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The eighteenth or better the last book on Isaiah is dedicated to your name, daughter Eustochius, and your holy mother, Paula, so that those whom I looked upon with equal respect, I will honor with the same memory, especially since she, when she lived, partly demanded this work with you, and the most learned man, your brother Pammachius, both then and subsequently did not cease to encourage me with frequent letters: and I have the same respect for to those present and to absent friends, and to husbands and wives resting in Christ, that is, love for souls, and not for bodies. And I am not unaware of how great the diversity of opinions among people is. I am not talking about the sacraments of the Trinity, the right confession of which is ignorance for knowledge, but about other church dogmas, namely about the resurrection and the state of human souls and flesh, about the promises of the future: how they should be accepted and how the Revelation of John should be understood, which, if taken literally, then should be Judaized, and if explained spiritually, as it is written, then we, apparently, would be in conflict with the opinions of many ancients - the Latins: Tertullian, Victorinus. Lactantius, and the Greeks - in order to omit others, I will only mention Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, against whom the most eloquent man Dionysius, bishop of the Alexandrian church, wrote a beautiful book ridiculing the fable of a thousand years, and earthly Jerusalem, adorned with gold and precious stones, the restoration of the church, the blood of sacrifices, the Holy Sabbath, the untruth of circumcision, marriages, births, raising children, pleasure at feasts and the enslavement of all nations, and again wars, armies and triumphs and the killing of the vanquished and the death of a hundred-year-old sinner. Apollinaris answered him in two books, which not only people from his sect, but also very many of ours follow only in this case, so that in my mind I already see in advance how many should be aroused to rage against me. I do not envy them if they love the earth so much that in the kingdom of Christ they desire earthly [blessings] and after an abundance of food and [satisfying] the greed of the throat and belly, they seek what is below the belly. About such the Apostle Paul says: food is meat to the belly and food to the belly, but God will bring to naught both this and this (1 Cor. 6:13), and: the kingdom of God is meat and drink (Rom. 14:16). And the Lord and Savior says: You are deceived, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God. On the resurrection they will neither marry nor commit sex, but will be like angels in heaven (Matthew 22:29–39). But in saying this, I do not deny the truth of bodies, regarding which I acknowledge that they will rise incorruptible and immortal, so that they will change glory, but into essential properties (substantram). Thus, we must walk the straight path, not deviating either to the left or to the right, that is, not following either Jewish or heretical error. Of these, some, being carnal, love only the flesh, others, having forgotten the benefits of God, renounce the possession of what Christ had both at birth and at resurrection. For when the apostles considered him a spirit (spiritum) or, according to the Gospel that the Jewish Nazarenes read, an incorporeal spirit (daemonium), He said to them: Why are you troubled and why are thoughts entering your hearts? You see My hands and My nose, for I myself am; Touch Me and see that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see Me having. And this river showed them hand and nose (Luke 24:38–40). And then He said to Thomas the doubter: Bring this finger to me, and see my hand, and bring your hand and place it in my side, and do not be unfaithful, but faithful (John 20:27). Finally, to prove the reality of the body, He, as it is written, took the food that He ordered to be given to the daughter of the leader of the synagogue, whom He raised from the dead. And Lazarus, so that his resurrection would not be considered a ghost, had, as the story goes, a meal with the Savior (Mark 5, Luke 13; John 12). This is not because we eat and drink after the resurrection, as our thousand-year-olds [chiliasts] claim, and that immortal and incorruptible bodies need to be supported by food - otherwise, where there is poverty, there are diseases, where there are diseases, there is a need for the help of a doctor, where there are doctors, there is often death, and again resurrection and again new life - but so that through eating food, faith in the resurrection is confirmed. Regarding this we especially warn and speak with special precision, knowing that we need to walk among snakes and scorpions, which bite and smite in secret (Ezek. 2). Ecclesiastes also says about them: if a serpent bites you in silence, then the one who secretly reviles him is no better than him (Eccl. 10:11), and his father David: when he sat against your brother he slandered, and he brought offense against your mother’s son. This he did and kept silent, he became angry at iniquity, because I will be like you: I will reprove you and present you before your face (Ps. 49:20-21), so that you will know that you yourself have what you condemn in others. But if anyone is not comfortable with the vastness of interpretations on the prophets, let him frankly listen to the fact that I have said much less than [as much] as the darkness of the subject requires, and that anyone can make for themselves brief interpretations from our extensive ones, which, however, will not be sufficient for a complete understanding. For the prophets do not recount a simple story or a series of events, but everything [they] is full of mystery and one is spoken in words, and the other is contained in thoughts, so that what you consider to be smoothly and unimpededly flowing is again covered in the darkness of what follows. But it’s time to finish the prophetic book, in the explanation of which if I expand more than usual, then this should be excused regarding the last parts, which I did not want to divide, so as not to increase the number of books. Chapter LXV. Art. 1. Those who did not ask Me before sought Me; those who did not seek Me found me. I said, “Here I am, here I am among the people who have not called on My name.” LXX: I have revealed myself to those who do not seek Me; found by those who did not question Me. I said: Behold, I am among the people who have not called on My name. To the prayer of the people, mixed with complaints, in which they said: why did You, Lord, allow us to stray from Your path, hardened our hearts so that we would not fear You (Isa. 63:17), answers, as the Jews claim, God the Father, and as we prove, the Lord and Savior: I am not so inflexible and cruel, who desire the repentance of a sinner more than death (Ezek. 2), and do not reject repentant sons, if they have, however, respected the dignity of their name, so that I even wish for the salvation of strangers. For they did not seek Me and could not say: His writers were Moses in the law and the prophets, who found Jesus (John 1:45), thereby I appeared, about whom the prophet testified in another place: those who are not told about Him will hear, and those who have not heard will understand (Isaiah 42:15). But you, who study the law of God day and night, boast in vain of repentance, the works of which you do not fulfill. Therefore, the evangelist and the apostles, wanting to confirm the coming of the Lord with the testimonies of the Old Testament, always said: let what was spoken by the prophet be fulfilled (Matthew 1:22). The centurion did not seek the Lord, but heard from the Lord: I have not found much faith in Israel (Luke 7:9). The Syrophoenician woman did not know the sayings of the prophets, and is praised by the word of the Lord: O woman, great is your faith (Matthew 15:28) The courtier (regulus), which in Greek is called βασιλικός (John 4:16), but which we from [the word] palace (aula regia) can more correctly translate courtier (palatinus), found healing not only for his son, but also for his entire household. And what is said in the Hebrew [text]: “They sought Me who had not asked Me before”, this refers to the same thought - that those who previously had no knowledge of God subsequently seek the Lord and know Him through revelation, which was also revealed to Paul when he was persecuting the church of believers (Acts. 9), and to the Apostle Peter he says: Blessed are you, Simon, var Jonah, for flesh and blood have not been revealed to you, but My Father who is in heaven (Matthew 16:17). Moses also sought him, saying to God: if I have found grace before You, show me to You, that I may see You (Ex. 33:13). He spiritually contemplated riches, greater than the treasures of Egypt, expecting the reproach of Christ, when he desired reward in the future and, as it were, saw the invisible God. About Him it is read in the Psalms: the hope of all the ends of the earth and those who are in the seas far away (Ps. 64:6), and in Genesis: The hope of the tongues will be for him (Gen. 49:10). And the following: I said: Behold, I am among the people who did not call on My name, corresponds to that thought: He sent Me to you (Ex. 3:14). He, being the image of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, etc. (Phil. 2), but, calling on the peoples of the whole world, he made one Christian people named after Himself. Art. 2. All day long I have stretched out My hands to the unbelieving people, who walk in evil ways, according to their own thoughts. LXX: All day long I stretched out My hands to an unbelieving and quarrelsome people, who walked not in the good way, but after their sins. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans, then, having stated what was said above in relation to the pagans: I was revealed to those who did not ask Me, I was found to those who did not seek Me, he added: to Israel he says: I stretched out My hands to an unbelieving and quarrelsome people (Rom. 10), who, when they were overcome by the good deeds of the Lord and saw the signs of the highest [powers] of man, then said: This one will not drive out demons, only about Beelzebub, the prince of demons (Matthew 12:24) and also: You are a Samaritan, and you have demons (John 8:48), and again: You, this man, create for yourself God (John 10:33). And in another place: this man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath (John 9:16), and many other things that would take a long time to bring. Finally, when on the cross He stretched out His hands to the unbelieving people and said: Father, let them go, for they do not know what they are doing (Lk. 23:34), then they directly said: alas, he who destroys the church and in three days builds, let him now come down from the cross, and we believe in Him. Having saved others, can he not save himself (Matthew 27:40–43)? Simeon, holding the Child in his arms, prophesied about this: “This one is destined for the fall and for the rising of many, and is prophesied as a sign” (Luke 2:34). In Rome, the Jews say to Paul: We know about this sect, because everywhere there is opposition to what is said (Acts 28:22). We can also understand the outstretched hands in relation to the generosity of the Giver, because He refuses nothing to those who ask, but immediately He granted healing to the asking leper (Matthew 8), and the man born blind received his sight (John 9), and thousands of hungry people in the desert were fed, except children and wives (Matthew 14). They denote the outstretched arms and goodness of the Parent, who wants to accept his children into his arms. But they, on the contrary, walked the wrong path and followed their own thoughts. To such the Lord says through the prophet: turn away your foot from the path of evil (Prov. 4:27). For they loved strangers and, like the harlot, they said: I will go after my lusts (Hos. 2:5), And leaving the good way, which says in the Gospel: I am the way (John. 14:6), walked along the wide and spacious path leading to death, and followed their thoughts, avoiding which, the prophet prays to the Lord: cleanse me from my secrets and have mercy on Thy servant from strangers. If they do not possess me, then I will be blameless (Ps. 18:13–14). And the apostle teaches that those who do not have the knowledge of God give themselves over to a depraved mind to do lewd things (Rom. 1). We will say in the words of the psalmist: guide me in the right path (Ps. 26:11). Art. 3. A people who constantly provoke Me to anger before Me: they slaughter sacrifices in gardens and offer sacrifices on bricks. LXX: This people grieves Me to my face: they always make sacrifices in gardens and burn incense on bricks to demons that do not exist. ⁑ As the Lord says: “Thou shalt not make for yourself an idol or any likeness, tree in heaven or tree on earth” (Ex. 20:4), and through Moses he reproached those who do [this]: you have angered Me because of strange gods, and have made Me bitter in your abominations. Having devoured the demon, and not God (Deut. 32:16), they, with zeal for sin, seemed to irritate and challenge God, not only did what was not permitted, but constantly and continuously did it, sinning before the face of the Lord, before whose eyes everything is open, or in His church, making sacrifices to idols. And so that there would not be any sacrilege, they made sacrifices in the gardens and burned incense on bricks, combining debauchery with idolatry and lust with sacrifices, and instead of one altar built of rough stones according to the law of God, they stained burnt bricks and field turf with the blood of victims. This is said with reference to the literal meaning; in the spiritual sense, every heretic provokes the Lord to anger and with his false teachings brings unclean sacrifices, which are not permanent and cannot always remain, but, like gardens, bloom for a short time, caring for the pleasures of the flesh. To such it is said: all flesh is hay, and all its glory is like the flower of grass. The grass and flower are gone; the word of the Lord, preached in the churches, abides forever (Isa. 40:6-8). Naboth, who did not want such gardens to be made from his vineyard, shed blood under the most wicked king Ahab (1 Kings 21). For it was inconceivable that the paternal heritage should perish and that, after cutting down the vineyards that bear fruit that gladdens the heart of man, instead of virtues vegetables of pleasures and vices would be born. The Greeks have a rightfully glorified and praised saying of a sage, who calls all the pleasures of light, the splendor and luxury of the world, which quickly passes, the gardens of Adonis. Heretics also make dedications on stones when they try to establish their errors and strained lies with the dialectical art and build in the proper order (in quadrum) and support, as they say, γραμμικαῖς ἀράγκοι [mathematical proofs], that is, lines that are drawn and written on a brick in the dust 66 . And what is read in the Seventy: demons that do not exist, and which does not exist in Hebrew, this should be understood in the sense that literally and spiritually there are no demons that have already perished from God, who truly exists, and sects of heretics that do not possess any truth, but turn into the likeness of shadows and perish. Therefore, Esther speaks to the Lord: “Do not betray Your inheritance to those who do not exist” (Esther 4), and the saint prays in the psalm: weaken me, so that I may not even go away first, and I will not be with anyone (Isa. 38:14). For whoever, living in this body, does not receive forgiveness of sins and so leaves life, he perishes for God and ceases to exist, although he exists for themselves in punishment. Art. 4–5. They live in tombs and sleep in the churches of idols; they eat swine's flesh and vile brew in their vessels; they say: get away from me, do not come near me, because you are unclean. LXX: They sleep in coffins and caves for the sake of dreams; they eat swine's flesh and sacrificial brew; all their vessels are vile; they say: get away from me, do not come near me, for I am pure. There was no sacrilege that the people of Israel would abhor, not only making sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on bricks, but also sitting or living in tombs and sleeping in the churches of idols, where they usually lay on the spread skins of victims in order to recognize the future in dreams. This is what continues to this day mislead the pagans and many others in the temple of Aesculapius, which [the temple] are nothing more than the tombs of the dead. But they did not limit themselves to this wickedness, but also ate the meat of pigs, which was prohibited by law, and yesterday's brew, which the Greeks call ἕωλον 67, they ate with greed. Therefore, they themselves were just as unclean as their vessels, and their insolence and arrogance increased so daily that they considered anyone not carried away by their error to be unclean and avoided contact with him, just as the Samaritans and Jews and all the heretics who have recently appeared in Gaul under the leadership of a passionate teacher 68 do in relation to us, who, moving away from the basilicas of the martyrs, avoid as unclean, us, but according to the custom of those who pray there. It is not so much they who do this as the demons who live within them, who cannot bear the force and scourging of the sacred dust. Which of the heretics does not rest in [tombstone] monuments, does not sleep in the caves of teachers? Such were Marcion and Valentinus and recently Eunomius, who witnessed the uncleanness of the mind with a leper body, who, having left the light of the Holy Spirit and the upper room in which the apostles were, remain in the darkness of the devil and love the caves condemned by Jeremiah in the mysterious speech: “my inheritance (was made for me like the cave of a hyena" (Jer. 12), which our people call bellua, an animal that always follows corpses and feeds on the juice and purulent blood of dead bodies. Against those who live in caves, Habakkuk also spoke in a mournful voice: woe to him who makes his friend drunk with muddy drink and becomes drunk, for he looks towards their caves (Hab. 2:15). The Lord also spoke about these caves: it is written: My Father’s house will be called a house of prayer, but you will also create a den of robbers (Matthew 21:13), (Luke 19:46), in which you destroy the souls of the deceived, so that they do not see in them those visions about which the same Savior says: I have multiplied visions and in the hands of the prophets we will become like (Hosea 12:10 ). And another said to Him: You spoke in the vision of Your son (Ps. 89:20), but you believe in those dreams and visions in which the Lord commanded not to believe. They feed on the flesh of pigs, of which it is said: “Do not cast away your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6), and they eat a vile brew, seasoned in the books with their heretical art. All their vessels are unclean, that is, both their bodies and their teachings, and they reach such madness that anyone who is not like them is cursed as lost. Art. 5–7. They will be smoke in My wrath, a fire that burns all day long. It is written before Me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay, and I will repay in their bosom your iniquities, and together the iniquities of your fathers, says the Lord, who sacrificed on the mountains and reviled Me on the hills, and first I will measure out their work into their bosom. LXX: This is the smoke of My wrath, the fire burns in it all the days. It is written before Me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay, and I will repay in their bosom the sins of them and their fathers, says the Lord, who burned incense on the mountains and reviled Me on the hills, I will repay their deeds into their bosom. Because of your works and incredible arrogance, so that you, being unclean, consider the clean to be unclean, you will be smoke, a burning fire, kindled by My wrath. We must understand rage, oblivion, anger, repentance in God as legs, arms, eyes, ears and other members, which are said to have the incorporeal and invisible God. Not in the sense that these [spiritual] disturbances are subject to the One who destroys them in us with the gift of His grace, but by the words characteristic of us we must understand the attitude of God towards us. For wrath, which consists in the passion for vengeance, is not so determined in God as in people - it has a basis in our vices, and not in the will of God: we store up wrath for ourselves on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Rom. 2), so that our thorns, thistles and tares, which we brought instead of the seed of God, as well as the wood, hay and straw that we built on Paul’s foundation, the wise flame destroyed (1 Cor. 3). We also read about this eternal fire in the songs of Moses: the fire was kindled by My wrath, it will kindle to the lowest hell; destroy the earth and its life; it will burn the foundations of the mountains, and My arrows will finish them off (Deut. 82:22). The meaning of this testimony is that the fire of God constantly burns and punishment for sinners and pursues them to hell. Such was the rich man clothed in purple in the Gospel, who was tormented in the eternal fires, while Lazarus rested in Abraham’s bosom (Luke 16). Also, the earth, that is, our flesh, and after its birth, that is, the desires of the flesh, and the foundations of the mountains, rising up against the mind of God, will be burned by the same fire. Likewise, the mountains themselves will perish from the arrows of God, so that they, humiliated through punishment, will cease to be mountains. Behold, he says, it is written before My face. For all our sins are open before the eyes of God and are written in those books about which we read in Daniel: thrones are set and books are opened (Dan. 7). It is said about them in another place: let them be written on the earth (Jer. 17:13). And He who said before will no longer be silent: I will remain silent, food, and I will always remain silent, says the Lord (Is. 42:14). But He will reward everyone for what they have done in their depths, that is, in the secret place of the heart, so that they are tormented by their own conscience. The prophet Hosea also predicts about her: their princes will fall with the sword for the sake of not punishing their tongue (Hos. 7:16). This is their humiliation in their depths, coming from the heart of every [person]. Something similar is written in Proverbs: “The wicked are rewarded in their bosom” (Proverbs 5). This bosom, due to the primacy (ἡγεμονικόν) of the soul, is called by another name - the head: they gave their ways upon their heads (Ezek. 9:10). And in another place: the disease will turn on his head and his unrighteousness will come down on top of him (Ps. 7:17). But there is also a good bosom, which will delight in a holy conscience, about which the psalmist said: and my prayer will return to my bosom (Ps. 34:13). Of course, the depths in the sense of disposition towards someone and love, as speech once addressed to a husband: “the wife who is in your bosom and to the parent: “they will bring your sons to your bosom.” Therefore, all those who have Abraham as their father and have been worthy to become like his virtues rest in his bosom (Luke 16:22). For by the fathers, whose iniquities and sins are now repaid to us, we should not mean those from whose seed our bodies came. Also, Moses, having said that the sins of the fathers will be repaid to the children up to the third and fourth generation of those who hate God (Ex. 20), explains his thought by saying: let not the sons die for the sins of the fathers: let each one die for his own sin (Deut. 24:16). Ezekiel also confirms the same idea that the well-known proverb will no longer be used: the fathers eat tart food, but the teeth of their children set the teeth on edge (Ezekiel 18:2), but the teeth of the one who ate will set the teeth on edge only, and the sinning soul will die and will not bear the guilt for the sins of others. From this we conclude that those fathers to whom everyone joins after leaving this life should be understood in a good or in the opposite direction. Israel offered sacrifices on the mountains and hills when they placed the golden calves in Bethel and Dan. And he reviled God regarding His commandments, neglecting His rites and showing worship to idols: the deeds of such will be repaid in their bosom. Also, every heretic who despises church simplicity makes sacrifices on the mountains and reviles God, despising His commandments. Art. 8. Thus says the Lord: just as if they find grain in a bunch of grapes, they say: Do not destroy it, for blessing is in it: so will I do for the sake of My servants, so that it does not destroy everything. LXX: Thus says the Lord: just as if they find a berry in a bunch of grapes and say: do not touch it, for the blessing of God is in it; I will do this for the sake of My servant, so as not to destroy everyone. The Lord said that Israel would perish, that all their sins would be revealed before His eyes, and that He would repay the deeds of everyone in their bosom. After this, he gives a similarity and an example of comparison in order to teach that everyone will perish through his own sin, and even with a very large number of sinners, one righteous one will not perish for the guilt of all. If someone, he says, finds in a bunch of grapes and a bunch that could not ripen and bore sour fruits or was spoiled due to some lack of temperature and soil, one unspoiled grain that gives hope of still growing and reaching ordinary maturity, then he says to another: do not touch it, but leave it to grow, for the blessing of the Lord is in it, so that out of so many berries only one should not wither: so, he says, if out of the countless multitude of Jews who offend God, if I find a few righteous, I will deliver them from the destruction of very many. And I will do this for the sake of My servants: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom the promise was given, or for the sake of those who serve Me among very many sinners. We read something similar in Genesis, when gradually from fifty to ten righteous people are sought out to rid the city of sin (Gen. 18), and one righteous Lot with his daughters is led out of Sodom (Gen. 19). It is written about this in the conciliar [catholica] 69th message (Pet. 2) that his soul was tormented at the sight of lawless deeds and expressed the judgment of the soul in the state of the body. Also, Enoch, one of a very large number of sinners, was taken to God (Gen. 5). And Noah and his children could not be destroyed by the flood because of the deviation of all flesh from serving the Lord (Gen. 7). Likewise, Abraham was delivered from the fire of the Chaldeans for keeping the faith (Gen. 11). The words of Jeremiah, speaking on behalf of the Lord, agree with this thought: “I found Israel like warmth in the desert, along with those killed by the sword” (Jer. 31). For, he says, when the whole world, wounded by the swords of idolatry, lay lifeless, I found Israel in Abraham having the warmth of faith, like a doctor who, after a battle, when among the corpses of the dead he notices signs of life in someone by the blows of his veins, he takes care of the wounds in order to restore health. Instead of what was written: ὡς θερμόν, that is, as a warm word, the Latin translator, misled by the ambiguity of the word, translated wolf bean, which is also the mistake of many of the Greeks. However, you need to know that in Hebrew, instead of warmth, it is written thoda, which means grace, since it was by the grace of God, and not for their own works, that Israel was saved. Art. 9–10. And from Jacob I will make seed, and from Judah the owner of My mountains, and My chosen ones will inherit it [Zion], and My servants will live there, and the plains will be yards for flocks and the valley of Achor a resting place (cubile) for the oxen (armentorum) of My people who have sought Me. LXX: And I will bring forth seed from Jacob and from Judah, and he will inherit my holy mountain, and my chosen ones will inherit, and my servants will live there, and in the oak grove there will be yards for the flocks and the valley of Achor will be a resting place for the oxen (armentorum) of my people who have sought me. Whom he above called a grain in a cluster of grapes or a berry or (according to many) a cluster of grapes, he is now called the seed of Jacob and Judah, who has mountains or His mountain. By the seed of Jacob and Judah, many understand Christ, about whom Genesis says: Judah, your brethren will praise you and so on (Gen. 49:8). For it is beyond doubt for everyone that the Savior was born from the tribe of Judah. Others claim that the apostles mean, of whom we have often said: the remnant will be saved (Rom. 9:27), and: if the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed, as Sodom was breath, and as Gomorrah were like unto life (Isa. 1:9). They received possession of the mountain of the Lord, speaking from the consciousness of Christ dwelling in them: come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22), or His mountains, about which the Psalms are sung: the mountains around Him and the Lord around His people (Ps. 125:2), and: His foundations are on the mountains of the saints (Ps. 87:1). The elect of the Lord will rule Zion, and His servants will live in it. It is written about them in the same book: the seed of Abraham are His servants, the sons of Jacob are His chosen ones (Ps. 104:6). Consequently, whoever still serves as a seed, and has not been transformed into a son, is the servant of the Lord, to whom He says in the Gospel (John 8): I know that you are Abraham’s seed, but not yet sons. For if you were Abraham's seed, you would certainly do the works of Abraham. And whoever is the son is the chosen one of the Lord. Therefore, the chosen one possesses Jerusalem, and slaves live in it, and the difference between sons and slaves is said: do not accept the spirit of work or fear, but the spirit of sonhood (Rom. 8:15). And, he says, the plains or oak groves will be yards for herds. Instead of plains in Hebrew there is Saron. The whole country around Lydda, Joppa and Jamnia is suitable for grazing flocks. It is written about this in the Acts of the Apostles: “the forests will turn into sheepfolds,” in accordance with what is sung in the psalm: the voice of the Lord, bringing forth the trees, will open the oak groves (Ps. 28:9), or the thickets of the forests, so that robbers and wild beasts and poisonous animals will no longer hide in them, and so that the places that were once [places] of intrigues and blood, were transformed into the church of the Lord and there fed the flocks of those who laid down His life for His sheep. It is written about Him: “He will shepherd us forever” (Ezek. 34). This voice of the Lord, bringing forth the tree and opening the thickets of the forests, cries out through John in the wilderness: the ax is already lying at the root of the tree. Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10). And again: every valley will be filled (Luke 3:5), about which it is now said: and the valley of Achor is a resting place for oxen and a [place of] rest for My people, who have sought Me. About it and in the book of Joshua, the son of Nun, it is said that Aham was killed there, who stole from the accursed (anathemate) and from the spoils of Jericho, and was killed along with his house, and since he brought the people into confusion, the place where he fell received the name Ashor, that is, confusion and anxiety (Joshua 7). Thus the valley of Achor, which was once cursed and punished, will be a resting place for the oxen. Explaining this, Paul says (1 Cor. 9): Does God care for oxen? Isn’t He talking about us, for whoever plows must plow with hope, and whoever threshes must thresh with the hope of receiving a share. It is mysteriously written about this valley and Hosea: I will speak in her heart, without a doubt, Jerusalem, and I will give her attraction from there and the clearing of Achor, reveal her meaning (Hosea 2:14-15). For this is why the valley of Achor is given over to the oxen of the people of God and the valleys are turned into yards for flocks, so that the meaning is revealed and the truth of the Lord is learned. Art. 11–12. And you, who have forsaken the Lord and forgotten My holy mountain, who set up a table for fate and make drink offerings on it—I will mark you out for the sword and you will all fall through slaughter. LXX: But you who have forsaken Me and forgotten My holy mountain, and prepare a table for fate and fill a drink for the demon, I will give you to the sword: you will all fall through destruction. In places that were once forests and places of turmoil, in places of the pagans, there will be yards for the sheep, that is, for the Church from the whole world of believers. And you, the people of Israel, who have abandoned the Lord and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, who have forgotten His holy mountain, about which we have often spoken, or the Lord the Savior, who is the mountain of mountains and the holy of all saints, or Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, doing this and that, I will give you to the sword, so that you all equally perish through destruction. What kind of sword this is, we’ll talk about it later. You set, he says, a table for fate and make libations on it, or according to the Seventy: you prepare a table for fate and fill the demonic cup or κέρασμα, which everyone translated the same way, that is, dissolved drink. In all cities, and especially in Egypt and Alexandria, there is an old idolatrous custom of placing on the last day of their year and last month a table filled with various kinds of dishes, and a cup mixed with honey, in order to predict the fertility of the past or future year. This was also done by the Israelites, who honored all extraordinary idols and poured libations over the victims not on the altar, but on a similar table. Instead of what was translated by the Seventy: the demon in Hebrew is me nni, which Symmachus translated: without Me, so the meaning will be as follows: you are preparing a table for fate and filling [the cup] with drink without Me, to let you know that this is not being done for Him, but for the demon. The sword with which they are destroyed is understood in the sense of punishment. For the whole people of Israel, of which we see many thousands scattered throughout the world, were not given over to the sword, but to the punishments and torments of captivity and extreme enslavement, in accordance with what is said elsewhere: “All the sinners of My people will die by the sword,” and in the song of Deuteronomy: I will make my arrows drink in the blood, and My sword will cut off the flesh of the blood of the wounded (Deut. 32:42). It may seem incredible that the arrows of the Lord are drunk with blood and that His sword is satisfied with the flesh of the wounded. About these arrows, which tormented Job every minute, he says: the arrows of the Lord are in my body, and their rage drinks my blood, when I begin with verbs, they butt me (Job 6:4). In accordance with the allegorical meaning, it should be said that everyone who leaves the Church and forgets the holy mountain of God and gives themselves over to the spirits of error and demonic teachings prepares a table for fate, thinking that nothing depends on God, but everything is controlled either by the course of the stars or by various fates. Paul reproaches them by saying: You cannot partake of the Lord’s table and the table of demons; you cannot eat the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons (1 Cor. 10:20); for they will be given over to eternal punishments, so that none of them will be able to escape murder and destruction. Art. 12. For I called and you did not answer, I spoke and you did not listen, but you did what was evil in My sight and chose what was not pleasing to Me. LXX: For I called you, and you did not listen, I spoke, and you despised and did evil before Me and chose what was displeasing to Me. You, he says, were put to the sword, because you not only forsook Me and forgot Me and dissolved the cup for fate, but when I was Immanuel, that is, God is with us, about whom John also writes: The Word became flesh and dwelt in us (John 1:14), I personally called you: turn to Me, you returning sons (Jer. 3:14), and: come to Me, all you who labor and burdened (Matthew 11:28), but you did not want to answer. I spoke in parables and did everything that I should have done, but you did not listen to Me and even despised Me. For I am the One who said above: I came, and without a man I called, and without one who listened (Is. 50:2). But for you it was not enough that wickedness that you despised Me in My presence and killed the heir sent to you, but you did what was evil in My sight and chose what was displeasing to Me and blasphemed the Son of God, demanding for yourself Barabbas the thief, guilty of murder and rebellion, and you even dare to say: why, O Lord, have You made us stray from Your path (Isa. 63:17). For if those who did not know Me found Me and those who did not call on Me accepted Me, then what kind of executions are you worthy of, who did not want to accept Me, who was sent to you and told you: I came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24), but moreover, they nailed me to the cross? It is necessary to pay attention to the meaning of the words: and they chose that which was not pleasing to Me, or that which is the will of the Son of God, who says in the Gospel: not everyone who says to Me: Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but do the will of My Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21). God Himself says about her: I am willing to do Your will (Ps. 39:9). This is the will about which the Lord Himself spoke: I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My desires (Acts 13:22). Therefore, the saint prays and says: teach me to do Your will, for You are my God (Ps. 142:10). For everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial (1 Cor. 6). And about virgins the apostle says that he does not have the commandment of the Lord, but he wants us to be like him (1 Cor. 7). By this he shows that we must follow not condescension, but the desire of the teacher, and that we must choose what is useful, and not what is permissible, as is the case with bigamy: I want to encroach upon young [widows], to bear children, to build a house (1 Tim. 5:4). And he indicates the reasons why he allows this: for a certain woman has become corrupted after Satan (1 Tim. 5). Therefore, a second marriage does not constitute his true desire, which loses its meaning when compared with fornication. Art. 13–14. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, my servants will eat, but you will hunger. Behold, My servants will drink, and you will thirst. Behold, My servants will rejoice, but you will be ashamed. Behold, My servants will praise with heartfelt joy, and you will scream with heartfelt sorrow and weep with contrition of spirit. LXX: Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, my servants will eat, but you will hunger. Behold, My servants will drink, and you will thirst. Behold, My servants will rejoice, but you will be ashamed. Behold, My servants will rejoice with joy, and you will scream from the sorrow of your heart and weep from the contrition of your spirit. Not only will you fall by the sword, forsaking the Lord and doing evil in His sight and not wanting to listen to Him in His presence, but you will see a great difference between you and the pagan nations. For those who will be My servants will eat and drink, be merry and praise with joy of heart. But you, on the contrary, will hunger and thirst, you will be in shame and you will weep from heartbreak and contrition of spirit. Chiliasts believe that all this will be fulfilled within a thousand years, thinking that food and drink mean the kingdom of God, and not understanding what is written: “do not strive for the food that perishes, but for the food of life and truth” (John 6), and desiring to eat the flesh of Christ and the fruit of the tree of life. About this the Savior says: I am the bread that comes down from heaven (John 6:33–35), and Ecclesiastes: open your eyes and be filled with bread (Proverbs 20:13). And the psalmist says: the youngest was not old, and did not see the righteous left, below his seed, asking for bread. All day long the righteous one has mercy and gives back, and his seed will be a blessing (Ps. 36:25-26). Concerning this bread and spiritual meal, [the Savior] instructed the disciples: You have been with Me among My companions, so that you may eat at My Father’s table in the kingdom of heaven (Luke 22:28–30). If we understand this in relation to simple bread, then how can we explain it: the Lord will not kill a righteous soul with famine (Prov. 10:3), and also: the Lord knows the ways of the blameless, and their wealth will endure forever. They will not be ashamed in times of cruelty, and in days of famine they will be satisfied (Ps. 36:18–19). For how many of the righteous are dying from persecution, oppressed by hunger and need, how many of the righteous are starving, and how many of the wicked are filled with cruelty! Drinking must be understood as that which is drawn from the springs of Israel, which whoever drinks will have in himself a source of water flowing into eternal life (John 4). The Savior promises to drink it in the kingdom of the Father with the disciples (Luke 22); it makes a person’s heart glad (Ps. 103), so that those who drink will be able to say: You have given joy to my heart (Ps. 4:8). This food and drink is spoken of in the eight beatitudes: the blessedness of those who hunger and those who thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6). And the Mother of the Lord, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied: Fill those who are hungry with good things, who previously did not have the food of the Lord, and those who are rich, let go of the vain (Luke 1:53), which were given for His burial and despised what was promised by the prophets. The psalmist sings about them in another place: the riches become scarce and the hungry, that is, the Jewish people, who seek the Lord, that is, the crowd of pagans, will not be deprived of any good (Ps. 33:11). And when those who serve Christ and believe in Him will rejoice and praise God with heartfelt exultation and joy, then they will be ashamed, seeing that others have taken their place, and will cry out of heartfelt sorrow, fulfilling what is written: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:50), - when the lambs of the pagans and the righteous stand on the right hand, and the goats of the Jews and the wicked on the left, so how some will receive eternal rewards, others - eternal torment. Contrition of the spirit from heartfelt sorrow must be understood in relation to the consciousness of sins, in accordance with what is written: those who err in the spirit will understand the meaning (Isa. 29:24), and: a contrite and humble heart, O God, cannot be despised (Ps. 50). The spirit is contrite if it was exalted, which is written about a king hostile to Israel: The Lord harden his spirit (Deut. 2:30), about the king of Babylon, when his heart was exalted and his spirit was hardened, so that he said with arrogance: this is Babylon, I am his fellow city (Dan. 4:27). Art. 15–16. And leave your name for an oath to My chosen ones, and the Lord God will destroy you and call His servants by another name, by which whoever is blessed on earth will be blessed by God, amen, and whoever swears on earth will swear by [or swears by] God, amen. LXX: For you will leave your name to be fed to My chosen ones. And the Lord will destroy you, but those who serve Me will be called by a new name, which will be blessed on earth, for they will bless the true God, and those who swear on earth will swear by the true God. Instead of saturation, which in Hebrew is called sabaa, others translated oath. This word has many meanings, and changes depending on the difference in emphasis. For it means an oath, and satiety, and satiety, and many, and seven. We said this in the book of Genesis and in this book, in the place where seven wives take one husband 70. Then, instead of what the LXX translated true and what is called amen in Hebrew, Aquila translated: πεπιοτωμενώς, that is, I believe (fideliter). And what he says, the meaning of this is the following: when others take your place, your name will be a curse for My chosen ones, so that you will be considered an example of evils and will renounce suffering such and swear like this: let me not experience what the Jewish people experienced, or your name will be satiety, which is usually said about those of whom the remembrance and remembrance is hateful to us and who have reached the point of satiety and disgust. Or perhaps it should be said that they leave their name to the chosen ones of the Lord, so that their place will be taken by a host of pagans and so that they will be called the sons of Abraham and Israel. Of them Paul says: peace be upon them and upon the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16). For not all those Israel who are from the Israelites, and not all the children of Abraham who are from [his] seed (Rom. 9), about whom it is said: although they were children of Abraham, they quickly did the works of Abraham (John 8:39). And since they are Abraham’s seed, but not children, the difference of which we spoke above, John the Baptist reproaches them by saying: do not begin to say: the father of the imams of Abraham, for God is able from this stone to raise up a child for Abraham (Matthew 3:9). For how can those who said to wood and stone, “Thou hast begotten me” (Jer. 2:27), be his children, while, on the contrary, those who are of faith are called the children of Abraham? But the Lord, he says, will destroy you, so that you will not be called circumcision (circumcisio), but slaughter (concisio), so that you will be deprived of eternal life, so that you will not have Him who says: I am life (John 11:25). He will call His servants, he says, by a different or new name, which will be glorified throughout the universe. And he will be blessed, so that whoever is called by this name will be blessed in the Lord and will receive the sign of true circumcision [or blessing], amen, which the Lord often uses to confirm what is said in the Gospel: Amen, Amen I say to you (John 5:19). The name, new or different, is only that which comes from the name of Christ, so that the people of God are not called Jacob, and Judah, and Israel, and Ephraim, and Joseph, but Christian. For everyone who swears on earth will swear not by idols and false gods, but by God, which idea is again confirmed by the sign of Amen. Further, [what was said] by the Seventy, who instead of Amen translated: true God, in the sense that the true God will be blessed and that those who swear on earth will swear by the true God, we do not attribute, in accordance with the error of the Arians, only to the person of God the Father, about whom it is written: let them know You, the only true God, and Him you have sent, Jesus Christ (Jn. 17:3), but to the Son, who himself is the true God, as the Evangelist John says: The Son of God came and gave us understanding, that we might know the truth and that we might be in His true Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20). He is the true God and eternal life. For if the Savior says about Himself: I am the truth (John 1:6), then the true God received his name from the truth, so that He is called God not after false gods, but after the true God the Father, and He Himself is the true God. Otherwise, if He were not true, He would be like an idol that falls on the heads of those who recognize Christ as the true God. This new name is the one that is written to Him in the Apocalypse (Rev. 2:17) on the stone, which is blessed throughout the world. Art. 16–18. Because former disasters are forgotten and because they are hidden from My eyes. For behold, I am creating new heavens and a new earth, and the former will not be remembered and will not come to the heart. And you will rejoice and be glad forever in what I do. LXX: Because the former sorrow will be forgotten and will not come to their hearts. For there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and the former will not be remembered, nor will it come into their hearts, but joy and gladness will be found in it. The reason for rejoicing and confessing the true God is that oblivion will follow the former eternal disasters, and they will not remember idols and former error, but will come from darkness to light to enjoy eternal bliss. For former disasters will be forgotten not through oblivion of memory, but as a result of replacing them with good things, in accordance with what is written: on the day of good things the evil ones will be forgotten (Sir. 11:25). And in another place: bitterness at the time of slaughter creates sweets (Sir. 11:27); because those who are in distress do not enjoy the former pleasures in their souls, due to the error of Epicurus. However, it can also be said that in the new heaven and on the new earth all remembrance of the former way of life is erased, so that the very memory of the former disaster does not form part of the evils. As for the new heaven and the new earth, those, according to whom everything visible to us perishes, interpret them as the testimony of the Gospel: heaven and earth will pass by (Matthew 24:35), and the Apostle Paul: what is visible is temporary, but what is invisible is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). Then those who consider the new to be a change for the better, and not for the destruction of elements, use this example: in the beginning You, Lord, founded the earth, and the works of Your hand are the heavens. They will perish, but You remain, and like a robe they will wear away, and like a garment I will wear, and they will be changed (Ps. 102:26-27). This clearly shows that destruction and destruction do not mean complete destruction, but a change for the better. For what is written elsewhere: the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be a week (Isa. 30:26), does not mean the destruction of the former, but a change for the better. To understand this, let us present examples from our state. When a child grows into a youth, and a youth into a young man, and a young man into a man, and a husband into an old man, he does not perish at every age. For the same [man] remains who was before, but little by little he changes and is called lost to his former age. In this sense, the Apostle Paul also said: for the image of this world is passing away (1 Cor 7:31). Let us consider what he said [in words]: it is the image that passes away, not the being. Peter also points to this same thing: it is hidden from them who want it, for the heavens were made from the beginning, and the earth was made of water, and the earth was made up of water by the word of God. In the same way, the world of that time was drowned by water and was destroyed. And the present heavens and earth are hidden by the same word (2 Pet. 3:5-7). In what sense should this be understood, in relation to this he then teaches: “We see new heavens and a new earth and His promise” (2 Pet. 3:13). He did not say: we will see other heavens and another earth, but the former and the old ones, changed into better ones. We can also say that those who have turned from idolatry and left their former delusion see new heavens and a new earth, not considering the elements and what is born from the earth to be gods. Now we confess that heaven and earth are the works of God’s hands, but at that time we showed divine honor to slaves and creatures; in this sense, David sings: I will see the heavens, the works of Your finger (Ps. 8:4), - not because he did not see heaven at the time when he said this, but because through the gradual elevation of virtues and knowledge of the future, he sees as new those [heavens] that he already saw as old (or aging). And what is said at the end of this testimony: which I create, is omitted by the Seventy. Art. 18–19. For behold, I make Jerusalem a joy and her people joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and rejoice in My people. LXX: For behold, I make Jerusalem a joy and my people joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and rejoice in My people. You, he says, should rejoice and rejoice with eternal joy about the creation of new heavens and a new earth and not remember at all about the past, so that as a result of the old memory no sorrow appears in you. For not only the new heavens and the new earth, but I will also make Jerusalem a joy and its people a joy, without a doubt, to the whole earth, so that just as the old was a joy to one nation, so the new will be a joy to all nations. The joy of all and the joy of the city and the people of God will be such that even I, its founder, will rejoice and rejoice in Jerusalem and in My people, who will eat and drink and rejoice and be glad in it, and who will be called by a new name. Art. 19–20. And the voice of crying will no longer be heard in him, but the voice of crying. There will no longer be a baby [having a few] days, and no more an old man who will not reach the fullness of his days. For the child will die a hundred years old, and the sinner of a hundred years will be cursed. LXX: And the voice of weeping and the voice of crying will no longer be heard in it. For there will no longer be a minor or an old man there who has not reached his full time. For there will be (or is) a child of a hundred years old, and a dying sinner of a hundred years old will be cursed. For it would not be fitting that in the city of Jerusalem and in the people of God, who will receive an eternal creation of gladness and joy, the voice of weeping and crying should still be heard when sadness, sorrow and groaning disappear. Because opposites cannot exist at the same time. And where there is joy and joy, which serves as the fruit of the Holy Spirit, there cannot remain weeping and sobbing, which is appropriate for those who weep and mourn, and especially the cry that Paul drives out of the Church of believers, so that, like the Jews, we do not cry out before judgment (Eph. 4). In such a city there will not be different ages: baby and old, small and great, not reaching their full days, but as sons of the resurrection, all will achieve a perfect man, according to the age of the fulfillment of Christ, so that no one will have either a lack or an excess of several years, and so that while one does not yet have strong strength, another will not cease to be what he was, and become weak from old age, and everyone will reach the hundredth number, which was Abraham, who at this age received the promise of a son Isaac (Gen. 21). It is not necessary to say very much about the merits of this number, lest the discussion be superfluous. We will only say that ten decades have equal sides and quadrangular shapes are strong. Also, in the promises for what we have spent (or neglected), the Lord promises us a hundredfold increase, and the seed that falls on good soil first of all has a hundredfold number of very abundant fruit. Therefore, Isaac, throwing one seed of faith, received the works of his labor multiplied in this number. Thus, at the time when everyone will have the same age, both the saint and the sinner will be perfected through the same resurrection, and will not differ from one another in time, but one will be attracted to rewards, the other to punishment, and this will be the curse of the sinner, that in an incorruptible body he will experience eternal punishment. Also, what we read in the Apocalypse of John (Rev. 20), that the small and the great will appear before the Judge, means differences not in age, but in merit. For the little one, according to the saying of Solomon, is worthy of mercy. They will be tormented with great force (Wis. 6:7). The words of the Lord agree with this thought: a slave who knows the will of his master and does not do it will receive many punishments. The ignorant, having created a worthy wound, will suffer few punishments (Luke 12:47–48). The blessed Apostle Paul, explaining the old Scripture through Christ speaking in him, certifies that the patriarch Abraham was the father not only of circumcision, but also of uncircumcision (Rom. 4), that is, that two nations were born of him, and the one who was born of him according to the flesh, at the age of a hundred, is subject to eternal damnation because of Christ, who was born of the tribe of Abraham and on whom that [people] laid hands. This image is taught in the Gospels (Mark 5); (Matthew 9); (Luke 8), in which it is reported that then the bleeding began to hurt when the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue was born, and that when she was healed, this one immediately died: in the same continuation of years, the new people remain in their youth, and the old one dies of illness and is cursed 71. We have connected this with reference to the Seventy Interpreters, the publication of which is distributed throughout the world, so that it would not seem that in the most famous place we are seeking refuge in the Hebrew language. Whether we attribute this to the second coming of the Savior after the resurrection, or to the first resurrection, after baptism, [both] do not contradict the church faith. The Jews claim that this will come true on earth in the thousand-year kingdom and that such a long duration of future life is promised that a hundred years are counted for infancy, while the sinner will die in the hundredth year of his life precisely so that he will not be able to use the riches he has prepared, but so that he will know that he is cursed. If this is so, then where will there be perfect bliss, which is violated and spoiled by sin, and where sin is punished by premature death? Art. 21–22. And they will build houses and live in them, and plant a vineyard, and eat the fruit thereof. For they will not build for another to live, nor will they plant for another to eat. LXX [translated] the same way. Concerning these houses in the sixty-eighth psalm, the prophetic speech promises, saying: for God will save Zion, and the cities of Judah will be built and will dwell there, and will inherit it, and will keep the seed of Your servants, and those who love Your name will dwell in it. The Jews understand all this literally (carnaliter), in the sense that Jerusalem and the cities of Judah will be restored to their former state. If we agree with them, then let them hear that this is promised not only to Jerusalem, but also to Sodom, since Ezekiel says: “Sodom will return to its former state" (Ezek. 16:65). Therefore, by the houses in which those who built them will live must be understood either virtues, or various abodes with the Father, which the one who built them will forever own. Such were built, as it says in Exodus (1), and the midwives who feared God, although in Hebrew it is written that their houses were built by God, because they feared Him. Likewise, Jacob, since he was simple or, as they say in Greek, ἔπλαστος, that is, not flattering, and was not such as are condemned in the epistle of Peter, about whom he says: in covetousness flattering words will catch you (2 Pet. 2:3). Therefore they lived in a house that Esau, who took pleasure in wild animals and forests, could not possess. Such a house is also described by the words of the Savior in the Gospel: “Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and does them is like a wise man who built a house on a rock" (Matthew 7:24). In the literal sense, many saints build houses and do not live in them either because of wandering, or theft from another, or because of death. Such was Job, who, being rich physically and spiritually, was brought to such poverty that he sat on a heap of rubbish outside the gates of the city (Job 2). On the contrary, that evangelical rich man, clothed in purple, built a house and lived in it, to whom it could quite rightly be said: fool, this night your thought will be taken from you, and what you have prepared, to whom will it be (Luke 12:20)? But not only, he says, will they build houses and live in them, but they will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit themselves, in accordance with what Micah says: each one will sleep under his vine and under his fig tree, and there will be no fear (Micah 4:4). This is the vineyard that in the Gospel said: I am the vine, you are the generation, and My Father is the worker (John 15:5). “Everyone who does not bear fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 5). They will eat and drink its fruits, and they will gladden the heart of a person, and suitors will make their friends drunk with them, and they will drink them daily in the kingdom of God. The one who enjoys the sweetness of the Holy Spirit and is satisfied with His fruits: love, joy, peace, faith, self-control, long-hurry, rests under the fig tree and is not afraid of anyone’s machinations. About this kind of planter it is said: “Whoever plants a fig tree will eat its fruit” (Am. 9). Whoever will build such houses and plant vineyards, about which the apostle says: I planted, Apollos watered, but God will increase (1 Cor. 3:6), he will eat from the fruit of his hands (Ps. 127) and, reaping from the spirit, will reap eternal life from the spirit and will not be subject to stumbling on the part of the devil and his servants. Art. 22–25. For the days of My people will be like the days of a tree, and My chosen ones will not grow old the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain or bear children to cause confusion, for they are the seed of those blessed by the Lord, and their grandchildren are with them. And it shall come to pass, before they call, that I will listen, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear (vulg. I will listen). The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion and the ox will eat straw, and dust for the serpent will be his food. They will not harm or kill in all My holy mountain, says the Lord. LXX: For as the days of the tree of life are the days of my people. My chosen ones will make the works of their hands grow old. They will not labor in vain or bear sons to be cursed, for they are the seed of those blessed by the Lord, and their grandchildren are with them. And it shall come to pass, before they call, that I will listen, and while they are still speaking, I will say: what? Then the wolves and lambs will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and the serpent will eat the earth for food. They will not cause harm or damage on My holy mountain, says the Lord. The habitation and planting of the righteous will be eternal, so that the days of the life of My people will be equal to the days of the tree of life, about which the Psalms say: the righteous will flourish like a date (Ps. 91:13), daily triumphing over opponents and bearing before him the sign of victory. If we read according to the Seventy: days of the tree of life, which from Hebrew convey more meaning than words, then we can understand the tree of life that was in paradise. So that Adam would not stretch out his hand to him and begin to live, for this he was expelled from paradise (Gen. 3). To guard him, a cherub was placed, that is, a multitude of knowledge, and a fiery spear (framea) to guard the path to the tree of life, so that Adam, who was in sin and had not yet realized his sins, would not eat from it and die the death of impenitence, despair and pride. What kind of tree of life this is is stated more clearly by Solomon, who, discussing the wisdom of God, says: The tree of life is to all who hold on to it and worship it, as to the Lord, it is strong (Prov. 3:18) and, without a doubt, points to the Word of God, which itself is the way and wisdom and says about itself: I am life (John 11:25) and about which the prophet sings: “With wisdom you have created all things: the earth is filled with your creation (Ps. 103:24), and the Apostle Paul: “Christ is the power of God and the strength of God.” wisdom" (1 Cor. 1:24). Also, the works of the people of God will not grow old, but will be renewed daily, so that they will not walk in the old letter, but in a new spirit (Rom. 7), so that just as through the disobedience of one man many became sinners, so through the obedience of one man many became righteous. Or perhaps it should be said that the works of those whose house, founded on rock, remains forever. and who built on the foundation of Christ with gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Cor. 3), and on the contrary, the works of those whose house, founded on sand, is exposed to a sudden storm, and who built on the foundation of Christ with wood, hay, and straw, do you think that he who, forgetting the past, strives for the future, daily makes his works old? Therefore they say: old and new testaments, not because the old one is destroyed, but because the new one is not followed by another. In relation to the Hebrew text, one can also say that the deeds of the people and those who believe in Christ are the fruits of the apostles, that is, God’s chosen ones, and are preserved in their treasuries. For many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 20:16). They will not labor in vain, as the Jews once labored, but will eat from the labor of their hands. And they will not give birth in confusion or in a curse and, as in Hebrew it is clearer, εἰς ἀνυπαρξίαν, which in their [Jewish] language is called labala, that is: to cease to be and have the end of their existence, instead of which Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion translated: haste, so that they do not rush to believe without a reasonable basis, but imitate To Nathanael, praised by the word of the Lord: Behold, truly an Israelite, there is no flattery in him (John 1:47), who sought Christ on the basis of the testimony of the scriptures and wanted to recognize Christ [according to the predictions] of the prophets: can anything good come from Nazareth (John 1:46). The meaning is this: how do you bring to me from Galilee and Nazareth the Messiah, about whom, as I know, it was promised that He would come from Bethlehem of Judea? So the apostles and apostolic men will give birth to children in such a way that they will instruct them from the holy Scriptures, so that they do not imitate the [cursed] Jews, but say with the prophet: because of your fear, O Lord, we conceived in the womb and were sick and gave birth (Isa. 26:18). For it was said about them: Blessed are the offspring of your womb (Deut. 28:4). Such are the children of Abraham who do his works, and in the Old Testament history such are the sons of the prophets, such as the apostles begat in the New Testament: Paul - Timothy, Luke and Titus and many others, Peter - the Evangelist Mark and others - others, whose seed is blessed and is still blessed, and the sons of [their] sons remain. The prophet says about them: blessed is the man, fear the Lord; he will greatly delight in His commandments. His seed will be mighty in the earth, the generation of the upright will be blessed (Ps. 111:1-3). And in another place: Your sons are like new olive trees around your table. Behold, man will be blessed; fear the Lord (Ps. 127:4). On the contrary, about Judas the traitor and all those like him it is said: let his sons be three and his wife a widow, let his sons move and ask, and let them be expelled from their homes (Ps. 109:9). For the end of a bad generation is the worst. They conceive sorrow and give birth to iniquity. It is written about their eyes: behold, pain is caused by unrighteousness, sickness is conceived and iniquity is born (Ps. 7:15). If this is said about the wicked, then how did Samuel, a blessed and righteous man, give birth to very bad sons who did not walk in the path of their father (1 Samuel 8), and David, from whose seed Christ was born, gave birth to two sons, Amnon and Absalom, one of whom appeared to be the killer of his brother, the other of his father (2 Samuel 13:28); (2 Samuel 15:14); (2 Samuel 10:11)? From all this we learn that sons and grandsons must understand according to what we have said. According to this, Paul was in the throes of childbirth for children until Christ was depicted in them (Gal. 4), and gave birth to Onesimus in chains. When they call, they will immediately be heard, and when they speak, the Lord will say: Here am I. We see all this even literally fulfilled in the Acts of the Apostles. For all the nations could not have believed in such a short time if their faith had not been in some way snatched away by the miracles of signs. For when the apostles and apostolic men spoke and cried, the Lord answered with the greatness of the signs, so that Chamois stood up through the prayer of Peter (Acts 9), and the father of Publius on the island of Melitus, through the prayers of Paul, was healed of fever and pain in the stomach - diseases that are opposite to one another (Acts 28), and the whole world called them gods walking among people. Then the wolf and the lamb were grazing together - the pursuer Paul and the disciple Ananias (Acts 9). This is the wolf about whom it is written: Benjamin is a predatory wolf, early eats the prey and gives food in the evening (Gen. 49:27), or, as the Hebrew says: he will divide the prey, whose teaching was food for believers and who throughout the world triumphed over defeated opponents. Lambs must be recognized as all those who in white robes followed the Lamb wherever He went, whom the Lord gave over to Peter to feed, saying: Feed My sheep (John 21:16). Likewise, a lion, like an ox, will eat straw when the most eloquent men and those who were once strong in the world devote themselves to the simplicity of the Scriptures, so as not to graze on worldly eloquence, which, like honey, drips from the mouth of a harlot, but to follow the insignificance and straw of historical exposition, until long labor and diligence are worthy to reach the wheat of thoughts. Of this straw and wheat Jeremiah says: What spit to the wheat? the Lord spoke (Jer. 23:28). And it is noteworthy that it is not the ox that turns into a fierce one, but the lion that changes into a meek one. Also, the serpent, who kept watch over man’s heel and whose man kept watch over his head, will not feed on the destruction of others, but will eat earth or dust like bread (Gen. 3). Or, perhaps, it should be understood that the devil, who previously fed on the death of people, will eat only those who are dust and earth: all this shows the change of the evil for the better, who will not cause harm, leaving their former cruelty, not from outside, but on the holy mountain of the Lord, that is, in the Church and in the confession of that mountain with which the prince of Tire was wounded and which was cut without hands from the mountain, grew into a large mountain and filled the whole earth (Dan. 2). In this place let us ask the Jews and everyone who still eats the straw under the Christian name, which, separated by the shovel of the Lord from the wheat, is given over to the wind and flame: what should be understood by that bliss that in the thousand-year kingdom and on Mount Zion, in the city of the indwelling Christ, Jerusalem and in the most holy church, wolves and lambs, lions and oxen, snakes and people eat together and have the same way of life, and do not cause harm only to those who live on the holy mountain of the Lord? From this we all conclude that those who are outside the mountain will be killed. For without wolves, lions, bears, leopards and snakes and without other animals there will be the whole universe, and the immeasurable forests and the vast Egyptian desert, replete with poisonous animals and, in accordance with the highest prosperity, the holy city will be the dwelling not only of people, but also of beasts and snakes, so that, in accordance with the previously cited prophecy (Is. 11), the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid, the calf, the lion, the sheep and the bears will live together, and the little child will rule over them, and the infant will put his hand in the foramen of the asp and will kill the snake in its nest. The reason for such prosperity is that the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. Chapter LXVI. Art. 1–2. Thus says the Lord: heaven is my seat and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house is this that you will build for Me, and what is this place of My rest? My hand did all this and all this happened, says the Lord. LXX [translated] in the same way. So that we do not understand Zion under the holy mountain and do not cover it up with the error of the Jews, who believe that Jerusalem will be built and in it everything promised by the Lord will be fulfilled bodily, He removes this assumption in us and presents the testimony that Stephen, the first martyr of Christ, used against the assurance of the Jews. Solomon created a church for Him - without a doubt, for God - but the Most High does not live in churches made with hands, as the prophet says: heaven is My throne, but the earth is My footstool (Acts 7:48). And Paul in the same book (Acts 17:24): God, who created the world and everything in it, does not live in churches made with hands. For if, like one who sits on a throne and reigns, heaven serves as His throne and earth as His footstool; then how can He who fills everything and in which everything be contained in a small place? Therefore Moses says: do not say in your heart: He is far away. For God is in heaven and on earth, and is there no other God who can bear Him (Deut. 4:39). And the psalmist: How will I go from Your Spirit and how will I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I descend to hell, you are there (Ps. 139:7–8). In agreement with him, Jeremiah, on behalf of God, says: God draw near, I am, and not Fight from afar. If someone withdraws into the hidden, and am I not in vain with it, and am I not filling the heavens and the earth with food? (Jer. 23:23–24). For in Him we all exist and move (Acts 17). He says this to expose the error of the Jews, who think that the invisible, incorporeal and infinite God can be contained in the temple of Jerusalem. Solomon, the builder of the church, declares this in more detail in his prayer to God (1 Kings 8). And lest we think that the greatness of God should also be measured by heaven and earth, in another place we read about Him: who holds up heaven by an inch and earth by a handful (Isa. 40:12)? This shows that God is both outside and inside, and penetrates inside and is surrounded, while He is not encompassed by the surrounding throne, but embraces a handful and an inch. He is not only the Creator of heaven and earth, but also of invisible angels and archangels, dominions, powers and all people, about whom the apostle says: the hand of God created all this (Col. 1). Both Job and the psalmist say about her: Thy hands create me and create me (Job 10:8); (Ps. 119:73). For all life exists in Him, and without Him there is nothing (John 1:8). About Him again John says: in the world there will be and the world will be (John 1:10). As He spoke, and was, He commanded, and was created (Ps. 32:9). [This also includes] what Genesis Scripture points out in mysterious words: God spoke and God created (Gen. 1:6–7). For by the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their strength (Ps. 32:6). And there is no other place of rest for the Lord except that which the prophet adds. Art. 2–3. But to whom will I look, if not to the poor and contrite in spirit and trembling at My words? He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man, one who slaughters a flock is like one who kills a dog, one who brings a gift is like one who brings pork's blood, one who makes a memorial [through smoking] with incense is like one who blesses an idol. LXX: And to whom will I look, if not to him who is humble, and at peace, and trembles before My words? ÷ The wicked one who slaughters a calf is like one who kills a man, one who makes a sacrifice from the herd is like one who kills a dog, one who makes an offering of flour is like one who [brings] swine’s blood, one who gives incense in remembrance is like one who blasphemes. After the destruction of the altar and the earthly church, built by human hands, the sacrifices of the Jews are rightly abolished, so that they cannot say: we are not so unreasonable as to think that God can be limited to a place, but in a place set apart for sacrifice we offer to God the sacrifices prescribed by the law. So, the Inhabitant of heaven, or rather the Creator of all things, who says that He has no church on earth, accepts, instead of a church, a humble and calm person who trembles before His words, in accordance with the apostle’s saying: “This is the church of God and the Holy Spirit lives in you.” If anyone corrupts God's church, God will corrupt him. For the church of God is holy, as you are (1 Cor. 3:16–17). Consequently, whoever is humble and calm and trembles before the words of God, the Lord looks at him, and one can understand as what is said about him that which is predicted under the face of the earth: the earth fears and is silent, never to arise in judgment of God (Ps. 76:9-10). For its inhabitants, instead of which the earth is called μετωνομικῶς (metonymically), taking into account the judgment of God, strive for rest from evil deeds, and sitting in the house, rest on the eternal Sabbath, so as not to move towards the slave work of sin, as once the builders of the tower moved their feet from the east and left the rising light of truth. They did not listen to what was said to Cain: you have sinned, be silent (Gen. 4:7), but they [lived] in accordance with the Proverbs of Solomon (Gen. 33): “He who listens to God will live safely and will be calm from the fear of all evil.” The humble and poor and contrite in spirit is the one about whom it is written: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for of them is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). And in another place: blessed is he who considers the poor and wretched (Ps. 40:1). And again: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. For the sake of My anointing, His ambassador brought good news to the poor (Isa. 61:1). The next one, according to the Vulgate edition: the lawless one, is not in the Hebrew, but simply joins and says: he who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man, which is also written in another place: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the taking away of God, rather than burnt offerings (Hos. 6:6). And Malachi [written]: These things which you hate, you cover my altar with tears. Is it still worthy to look upon your sacrifice and accept it pleasantly from your hands ( Mal. 2:13 )? Let the Jews hear that God does not seek sacrifices, but the spirit of those who offer. And he who slaughters small livestock is like one who kills a dog, he says. Therefore, through Moses it is written: Let no harlot offer bribes lower than the price of a dog in the house of your God (Deut. 23:18). And the dog and the harlot are perfectly compared, because both creatures are lustful. And at the same time, we must pay attention to the fact that it is not said: “he who kills a ram is like one who kills a dog,” but says: [like] him who kills a dog. This word is not applied to sacrifices, but to that which is killed in an impermissible manner. He who brings a gift and sacrifice is like one who brings swine's blood, which is also prohibited by the Law (Lev. 11); (Deut. 14), - these are the sacrifices of the Jews. One who brings incense is like one who blasphemes or blesses an idol. There may be the following meaning: after My Son, who came meek and poor, sitting on a colt, I do not want meat, I abhor the sacrifices and sacrificial offerings of the Jews, I reject the shadows of the Law, because the truth of the Gospel is pleasing to Me. If it is said that after the light of the Gospel, the former worship of God remains in the cloud; then what will those Jewish believers answer who think that they can make bodily sacrifices without harm to themselves? Art. 3–4. All this they have chosen in their own ways and their souls find pleasure in their abominations. Therefore I will choose to reproach them and bring upon them what they feared. For I called, and there was no one to answer, I spoke, and they did not listen, and did evil to My hearth, and chose that which did not please Me. LXX: And they have chosen their ways, and their souls have desired their abominations: and I will choose their reproaches, and will repay them their sins. For I called them, and they did not obey; I spoke, and they did not listen. And they did evil before Me and chose that which did not please Me. They chose to slay an ox, slaughter a ram, perform a sacrifice, burn incense, which God considers similar to murder and the offering of a dog, and swine's blood and reproach, and it depended on their will to honor this, in accordance with what He says through Ezekiel: “And I will give them excuses that are not good and commandments that are not good” (Ezek. 20). And they walked, he says, in their own ways, and not in the way of the Lord. And their soul desired their abominations, that they might love their own things, and not love God. 14:6), and the Lord collected reproaches or their mockers, which in Hebrew are called thalule, that is, ἐμπᾶκται, setting up the worst princes and also bringing all their evil or that which they feared. And he indicates the reason why they are devoted to the scribes and Pharisees - their scoffers, about whom the first psalm according to the Hebrew (text) sings: “and he did not sit on the seat of scoffers (illusorum), "whom the Seventy call destroyers, which were the sons of Eli, the sons of destruction, instead of which in Hebrew it is written belial, that is, the devil. For, he says, I called, and the one who answered was not beaten, I spoke, and they did not listen, and did what was evil in My sight and chose what was displeasing to Me. He puts these verses for the second time in the present place, and above, where it says: I will cut you off for the sword, and you will all fall through the slaughter. For I called, and you did not answer (Isa. 65:12) and so on, they are equally [given]. said. Art. 5. Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word. Your brothers, who hate you and have rejected you for My name’s sake, said: “Let the Lord glorify Himself, and let us see your joy.” But they will be put to shame. LXX: Hear the word of the Lord, His trembling words. Tell your brothers who hate you and disdain you, that the name of the Lord may be glorified, that their joy may be revealed, and they will be put to shame (or that they will be put to shame). About whom I said above: to whom will I look, if not to the humble, and the calm and trembling before My words, he commands that, rejecting all the sacrifices of the Jews and despising all the arrogance of the scribes and Pharisees, they move on to honoring the one whom they did not want to listen to who called, and despised and did evil before Him. And He does not limit itself to these commandments, but gives them the commandment of the gospel, that they should love their enemies, do good to those who hate them, and pray for their persecutors, and imitate the goodness of the Father, who makes His sun to rise on the just and the unjust: that seeing your works, He says, they will glorify your Father who is in heaven (Luke 5:16). After the general meaning, in particular, the apostles and apostolic men are commanded to love their Jewish persecutors and those who abhor them, to consider them as brothers, saying with Peter: “Hear, men, brethren and fathers” (Acts 2) and with the Apostle Paul: I have sorrow and a never-ending pain in my heart according to my brethren who are Israelites (Rom. 9:2–4). The name of the Lord is glorified when people see that the cruelty of the persecutors is crushed through our long-suffering and that the striking hand is put to shame by turning the other cheek. They are commanded in the Gospel: let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16), and in the Revelation of John: fear God and give Him glory (Rev. 14:7). Paul also writes to the Corinthians, calling them to abstinence: glorify God in all your bodies (1 Cor. 6:20), and again: whether you eat or drink, do everything for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). Therefore, the Lord did not slander those who slandered (1 Peter 2) and prayed for the persecutors. What is commanded to them: tell your brothers not to simply understand, otherwise many call them brothers and do not keep love in their hearts, about whom the apostle writes: They confess God in knowledge, but His deeds are rejected (Tit. 1:16). The Lord also spoke about them: not everyone who says to Me: Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but do the will of My Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21). This saying can also stand in this sense: no one can speak of the Lord Jesus except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). For although the heretics call Jesus Lord and many at the resurrection will say: “Is it not in Your name that I prophesied and in Your name I have done many mighty things” (Matthew 7:22), but the Lord will answer them: Depart from Me, we do not know you, you workers of iniquity (Luke 13:27). Therefore, it deserves approval if one speaks not in words, which are easy, but in attitude and deeds. From here we learn that it is one and the same Lord of both testaments, who commands that when we see the cattle of our enemy falling under weight, we should not pass by, but pick it up with it, and if we encounter an ox or donkey that has gone astray, return it to him. This is for Seventy. Then, according to the Hebrew [text], the meaning, in my opinion, is the following: listen, apostles, listen, my disciples, who tremble at the word of the Lord: I will say what your brothers said, hating and separating you, and counting strangers, not because of your evils, but because of my name, considering as unclean all those who believe in me from among their people and saying: get away from me, because you are unclean. What do they mean in this way when they say, “May the Lord glorify Himself and let us see your joy?” The meaning of this verse is this: Why do you present God to us in humiliation, crucified, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with pain? We want to see Him (as you say) reigning in His greatness; we will also look at Him triumphant in His glory, but we cannot see Him humiliated and rejected. And he immediately adds: but they will be put to shame, meaning those who say this, who do not understand the mysteries of the Scriptures and in their misfortunes will experience the power of Him Whom they despised because of humiliation. Art. 6. The voice of noise (vulg. people) from the city, the voice from the church, the voice of the Lord, rewarding His enemies. LXX instead of noise they put a scream, and everything else was the same. We want to know what kind of disgrace this is to the Jews who said: May the Lord glorify Himself, so that we look at your joy and so that we not in empty promises, but with our own eyes see the triumph of your King. A voice, says, a cry from the city: without a doubt, points to Jerusalem, surrounded by the Roman army and divided internally due to a rebellion into three parts, when one occupied the church and owned everything that was previously sacred, fighting from the outside against the enemies, and from the inside against the fellow citizens. At that time, both in the city and in the church, the cry of both the priests and Levites, the common people, and women and children was heard, when the Lord rendered retribution to His enemies, fulfilling the threat with which He said: “Your house will be left empty for you” (Luke 13:35), and this prophecy: “Let us leave My house” (Jer. 12:7), when the angels guarding the church unanimously said: “ Let’s move from these places.” Not only Joseph, the author of Jewish history, but many centuries earlier the psalmist testifies to this by saying: seeing iniquity and strife in the city (Ps. 55:10), which surrounded the walls with it all day and all night, so that the city would be destroyed and so that this prophecy would be fulfilled: Zion would be cut down like a field, and Jerusalem would be like a vegetable storehouse (Mic. 3:10). Art. 7–9. She wasn't in labor yet, but she gave birth. Before she gave birth, she gave birth to a son. Who has ever heard this? Who has seen something like this? Will the earth not be tormented in childbirth on one day, or will the people be tormented by childbirth (vulg. born) together? For Zion was in labor and gave birth to her sons. Shall I, who make others give birth, not give birth Myself? says the Lord. Will I, by allowing others to give birth, be barren? says the Lord your God. LXX: Before giving birth to the woman in labor, before the pain of those in labor came, she escaped and gave birth to a son. Who has heard this and who has seen this? Did the earth suffer in childbirth on one day or were the people born together? For Zion became sick and gave birth to her sons. But I gave this hope, and you did not remember Me, says the Lord. Was it not I who made you bear fruit and become barren, says your God? At the announcement of Jerusalem and its church with a cry, after the siege and destruction, and when the enemies of Christ, not wanting to accept God as King, receive eternal punishments for their wickedness and reproach, the Church, gathered in the name of the Lord, about which the psalm says: a man was born in her, and the foundation and the Most High (Ps. 87:3), before being tormented in childbirth, gave birth before the birth came and gave birth to a son. For not for a long time, as the Jewish people through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and then through their children and grandchildren achieved growth, but immediately during the preaching of the Gospel the whole world conceived and fell ill with childbirth and gave birth to a son, whom Pharaoh and Herod attempted to kill, who in Moses and in Christ was saved in Egypt. Also Abraham and Isaac had sons, and Jacob was the father of many sons, he gave birth to a daughter, because of whom he was in trouble (Gen. 34). If the daughters of Saliaad receive, by the will of God, the inheritance of their father (Num. 27), then we must take into account the fact that their father died in his sin, without giving birth to a single son, and Moses did not dare to make any decision regarding them, but left it to the Lord, who commanded them to unite with their brothers. Also, the book of Genesis tells (Gen. 6) that after people began to multiply on earth, which multiplication is never without defect, and daughters were born to them, they were taken not by angels, but by the sons of God, from whom were born giants or, as it is written in Hebrew, ἐπιπίπιουτες, that is, attackers. On the contrary, it is said to the saint: Your wife is like a fruitful vine in the countries of your house. Your sons are like new olive trees around your table (Ps. 127:3-4). And again: the sons of your sons will see (Ps. 127:6). So Zion gave birth, that is, the remnant from Israel and the faith of the believing apostles, [gave birth to] a son - the Lord Savior, who at the same time was born in the whole world, which no one has heard, which no history or anyone’s teaching tells, so that in a short time all nations would believe and out of all nations there would be one Christian nation, about which Paul also says: if anyone is a new creature in Christ, an ancient creature: behold, he is new ( 2 Cor. 5:17), according to what is written elsewhere: And the whole country will worship before Him. For the Lord's is the kingdom, and He possesses tongues (Ps. 21:28–29). For all the nations, he says, the trees that you have created, will come and worship before you and glorify your name (Ps. 86:9). Jacob says about Him: This is the desire of tongues (Gen. 49:10). And the psalmist: the hope of all the ends of the earth (Ps. 61:6). And this same Isaiah, whom we explain: there will be a root of Issei, and the rulers of the tongues will arise, in Him the nations will trust (Is. 11:10), due to the fulfillment by the apostles of what was commanded: teach all tongues, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 21:19), so that a new people will be born, about which the twenty-first psalm sings: the heavens will proclaim His righteousness to the people who will be born as those who have what the Lord has done (Ps. 21:32). And one more thing: the people of Zizhdemia will praise the Lord (Ps. 101:19). This people was created in one day, which is illuminated by the sun of righteousness, as the Scripture says: The Lord will be your eternal light (Isa. 60:19). We can say: a people will arise together. For Zion suffered in childbirth and gave birth to her sons, attributing it to the time when in one day three thousand and five thousand of the people of Judah believed (Acts 2). The same book of the Acts of the Apostles also says that in Jerusalem there were from all nations under heaven those who heard speaking in different languages ​​about the great works of God (Ibid.). The following is then according to the Seventy: but I gave this hope, and you did not remember Me, says the Lord. Was it not I who made the woman bearer and barren, said your God? This is more clearly stated in the Hebrew [text], with which other translators agree: shall I, who make others bear fruit, not give birth myself? says the Lord. Am I really going to be barren when I let others give birth? says the Lord your God, according to what is said in another place: Empty the ear, will it not hear? or he who creates the eye, does not he look (Ps. 93:9)? that is, that He who created all people out of nothing can make one part of all nations into the church of those who believe in Him. Also in the twenty-eighth psalm, where we read: the voice of the Lord shaking the wilderness (Ps. 28:8), in Hebrew it is written: the voice of the Lord, making the abandoned one give birth, so that the church that was previously abandoned would give birth and so that deer would be produced in the open and crushed forests. Further, according to the Seventy, the next meaning is that at one time one people will arise for the preaching of the Gospels throughout the whole world. I often made promises through many prophets, but you did not remember My promise - you, a city full of cries, a church abandoned by the Lord, a people to whom I gave its reward. Was it not I, he says, who made her to suffer in childbirth and to give birth, who was previously barren, and then began to suffer in childbirth and gave birth? It is written about her in the Psalms: when a mother brings barren children into her home, she rejoices over her children (Ps. 112:9). Or the order of events may be the reverse: the one who gave birth became barren, and the one who was once barren gave birth to very many, for such is the will of the Lord. Art. 10–11. Rejoice in Jerusalem, and rejoice in her, all you who love her. Rejoice with him in joy, all who weep for him, that you may suck and be filled with his consolation from the breast, that you may milk and abundantly enjoy all kinds of his glory. LXX: Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and gather together, all ye who love her. Rejoice in joy, all who weep for him, so that you may suck and be filled with his consolation from the breast, so that having sucked you may enjoy the entrance of his glory. It is commanded to the apostles and apostolic men who love both Jerusalems, both the one that fell with their weeping and groaning, and the one that will rise, awaited by them with all impatience, to rejoice at the same time in the one that is built of living stones rolling on the earth and, like the wheels of cherubim, following the Spirit going ahead, and not from those that will turn to eternal dust. The Lord said about them: Amen, amen I say to you, not to leave one stone upon another... until all these things will be (Matthew 24:2), (Matthew 24:34). Rejoice, he says, with joy, all who weep for him. Such, as we reported above, were Peter and Paul and all those who waited for the redemption of Israel, in order to suck and be satisfied with its consolation from the breast. For it is impossible that she who gave birth to the Son and was a mother in childbirth did not have an excess of milk to raise her people and children born together to give to them, not weakened and fallen, as before in Egypt, but blameless and standing with virgin beauty - two breasts - the Old and New Testaments for the delivery of verbal milk. The groom says to her about them: your breast is better than wine (Song 1:1). These were those about whom it is written in particular: blessed are those who weep; for they will be comforted (Matthew 5:4). And it should be noted that those who are still infants have a need for the milk of consolation and are still in a mortal place. But those who, after the milk of consolation, have reached solid food, they abundantly enjoy the truth and knowledge of all kinds of glory, which in Hebrew is called ziz. Instead, LXX translated the entrance, Symmachus tuk, Theodotion set. We said this in order to reveal the uncertainty of the seventy-ninth psalm, in which it is written: the buzz and the boar are from the oak grove, and the solitary wonder is devoured (Ps. 79:14). For instead of where in our [and] Greek copies it reads: μόνιος ἄγριος that is, a solitary wild beast, in the Hebrew it is written ziz sachi that Aquila translated παντόδαπν νώρας, that is, every kind of country, to show that Israel was devastated not only by the Romans, but by all nations. By the glorious entrance of the Church we should understand the one about which the Apostle John writes: twelve gates, twelve beads, and hundreds of hails of pure gold, as if they were shining (Rev. 21:21). The Lord forbids these pearls to be thrown before swine (Matthew 7), - [pearls] which a good merchant, having found among the prophets and apostles, hurries to one of the most precious pearls, not throwing away the former, but acquiring through them a more valuable one (Matthew 13:45–46). Art. 12 For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will send unto him as it were a river of peace, and the glory of the nations as an overflowing stream, and ye shall be fed by it 72 . They will carry you from the nipple (or to the nipples) and caress you on their knees. LXX: For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will send unto them like a river of peace, and like an overflowing stream, the glory of the nations. Children will be carried on their shoulders and comforted on their knees. When, after the construction of Jerusalem by the apostles and after bringing it to its previous state, the sons and inhabitants of it will be comforted by breasts and, due to the abundance of milk, will achieve the enjoyment of the truth, through which they achieve the glory of God: then the Lord will send to it the river of peace, about which we have often said: the river of God is filled with waters (Ps. 64:10), and: the river's aspirations make the city of God glad (Ps. 45:5), so that, with the dominion of peace over everything and after the cessation of the wars of the nations, about which the Lord spoke: scatter the tongues that want to fight (Ps. 67:32), the flow of God’s teachings will water the fields of believers. Then his sons or children (as the LXX translated) will be carried on their shoulders and they will receive comfort on their knees - on the shoulders about which the previous prophecy said and regarding which Jacob adjures 73 his son Issachar: put your arms to work (Gen. 49:15), and he was called a husband of the farmer. For then and with extreme labor we achieve an abundance of fruits. Therefore, it is said to Zion through Jeremiah: “I will put your heart on your shoulders” (Jer. 24), so that from what is commanded he will understand the Lord, imitating the one about whom it is written: Jesus began to do and teach (Acts 1:1), so that faith would not be idle, but through works would flow to reward. And what the knees and womb mean, I briefly outlined this above, and now the example of Abraham can let us know, in whose bosom Lazarus rests and all those who come from the east and west who lie down with Abraham. Isaac and Jacob (Luke 16); (Matthew 8). Art. 13–14. As a mother caresses someone, so I will comfort you, and you will be comforted in Jerusalem. You will see, and your heart will rejoice, and your bones will grow like grass, and the hand of the Lord will be known among His servants, and He will be angry with His enemies. LXX instead of slaves they put the fearful and instead of the enemies - the unbelievers, and the rest [translated] the same way. We learn the mercy of the Creator towards his creatures from the example of mothers who, feeding their children out of love [for them] on their knees, surpass all love. Therefore, God, wanting to show how He loves those He created, says: a woman will forget food, even if she (does not) have mercy on the offspring of her womb. Even if she forgets these, I will not forget you (Isa. 49:15). This is the meaning of this Gospel [saying], in which the Lord speaks to Jerusalem: How often did thy children desire to gather together, as thy chicks gather under their wings, and did not desire (Matthew 23:37)? And Deuteronomy, which says something similar: as an eagle covered its nest, spread out the wings, received them, and lifted them up on its frame (Deut. 32:11). Those who have written about the nature of animals say that all animals, both large and small livestock and birds, have an innate love for their children and chicks, but the greatest love is for eagles, who place their nests in high and inaccessible places so that the snake does not harm the chicks. An amethyst stone is also found between the eagle’s chicks, which has power over all poisons. If this is true, then God’s love for His creation is rightly compared to [the love of] eagles, who protects His children with all kinds of protection, so that the dragon and the ancient serpent, the devil and Satan do not creep up on the new children, so that, in the name of the stone that is laid in the foundation of Zion, all the fetters of the adversaries are crushed. This Jerusalem, in which children will be comforted by their mother and caressed on their knees, is the one about which the apostle writes: but the highest Jerusalem of freedom is, which is the mother of us all (Gal. 4:26). Filled with the milk of this consolation, he consoled others who needed his words, saying: Blessed be God, the Father of mercies and the God of all joy, who comforts us in all sorrows, for it is possible for us to comfort those who are in every sorrow with the consolation with which we ourselves are comforted from God (2 Cor. 1:3-4). When they are comforted, it will be said to them: And you will see, and your heart will rejoice, and your bones will grow like grass, or sprout, or flourish according to Symmachus (John 16:22). They will see, without a doubt, God, which is true joy. About such the Lord said: blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8). The vision of Him is perfect joy, occurring in a heart that has complete faith, and it is followed by the growth of bones, which we have already spoken about. If the reader has forgotten this, then let him again turn to the previous interpretation. For it is better for him to read again what was written, rather than for us to repeat what was done. And the hand of the Lord, he says, will be known to His enemies and will threaten the unbelievers or His enemies. The hand is understood either in the sense of power, since God can fulfill everything that he promises, in accordance with what Moses says on behalf of God to Pharaoh: now having let out my hand, I will strike you, and I will kill your people, and they will be consumed from the earth (Ex. 9:15). And he also said to the same tyrant: Behold, the hand of the Lord will be upon Your livestock (Exodus 9:3), about which the psalmist spoke to God: Your hand has consumed the tongues, and I have planted them (Psalm 43:3). Or, at least, by the hand of the Lord we should understand Christ, about whom we read above: My hand has created all this (Isa. 41:20). The Lord will make it known to His servants and those who fear Him and will threaten unbelievers and His enemies, promising some rewards, others punishment. At the same time, you should pay attention to the peculiarity of the words that He did not say: He will inflict on His enemies, but He will threaten, so that, frightened by the threat, they themselves will turn to serving the Lord. Art. 15–16. For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and His chariots like a whirlwind, to inflict His wrath with fury and His baptism with a flame of fire. For with fire and with His sword the Lord will judge all flesh [vulg. will execute judgment on all flesh], many will be slain by the Lord. LXX: For behold, the Lord will come like fire, and His chariots like a storm, to inflict with fury His vengeance and rebuke in the flame of fire. For the whole earth will be judged by the fire of the Lord, and all flesh will fall by His sword: many will be slain by the Lord. The hand of the Lord, which will be known to His servants and those who fear Him, itself threatens the unbelievers or His enemies, that if they bring it to repentance, they will be subject to the following: for behold, he says, the Lord will come with fire, and His chariots like a whirlwind or a storm. By them we must understand the angelic powers, when the Lord comes, according to the glory of the Father, with His angels to judge the living and the dead: but not in the sense that God is fire, but in the fact that He seems to be fire for those subject to punishment. And although Moses said: God consumes fire (Deut. 4:24) and the same is confirmed by the apostle (Heb. 12:29), but the Savior, expressing the essence of the Divinity, says: the spirit is God (John 4:24). And between spirit and fire, but in a literal (corporalem) understanding, there are many differences. But if He is fire or spirit, then why is He called having eyes, and ears, and hands, and feet, and a belly, and other members of the body, while I do not have spirit and fire? Therefore, God is called a destroying fire because He destroys in us every vice - hay, wood, stubble and thorns, that is, the worries of this age, brought instead of good seed by the barren land, about which the Hebrews says: but the thorns and thistle that wears out are useless and oaths are near, but their end is by burning (Heb. 6:8). The Lord spoke about this fire in the Gospel: fire has come to burn on the earth (Luke 12:49), and we read above: lawlessness will flare up like fire, and like dry fire it will be consumed by fire (Isaiah 9:18). He also [destroys] all the tares that the enemy man sowed while the lord of the house was sleeping (Matthew 13). It is written about this in the Epistle of James: a small fire burns great things (James 3:5)! And in Proverbs: fire grows on many trees (Prov. 26:2), although something else can be understood by what serves as a parable (Sir.28). I believe that this fire was also in the tongues of the apostles and all believers, when they spoke in different tongues and drove away all the darkness of error and enlightened the hearts of those who received the word of the Lord (Acts 2). The following then: like a storm - chariots (currus) or quadruples (quadrigae). We could explain it with examples from the Psalms, in which it is written: God will come, our God, and will not be silent: a fire will kindle before Him, and a green storm will surround it (Ps. 49:3-4). And in another place: the chariot of God is in darkness, a thousand gob-hungers (Ps. 67:18). Elisha was surrounded by these chariots and horses, which the boy could not see. Therefore he says: “Open, Lord, the eyes of this youth, that he may see.” And when he opened his eyes, he says, he saw chariots, and horses, and horses around” (2 Kings 6). On this fiery chariot, Elijah was taken to heaven when Elisha cried out: father, father, the chariot of Israel and his cavalry (2 Samuel 2:12). All this is said not because God had either chariots or fours, or that He was carried by fast horses, about Whom it is written in another place: He walks on the wing of the wind (Ps. 103:3), but as He is called sitting on the throne when He takes the place of a judge, so when He comes for vengeance, to defeat His opponents in a wave, He is depicted in the position of a winner and appearing in triumph. Regarding the anger of the Lord, we have often said that it should be understood as His forgetfulness, repentance and contrition and other affects that are not consistent with the greatness of God. Thus, with this fire and wrath, with these chariots and flames of fire, all flesh, or the Lord Himself with His creatures, will be judged, so that the sentence seems pronounced not as a result of power, but as a result of true judgment, in accordance with the fact that it is said in more detail in Micah and more briefly in the fiftieth psalm: for if you are justified in Your words, you will never be judged by victories (Ps. 50:6). By the sword by which all flesh will be judged, it is important to understand the one about which we spoke before, and now we will say in part: “if you do not turn, He will direct His sword” (Ps. 7). The Israelites complained about this sword, punishing sinful flesh and all sorts of vices, when it was given into the hands of Pharaoh, and they said to Moses and Aaron: God see and judge you, hate our spirit before Pharaoh and before his servants, give the sword into his hands, kill us (Ex. 5:21). Amos also writes about this sword: all the sins of people will end by the sword (Amos 9:10), although of course there are other types of punishment. Consequently, what strikes, and strikes, and tortures, and torments, all this is called in the Holy Scriptures a sword, with which the sword is used to wound or kill those who did not fulfill the will of God and, having lost the light of truth, fell into the darkness of error. It is written about such in Jeremiah: if an Ethiopian changes his skin (Jer. 13:23) and in Zephaniah: “And you Ethiopians will be wounded” or “killed by My sword” (Zeph. 2). In what sense the entire content of this passage should be understood, the apostle sets out this in great detail when he writes to the Romans: because of your cruelty and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. He will reward each according to his deeds: for those who seek good deeds through patience, glory and honor and incorruptibility, eternal life, and those who zealously resist the truth, but obey untruth, rage and anger. Tribulation and distress will befall all people who do evil, both Jews first and Gentiles (Rom. 2:5-9). Art. 17. Those who sanctified and purified themselves in the gardens within [them], behind one 74, who ate swine's flesh, and the abomination and the mouse, [all] will perish together, says the Lord. LXX: Those who sanctify and purify themselves in the gardens and in the vestibules (liminibus), eat swine's flesh, and abominations, and mice, [all] will perish together, says the Lord. Symmachus and Theodotion translated this passage as follows: you who sanctify and purify yourselves in the gardens one after another among those who eat swine's flesh, and the abomination and the mouse: all of them will not be together, says the Lord, wanting to show that it is not those who eat the swine's flesh, and the abomination and the mouse who sanctify themselves in the gardens one after another, but that those who purify themselves turn together with those who eat what is forbidden. The divine speech denounces the Jewish people, or rather the scribes and Pharisees, whom the Lord also denounced, saying: You are justified in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts: for what is high among men is an abomination before God (Luke 16:15). Therefore, He reproached them and said: Woe to you, scribes and hypocrites, because you cleanse the outer parts of glasses and dishes, but inside you are full of uncleanness (Matt. 23:25). And one more thing: be like a tomb that has been poured down, but inside is full of the bones of the dead and all unclean things (Matthew 23:27), which I blessed with my lips, and cursed with my heart (Ps. 62:5), who spoke peaceful words to God, and softened their words more than oil, but they were those arrows (Ps. 54:22), about which it was said with the utmost justice: these people They worship Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me (Isa. 29:13). God commanded through Moses that the one who had committed a sin should be sprinkled with the ashes of a red heifer and through other means of purification, through sacred rites and sacrifices, to return to the church, [but] neglecting this, [the Jews] in places of pleasure and pleasure, that is, in the most luxurious gardens, set up either baths or pools for irrigating curtains, thinking to wash themselves from adultery and all vile lusts with simple waters, to which the expression can quite rightly be applied: and “they cleanse themselves from nightly orgies with water” 75. And so that this does not seem incongruous to anyone, the vile actions should be more clearly stated for the correction of those who are not ashamed to do what is shameful to talk about, becoming attached to harlots like dogs and men committing shame on men, receiving in themselves the retribution for sin. Those who do this by will and crime are like those who eat pork and everything prohibited by the Law (Lev. 11) and a mouse (murem), which we call a rat (glis) or, in accordance with [the name] in the eastern provinces, μοωξοί (moles). Thus, those who eat this, and those who, committing all sorts of indecency, do what they do not do, can It may be that the pagans will perish equally. In accordance with the allegorical meaning, we can say that all those who love pleasure more than those who love God sanctify themselves in gardens and vestibules, because they cannot enter into the mysteries of truth, and eat the food of ungodliness, not being holy in body and spirit, and do not eat the flesh of Jesus and do not drink His blood, about which He says: eat My flesh and drink My blood to have eternal life (Jn. 6:54). For the Passover is ours, Christ was sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7), which is not eaten from without, but in and within one house. Art. 18–19. But I come to gather their deeds and their thoughts together with all nations and languages, and they will come and see My glory. And I will put a sign on them and send them from those who escaped to the nations at sea, to Africa, to Lydia, to those who draw the bow, to Italy and Greece, to the distant islands, to those who have not heard of Me and have not seen My glory. LXX: And I know their works and their thoughts, and I go to gather all nations and all languages, and they will come and see My glory, and I will leave a sign on them, and I will send from those who are escaped to the nations, to Tarshish and Pud, and Lud and Mosoch, and Tobel, and to Greece and to the far islands, to those who have not heard My name and have not seen My glory. Before explaining what it means to enumerate very many peoples, it is necessary to briefly say about the diversity of translation. Tarshish in Hebrew is the name of the sea and (as they say) the country in India, although Josephus, changing the letter, believes that instead of Tarshish it is called Tarsus, the city in Cilicia to which Jonah wanted to go when he fled from Joppa (Jon. 1). The Libyans and all Africa as far as the Mauritanian Sea are called Fud or Thul, in which there is now a river called Fud, and the whole surrounding country is called Fut. And Lud is the name of the Lydians, whose settlers are Etruscans, now called Tusci, who were once very skilled in throwing arrows, and are now called arrow-pullers. Instead, the Hebrew reads mosche seseth, which all but the Seventy translated in the same way: those who string the bow; Seventy they put Μoσόχ, translating it as a name instead of a verb. If we accept this, then he points to the Cappadocians, whose main city is Mazaca, which later received the name of Caesarea from Caesar Augustus. They also in Genesis (ch. 10), - I don’t know for what purpose, - the last son of Aram, that is, Damascus of the Syrians, called Mes, translated Μοδόχ, instead of which we more correctly translate Meonians, Atubal or Fovel means either Italy or Iberia, that is, Spain [called] from the river Ibera, which is why now the country is called Spanish Celtiberia. Lucan 76 [says] beautifully about them: Celts connecting the name of the Gauls with the Iberians, whom we can call Gallo-Spaniards. The Greeks, who are called Yavan in Hebrew, mean Ionians. It should also be taken into account that he primarily indicated the eastern peoples, [descending] from Japheth, one of the sons of Noah, although in Tarsea and Tuda he also mentioned the names of Shem and Ham, that is, India and Africa, to designate the whole world. Thus the Lord comes to gather the deeds and thoughts of everyone. From here we learn that not only deeds, but also thoughts will be judged on the day of judgment, for everyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:28), of whom it is said: “Now their thoughts have surrounded them.” Then the Lord will judge the secret [deeds] of people according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so that what the apostle writes will be confirmed in the true judgment: among themselves with a condemning or reproving thought, on the day when God judges the secret things of men (Rom. 2:15), so that all our thoughts, collected in one day, would be tested by the righteous Judge when we are accused by our conscience or when we are justified for sin: whether we have more sins, or good deeds, and whether they are old or new, whether they are blotted out by repentance or renewed in new crimes, as the Lord says: “I turned their ways on their head, and I will repay them for their thoughts” (Hos. 4), created on their hearts being one, considering all their deeds (Ps. 32:15). We read about them in another place: You alone weigh the hearts of men (2 Chronicles 6:30). For no one knows what is in a man, but the spirit of man living in him (1 Cor. 2:11). Therefore, through Jeremiah, God says: I am a God who draws near, and not from afar, says the Lord. What if someone hides himself in the secret places, and I will not see (Jer. 23:23)? Therefore, it is said to the scribes and Pharisees: you are justifying yourself before men: but God wins your hearts (Luke 16:15). At the same time, you need to pay attention to what he did not say: the Father, in accordance with the blasphemies of the heretics, so that the Son would not seem excluded, but: God, what is common to the Father and the Son. For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word. From time immemorial to God (John 1:1–2). About him, the same John writes: Jesus Himself did not commit their faith to Himself, He Himself knew everything: and as it is not a requirement, but who bears witness to men: He Himself knew the things that were in men (John 2:24-25). And this also befits Him: Jesus knew their thoughts (Luke 6:8). And in another place: Jesus understood their wickedness (Matthew 22:18). And so that there is no doubt, since heretics make subterfuges about the fact that the Word of God called everything, the epistle written in Hebrews says in great detail: For the Word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any sword, sharp in both directions, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, members and marrow, and judging by the mind and thought of the heart. And there is no creature revealed before Him, but all naked and declared before His eyes, and to Him we have a word (Heb. 6:12-13). But when all thoughts are gathered together, whether accusing us or defending us, then nations and languages ​​will also be brought into the middle along with their thoughts. According to the Apostle Paul, we read about tongues, not only of humans, but also of angels (1 Cor. 13) This makes it clear that all creatures will be judged by the Lord, not only on earth, but in the air and in heaven, in accordance with what He Himself said above: My sword was written in heaven, and it will fall on the earth (Isa. 34:5). Everyone will come to see the glory of God; and he will put a sign on them, which at the beginning of Ezekiel is indicated under the meaning of the Hebrew letter tav (Ezek. 9). Whoever is sealed with this sign will escape the hands of the slayer. This sign was also placed on the doorposts of houses in Egypt, when during the destruction of Egypt only Israel remained unharmed (Ex. 12). The prophet Isaiah testifies about this sign, which Ahaz, the king of Judah, did not want to receive: for this reason the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, the Virgin will conceive and give birth to her womb (Is. 7:14). Therefore, the prophet begs for the promised: do a sign for good with me (Ps. 85:17). And in another place: Thou hast given a sign to those who fear Thee, that they may flee from the sight of the bow (Ps. 59:6). The Lord left it to us, ascending to the Father, or placed it on our foreheads, so that we could freely say: the light of Your countenance is upon us, O Lord (Ps. 4:7). The next thing is: and I will send from those who were saved to the nations, and the listing of each of them, apparently, contradicts our explanation. For if this is said about the day of judgment, then how does it return again to the first coming of the Savior, when the apostles go to the nations and hear from the Lord: go and teach all languages, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). This is how it is resolved: the day of judgment is predicted, or better yet, a threat is made, so that out of fear of future punishment they will accept the coming of the Savior and the gospel of the apostles who will be sent ahead. And he said beautifully: and I will send from those who were saved. For if the Lord had not left us a seed, we would have been the same as Sodom and would have become like Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9). And the apostle says: “A remnant has been saved” (Rom. 9:27). They are sent to the nations to Tarshish, and Pud, and Lud, and Mosoch, and Tobel, and to Greece and to very many islands that are far off and have not heard the name of the Lord and have not seen His glory. We spoke about them above in relation to their historical meaning. Now we should briefly talk about the mysterious meaning. Tarshish means exploration (exploratio) of joy, so that we pay attention not to the present, but to the future and are worthy to hear: “in little things you have been faithful: enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matthew 25:21). The Apostle Peter writes about this: rejoice with unspoken and glorified joy (1 Peter 1:8), so that we praise God, saying: our lips are filled with joy and our tongue is filled with gladness. The following further Fud means the exclusion of lips, so that we, excluding all blasphemy, speak what is good, and can say: my mouth will proclaim Your righteousness, O Lord, all the day long Your salvation (Ps. 70:15): And again: I have not hidden Your righteousness in my heart, and I have declared Your salvation (Ps. 39:11). Also Lud in our language is translated benefit, and Mosoch - prostration (extensio) and Tubal or Fovel - involved in sorrow or converted or - all: all this corresponds to the calling of the pagans - so that they follow benefit through the confession of their souls and, forgetting the past, reach out to the future. And let them mourn past sins and be drawn to sorrow or sorrow that leads to life. For blessed are those who mourn, for they will laugh (Luke 6:21). And let everyone turn to the Lord, so that later they may achieve grace and know what the apostle said: glory, honor and peace to everyone who does good, and to the Jews first and to the Greeks (Rom. 2:10). For God is not only the God of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles. What is further said: and to the distant islands, which have not heard My name and have not seen My glory, applies to those about whom we read above: those who are not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand (Is. 52:15). And one more thing: I was revealed to those who did not seek Me, I was found to those who did not ask about Me. Rekokh: Behold, I am a tongue that did not call upon My name (Isaiah 65:1). And whether the islands mean the peoples of the whole world, or the churches scattered throughout the world, we have often talked about this. Art. 19–20. And they will proclaim My glory among the nations and will bring all your brothers from all nations as a gift to the Lord on horses and in chariots and on litters and on mules and in carts to My holy mountain, Jerusalem, says the Lord. LXX: And they will proclaim My glory among the nations, they will bring your brothers from all nations as a gift to the Lord, with horses and chariots, on covered shining carts (lampenis) and mules with tents (umbraculis) to the holy city of Jerusalem. Those who were saved and were sent to various nations and to those who initially did not hear and did not see the glory of the Lord, will proclaim it to all nations and will deliver the brothers of the Jewish people, the remnant of whom were saved, as a gift to the Lord from all nations, or [will deliver] those who, despising the error of idolatry, followed the knowledge of the true God, or who from among the people of Israel believed throughout the world. The Apostle Peter also writes to them (1 Pet. 1). They will be delivered on horses, and on chariots, and on stretchers, and on mules and on carts. Instead of carts, as only Symmachus translated, which we followed in this place, Aquila, Seventy and Theodotion translated mules. And where LXX set up with tents (cum umbraculis), which we can translate: sleeping quarters (dormitoria) or wheelchairs (basternae), others equally translated: φορεία, which we translate through various kinds of tools for movement (vehicula); and where LXX and Theodotion said covered shining carts (lampenae), instead of which Symmachus translated stretchers, Aquila put σκεπαστά, which also means stretchers covered with skins. This is said regarding the difference in translations. By horses, and chariots, and stretchers, and mules, and carts, and various kinds of instruments of transportation, we can understand the armies of angels, about which in another place it is said to God: You ride on Your horses, and Your eating is salvation (Hab. 3:8). On these horses, chariots and fours (quadrigae) Elijah was taken to heaven, and Elisha showed the unaware youth that he was surrounded and guarded by them (2 Kings 2). And Zechariah saw at night: behold, a man mounted on a red horse, and standing between the overshadowing mountains, and behind Him the horses were red, and grey, and mottled, and white. And Rech said: What are these Lord? And the angel spoke to me, saying in me: I will show you what this is. And the Man answered, stand between the mountains, and said to me: these are the ones whom the Lord sent to embrace the earth (Zech. 1:8-10). John also testifies in Revelation that he saw the following: I saw the heavens opened, and behold, a white horse, and the one riding on it was called faithful and true, and just and warlike. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on His head are many crowns: His name is written, which no one knows except He himself. And clothed in a robe of scarlet blood; and His name is reproached: the Word of God. And the host of heaven followed after Him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And from His mouth came a sharp weapon, that He might pierce the tongues (Rev. 19:11–15). The Lord and Savior sat on a red horse, taking on a human body, to whom it is said: Why are your scarlet garments? and: He who came from Edom, His garments were scarlet from Bozrah (Isa. 63:1). And horses of different colors followed Him, either crimson for their holiness, or gray (sturnini 77) for flying, or mottled for their virtues, or white for their virginity. He was sitting on a white horse when, after the resurrection, He took on an immortal and incorruptible body. And all who followed Him used white horses, that is, incorruptible and immortal bodies. It would take a long time if we wanted to explain this and that evidence; I will only say that the various kinds of instruments for movement through which people are brought to faith are angels or holy men who have risen from people to the angelic state (qui profecerunt ίn angelos) 78 . And that each of us has angels, many Scriptures teach this, to which this [saying] also belongs: do not despise one of these little ones, for their angels will always see the face of the heavenly Father (Matthew 18:10). And when the maidservant Rhoda announced the Apostle Peter, others thought that it was his angel (Acts 2). If this is said about the smallest, and about one person, then how much more should we think this way about all the saints and especially about the apostles, whose angels daily see the face of the Father, in accordance with what is written: the angel of the Lord surrounds those who fear Him (Ps. 33:8). And Jacob says about himself: the angel who delivers me (Gen. 48:16). It is they who ascend and descend upon the Son of Man. Those who are swift in faith ride on horses, those who are manifold in grace are on all fours, those in need of consolation are in covered stretchers and tents, so that they may be worthy to hear: in the days the sun will not burn you, the moon is lower in the night (Ps. 120:6). In the Holy Scriptures, we understand mules in two ways: either in the sense of barrenness and abstinence, on which David and Solomon sat, one of which in translation means strong with hand, the other peaceful, or in a bad way, regarding which it is said: do not be like a horse and a horse, which has no understanding (Ps. 31:9), over which Doek was appointed steward (1 Sam. 21). By carts, instead of which the Seventy, as we said above, transferred covered carts, others simply - carts, should be understood as those about whom the apostle says: bear one another's burdens (Gal. 6:2). Then, by shining covered vehicles (lamrepae), one should understand the shining bodies of saints and souls, enlightened by the faith of the Lord, to whom one can say: you are the light of the world (Matthew 3:14). Nevertheless, this preparation is directed to ensure that we enter the holy city of God, or the holy mountain of the Lord, Jerusalem, but not the one that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to him, but the heavenly Jerusalem, about which we have often spoken: and the Jerusalem on high is of freedom, which is the mother of us all (Gal. 4:26). And one more thing: come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22). We can understand this either in relation to the present church, gathered throughout the world through the apostles, or in relation to the future, so that what the Apostle predicted by the Holy Spirit would be fulfilled: we will be caught up on the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:17). The Jews and the Ebionites who inherited the Jewish error, who, due to their low degree of understanding, received the name of the poor, 79 and all who expect thousand-year pleasures, understand horses, and quarters, and chariots, and stretchers or litter chairs, and sleeping quarters, and mules, and horses, and carts and various kinds of implements for transportation, as it is written, in the precise sense that at the end of the world, when Christ comes, In order to reign in Jerusalem and the church will be restored and the Jewish sacrifices will be slaughtered, then the sons of Israel will return from the whole world, and not on horses, but on Numidian mules. Those who had senatorial dignity and occupied the place of commanders, from [among] the Britons, Spaniards, Gauls and the most distant of people, the Morins, and from where the two-horned Rhine divides, will arrive on carts (carrucis), met by all the peoples who are prepared to serve them. Art. 20–21. Just as the children of Israel bring a gift in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. And I will take from them to be priests and Levites, says the Lord. LXX: Just as the children of Israel offer Me their sacrifices with psalms in the house of the Lord. And I will take from them priests and Levites, says the Lord. Those who will be sent, he says, to the nations and proclaim My glory to them, will deliver your brothers from all nations as a gift to the Lord with horses and chariots, and stretchers and mules, and carts and all kinds of implements for transportation to the holy mountain in Jerusalem, just as the children of Israel, while their worship continued and rituals were performed in the church, usually brought sacrifices with psalms in the house Lord's. Or, as it stands in Hebrew and as everyone has translated accordingly, in a clean vessel, just as hitherto in the house of God, that is, in the church, the sons of Israel, mentally contemplating God, offer spiritual sacrifices with the fruits and virtues of their souls in clean vessels, that is, in holy bodies. The apostle writes about them: don’t you know that you are the church of God and the Holy Spirit lives in you (1 Cor. 3:16). And I will take from them, he says, priests and Levites, says the Lord, so that those who are saved will preach to the nations. One of them said: let man hate us, as we are the servants of Christ and the builders of the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1). And the evangelist Luke says: as he delivered unto us, who from the beginning were witnesses and servants of the word (Luke 1:2). We read about them above: you will be priests of the Lord to Me (Isa. 61:6). For just as inwardly a Jew is one who is circumcised in the spirit (Rom. 2), about whom it is written: We are the circumcision, who in the spirit serve God (Phil. 3:3), and we offer spiritual sacrifices, propitiating God, and perform psalmody in the spirit and feeling, so the priests and Levites are inwardly those who follow not the order of birth, but the order of faith. Or, perhaps, he is not talking about the apostles and apostolic men who stood at the head of the churches from the Jewish people, but about the peoples listed above - from the sea, from Africa, from Libya, from Cappadocia, from Italy, from Greece, from all the islands, the inhabitants of which initially did not hear the Lord and did not see His glory, but later will turn into priests, so that those who were the tail would become the head and those who were the head would become the tail. Art. 22–23. For like the new heavens and the new earth, which I make to stand before Me, says the Lord, so will your seed and your name stand. And there shall be a month upon a month, and a Sabbath upon a Sabbath: all flesh shall come to worship before Me, saith the Lord. LXX: For like the new heavens and the new earth, which I make to remain before Me, says the Lord, your seed and your name will stand. And there shall be a month after a month, and a Sabbath against a Sabbath: all flesh shall come to worship the Lord before Me in Jerusalem. When he says: I will take from them priests and Levites, he shows that the old priesthood has passed, which should have been given to Levi [tribe], where there was not election, but a natural order and a series of families descending through descendants. For after the transfer of the priesthood, it was necessary that there should be a transfer of the law, and that the election should extend to those to whom the priesthood was granted not by blood, but by merit and virtue, who would come from the islands of the nations and proclaim the glory of the Lord. And they will be delivered on horses, and on chariots, and on stretchers, and on mules, and on carts. But just as there will be a new heaven and a new earth, so that it cannot be said: heaven and earth will pass away (Matthew 24:35), and also: “the heavens will be rolled up like a scroll, and the earth will be laid waste through incorruption” (Rev. 6): so in everything new there will be a new people of God, as the Scripture says: the ancient past, behold, was all new (2 Cor. 5:17); (Isa. 43:18–19). And in another place: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). There will also be a new people, for Christ is the firstfruits, and then those who are Christ’s at His coming (1 Cor. 15:23); and the new heaven and earth, about which the eight beatitudes say: blessed are the poor in spirit, for for them is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:3–5). For the whole creation has now been subjected to vanity in hope for the sake of him who subjected it (Rom. 8). Those who from among men will become His children will be freed from slavery to corruption, in the glory of the children of God, and will always stand before His face and whose name will remain forever, so that they will not be replaced by another people, as was the case with the Jews, but so that they will remain forever. And it will be, he says, a month from a month and a Sabbath from a Sabbath, so that from the carnal Sabbaths and months will be formed spiritual joyful Sabbaths, which Sabbath is observed for the people of God, and a spiritual month, when the moon from the first point to the last will be full and will flow in its own order to form a month, that is, Kalends, which in Greek are called νεοιχηνίαι, that is, the beginning of a new months - among them (the Greeks) the beginning of the calendars begins and ends not according to the course of the sun and the various degrees of duration of the months, but according to the circulation of the moon it begins and ends. This is the moon about which it is said in the praise of the true Solomon: and will remain with the sun and before the moon of generations (Ps. 72:5). In the Song of Songs she is called the chosen one: he who is penetrating, like the morning, good, like the moon, chosen, like the sun, arousing wonder (Song. 6:9). Physicists and those whose subject of study is the study of what pertains to the sky say that the moon does not have its own light, but is illuminated by the rays of the sun. For on the side from which it is closer to the sun, its circle is always complete and is not overshadowed by the shadow of the earth, as the poet pointed out in one short verse 80: And also her moon rises, borrowing its light from her brother. If this is true, then we can say in a figurative sense that the church, which waxes and wanes from the world and persecution and, having been immersed in the darkness of temptations, again receives its former light, has light from the Sun of righteousness and that this meaning has the words: and the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun (Isa. 30:26), and its inhabitants, the righteous, will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. And according to these months, the seed of David, restored forever, comes to their festivals, about which the saint in a mysterious speech proclaimed saying: in thoughts of eternal summer, and they learned (Ps. 77:6). Regarding the Sabbath, which means rest, we spoke in detail in the prophecy about the coming of the eunuchs (see Commentary on 56). And now, briefly, it must be said that they come on new moons and Saturdays, which, after the passage and end of the six days in which the world was created, rush to the seventh day, that is, to the Saturday in which there is true rest. Regarding these celebrations, the Apostle Paul taught the believers, saying: the Son of God is the law of the good things to come (Heb. 10:1). And one more thing: let no one judge you about eating or drinking, or about part of the holiday, or about new moons, or about Sabbaths, which are the walls of the future (Col. 2:16). If this preceded, as a shadow and image of the good things to come, then the whole law must be understood spiritually, about which the same apostle said: we know that the law is spiritual (Rom. 7:14), the secrets of which David also wanted to know, saying: open my eyes, and I will understand the wonders of Your law (Ps. 119:18). For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). A brief and cursory review of all this is not the work of the present time. For if the eye did not see, and the ear did not hear, and the heart of man did not come to what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 9), then is it possible for us to try to present a description of the whole law, as [a description of] the whole world on a small tablet? Regarding the next thing: all flesh will come to worship before My face in Jerusalem, you need to know that in Hebrew it is not written: in Jerusalem, so that we can shake the arrogance of the Jews, but only: before My face, so that the word of the Lord, who says in the Gospel, will be fulfilled: Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, you will worship the Father ( John 4:21). And again: the Spirit is God, and those who worship Him are worthy to worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). And this [saying] of the apostle: in every place lifting up holy hands (1 Tim. 2:8). All flesh does not mean the Jewish people, but the entire human race, in accordance with what is written above: all flesh will see Your salvation (Isa. 40:5). And in Joel: I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy (Joel 2:28). And in Zechariah: Let all flesh fear the presence of the Lord (Zechariah 2:13). And in the Psalms: all flesh will come to You (Ps. 64:2). This is said in other words in another psalm: all the nations that you have made will come and worship before you and glorify your name, O Lord (Ps. 85:9). The month from the month and the Saturday from the Sabbath, on which all flesh will come to worship God, are funnyly explained by the chiliasts (χιλιαοταί), whom we can call thousanders, - that those who are nearby will come to Jerusalem every Saturday, who then - those after a month, that is, after completing the circle of Kalends, and those very far away - those annually, that is, on the days of Passover or Tabernacles, respectively. to what is said in Zechariah: and they will go up every summer to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to celebrate the feast of the tabernacle (Zech. 14:16). And in order to bring more laughter to the listeners, they explain what is written at the end of the book of the same prophet: “And there will no longer be a single merchant in the house of the Lord of hosts in that day” (Zech. 14:21), so they explain that in a thousand years merchants will cease to exist, because everything will be born in all places, which therefore we will not need amom leaf and pepper, and the Indians will not demand fields from us. Art. 24. And they will go out and see the corpses of the people who have departed from Me. Their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched. And looking at them will arouse disgust in all flesh. LXX [translated] the same way. All flesh that will worship before the Lord, either in the heavenly Jerusalem, or in every place where clean hands are raised, will come out to see the dead people who have departed from God. This can be understood either in relation to the Jews, about whom it is said: I have begotten and raised up sons, but they rejected Me (Is. 1:2), or in relation to all those who, having the knowledge of God in their hearts, turned to vanity in order to worship the creature rather than the Creator. They will not come out from their place, but with their minds. For even the corpses of the dead cannot be inside with the Lord. But if all flesh worships the Lord and vice versa, the corpses of people who have departed from the Lord are consigned to eternal fires, then the resurrection will extend to both parts of the true flesh. The worm, which will not die, and the fire, which will not be extinguished, is taken by many to be the consciousness of sins, tormenting those subject to punishment, since they fell through their own fault and through [their] sin were deprived of the good of the elect, in accordance with these words: I was in suffering when there was a thorn (Ps. 32:4). And in Proverbs: “Moth to bones is a foolish heart” (Proverbs 25). And also under the obel: like prayer in a robe and worms in a tree, so sorrow hurts a husband’s heart (Proverbs 25:21). But only in such a way that they do not deny the eternity of torment 81 for those who have fallen away and reject God, in accordance with the words of the Lord in the Gospel: go into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angel (Matthew 25:41). And in another place: having tied his hand and nose, take him and throw him into utter darkness: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 22:13). If we have heard about hands, and feet, and outer darkness, which serves as a punishment for the eyes of those who see the light of God, and about crying, which also undoubtedly has to do with the eyes, and the gnashing of teeth: then I am surprised that some imagine the body as airy and must, after the resurrection, little by little decompose into thin air, since the Lord, by the power of His might, entered the apostles with the doors locked ( John 20). Even before the resurrection, he walked with light steps on the sea and left the same to the Apostle Peter, so that he who walked through faith would subsequently drown through unbelief, to whom it was said: You of little faith, why did you doubt (Matthew 14:31)? Also, according to the worm, we must understand fire, which is kindled as long as it has material to feed the voracious flame. Thus, if anyone has tares in his conscience, sown by the enemy man while the lord of the house was sleeping, then fire will burn them, they will be consumed by flames (Matt. 13) And the eyes of all the saints will see the punishments of those who, instead of gold, silver and precious stones, built on the foundation of the Lord from hay, wood, straw - the food of eternal fire. Then, those who claim that the punishments will one day end and that the torment, although after a long time, will nevertheless have a limit, use the following evidence: when the fulfillment of tongues comes, then all Israel will be saved (Rom. 11:25–26), And again: God shut everyone under sin, that He may have mercy on everyone (Gal. 3:22); (Rom. 11:32). And in another place the saint says: I will endure the wrath of the Lord, for those who have sinned against Him, until He will justify my life, and will execute my judgment and bring me into the light (Mic. 7:9). And again: I will bless you, Lord, because you were angry with me. Thou hast turned Thy face away from Me, and Thou hast had mercy on me (Isa. 9:1). The Lord also says to the sinner: “When the wrath of My wrath passes away, I will save again.” This is the same as what is said elsewhere: since the great abundance of Your goodness, O Lord, You have hidden from those who fear You (Ps. 30:20). They point to all this, wanting to prove that after torment and punishment there will be relief, which is now hidden from those for whom fear is useful, so that, fearing punishment, they will stop sinning. We must leave this to the knowledge of God alone, on whom not only pardon, but also torment depends, and who knows whom, how and for how long to condemn. We can only say what befits human frailty: Lord, do not reprove me with Your wrath, nor punish me with Your wrath (Ps. 37:1). And how confident are we that the torment of the devil and all the rejected and wicked, who said in their hearts: there is no God (Ps. 13:1), will be eternal; so we believe that the sentence regarding sinners and, although wicked, still remaining Christians, whose deeds will be tested and purified by fire (1 Cor. 3), will not be strict (moderata), but dissolved by the mercy of the Judge. In ancient times, mathematicians usually drew geometric figures on dust and for this purpose covered their tables with it, etc. items . Here, of course, Vigilantius. This is how it stands in Ambros. manuscripts, in other manuscripts there is canonica, although in other places of his creations bl. Jerome usually calls the seven apostolic epistles conciliar or ecumenical (catholica). See Tolkov. on chapter IV of the prophet. Isaiah (Works of Jerome in Russian translation, part 7, p. 75). In the bleeding woman and the daughter of the head of the synagogue, Bl. Jerome sees the image of Jews and pagans: when the Jews were called to faith, the pagans began to get sick, and when the Jews lost the faith in which they were born, the pagans were healed and came to faith, and thus one people took the place of the other. Actually: suck (sugetis). Perhaps the following words ab ubere, that is, from the nipple, also belong here. According to Victoria, one should read interpretatur instead of imprecatur, that is: which Jacob explains to his son, interpreting precisely his expression: put frames in the sense of labor Probably, of course, a female deity, whose idol stood in the middle of the grove dedicated to him. Actually: having the color of starlings These words cannot be understood in the sense of transforming people into angels, which Origen allowed. Bl. Jerome in many places refutes this error of Origen and expressed his view on this subject with particular clarity in a letter to Theodora (See Works of Jerome in the Russian translation, part 2, p. 278 et al.). Virgil. Georg. I, 396.gil. Georg. I, 396. This does not mean that Bl. himself. Jerome rejected the eternity of torment, as can be seen from many places in his writings, and in particular from the interpretation of Isa. 65 art. 20, where he says among other things: “This will be the curse of the sinner, that in an incorruptible body he will experience eternal punishment” (See above, p. 212). You might be interested in: