You set your bed on a high and exalted mountain and went up there to slaughter the victims. And behind the door and behind the jamb she erected her own memorial. LXX was [translated] in a similar way. That on the high mountains and hills Israel slaughtered sacrifices to the pagan gods and, like the most insolent harlot, spread out her feet to all the demons, the sacred story tells about this: and there was no place that was not defiled by the uncleanness of idolatry, so behind the doors of houses they placed idols, which are called household lares, and both publicly and privately they shed the blood of their souls. To this error and to an extremely evil ancient custom, cities in many provinces have been devoted to Rome itself, in every quarter and house paying homage by means of lamps and lamps to the image of the Guardian (Tutelae), who is invoked by this name to guard buildings, so that both those entering and leaving their houses are always reminded of the deep-rooted error. Also, heretics, whose hearts are exalted by pride and who, despising church humility, promise themselves high things, ascend to the highest mountains of their teachings and present their bed there to the demons. And since they turned back to the prophet (Isa. 1:4), imitating Lot's wife, they turn into a salt statue, having the appearance of church seasoning and having no taste in themselves: they are cast out and are good for nothing except to be trampled under the feet of everyone. Therefore, the Lord teaches in the Gospel that whoever takes the handle of the plow should not look back (Luke ch. 9). Art. 8–9. For near Me you were naked and you received an adulterer; she expanded her bed and negotiated with them; You loved their bed with an open hand: and you adorned yourself for the king [or royal] ointment and multiplied your adornments. She sent her ambassadors and hers and the underworld far away. LXX For you thought that if you departed from Me, you would have something more. You loved those who slept with you and increased your fornication with them and removed many from you, and sent ambassadors beyond your borders and humbled yourself to the bottom. First, let's talk about the Hebrew [text], which in this place is very different from the Seventy. To whom he said above: on a high and exalted mountain you set your bed and whom you denounced as a harlot, publicly exposed at the entrance to houses and in dark places behind the doors, so that everyone who wants to enter the building would have the pleasure displayed before their eyes: this one, like an adulterous wife, he now accuses and accuses of the fact that she, this one with her husband, secretly received the adulterer and opened the veil or rather widened her bed and negotiated, as if concluding a contract with adulterers regarding the dowry. He says this for the purpose of showing that not only in the fields and in houses were idols revered, but also in the church they placed the idol of Baal, about which Ezekiel also says that he saw it in the dug wall (Ezekiel 8). She loved, he says, their bed with an open hand, so that she was not ashamed of her sin and did not want to hide the vileness of fornication, but sinned with complete freedom. And she decorated herself with masque for the king and multiplied her idols. The meaning is this: you sought out various decorations in order to lure adulterers with both sight and smell. The words: you adorned yourself for the king with the suit are understood in two ways: either for the king-God, since you adorn yourself with what He gave and expose yourself to idols, or for the king-idol of the Ammonites, who is called Moloch and in your language means king, as we read Melchom in other places according to the Seventy (Zephon. 1:6). And she sent her ambassadors far away to commit fornication with the idols of not only neighboring, but also distant nations. Points to the Babylonian and Egyptian gods. And she humbled herself, he says, to the grave, not with that humility that is praiseworthy, and with that with which Ammov humbled his sister Tamar (2 Sam. 13:14). And indeed, great is humility, or rather the descent into the underworld, in order to be cast from the light and from the heights of chastity into the darkness of depravity or into the abyss of lusts. She is told in another place: “They will bring you down to the pit.” The meaning of what differs in the text of the Seventy, in my opinion, is the following: did you, harlot, think that if you departed from Me and united with your lovers, you would find something more? To her and through Ezekiel, God says: to all those who committed fornication you gave rent, and you gave them rent, and it happened to you (Ezek. 16:33–34). For not only did you receive nothing from your lovers, but you also lost what you received from your husband. The next thing then: she expanded her bed and made an agreement with them. The Seventy did not have it. She fell in love with the guardians of the blind, and the dumb dogs who dream empty dreams while sleeping. And she multiplied her fornication, so that more than once she mixed with one, and often with very many. Therefore, she removed many from herself: angels who guarded her, or holy men who withdrew from the community of this kind of harlot. We can say this about heretics who, having left God, follow their errors, and think that they will have something more when, following lies, they lose the truth and multiply their fornication, not in one doctrine, but in many, and remove from themselves the guardians of the churches, the angels: not content with fornication with their neighbors, they send ambassadors beyond their borders to the teachings of the pagans and to the errors foreign peoples, in order to deceive those who listen with the novelty of speech. Art. 10. You were tired of your many ways, but you did not say: I will calm down; You found life in your hand, so you did not ask Me. LXX: You were tired of your many ways, but they did not say: I will stop; You did this when you were strong, so you did not ask Me. The one who walks in one and the royal way does not become weary, regarding which God commanded through Moses: “You will walk in the royal way and will not turn aside to the right or to the left” (Deut. 5). There is one path of truth, which says in the Gospel: I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), but there are many paths of lies, in which Jerusalem is now convicted of walking and, knowing the difference between which, God above speaks to those who err: lower than your ways are My ways (Isaiah 55:8) and about which those who confess say to God, we have turned away our ecu [paths] from your path (Ps. 43:19). So, having cognized the single royal essence. Let us consider which right paths and left ones we are forbidden to follow. The royal path is moderate, it does not contain anything more or less. For example, the right and royal path is wisdom. We deviate from the right if we philosophize more than we should philosophize and instead of wisdom we love cunning, as a result of which [or because] the serpent was wiser than all the animals. paradise (Gen. 8) and the sons of darkness are wiser than the sons of light (Luke 16). We deviate to the left when we are reckless and less than wise. About such it is said: The fool speaks in his heart: there is no God (Ps. 13:1). Also, piety and true reverence for God is the royal way. The one who is superstitious and deserves to hear: do not be truthful (Eccl. 7:17) deviates to the right; the one who neglects the reverence of God and is ranked among the goats and kids goes to the left. Also, generosity and frugality are a very great virtue, from which the one who is stingy deviates to the right, and not only to others, but also to himself does not give what is needed, and to the left is the one who spends his fortune on harlots and says to Israel: let us drink and drink, in the morning we will die (Isa. 22:13). Also, courage and firmness is the royal path, from which the desperate and stubborn deviate to the right, and the cowardly and fearful to the left. Therefore, a holy man, wanting to walk on the right path, prays: “Teach me, O Lord, on the right path” (Ps. 138), and in another place: tell me, Lord, the way in which I will go, for I have lifted up my eyes to You (Ps. 142:8). Scripture says about a similar path in another place: ask which is the good way, and walk in it, and you will find cleansing for your souls (Jer. 6:16). Therefore, Jerusalem humbled itself to the bottom of the earth because it was tired of many ways and did not say: through repentance I will correct the error, but on the contrary: I will firmly hold on to what I began and will not care about the words of the one who teaches: Turn away your foot from the way of the stubborn and your throat from thirst (Jer. 2:25). ἀνδρίσομαι, that is, I will act courageously, which is now expressed in other words through: I will hold fast. And since she did what was said in the previous words, she did not beg the Lord, relying more on her own strength than on God. Hebrew: you found life in your hand, therefore you did not ask, has the following meaning and significance: since you had abundance in everything and were drowned in wealth, you despised the Lord, which Solomon also refuses, so as not to forget God (Proverbs 30). And it is said to Sodom through Ezekiel: Because you are full of bread, you have become proud (Ezek. 16). But not only wealth, but also poverty tempts a person. Therefore, it is written above: I tested you in the furnace of poverty (Isa. 48:10), in which poor Lazarus was tested, who endured poverty and weakness together (Luke 16). Art. 11. Who were you afraid of? For you lied and did not remember Me and did not think in your heart, but I was silent and did not seem to see, and [therefore] you forgot about Me. LXX: Whom were you afraid of? And you lied to Me, and did not remember Me. And she did not place Me in her mind and in her heart. Seeing you, I will despise you, and you did not fear Me. Since you, having full barns, rely on wealth, did not want to ask Me; I was afraid of quite a lot of people. For you could not say: The Lord is my helper, and I will look upon my enemies (Ps. 118:7): and again: The Lord is my enlightenment and my Savior, whom I will fear (Ps. 26:1). If, contrary to the consciousness of your mind, you ever wanted to [say] this, then you were lying. For how could you call on Me, who did not remember Me and did not think about the commandments of him who says: Honor the Lord, and be strong: besides Him, fear no other (Prov. 7:1). For I am the one who, but to Shemachus and Aquila, was always silent about your sins and, as it were, did not see and, leaving without attention, neglected the crimes committed by you, so that you would return to Me, if not through fear of Me, then through patience, which I test the sons of men not with my eyes, but with my eyelids (Ps. 10). But you, on the contrary, forgot about Me and deserved to hear: I forgot ecu the law of my God, I will also forget your children (Hos. 4:6), and also: “They walked with wrath turned against Me, and I will walk with wrath turned against them.” About the mind, which in the Seventy is united with the heart, is not written in Hebrew, this is added as an explanation of what should be understood in them. heart. Art. 12–13. I will declare your righteousness and your works: they will not help you. When you cry out, may your gathered ones save you? LXX: I will declare your righteousness and your evil deeds that will not help you. When you cry, let them deliver you from your tribulation. I, who was constantly silent and neglected, as if not seeing your sins, will no longer be silent, but I will say what I already said before: I am silent, food and will always remain silent (Is. 42:14)? and I will declare your righteousness and your deeds. This should be read in an ironic sense, just as if someone were to say to someone convicted of a crime: look at your good deeds. Therefore, if a time of sorrow ever comes for you, you will begin to stretch out your hands not to the idols that you revered, but to heaven, and pray to God for help; then let those whom you revered when you enjoyed peace of mind listen and save you from danger. This is also through Jeremiah, God says in it: where are your gods who have created ecu? May they arise and deliver you in the time of your bitterness (Jer. 2:28). Instead of what the Seventy translated: let them deliver you in your affliction, and what we expressed [in words]: let your gathered ones save you, Symmachus translated: let your synagogues deliver you. Consequently, he speaks directly to the Jews that the host of their synagogues is not able to save them during the siege. Art. 13–14. And the wind will carry them all away, the breeze will scatter them. He who trusts in Me will inherit the earth and will possess My holy mountain. And I will say: make a way, make a way, turn away from the path, remove obstacles from the path of My people. LXX: For all of them will be scattered by the wind and carried away by the storm. But those who trust in Me will rule the earth and inherit My holy mountain, and they will say: clear the ways before Him and remove obstacles from the path of My people. The Jews claim that this is prophesied about the Babylonians, that when they are defeated by the power of Bijiya, the people will return to Judea and will rule Mount Zion and all obstacles will be removed from the path and will not be ambushed by any people; for the Lord will straighten the way for his people. And they claim that this was fulfilled under Zerubbabel and Ezra. We, connecting these words with the previous ones, affirm that all the idols that could not free them are carried away by the wind and storm and they become like dust that the wind flies from the face of the earth. Those who hope in the Lord will own the land, about which we will read from this same prophet: “He will exalt you in the blessings of the earth.” From this it is clear that this earth is not below, but above. On it, if the Lord exalts, a saint will ascend - the one about which we have often said: blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth (Matt. 3:5) and: I believe to see the good of the Lord on the land of the living (Ps. 27:13). By the holy mountain of God we must understand the one about which the one writing the epistle speaks to the Jews: approach Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, Jerusalem in heaven, and the angels and the church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven (Heb. 12:22). We can understand under the earth and the mountain of the Lord, which the saints will possess, the sacred Scriptures, which will be taken away from the Jews. as the Lord threatens, saying: the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to the tongue that produces its fruits (Matthew 21:43), so that you may find in them that mountain about which we read from this same prophet and from Micah: in the last days the mountain of the Lord will be revealed (Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1). And the Lord himself commanded the apostles and all the teachers of the church to resolve everything that would seem uneven and difficult with their own interpretation and pave the way for understanding and eliminate all temptations, so that the people of the Lord would understand what they read without any difficulty and prosper in the fear of God. John the Baptist also said about these paths: prepare the way of the Lord, etc. (Matthew 3:3). Where we have placed on behalf of God: and I will say, LXX they have placed: and they will say, that is, those who will possess the land and receive as an inheritance the holy mountain of God. (For they will not be content with their own salvation, but will also call on other nations to be taught. Symmachus translated this passage this way: He who trusts in Me will possess the land and will receive My holy mountain as an inheritance and will say, “Make the way straight,” so that he who owns the land and the mountain will teach others to prepare the way of the Lord. Art. 15. For thus saith the Most High and Exalted, Who lives forever and is Holy—His name: Living on high and in holy things, and with a contrite and humble spirit, to quicken the spirit of the humble and to quicken the heart of the contrite. LXX: Thus says the Most High, who dwells in the highest forever: Holy among saints is His name. Eternal, resting in the saints, and giving patience to the faint-hearted and life to the brokenhearted. First there was a prophetic speech against the Jewish people, whose teachers he called blind guardians, and dumb dogs, and shepherds who do not know the meaning, and lawless sons, and the seed of adulterers and harlots; after this he goes to Jerusalem, who reproaches him for his fornication, for expanding the bed for his lovers and receiving them with an open hand, and adorning himself with all idols and sending ambassadors far away to enjoy foreign lovers. Having completed this reproof, he moves on to those who trust in the Lord and to whom he promised land and a mountain to possess and for whose return he commanded to prepare the way - no doubt, the apostles, through whose preaching [many] of both people believed. Therefore, he begins by praising God and in the speech that follows testifies to what He has promised regarding the return of His people. For this is to say, the Lord is high and exalted, living on high and Holy among the saints, not because of the place, but because of the merit of those in whom he lives, one of whom says in the psalm: I will exalt you, O Lord, as he lifted me up (Ps. 29:1), nor yet: exalt yourself, O Lord, judge of the earth (Ps. 93:2), - not in the sense that God is exalted by the words of people, but in accordance with what is said elsewhere: The Lord was my salvation (Ps. 118:21), He becomes high through the humble, He who resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4) to exalt them and live in the highest. For the Lord is high and looks down on the humble (Ps. 137:6). And in the Gospel the angels exclaim: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace” (Luke 2:14). And also in the Psalms: praise the Lord from heaven, praise Him in the highest (Ps. 149:1). And not only the Most High lives in the highest, but also the Holy One in the saints, who says in another place: You will be holy, for I am holy (Lev. 11:44). And just as wisdom does not enter a corrupt soul and does not dwell in a body enslaved to sin (Wis. Sol. ch. 1); so the Holy One lives in the holy ones, and where there is uncleanness, purity cannot dwell there, as the saint says to the Lord: But you live in the holy, praise of Israel (Ps. 21:4). Therefore, we dare to say in prayer: Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name (Matthew 6:9). And in the second psalm we read: He who lives in heaven will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them (Ps. 2:4). For Christ dwells not in those on earth, but in those above heaven, who proclaim the glory of the Lord, about whom it is said: He will hear His saint from heaven (Ps. 19:7), and also: heaven is the heaven of the Lord (Ps. 113:24). Similar words of Moses, the servant of God, agree with this thought: Behold the Lord your God is heaven, and heaven is heaven (Deut. 10:14), which, of course, we should understand not according to the custom of the Jews, as if God, who fills everything and by whom everything is contained, is limited to one place and lives only in himself, but rightly by the highest and the heavens we should understand the saints and powers. For He is the One who lives in heaven, about whom it is written in the Gospel: no one went up to heaven, except he who came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven (John 3:13). He rests in the saints and dwells in the humble and in the contrite in spirit, of whom it is said: sacrifice to God is a crushed spirit; God will not despise a broken heart and a humble one (Ps. 50:19). He gives patience to the faint-hearted, so that, having been brought into a difficult situation, they can endure sorrow in hope of the future. He gives life, especially to those who have died to sin. It is said about Him: the fountain of life is with you (Ps. 35:10). He also says in the Gospel: I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). Art. 16. I will not fight forever, nor will I be angry to the end: for from My presence shall the spirit proceed, and I will give breath. LXX: I will not always take revenge on you, and I will not always be angry with you. For spirit proceeds from Me, and I created every breath. The Lord, who dwells in the highest and looks upon the humble, to whom is Holy and who rests in the saints, strengthens the weary and gives life to the oppressed, says this: I will not always be angry, I will not be indignant forever, I strike in order to correct, in order to kill in order to give life. For I am merciful to My creation, and those whom I myself have created, I will not allow to perish. Likewise, My Spirit, which will come out of Me, or which, according to the Hebrew, Avila, Symmachus and Theodotion, surrounds everything (for this means περιειληθήσεται and περιβαλλεῖ), is the vivifier of everything. I also created breath, or in the plural: breath (for this means nasatnoth), about which it is written elsewhere: every breath or everything that breathes praises the Lord (Ps. 150:6). About this spirit and breath at the beginning of Genesis it is written: God breathed out the breath of life, and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). Job says something similar: “The Spirit of the Lord is in their nostrils, and the breath of the Almighty, teaching me” (Job 27). Therefore, since the spirit comes from Me, and through My breath and inspiration everything is enlivened and alive, it would not be most fair for those who are preserved by My breath and spirit to perish. Some of our people say that this is the spirit by which the whole world is animated and governed, and everything has the knowledge of God, writing about which, in agreement with the Stoics, the famous poet says: And the heavens, and the earth, and the plain of the shifting sea, And the shining ball of the moon and the titanium stars The spirit nourishes within; and the soul, spilling over the members, It moves the whole mass, mingling with the great body. 58 and so on. Others understand the Holy Spirit, who at first hovered over the waters and gave life to everything, who comes from the Father and, due to the commonality of nature, is carried by the Son, saying: You are not here, but I am coming. If I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you; If I go, I will send Him to you (John 16:7). He also says about Him: when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father (John 15:26). No one should be tempted if the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father, just as the Son also spoke about Himself: I went out from the Father and came back; for I did not come from Myself, but He sent Me (John 16). About this Spirit He said: I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that the Spirit of truth may be with you forever (John 14:16). This is the spirit about which Moses writes: who will cause all the Lord's people to be prophets and give the Lord His Spirit upon them (Num. 11:29). And Joel on behalf of God [says]: I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy (Joel 2:28), and Zechariah: Moreover My words and My laws are acceptable, since I commanded them in the Spirit of My servant the prophet (Zechariah 1:6). And again: I will pour out in Jerusalem the spirit of grace and generosity (Zech. 12:10). And there are many other things in both Testaments that would now take a long time to repeat. Let's just say what the same prophet also said about this Spirit and breath: this is what the Lord said when he created the heavens, and a little later: give breath to the people who are on it, and spirit to those who walk on it (Isa. 42:5). Art. 17–21. For the iniquity of his greed I was angry and struck him down, I hid him and was indignant: [a] he went sorrowfully in the way of his heart. I saw his ways and healed him and brought him back and gave comfort to him and to those who mourned him. I have brought forth the fruit of lips, peace, peace to him that is far and to him, said the Lord, and I have healed him. But the wicked are like a troubled sea that cannot calm down, and its waves overflow to trample the mud. There is no peace, God said, to the wicked. LXX: For a little sin I grieved him, and smote him, and turned my face away from her, and he was sad, and sad he walked in his ways. I saw his ways and healed him, and comforted him, and gave him true consolation, peace to those far and near, says the Lord, and I will heal them. The wicked will be agitated and will not be able to calm down. There is no joy for the wicked, says the Lord God. After the rejection of the Jewish people and those who did not want to believe in the Savior, He promised those who hoped in Him the land of the meek and the mountain of saints and commanded the apostles: pave the way for the returning people and remove all temptations. And so that [this] does not seem incredible, He depicts His power, that the High and Great One can easily grant forgiveness to those who repent and that it is fair that the Creator should have mercy on His creation. Therefore, he adds that he was angry and saddened his people, that he did [this] because they sinned and had a greed for lawlessness and were content with lawlessness alone, but always added sins to sins. And he struck, he says, for a short time in order to heal him, and hid, meaning My face, so that he would desire Me more and say: “Show Your face and we will be saved” (Ps. 79), and was indignant: feeling this, he walked sad, saying: “I walked mourning all day long” (Ps. 87:7). brings repentance. Therefore, seeing the ways of his conversion, I healed the wounds with which I had previously struck him, and returned him to Me, whom I had previously rejected, and gave him true consolation. For there are many false consolations with which the human race is deceived. Or he consoled those mourning him, saying in the Gospel: blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted (Matthew 5:4). The next thing: I have made the fruit of the lips has the following meaning: I have fulfilled what I promised, say: As I live, says the Lord, I do not want the sinner to die, but to be converted (Ezek. 33:11), or: I have given everything that I promised before. What is the promise of the Lord? My peace I give to you, My peace I leave with you (John 14:27). This is what He now says: peace to the world [or peace to those who are far and peace to those near], not only to the people, but to the whole world, and precisely to those who were far and near, that is, first to the pagans, and then to those who wanted to believe the language of Israel. The Apostle also speaks about them: it is not right for you to speak the word of God first, but since you are unworthy to create salvation for yourself, behold, we are turned into tongues (Acts 13:46). Writing to the Ephesians and discussing in great detail about the people of the circumcision and the pagans, he added: now in Christ Jesus, you who were sometimes far off are near by the quick blood of Christ. For this is our peace, having made both one and the middle of the fence, destroying the enmity of His flesh, and so on (Eph. 2:13–14). And again: and I came to bring peace to you far and near (Ibid., v. 17). For through Him we, both of us, have access in one spirit to the Father: He gives peace to those who were far and near, and to those who did not have the law and the prophets: and those who received them first, He received and healed. The wicked or the wicked were agitated like a troubled sea, and would never be able to calm down. Although this can be understood in relation to every wicked person, it actually refers to the Jewish people, who cried out with a common voice and persisted in their wickedness, saying: crucify, crucify Him. Not the imams of the king, only Caesar (John 19:15). So, just as the troubled sea cannot calm down, its waves overflow and return to the shores and are swallowed up again, and breaking against themselves produce mud, which is trampled underfoot: so the wicked will be subject to eternal trampling, who have no joy and who do not rest from any peace in that in which the wicked persist. Some understand this passage in particular about the Savior, because He was saddened for a short time because of the sins of the world, as He says: My soul is sorrowful unto death (Matthew 26:38). And the Father struck Him, speaking through Zechariah: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered (Zech. 13:7; Matt. 26:31), who also said about Himself in the sixty-eighth psalm: for whose sake you have struck, they have been driven away (Ps. 68:27). And God turned His face away from Him, so that He took the form of a servant, walked sadly and mourned the sins of the people, weeping and groaning for Jerusalem. And since the Father saw His ways, He healed the one who was free among the dead, and His flesh did not see corruption, so that, having been defeated on the cross, He was healed in the resurrection. And I consoled Him, he says, by giving Him the whole world instead of just the Jewish people. And those who mourn Him - it is implied: comforted. No doubt points to the apostles. And He fulfilled the fruit of His mouth, who said to Him: Ask of Me, and I will give to these tongues your inheritance, your possession to the ends of the earth (Ps. 2:8): peace upon the world, reconciling the world with God, so that both peoples may be received to Himself and that they may be healed by the Father. The wicked, about whom we spoke above, are compared to the sea, which can never calm down, but even in the highest silence with broken waves it moves to the shores and the end of which is dirt and trampling. Chapter LVIII. Art. 1. Cry, do not cease; lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their transgressions and to the house of Jacob their sins. LXX: Cry with might, and do not spare: lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to the people their sin and to the house of Jacob their iniquity. At the end of the previous section, in which peace is proclaimed to the righteous and no rest to the wicked, God commands the prophet Isaiah to cry with power and lift up his voice like a trumpet and not be afraid to speak about the sins and crimes of the people of Israel, not fearing death, nor intimidation and curses, but rather heed the commanding God. And since they have deaf ears and can hardly hear, then, according to Symmachus and Aquila, let him turn his larynx into a trumpet, which in Hebrew is called sophar and which they translated κερατίνην, that is, horny. Above, where it was said to the apostles: go up to a high mountain, preach the good news to Zion, lift up your voice with strength, preach good news to Jerusalem, lift up, do not be afraid (Isa. 40:9), neither a horn nor a trumpet is taken, but is commanded to ascend the mountain. And since here it is necessary to proclaim to the sinners who lived below, the prophet is not commanded to ascend the mountain, but only to lift up his voice like a trumpet and tell them about the coming wars. Also about the day of judgment, when together with the resurrection of the dead the last trumpet is spoken of, it is written: for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible (2 Cor. 15:52), as that just as they will be judged by the sound of the trumpet, so Israel, who died through sin, will hear about their crimes, and at the same time they are called the people of God, so that they will know what kind of Father they have lost, who even calls sinners His people. Art. 2. For they seek Me day by day and want to know My ways, like a people who did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God. LXX [translated] the same way. This refers specifically to the Jews who rush to the synagogues and practice the law. God, wanting to know what Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and what the other saints did, and unerringly opening the books of the prophets and Moses, repeat the divine commandments, to whom [the Jews] it may well be applicable; “Evil ones will seek Me and will not find Me.” For it is thus written: everyone who seeks finds (Matthew 7:8), and whoever finds is convicted of having sought badly, for the Lord is found by those who seek Him in goodness, and appears to those who believe in Him. So, since they abandoned the righteousness and judgment of God, which names point to Christ according to the words of the psalmist: O God, grant Thy judgment to the King and Thy righteousness to the Son of the King (Ps. 71:1), for Christ has become for us redemption, holiness and righteousness (1 Cor. 1), - then they boast in vain about their knowledge of the law, while the saint praises not the knowledge of the Scriptures, but deeds, saying: The path of Your commandments flowed when He enlarged my heart (Ps. 119:32). Art. 2–4. They ask Me about the judgments of righteousness and want to get closer to Me. Why did we fast, but You didn’t look, why did we humble our souls, but You didn’t know? On the day of your fast, your desire will be fulfilled (or is being fulfilled), and you have extorted (or are extorting) from all your debtors. So you fast for quarrels and strife and criminally strike with your fist. LXX: They now ask Me for judgment and truth and want to draw closer to God, saying: why did we fast, but You didn’t see, we humbled our souls from war, but You didn’t know? For during the days of your fasts your desires are fulfilled and you exhaust all those under you, fasting for judgments and strife and striking the humble with your fist. There is another recklessness among the Jews, as if confidence in a clear conscience - they demand a righteous judgment and imitate the words of the saints who say: judge me, O Lord, as I have walked in my kindness (Ps. 25:1), and again: test me, O Lord, and test me, kindle my bowels and my heart (Ibid. v. 2). And in another place: judge my judgment and deliver me (Ps. 119:154). And they want to get closer to God, while this does not relate to location, but to disposition and is characteristic not of idle thought, but of intense work. Therefore, Scripture teaches regarding what approaching God consists of, saying: seek the Lord. And when He draws near to you, let the wicked forsake his ways, and the wicked man his thoughts. For the Lord draws near to those who approach Him and in those who, in accordance with righteousness, do what is righteous, and can say: it is good for me to cleave to God (Ps. 73:28). For if Almighty God is the Father of truth and righteousness, then anyone who is deceitful and unrighteous cannot approach God, about whom it is written: “Neither the wicked one dwells with You, nor the unjust abide before Your eyes” (Ps. 5:6). Why, they say, we fasted, but You didn’t look, we humbled our souls, but You didn’t call? They reproach the Lord for injustice, since He does not look at good deeds, and present to God one hunger of the belly, without performing virtues, without eating the food that God created for the faithful and those who know the truth, so that they would receive it [food] with gratitude, and that about which it is written in Proverbs: for they feed on the food of wickedness, and get drunk with lawless wine (Prov. 4:17 ). Filled with this kind of food, the Pharisee, among other proud words, boasted that he fasted twice on the Sabbath (Luke 18), who did not drink wine from the vineyard of Sorek, but from the vineyard of Sodom, the wine of which is the rage of dragons and the destructive poison of asps, and their clusters are clusters of bitterness (Deut. 32). God convicts such through the prophet: the sins of My people are consumed (Hos. 4:8). And again: Iniquity is always silent, and its unrighteousness is abundant and poisonous, and its fruit is deceitful (Hos. 10:13). So, since they proposed a question to God, wanting to know why they fasted and humbled their souls, but God did not look, having forgotten the ancient story about why He did not look upon the gifts of Cain, who, although he brought it properly, did not properly share it with his brother (Gen. 4), not seeing the love of God, in accordance with the words of Scripture: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and your sincere one as yourself (Matt. 22:37 and 39): then God answered that He rejects not fasting, but the deeds that are done during fasting, saying: in the days of your fasting, your desires are fulfilled, so that you fulfill not God’s desires, but your own desires, which Paul condemns when he writes to the Ephesians: but to the prince of the powers of the air, the spirit, who now works in the sons of disobedience, in whom we also sometimes live in joy our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and the mind, and being by nature children of wrath, as are others (Eph. 2:2-3). The following is then according to the Seventy: and you torture or exhaust all those subordinate to you, which was better translated by Theodotion and Symmachus, which we followed in the present place: and you extort from all your debtors. This shows that it is not safe to extort from a poor person who is not able to pay, and not to give to a dying debtor the clothes that you took as collateral, so that his voice does not reach God. For he who has mercy gives food back to God (Proverbs 19:17). And vice versa, whoever extorts from the poor commits violence to God. And so that we know that this meaning lies in the present place, then further in this same section we will read: loosen the bonds of wickedness, untie the oppressive cords. Without a doubt, he means the signatures. For what is the benefit of the fact that faces turn pale from fasting and that they fast for quarrels and strife in accordance with the words of Scripture: “Whoever loves sin rejoices in strife” (Proverbs 17). The servant of the Lord should not quarrel, but be meek (2 Tim. 2), and imitate the One who says: learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart (Matthew 11:29), so that humility is not feigned, but heartfelt, and seeking not the surrender of people, but consciousness in [its] soul. You, he says, fast and beat the humble with your fists and subject them to beatings. Therefore, a bishop should not be a killer (1 Tim. 2:3). For how can one curb passion who is unable to control either his hand or his tongue? The Lord condemns this kind of fasting at the beginning of this prophet, saying: My soul hates fasting and idleness, the new moon and Saturdays and your other holidays (Isaiah 1:13–14). Therefore, it is commanded through Joel: sanctify the fast, preach healing (Joel 2:15), so that we fast from sins, and so that we sanctify fasts with good deeds and healing from sins. Therefore, it follows further: let the groom come from his bed and the bride from her palace (Ibid., v. 16), so that during fasting we will be occupied with prayer, so that our inner man will not feed on the flesh of the dragon, which was given as food to the Ethiopian peoples. But we say this not because we rejected fasting, through which Daniel, the man of desires, knew the future (Dan. 9), and the Ninevites appeased the wrath of God (John 3), and Elijah (1 Kings 19), and Moses (Ex. 34), during the forty-day fast, were satisfied with the love of God, and the Lord Himself (Matt. 4) he fasted for the same number of days in the desert in order to leave us with the annual days of fasting; but because it is useless to have an empty stomach and [at the same time] to do other things that are displeasing to God, and, not to mention other things, to wear out your faces in order to appear fasting before people - such, while in the present receiving glory, will be excluded from the kingdom of God, for they have received their reward (Matthew 6). As a result of this, the apostle says that even if one were to give up his body to torture in order to be burned or glorified (for both are found in the lists) without the love of God (1 Cor. 13), which is in the consciousness of the heart, then he would shed blood in vain. Art. 4–5. Do not fast as you have done until this day, so that your voice may be heard on high. Is this really the fast I have chosen: for a man to exhaust his soul all day, for him to bend his neck in a circle and put sackcloth under him and wear nothing? Can you call this a fast and a day pleasing to the Lord? LXX; Why do you fast for Me as you do now, so that your voice may be heard in your cry? This is not the fast I have chosen, nor the day to humble my soul. And not [such] if you bend your neck like a circle, and spread sackcloth and ashes, and this is not how you will call fasting acceptable. In order not to appear to reject the fast commanded by Himself, He teaches how one should fast, or before He teaches what follows, He instructs what one should avoid. So that on high, he says, your voice can be heard. Do not raise a cry when praying, praying in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see you (Matthew 6), and do not raise your voice too loudly, and with a Pharisee who is condemned by the judgment of the Lord, do not praise your fasts and deeds (Luke 18). Therefore, the Lord, rejecting the prayer of the Pharisees, teaches the disciples how they should pray (Matt. 6): let them, having closed the cage of their heart, speak privately to God, who can listen to the silence of the heart, let them exclaim in their hearts: Abba Father (Rom. 8:15), II do not wear out their faces, but wash themselves with water and anoint their heads with oil. The Evangelist John writes about this: you also have anointing from the Holy One (1 John 2:20), with which when you are anointed, you yourself will be holy. For God does not require only exhaustion and humility of the soul through causing harm (per iujunam) to the body, in order to bend the body like a circle and lower the neck and walk gloomily, in accordance with what is written in the Psalms: suffering and sloshing to the end, all day long, mourning while walking (Ps. 37:7). And let no one dress in sackcloth or wear ashes, as we read about David and Ahab (2 Samuel 3; 1 Kings 21), but at the same time let him do what follows. Also, the apostle says that he fasted often (2 Cor. 6 and 11), and the Lord teaches that when the Bridegroom is taken away from the disciples, they will fast (Mark 2), and the penitent says in the Psalms: ashes are like bread; my poisons and drink are dissolved with weeping (Ps. 102:10). And sometimes they were cold and clothed themselves in sackcloth (Ps. 34:13). From this we learn that first of all we should do what pleases the Lord, [and then] not neglect others. Art. 6–7. Isn’t this more true of the fast that I have chosen: loosen the bonds of wickedness, untie the oppressive ties; Set the afflicted free and break every yoke. Break your bread with the hungry and bring the poor and wandering into (your) house; When you see him naked, clothe him and do not despise your flesh. LXX: Is this not the fast I have chosen, says the Lord: but loose all bonds of unrighteousness; destroy the obligations of forcible guarantees (cautionum); set the afflicted free and tear away every unrighteous scripture. Break your bread with the hungry, and bring the poor bloodless into your house. If you see him naked, clothe him, and do not despise those who are of your seed. Having said which fast He rejects, he shows which [fast] He accepts with love. Loosen, he says, the bonds of wickedness, untie the oppressive ties or, as LXX translated more clearly, the obligations of violent guarantees, which ours, misled by the ambiguity of the word, that is, συναλλαγμάτων, translated the exchanges. (coinmutationes) instead of a list. He points to bundles of receipts that contain slander from usurers and through which the poor are oppressed by debt, which in all cities is the main cause of indignation. Therefore, the Roman people occupied the neighboring mountains, hence the new debt records (tabulae novae) 59, which the Greeks call χpέων ἀποκοπαί (reduction of debts). Consequently, the prophet does not command that no one should demand what is due - what is properly given and what is required in proper images - otherwise he would be the defender of the indignation produced by the tribunes. But where the obligation is unlawful, where the poor are oppressed by an unjust accusation, there the bundles of obligations and all the bonds of unrighteousness must be dissolved. Or it should be said that we are talking about fasting, and fasting produces contrition and humility of the soul, and through contrition of the body, forgiveness of sins is sought. Divine Scripture teaches that we forgive our debtors, just as the Heavenly Father forgives us our debts (Matthew 6). Ancient history reports that in the seventh year of emancipation or in the fiftieth, which serves as the jubilee proper, all property is returned to the owners, and the slaves are restored to their former freedom, and all receipts (nomina), which are usually called obligations (cautiones), are made invalid (Lev. ch. 25 and 27). If this is prescribed by the ancient law, then how much more so in the Gospel, in which everything good is doubled, and in which we are commanded not to tear out eye for eye, tooth for tooth (Exodus 21), but to offer the cheek to the one who strikes. And so that we know that what was said above: you extort from all your debtors is written about creditors, then in relation to debtors it is added with great clarity: set the brokenhearted free, that is, having freed those crushed by poverty, exhausted by poverty, do not allow them to become beggars. And remove every burden by which they are oppressed. Instead, LXX translated more clearly: and tear up every unrighteous scripture, which Symmachus translated: and dissolve every false guarantee. But it may happen that someone will say: I have no debtors; What should I do in order for my post to be accepted? It follows: break your bread with the hungry. Not many loaves, so that you do not fear poverty, but one loaf, and not the whole, but part of the bread, which you yourself would have eaten if you had not fasted, so that your fasting would not be a profit for your wallet, but a satiation of the soul. And he beautifully added: yours, so that you do not give alms from what was stolen. For the deliverance of a man's soul is wealth to him (Prov. 13:8). And in another place: honor the Lord with your righteous labors (Proverbs 3:9). If you do not have bread, and there are a lot of hungry people, then provide them with something from which you will not suffer any damage. And there is no loss in this: bring the poor bloodless into your house, or, as it says in Hebrew: into a house, so that if you do not have your own, then you can bring them into an apartment that you have either for rent for a fee, or for free. If you see a Nagao, wear it. This is what the Lord said in the Gospel: if we have two garments, let him give one to the poor (Luke 3:11). For He did not command to tear and divide one, which many do for the sake of gaining love from the people, but to retain one of the two, exalting the commandments of righteousness and saying that even a cup of cold water given has a reward. And, he says, do not despise your flesh. For every man is our flesh. And in the Gospel parable, the one who showed a good deed is called the neighbor of the one who walked from Jerusalem to Jericho and was wounded by robbers (Luke 10). Or according to the Seventy, who said: And do not despise those who are of your seed, we must understand those who are our own according to the seed, about whom the Apostle teaches that we ought to do good to everyone, and especially to those who belong to the faith (Gal. 6). For they are our flesh and your seed, born of the same parent as us. The Savior stretched out his hand to them, saying: Behold my mother and my brethren, who will do the will of my Father (Mark 3:34). And so that we know that there is one Lord of both the Old and New Testaments, the Lord also says in the Gospel about those who will stand on the right hand on the day of judgment: Come, blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For you were hungry and gave to Me, you were thirsty and you gave to Me, you were sick and you were in prison, and you came to Me, you were strange, and you brought Me into your house, naked, and you clothed Me (Matthew 25:34–36). And to them, who said with humility that they had done nothing for the Lord the Savior, He answered: since you have made one of the least of My brothers, you have created Me (Ibid., v. 40). With regard to the allegorical meaning, the following can be said. Whoever fasts from every ala and wants his fast to be despised, let him not only avoid evil, but also do good, resolving all kinds of untruths that bind all simple believers through the deception of heretics and στραγγαλίας, obligations of violent descriptions (tractatuum), which the prophet also points out in the psalm, saying: those who deviate from The Lord will take away corruption (obligationes) with those who practice iniquity (Ps. 125:5). For all who are bound by the chains of heretics turn away from the Lord, and are like an ox that is led for sacrifice, and choose and exchange lies for truth. So, of this kind of people who are crushed by judgment, a member of the clergy must forgive (dimittat) and allow, and destroy and dissolve all the writings of heretics, about whom this same prophet says: Woe to those who write wickedness, for they who write wickedness write, delighting the judgment of my poor people (Isa. 10: 1-2), so that they do not catch all the simple-minded in their nets. And when he does this, then let him break his bread to those hungry for church teaching, which Christ also did, giving to the apostles the broken bread that He left for them in the Gospel, in seven baskets and twelve boxes, not whole, as they were in the Law, but crushed and broken, so that they would have something to give to the poor. Those whom you see not having the warmth of faith, but shivering outside the Church from the cold of unbelief, helpless and wandering, bring them, he says, into the house of the church and clothe them with incorruptible clothing, so that, having put on the clothes of Christ, they do not remain in the tombs, as we read about the one in whom there was a legion of demons and who lived naked in the monuments of the dead (Mark 5). And although you must do all this and your generosity must extend to everyone, but especially do not despise those who are yours in the faith. Art. 8–9. Then your light will open like the morning, and your healing will quickly appear, and your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will surround you. Then you will call, and the Lord will hear, call, and He will say: Here am I. LXX: Then your morning light will open, and your healings will quickly appear, and your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of God will surround you. Then you will call, and God will hear you. While you are still speaking, He will say: Here am I. If you do not do what was said in the previous speech, but do what we have now said, then your fast will be acceptable and your morning light will be revealed, that is, the Sun of righteousness, about which the prophet Malachi speaks in the person of God the Father: the Sun of righteousness will shine upon you who fear My name, and healing is in His wings (Mal. 4:2). Whoever is called the Sun there is here. [called] light. For just as the morning light drives away darkness, so the light of knowledge and truth drives out all error. Your healings, he says, will soon appear. Instead, Aquila, translating word for word, put: and the scar of your wound will soon heal, that is, in the sense that the wounds of our sins will close when the sun of righteousness rises, soon after the scar heals. Instead of what was translated by the Seventy: τὰ ἰάματά σου, that is, your healings, the Latin translators, due to the similarity of the word, put ἰμάτια, that is, clothing. Therefore, many, misled by an incorrect translation, use this evidence to prove the resurrection of the body, asserting precisely that by the clothing of the soul is meant the body, which will appear on the day of resurrection. And your righteousness will go before you, he says, in accordance with what Jacob says: My righteousness will listen to me in the morning (Gen. 30:33), and what is written will be fulfilled: “Behold the man and his works.” And the glory of the Lord will surround you, as if with the most beautiful clothing, so that you will be glorified before God and before people. Then you will call, and the Lord will hear, you will cry out, and He will say: Here I am, not in word, but in deed, not in answer, but in good deeds. This is literally confirmed in the Gospel, when to the words of the leper to the Lord: if you are willing, you can cleanse me, the Lord answered, saying: if I am willing, be cleansed (Luke 5:12–13). Art. 9–10. If you remove the chain from your midst, and stop stretching out your finger and speaking useless things, when you give (effuderis) your soul to the hungry, and feed your weary soul, then your light will arise in the darkness, and your darkness will be like the noonday. LXX: If you remove from yourself the bonds (colligationem) and the position (ordinationem) and the word of murmuring, and give your bread to the hungry from your soul and satisfy the humble soul, then your light will arise in the darkness and your darkness will be like noon. The Hebrew word mota, which is translated by Jeremiah as an iron chain (Jer. 28:10), is read twice in the present section. For you need to know that in the place where we said above, in accordance with the Seventy: loosen the bonds of violent exchanges (see above v. 6), instead of one word mota they put violent guarantees (cautiones), instead of which they translated: Aquila delusion, Symmachus deviation, Theodotion κ λο ι όν that is, chain. Then in the present place where we translated: if you remove the chain from your midst and where Seventy instead of the chain translated σ ον δ εσμ ό ν, that is, binding or bonds, Aquila, as above, translated the error, Symmachus, in agreement with the opinion of Theodotion, put a chain. This is said regarding the difference in translation. The meaning has the following connection with the previous one: the morning light will rise for you and your healings will soon appear, and your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the Lord will crown you. He will hear [you] praying and show his presence. But it will only happen if you add to the previously mentioned deeds that you remove from yourself the bonds and chain with which your soul is bound. Peter also spoke about them to Simon: for in the gall of sorrow and the covenant of unrighteousness I see you existing (Acts 8:23). And Paul was grieved when he saw the city of the Athenians in chains of idolatry. For everyone is burdened with the captivity of their sins (Prov. 5:22). Regarding these bonds of the soul, David prayed in the psalm: cleanse me from my secrets, O Lord, and spare your servant from my needs (Ps. 19:13–14). It is difficult to find anyone who is not caught in these chains. There is rarely a soul that does not have this very heavy chain around its neck, constraining it to earthly affairs, so that it looks not at heaven, but at earth. This is also reported about the Gospel woman who was bound by Satan for eighteen years, so that, being crooked, she could not see heavenly things (Luke 13). So, if, he says, you remove this chain from the midst of your heart and destroy this kind of bonds and χειpοτονίαν, instead of which three other translators translated in the same way: outstretched finger, in the sense that you should not only not plot and do evil, but not even revile your neighbor, and not point a finger at everyone and not say what is useless for your soul, paying attention not to your own evil, but to the errors of others: then you will receive what is added in the following words. Most of us understand χειροτονίαν, that is, the ordination of clergy, which is accomplished not only through verbal invocation, but also through the laying on of hands (precisely so that, as we pointed out to some, ignorant clergy are not ordained through secret verbal invocation), so that they apply [to this] the testimony of Paul, writing to Timothy: do not lay on your hands quickly and on no one, below, share in the sin of others (1 Tim. 5:22) For it is no small sin to cast pearls before swine and give holy things to dogs (Matthew 7:6), and to appoint as members of the clergy not the saints and not the most knowledgeable in the law of God, but one’s own servants and those performing lower duties, which is even more dishonest, at the requests of women. At the same time, we should pay attention to the wisdom of the apostle of Christ speaking here, who, to indicate the danger of the placement, added punishments for those who sin: below, share in the sin of others. Consequently, just as in the ordination of the bad he who has appointed them is a participant in sins, so in the ordination of the saints he who has chosen the trustworthy (bonos) is a participant in their righteousness. It follows: and the word grumbling, - ἀπό κοινοῦ is implied: if you remove it from yourself. The word murmur occurs when God speaks against us: “Let the murmur of these people cease before Me, and they will live,” and when we take our sins to God, for justification of our sins, and said: bodily passion overcame me, the excitement characteristic of youth conquered me, God created me this way, poverty forced me to steal. Thus, if we do not do what is said, but do what is said, giving the hungry not our bread, as above, but our soul, and helping him with everything we can, and giving not as if with grief and compulsion, but from the heart, receiving more than giving a benefit, God loves the giver willingly (2 Cor. 9:7), and not partly supporting the hungry or weary soul, but saturating it, mourning with those who mourn and weeping with those who weep: then our light will arise in the darkness - He who says: I have come as a light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me shall not remain in darkness, but have the light of life (John 12:46; John 8:12). For the lamp for our body is the eye: if it is pure, then our whole body will be light. If what should be light turns into darkness, then the whole body will be dark and it will be said to us: if the light that is in you is darkness, then how much darkness is there (Matthew 6:23)? Let us pay attention to how many virtues we achieve the light of God, so that the darkness turns into noon and so that we can say with the bride: where do you pasture, where do you rest at noon (Song. 1:6)? Art. 11. And the Lord will always give you peace and fill your soul with splendor (splendoribus), and free your bones. And you will be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters will never dry up. LXX: And your God will always be with you, and you will be filled as your soul desires, and your bones will be fat. And they will be like a watered garden and like a spring whose water never runs out. What was added in the Alexandrian copies at the beginning of this section: and My praise will still be in you and at the end: and your bones will sprout like grass and be fat and receive an inheritance for generations and generations, is not in the Hebrew and even in the Seventy in the corrected and authentic copies: therefore it should be marked in front with an obel. When the darkness of your heart, he says, after the rise of light, will dissipate and instead of impenetrable night, midday will rise; then you will always have God as your dweller, who will fill your soul with splendor (splendoribus), about which the psalm reads: with You began in the day of Your power, in the brightness of the saints, from the womb before the star I gave birth to Thee (Ps. 109:4). Or you will be satisfied with everything that your soul desires - because you yourself have satisfied your hungry soul, and you will be able to say: bless, my soul, the Lord, who fulfills your good desires (Ps. 102:1, Ps. 102:5), and your bones will be freed from destruction and eternal fire or will become fat, so that previously, due to the hunger for the word of the Lord, exhausted, will receive their former fullness. We can understand this in a literal sense in relation to the resurrection of those bodies that have mouths, and about the powers of the soul, pointing to which the saint says in the psalm: all my bones say: Lord, who is like you (Ps. 34:10)? It is written about them in Proverbs: good glory makes the bones fat (Proverbs 15:30). They are also promised rewards: “there will be health for your body and healing for your bones” (Proverbs 16:21). It is also written about them: The Lord protects all their bones, not one of them will be broken (Ps. 33:21). On the contrary, a sinner who has lost the strength and strength of the soul groans and says: Our bones are wasted in hell (Ps. 141:7). For we cannot think that the bones of sinners are not in hell, but it is near hell. And good glory makes the bones fat (Prov. 15:30), which does not refer to fattening of the body. It follows: and you will or will be, that is, either you or your soul, is like a watered garden, about which it is written: a fountain came out and the whole face of paradise girded (Genesis 2), instead of which in Hebrew the garden is read. By this source we cannot understand anything other than the one to which it is said: You have the fountain of life (Ps. 35:10), which continually waters your Church and the hearts of all believers. Art. 12. And with you the deserts of centuries will be built up; you will restore the foundations of the race, and the clan, and you will be called (vulg. and they will call you) the builder of fences, turning the paths to peace LXX: And your deserts of centuries will be built up, and your foundations will be eternal for generations and generations, and they will call you the builder of the fence and the path in the midst, you will make peace. Not only, he says, will your light rise in the darkness and your darkness will be like noon, and the Lord will always give you rest, but what has been deserted for a long time will be built upon you, and the foundations of your buildings will be laid, destined to remain for many generations, so that either you yourself will be called the builder of fences and walls, or the builder of fences will appear to you and turn the paths to rest, or, according to the Seventy, He will make the paths in the middle calm. Only the Jews and adherents of the killing letter refer to the restoration of the cities of Palestine and claim that this either happened under Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah, or will happen in the last time, and that during the restoration of Jerusalem and the surrounding cities very deep foundations will be laid and such high walls will be built that none of the enemies will be able to enter them and the entry of all enemies into them will be blocked. We, following the order of the beginning of the explanation, say that the former deserts of Judea are built up in the church, not for a short time, but for centuries, and its foundations must be restored from both peoples, that is, in two generations. Therefore, the apostle said: for the architect who lays the foundation is wise, and also edifies: let each one take heed to how he edifies (1 Cor. 3:10), and in another place: God’s work, God’s building (ibid., 1 Cor. 3:9, and also: the apostle and prophet who was built on the foundation (Eph. 2:20), and she or the one who was born in her, should be called the creator of fences. We read about Him in the psalm: man was born in her, and He is the foundation and the Most High (Ps. 87:5). These fences and walls - for this means the Greek word φραγμοί - are surrounded, as the Scripture says, by field and vineyards: you brought grapes from Egypt: you drove out tongues and planted them and, and after a little: you overthrew the stronghold of it and embraced it and you passed by (Ps. 70:9, Ps. 70:13)? And from this same prophet: there were grapes for the beloved (Isa. 5:1), describing which in a beautiful speech, he added: “I built a tower and surrounded it with a fence” (Eccl. 2). The one who built it, according to Ecclesiastes, will be bitten by a snake. It [the vineyard] is surrounded in order to block the beasts’ access to the vineyard of God. And as for this writhing serpent, this is the one who deceived Eve in paradise, who, having violated the commandments of God, was consequently subjected to his bites and heard from the Lord: he will watch over your head, and you will keep his heel (Gen. 3:15). In the place where we translated in accordance with the Seventy, so as not to seem to make changes, since this testimony is well known, and you will be called the builder of fences, in Hebrew it reads: and you will be called, goder pheres, which Aquila translated: περιθράκτηϛ διακοπῆς, which we apply we can translate to the meaning: whoever opposes himself to the strong wrath of God. As a result of this, Symmachus translated: contrasting the wall with the smiter, which was Moses, and Aaron and Samuel, who resisted the wrath of the Lord and, as if by building a wall, put a limit to His wrath. This is also said to Jeremiah so that he does not resist the Lord, does not resist His anger and does not block anger with prayers, as if with some kind of wall (Jer. 7), and to Moses, as if holding back the Lord, He says: leave Me and I will consume this people (Ex. 32:10). Thus, the creator of this kind of strongholds, walls and fences will turn the path to peace, so that anger does not flare up. God, but that the Lord be merciful to them and that all the paths of anger be calm. Art. 13. If you keep your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your will on My holy day, and call the Sabbath joyful and the holy [day] of the Lord glorious, and honor it, not following your ways and not doing your will, so as to speak [empty] words. LXX: If you restrain your foot on the Sabbath, so as not to fulfill your desires on the holy day, and call the Sabbaths joyful, holy to the Lord, you will not lift up your foot to do the work, and you will not say the words “in anger” from your mouth. * * To whom he said above: Isn’t this more the fast that I have chosen, loose the bonds of wickedness, untie the oppressive ties (above, v. 6) and so on, now he also promises rewards if he fulfills what follows, and namely, let him restrain his foot on the Sabbath and but fulfill his desires and not defile the holy day of the Lord with wishes [or pleasures]. The law prescribes that we should not engage in slave labor on the Sabbath, that we should not light fires, that we should sit in one place, that we should perform only those tasks that relate to the salvation of the soul. This, taken literally, is completely impossible to accomplish. For who can do such a thing on the Sabbath, sitting all day and night, without moving from one place, without even making slight movements, which if anyone does, he will be a transgressor of the law? Thus, on the basis of one commandment, which is impossible with a literal understanding, we must also understand the rest spiritually - so that we do not engage in slave labor and do not lose the freedom of the soul, because whoever commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34), - so that on the Sabbath we do not bear the burden that he who said: My iniquity has surpassed My head, for a heavy burden has weighed down on me (Ps. 87:5), so that Iniquity, sitting on the talent of lead, had no power over us (Zech. 5), so that carnal desire and lust would not be kindled. For all who commit adultery are like the furnace of their hearts (Hos. 7), and the devil has arrows of fire to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart (Ps. 10). We are also commanded that when we take hold of the plow we should not look back (Lk. 9), so that, having ascended to the top of the roofs, we do not go down to take the clothes of this age [of this], but listen together with Moses: “Stand here with me” (Ex. 34), and sit with the Lord at the well of Samaria, tired of the path of this age and feeling a thirst for the conversion and salvation of those who go astray, so that they heed the admonition of the apostle: stay firm and impenetrable (1 Cor. 15:58), so that we do not allow what Judas the traitor did, who lost his place of ministry and became a criminal, and always remember his sentence: if the spirit of the possessor comes upon you, do not leave your place (Eccl. 10:4). The joyful Sabbaths of the Lord. This Sabbath, according to the letter written to the Hebrews (Heb. 4), is promised to us in heaven and glory is prepared for us if on the Sabbath we do not follow our ways and do our will and speak [empty] words, that is, without sinning either in deed or in word. Moreover, if this were forbidden only on the Sabbath, then on the other six days we would be given freedom to sin. And since it would be foolish to think so, then the Sabbath, which in translation means rest, should at all times be sanctified by the faithful, through the fulfillment of the desires not of the flesh, but of the spirit. What was added according to the Seventy: in anger from your mouth is not in the Hebrew. The Savior calls us to celebrate this Sabbath with all solemnity, saying: come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28), because ἀναπαύσω ὑμᾶς [I will give you rest] means precisely that we, having laid aside the burden of sins, will have a Sabbath (sabbatizemus) in Christ and could say: set my nose on stones (Ps. 39:3), and avoided what the saint almost suffered, as he says: my nose did not move in the slightest (Ps. 72:2). Art. 14. Then you will delight in the Lord, and I will bring you up on the high places of the earth and will cause you to eat of the inheritance of Jacob your father. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken [it]. LXX: And you will trust in the Lord, and He will lead you to the good things of the land, and He will make you taste the inheritance of Jacob your father. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. When you call the Sabbaths joyful and on Saturday you do not move your foot to do slave work and do not speak a word, that is, you will always remain silent and do what is commanded: keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking flattery (Ps. 33:14): then you will have delight in the Lord and see the fulfillment of [sayings], enjoy the Lord and give you the petitions of your heart (Ps. 36:4). Or will you trust in the Lord, in accordance with what is written: he who trusts in the Lord is blessed (Prov. 16:20), and in Jeremiah: Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord will be his hope (Jer. 17:7), and in another place: it is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in man (Ps. 117:8). And the Lord will exalt you and lead you to the heights and to the blessings of the earth. For the land of the meek and the land of the living is not below, but above. Therefore, Lot, fleeing from the valley of Sodom and Gomorrah, is told: save yourself in the mountain (Gen. 19:17), and when he reached it, the sun rose before him over Zoar. The Lord said about this land: blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). This includes many other things that we have often cited, to which this also belongs: honor your father and your mother, and you will live long on earth, as the Lord God gives you (Ex. 20:12), which in the literal sense is completely impossible. For many honor their parents and die soon, while some parricides live a long time. And so that we know with greater certainty that this earth is on high, let us briefly recall the thirty-sixth psalm, in which it is written: the meek will inherit the earth and will enjoy the abundance of the world (Ps. 36:11), after which it is added: endure the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the earth (Ps. 37:34), about which in another place it is sung: the righteous will inherit earth and will dwell in it for ever and ever (Ps. 37:29). This is also impossible. For if the earth - of course, the one on which we live - passes away, then how will the righteous live on it forever? From this we learn that this is the land that is on high. Then it is added: And I will give you, or the Lord will cause you to eat, the inheritance of Jacob your father. For just as he who trusts in Abraham is called the son of Abraham, so he who commits sins and vices is called the son of Jacob, and whoever imitates someone else’s virtue is called his son. By the blessings of the land located on high, which the son of Jacob eats, we must understand those which neither eye has seen nor ear has heard, and which have not entered the heart of man (1 Cor. 9), about which it is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews: for such a one who speaks appears, as he seeks the fatherland. And if they had looked for it, having come out of it, they would have had time to return to it. Now they desire the best for the fatherland, that is, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 11:14–16). From here we learn that we should reject the fable about the millennium, in which marriage, and food, and a way of earthly life are promised again. For if in the resurrection they neither marry nor commit sexual intercourse, but are like angels (Matthew 22:80), like sons of the resurrection, and if the apostle says about the belly and the belly: meat to the belly and the belly: God will abolish both this and this (1 Cor. 6:13): then how, with an incorruptible, spiritual and immortal body, we will again look for vices the former, mortal and perishable flesh? And we say this not due to the denial of the essential properties (substantiam) of the glorified body, but because we completely exclude the former deeds in those who are like angels. Also in this body, through fasting and abstinence, through constant love and chastity, we imitate the angelic powers, and yet we do not lose the essential properties of bodies. And in order for us to believe that all this will come true, we must know that this is promised by God, whose mouth spoke it, and just as by hands we mean doing, under feet walking, under the womb birth, and under ears and eyes hearing and sight, so by lips we must understand the word of God. Chapter LIX. Art. 1–2. Behold, the hand of the Lord was not so shortened that it could not save, and His ear was not so heavy that it could not hear; but your iniquities have created a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not listen. LXX: Is the hand of the Lord unable to save, or is His ear so heavy that it cannot hear? But your sins create a separation between you and God, and because of your sins He turned His face away from you, so as not to have mercy. I could have done before what I said I would do: you will trust in the Lord, and He will lead you to the good things of the land, and He will make you taste the inheritance of Jacob your father. For My hand is not so shortened or constricted that I cannot stretch it out to liberate My people, and I do not have deaf ears that I cannot hear you. From this it is clear that the ears of the Lord, listening to the righteous and not listening to sinners, are in no way similar to our ears, which equally hear every spoken word of truth and untruth; but your sins, he says, are like some kind of wall opposed in the middle, separating you from God. Therefore, the Savior, through His suffering, made both one and, having destroyed the mediastinum of the fence, abolished the enmity in His flesh (Eph. 2), so that those separated by the wall of sins would be united by the blood of Christ. He opened the door of paradise, which had been closed for a long time, and extinguished the fiery sword with His blood so that the thief could hear: today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43). The following is then: and because of your sins He turned His face away from you, so as not to hear or not to have mercy means that He could not bear the stench of sins and their iniquities, but He turned His face away so as not to see their lewdness and not be forced to immediate punishment. Therefore, the sinner, wanting to see the face of the Lord, says in the psalm: How long, O Lord, will you forget me completely? How long will you turn Your face away from Me (Ps. 12:1)? And in another place: make Your face shine and we will be saved (Ps. 79:4). Art. 3–4. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your mouth speaks lies and your tongue utters lies. There is no one who calls for the truth and no one who judges according to the truth; but they rely on vain things and speak empty things. LXX: For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with sins. Your lips are defiled by iniquity and your tongue is taught unrighteousness. No one speaks the truth, and there is no righteous judgment. They hope in vain things, and speak empty, lawless and sinful things. What he named above in general, he now sets out in particular. And you should pay attention to the fact that he does not denounce them for idolatry, which prevailed during the time of Isaiah, but for the shedding of blood, which he already said before: the righteous perish, and no one will accept it. And the righteous of others will be taken down, and no one understands in his heart: for the righteous has taken hold from the face of unrighteousness. His burial will be in peace, taken out of the way (Isa. 57:1–2). And although they themselves did not lay hands on the Lord Savior, but, as those who unanimously cried out, in wickedness: His blood be on us and on our children (Matthew 27:25), they are guilty of His death and have defiled hands. The same prophet testifies to such people, saying: When you stretch out your hands to me, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood (Isa. 1:15). Also, their mouth and tongue speak lawlessness and lies, promising themselves the Antichrist instead of Christ, and no one calls for the truth and judges [according to] the truth, or as it stands in Hebrew, by faith, that is, they do not believe in Christ, but hope in vain and speak in vain. Therefore, the apostle commands not to listen to Jewish fables and decrees of people who turn away from the truth (Titus 1). For in truth they rely on vain things and follow vain things, in which the Lord’s prophecy is fulfilled: I came in the name of My Father, and you do not receive Me: if anyone comes in his own name, you will receive him (John 5:43). Art. 5–6. They conceived labor and gave birth to iniquity, and broke the eggs of asps and wove the fabrics of spiders. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and a snake (regillus) will crawl out of the hatched one. Their fabrics will not be suitable for clothing and they will not be covered with their creations. LXX: For they conceive sorrow and give birth to iniquity. They broke the eggs of the asps and wove the spider's cloth. And whoever wants five of their eggs, breaking them, will find rot and a snake in it; their fabric will not be suitable for clothing, and they will not be covered with their products. Those who await the coming of the Antichrist and cannot say: for Thy fear, O Lord, in the womb were conceived, and sick, and gave birth, the spirit of Thy salvation was created on earth (Isa. 26:18), rightly conceive sorrow and give birth to iniquity, so that in iniquity they would receive the one whom they seek with great difficulty, about whose father it is written: conceived illness and gave birth to iniquity (Ps. 7:15). They break and break the eggs of asps in order to take their poison into their minds, to which the Gospel says: serpent, brood of vipers (Matthew 23:33). And he perfectly placed the eggs of asps and snakes, of which they say that they first produce eggs. And since they not only hold the poison of malice in their hearts, but study the law of the Lord day and night, whispering old women’s fables, it is said: and they weave fabrics of spiders with which they catch flies, and mosquitoes and small animals, but when something strong comes to them [the fabrics], it flies as if through empty air. Whoever, he says, eats their eggs will die, that is, whoever will rely on their advice, as Abel relied on Cain, who said: let's go to the field (Gen. 4:8), he will immediately die or, as the Seventy translated: whoever wants to eat their eggs, breaking it, will find rot and a snake in it. For whoever, deceived by their appearance, considers them to be the eggs of chickens and other birds, the eating of which is harmless, breaks them before eating and notices the most disgusting stench and stench, and which [egg] is hatched, he will find in it a small snake (regulum), or, according to Symmachus and Theodotion, an asp (aspidem). Aquila put it: viper, instead of which in Hebrew it reads: ephee. So, whoever, listening to Jewish traditions, wants to prepare himself for the food of a thousand years and, entangled in the charm of promises, stretches out his hand to the egg: if, before eating, that is, relying on deadly words, he wants to think about what is said in advance, and examine every word and consider their arguments, he will find that the Antichrist is being prepared by them. Thus, according to the Hebrew text, whoever eats their eggs will die. According to the Seventy, whoever wants to break it in advance and carefully look and see what is hidden, he will find that in them hides the most disgusting stench and the prince of all serpents, the devil. And since he said above: they weave spider fabrics, he says that weaving these fabrics is useless. Their work, he says, and all their teaching does not produce the garment of Christ and the robe with which the nakedness of the soul could be covered, but they labor in vain, as this same prophet says: these people worship Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. But they worship Me in vain, teaching the commandments of men and doctrines (Isa. 29:13): those who do this despise the law of God. And so that we know that the fabric is an indication of the deeds, he added: and they will not be covered with their works. Some explain this passage this way: they broke or broke the eggs of asps, that is, they abandoned all the hurtful speeches of the prophets and wove the flattering sayings of false prophets, from which whoever eats will be struck by a serpent, and will understand that the words of lies did not bring him any benefit. Art. 7–8. Their deeds are useless deeds, and the work of iniquity is in their hands. Their feet run towards evil, and they hasten to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are useless thoughts; desolation and destruction are in their paths. They have not known the ways of the world, and there is no judgment in their ways. Their paths are crooked and no one who walks on them knows peace. LXX: Their deeds are deeds of iniquity, and their feet run to evil. They are in a hurry to shed innocent blood. And their thoughts are the thoughts of fools. Destruction and disaster are in their ways, and they have not known the way of peace, and there is no judgment in their ways. For their paths are perverse, through which they pass and know no peace. Because they are not covered or will not be covered by their works, because their works are works of iniquity, which the Apostle calls unfruitful (Eph. 5), that is, having no fruit. And their feet run to evil and hasten to shed innocent blood (Proverbs 9) for this is what they did when killing the prophets. To these Stephen said, whom did not your fathers cast out from the prophet (Acts 7:52)? And the Lord in the Gospel: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, having killed the prophets and stoned those who were sent to you (Matt. 23:37), and again: all righteous blood shed on the earth will come to you, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachi, who was killed between the church and the altar (Matthew 23:35). Therefore, above (Isa. 1:15) it is said to them: for your hands are full of blood and your tongue speaks lawless things. And through this exercise in cruelty and blasphemy they reached the point of killing the Lord, just as Judas, through greed, reached murder, or rather, sacrilege associated with greed. The next thing is this: their thoughts are the thoughts of fools. Destruction and disaster are in their ways, and they have not known the way of peace, and above: their feet hasten to shed blood, the apostle brought [in his letter] to the Romans (3), which many ignorant people consider to be borrowed from the thirteenth psalm, which verses are added in the Vulgate edition, but which are not in the Hebrew. We said more about this at the beginning of this book. But those who did not want to accept its Creator rightly did not know the ways of the world. For He is our peace, saying to the apostles: My peace I give to you, My peace I leave with you (Jn. 14:27), and to Jerusalem: if only you would understand the hedgehog of your peace, that the days will come against you, and your enemies will lay prisons against you, and will deceive you, and dash your children to the ground (Luke 19:42–43). And since they did not accept peace, as a result of this they do not have judgment in their ways, the one about which it is said above: “Behold My Servant, whom I have chosen, My beloved, whom My soul has loved; He will proclaim judgment to the nations” (Is. 42:1). What follows: their ways are perverted, not by nature, but by free will. For whatever is perverted and twisted turns from right to wrong. Every teaching of the Pharisees is a perversion of the truth, according to which whoever follows will not only not find the world, but will not even know it in order to know what he should look for. Art. 9–11. Therefore, judgment is removed from us and justice will not reach us. We waited for the light, and then there was darkness - illumination, and we walked in the darkness. We felt the wall, like blind people, and groped as if without eyes; We stumbled at noon, as if in the dark, in the darkness - as if we were dead. We will all roar like bears and learn to moan like doves. We were waiting for judgment, and there would be no salvation, and it was removed from us. LXX: Therefore, judgment has retreated from them and the truth does not reach them. When they expected light, there was darkness for them. Those who were waiting for him will walk in darkness, they will touch the wall like blind people, and they will grope as if they have no eyes. They will fall at noon, as in the middle of the night, they will groan like the dying, they will walk like a bear and like a dove. We waited for judgment, and now: salvation has retreated far from us. After accusing the Jewish people, the prophet answers on their behalf that the repentant must speak if, nevertheless, they want to receive healing after their wounds. And I wonder why the Seventy made their speech continuous, as if the prophet were speaking about them, and not they themselves were answering, although subsequently they, submitting to the truth, did the same, saying: we waited for judgment, and there was none: salvation has retreated far from us. For our iniquities are many, and our sins have become weary of them, and so on. Thus, everything is being fulfilled at the present time. The judgment that was announced to the pagans is removed from the Jews. And the truth that was achieved by the pagans will not reach them. They waited for the light, saying: send Thy light and Thy truth (Ps. 43:3), which was promised to them by the prophets, and they were enveloped in the darkness of error. They waited for the light and walked in darkness. Thus, they touched the sacred writings like a blind wall, and looked in them only for words and leaves, and not for the meaning and fruit contained in the writing. Finally he adds and says: we stumbled or we will fall at noon, as if in the dark, in the darkness as if dead. For throughout the whole world, while the sun of righteousness is shining, they remain in darkness, as those who died through sin. All of us, he says, will roar like bears and learn to moan like doves, so that they are both cruel and unhappy: fierce and inhuman in relation to the lower and subordinate, and fearful and timid in relation to the strongest, whom they fear like kites. And in another place we read: like a bear without children (2 Samuel 17:8). And in Daniel, the bloody kingdom, in which there are three rows of teeth, is compared to the fierce bear itself (Dan. 7). And while learning we will moan like doves, without understanding or understanding the scriptures, learning only in the words that they repeat from memory. But like the doves about which it is written: Ephraim is like a dove that has no meaning (Hos. 7:11), and as in the Gospel the simplicity of doves is contrasted with the malice of snakes (Matthew 10); So in this place, the teaching in some words indicates simplicity without wisdom, close to stupidity. They will wait for judgment, and there will be no, it means: salvation, they will wait, and there will not be it, because it has withdrawn to the pagans, and it should be noted that all this is said in the future tense to show what the Jews are now experiencing. Art. 12–15. For our iniquities multiplied before You, and our sins testified against us, for our transgressions are with us, and we have known our iniquities: to sin and lie before the Lord, and we rejected, so as not to follow our Lord, so as to speak slander, and conceived transgression and spoke words of lies from the heart. And the court retreated back, and the truth became far away, for the truth fell in the square, and justice could not enter. And the truth came into oblivion, and he who shunned evil was plundered. LXX: For our iniquities are many before You, and our sins have become weary of us. For our iniquities are within us, and we have known our iniquities. We have acted wickedly and lied and turned away from our God. We lied and were disobedient. We went in and learned from our hearts the words of the unrighteous. And we retreated from judgment, and the truth became far away, for the truth was exhausted in their ways and they could not walk the right path. And the truth was taken. And they eliminated the mind so as not to understand. He points out the reasons why they roared like bears and taught like doves; They were waiting for judgment, which did not happen, - salvation, which passed on to the pagans, and they said: for our iniquities have multiplied before You, from which You turned your face for a long time, so as not to see them, so as not to punish them. And our sins testified against us, so that we would receive what we deserve. And our crimes are with us, and we have come to know our iniquities, which, having committed for a long time, we considered to be the truth. What are these iniquities? To sin and lie before God, or, as Aquila translated from the Hebrew text: to deny God, which refers to the Savior. And we forsook, they say, our God, saying: We know that Moses is God; We are not aware of this, from where we are (John 9:29), to speak slander: “If He were from God, He would not have broken the Sabbath,” and: about Beelzebub the prince of demons he will cast out demons (Luke 11:15). And the crime, which is more clearly called in Greek ἀπόστααιϛ (apostasy), when someone denies God and is convicted of apostasy. We conceived and spoke words of lies from our hearts, despising the law of God and following the traditions of men, which they call δευτερωσεις and which we hid in our hearts. And the court retreated back and the truth became far away. For what fellowship has righteousness with iniquity? What is the agreement between Christ and Belial (2 Cor. 6) The truth stopped among the pagans and moved away from us, because the truth fell in the marketplace. For broad and broad is the way that leads to death (Matthew 7), so they did not want to enter the narrow path on which the truth is found. And the truth came into oblivion, about which it is written: truth came up from the earth and righteousness came from heaven (Ps. 84:12). It should be noted that the name truth was often used to designate the face of Christ, whose abandonment followed a lie. And he who departs from falsehood is subject to theft. Although this seems obscure, it can be explained in this way: since we produced lies from our hearts and abandoned the law of God, then truth became distant, and truth fell in the marketplaces, and justice could not come to us, and the Son of God, who is the truth, was subjected to oblivion, so much so that everyone who wanted to depart from the traditions of the Jews was subjected to intrigues and persecutions, so that the man born blind, who again received his sight, they drove out from the synagogues (John 9), and after the resurrection of the Lord Savior they persecuted and subjected to theft of all to whom the churches throughout the world entrusted the ministries that they distributed by the hands of the apostles. Art. 16–18. And the Lord saw this, and it turned out to be evil before His eyes that there was no judgment, and he saw that there was no man, and was amazed that there was no intercessor. And His arm will help Him, and His truth itself will strengthen Him. He put on righteousness as armor, and the helmet of salvation was on His head. He clothed himself with robes of vengeance, and covered Himself as if with a cloak of jealousy, as if for vengeance, as if to repay the wrath of His enemies, as if to retaliate against His adversaries, to give the islands their due. LXX: The Lord saw, and He was not pleased that there was no judgment, and He saw, and there was no man, and he looked in, and there was no one to protect. And He took vengeance on them with His arm and strengthened them with mercy. And he put on righteousness as armor, and put the helmet of salvation on his head. And he put on the robe of vengeance, and a cloak, as one who repays retribution for the reproach of his opponents. Until now, there has been continuous prophetic speech on behalf of the people; now the prophet speaks on his own behalf. When they said this, the Lord saw that they spoke with their lips about repentance, but did not bring it in their hearts, and He did not like it. For He sought from them the truth of the judgment that was transferred to the Gentiles, and He did not find it. He was looking for some righteous person who could intercede with Him during His anger, and did not find it, as He said above: He came, and did not strike a man who called, and did not listen (Isa. 50:2) And since among them, being in transgression, not even one righteous person was found, but they all turned aside, and together they were ineffective, and did not do goodness, to carry to one (Ps. 13:3): then He strengthened it with His arm and righteousness or mercy, so that those who want to convert would be saved not according to their own merit, but according to the goodness of God. Finally, He put on the armor of righteousness and the helmet of salvation, and the robe of vengeance, and put on the cloak of jealousy, and, thus armed, went out into battle to inflict vengeance on His enemies - indicating, no doubt, the Jews who persisted in their blasphemies, and retribution on His opponents when the army of the Romans surrounded them. And their victory shows that the Lord fought. Paul also cited this testimony when he wrote to the Ephesians and when he wanted us to put on the armor of Christ, so that we could resist the fiery arrows of the devil (Eph. 6). The same [words] that the Seventy Interpreters do not have: to pay tribute to the islands, point to the Jewish cities that were devastated by the Roman army. For above (20) the Lord speaks through the prophet to the inhabitants of the island, that is, Jerusalem. Art. 19–21. And they will fear the name of the Lord in the west, and His glory at the rising of the sun, when he comes like a swift river, moved by the Spirit of the Lord, and the Redeemer of Zion and of those who turn from iniquity in Jacob comes, says the Lord. This is my covenant with them, says the Lord: My Spirit which is in you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of the seed of your seed, says the Lord, from now on and forever. LXX: And they will fear the name of the Lord in the west and the glorious name at the rising of the sun. For the wrath of the Lord will come like a stormy river - it will come with fury - and the deliverer of Zion will come. And He will turn away wickedness from Jacob, and this will be a covenant from Me to them, says the Lord. My Spirit which is in you, and My words which I have given in your mouth, shall not cease in your mouth, nor in the mouth of your seed, says the Lord, from now on and forever. When the Lord puts on for battle the armor of righteousness, and the helmet of salvation, and the robe of vengeance, and the cloak of jealousy, and comes to battle and for vengeance, to take revenge on his enemies, and to repay his enemies and destroy their islands, that is, cities and villages: then foreigners will come from the west and the east to rest in the bosom of Abraham (Matthew 8), about which above (Isa. 49) it was said: “Behold, they will come from afar, some from the west, and some from the north, and others from the land of the Persians,” and they will fear the Lord with that fear, which is the beginning of wisdom (Wisdom Sir. 1). We read about him in many places, of which we will cite a few: blessed is the man who fears the Lord (Ps. 112:1), and: there is no hardship for those who fear Him (Ps. 33:10), and: the fear of the Lord is punishment and wisdom (Prov. 15:33), and: come, children, listen to me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord (Ps. 33:12 ), and: man shall be blessed, fear the Lord (Ps. 127:5), and: the fear of the Lord lengthens the days (Prov. 10:27). And that after Israel is rejected, its place will be taken by a host of pagans, the prophet Malachi teaches more fully, who says to the Jews: My will is not in you, says the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept sacrifice at your hands (Mal. 1:10). And also about the host of the pagans: from the east of the sun to the west, my name will be glorified among the nations (Mal. 1:10). The culprit of this bliss is the one who comes like a stormy river, which is set in motion by the Spirit of the Lord, or, as Aquila translated: like a narrow river, the Spirit of the Lord is its sign, or according to Theodotion: like a warring river, the Spirit of the Lord is sealed. Thus, the last part of this testimony, which the LXX translated: like a stormy river, the wrath of the Lord will come with fury, is not in the Hebrew. For in the promises of God there should be no talk of anger and rage, while in other things that follow, there is a blessing relating to the future, and a threat and punishment for sinners. According to Aquila and Theodotion, the Spirit of the Lord, sealed in Christ, is confirmed by the example that is read in the Evangelist John: For this is the banner of God (Jn. 6:27), about which it was previously said: a rod will come out from the root of Jesse, and a flower will arise from its root, and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and piety, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord will fill Him (Is. 11:1-3). Therefore we say: the light of Your countenance is upon us, O Lord (Ps. 4:7). And Ezekiel imprinted on the foreheads of the sighing people the sign of Tav, the last Hebrew letter (Ezekiel 9). If we want to know how the Holy Spirit serves as a stormy river, then we must read the Acts of the Apostles, in which it is written: and when everything was thundering together, suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a stormy breath, and it filled the whole house, where there was a rush. And the nations appeared to them divided like fire, but they sat on one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1–4). It follows: The Redeemer of Zion and of those who turn from iniquity in Jacob will come, says the Lord. Instead, the Seventy translated: He who delivers and turns away iniquity from Jacob will come from Zion. So, if one comes from Zion who will turn away wickedness from Jacob, then we mean by this that a person was born in Zion, and the Most High founded it, turning away the crimes of Jacob. If the Redeemer of Zion and those who turn from iniquity in Jacob comes, says the Lord, then the meaning is as follows: Christ will come who will redeem Zion with His blood or, in accordance with the property of the Hebrew language, close to Zion and born from the descendants of Israel, for this means goel, that is, ἀγκιστεύϛ. And so that we do not think that Zion, which was stained with the blood of the Lord, is redeeming and getting rid of its crimes, he added in the explanation: those who turn from iniquity if they want to repent, over whom the words of the Lord are fulfilled: Father, let them go, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). Thus, those in Zion will be redeemed and a loved one will come from Jacob who will accept Him, and He promises them, saying: this is My covenant with them, or a covenant, as all others have translated, or a covenant, as they have put it LXX. And what the union, agreement and covenant consist of, this is shown by the next verse: “My Spirit, saith, which is in you, and My words, which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, or from the mouth of your seed, from now on and forever.” This is said either to Isaiah, as it seems to me, or to the Lord, as most people think. So, in relation to Isaiah, the sequential course of speech has the following connection: this is the everlasting covenant of the Gospel, so that My spirit which is in you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, through which you predict the future, do not depart from your mouth, nor from the [mouths] of your sons and grandsons and your seed - which indicates all the generations that follow one after another - precisely because the grace of the prophets passes to the apostles and through them to to those from Israel who believe through the apostles. And what is added: from now on and forever corresponds to this testimony: for even the earth will pass by, but My words will not pass by (Matthew 24:35). Explaining this passage in detail, Paul writes in Romans that there is no difference between Jew and Greek, but there is one Lord of all, rich to all who call on Him (Rom. 10), and that the Gentiles will not believe in such a way that Israel is completely excluded. For I, he says, am an Israelite, from the seed of Abraham, the tribe of Benjamin. I will not cast aside my people, they are before my mind (Rom. 11:1-2). And a little later, presenting the example of Elijah, who complained to the Lord that he was the only one left, and who heard from Him that the Lord left for Himself seven thousand people who did not bend the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19), he added: so even in this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. If it be by grace, then it is not by works: grace is no longer without grace. If there is a department for whom there is no grace, there is no work to be done. What the hell? Israel sought it, but did not receive it, but the rest received election and were blinded. And if they do not continue in unbelief, they will cling: for God is able to cling them again. (Rom. 11:5–7), (Rom. 11:23), - not contrary to nature, from a wild olive tree, as the mass of pagans are grafted, but by nature - in a good one, that is, to one’s own olive tree. And finally, to get to the present place, he said: I do not want you not to know this mystery, brethren, so that you will not be wise about yourselves, for there will be blindness on part of Israel until the fulfillment of tongues comes, and so all Israel will be saved, just as it is written: He will come from Zion to deliver, and will turn away wickedness from Jacob: and this to them from Me covenant, when I will take away their sins. (Rom. 11:25–27). We have outlined this in particular detail so that all the promises to Zion and Jerusalem, which we have read and about which we will speak, we relate not in general to all Jews, but in particular to those who were chosen from Israel in the apostles and through the apostles. Virgil. Aen. VI, 724–727. The destruction or reduction of debt obligations, which was often achieved in Rome through rebellion. You might be interested in: