Chapter 7

Chapter Six

¹ And they will seek my face in their affliction, and will rise early to me, saying: Let us go, and let us return to the Lord our God. As in the case of bodily ailments those who are not healed by the milder remedies have need of the harsher ones, so also among men, as many as are not led to repentance by the kindness of God, being disciplined by the harsher means, come to recognize what is needful; just as these too, who in the enjoyment of good things did not seek out the face of God — that is, his oversight, and his visiting and watching over them — in the deprivation of good things and in their afflictions seek him out as guardian and overseer, and rise early to him, which stands for, they will make haste; or else, that as though awakened from a kind of night, from the darkness of their former ignorance, they turn to me.

² Because he himself has smitten, and will heal us. Some of the books have “He has seized,” and perhaps not amiss; for he said above, “I seize away.” He himself, he says, has seized, or he himself has smitten; he himself will also heal; for when God seizes or smites, there is no other physician. Thus in affliction they remembered God. And understand these things also concerning those of the Hebrews who were afterward to believe in Christ. For these, in the affliction and the long captivity, will seek out, he says, the face — that is, the Son. For he is the express image of the Father’s substance; and as they turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away which lies upon their heart. And in the case of each individual you will find this also — that men turn rather in afflictions to the Lord, who smites our sensible and bodily parts, and heals our souls.

³ He will smite and bind us up; he will sanctify us after two days; on the third day we shall rise, and shall live before him, and shall know.[1] According to the obvious sense he says this: that God needs no period of time for healing, but will furnish health all at once. Yet he hints also at the mystery concerning our nature. For he smote our nature with death; for, as we sinned, he delivered us over to death; but into our smitten nature he inserted his own Son, like a kind of lint-dressing, who, having come to be in the wound of death, healed us, and raised us on the third day. For the nature he assumed, which he took from us, by raising it he bestowed the resurrection upon us all as well, which we shall have in their own due seasons, and we shall live. For since one died for all, the same one also rose for all, and we shall live, not being far from him, but beholding his face, and then we shall have the more perfect knowledge. For now, he says, I see through a mirror, and in an enigma; but then I shall know fully, even as also I was fully known. The blameworthy temper too is smitten in the soul, and blameworthy desire, that they may not rage to no purpose, but may have reason, like a kind of lint, filling up their emptiness. We are sanctified, then, in the practical life, when these two passions belong not to the works of darkness, but to those of the light and of the day; so that it may be said of us also: So then we are not of night, but of day. And we rise on the third day, when, that is, the third part of the soul is illumined — the rational part, through contemplation; for then we shall also live before God himself, that is, beholding him face to face. And we shall know.

⁴ We shall pursue the knowledge of the Lord; we shall find him ready as the dawn. Diligently, he says, and more eagerly we shall seek after him. For just as the dawn dissolves the gloom of night, so also he will readily and swiftly furnish the rays of his own providence, and will deliver us from the night of afflictions.

⁵ And he will come to us as the early and the latter rain to the earth. The earth needs the early rain, so that, having put forth what was sown, it may also have richness, so as to nourish it; and the latter rain especially, lest the plants, once grown, be dried up, when they need more moisture for nourishment, inasmuch as they are then putting forth their fruits also. So to us also, he says, God will come both as an early rain, when he begins to free us from captivity, and as a latter rain, when, having restored us in our homeland, he tends us and cares for us. And Christ too, after the resurrection, manifested himself in the morning to the women, and in the evening, when the doors were shut, to the disciples. And to each soul there comes an early rain, when he reveals the knowledge of the Old Covenant, which rose at the beginning of the knowledge of God; and a latter rain, when he gives the understanding of the Gospel, which shone forth late and in the last of times. And then he makes the soul a desirable land, concerning which the prophet says: You visited the earth, and made it drunk.

⁶ What shall I do to you, Ephraim? What shall I do to you, Judah? For my mercy is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew that passes away. Since he had promised them that he would come to their aid, but they were destined, even after this aid, to fall into many evils because of their own depravities, lest they should think that he had lied to them and had not given a lasting grace, he foretells that they themselves will be the cause; and as a tenderly loving father he makes his discourse to them, all but saying such things as these: I for my part count you worthy of all sparing, and wish to count you worthy of an everlasting mercy; but your mind, being transient, and like a cloud that appears in the morning and is scattered by the sun, or like a little dew consumed by the rays and made to vanish (for this is the meaning of “that passes away”), makes my mercy also, with which I show you mercy, to be likewise transient. Let us hear that we ourselves are the measure of the divine mercy, either prolonging it through persevering repentance, or curtailing it by turning back again too quickly; and let us be eager to have mercy shown us for a longer time. For in truth the kingdom of heaven is within us, and God follows our own free choice. It is also found in another text, “But my mercy”; and you will understand it thus, that God, complaining here, says: In every way I displayed my care for your correction; for I sent forth my mercy upon you, like early dew that goes forth — that is, poured out by the wind upon the earth — and like a morning cloud cooling the fruits; but you did not receive it. But neither did the Hebrews receive the Son, who, being the mercy of the Father (for through him we obtained mercy), was sent as a cloud, by reason of the density of the body; and “in the morning,” because the shadow of the Law had come to its end, and because he was not overtaken by the darkness of the devil and of sin, but rather became to others the beginning of light, as the morning is the beginning of the day. And the same was also dew, descending from above; and “that goes forth,” because the knowledge of him was not confined to one place, but went out to all. For formerly he was known in Judea; but now, the sound of the apostles having gone out into all the earth, the earth was filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as much water that covers the seas. And his lightnings shall be to the whole world, and all the ends of the earth saw the salvation of God.

⁷ Therefore I have mowed down your prophets, I have slain them by the word of my mouth, and my judgment shall go forth as light. You, he says, are in such a state as to show a cold and short-lived repentance, and for this reason to render my mercy also of the same sort; yet I did not fail to count you worthy of the care that was due — so much so that you became the cause of death even to the holy prophets, whom I sent to you as counselors (for this is what “I have slain” signifies); and because I gave them my mouth for speaking, I seem to be the one who slew them. But even if you slay them, you cannot make false the things prophesied concerning you; rather my judgment — that is, the verdict which I have decreed against you — shall shine as light, and you shall suffer all that those men foretold. But some have understood “your prophets” to mean the false prophets. “For I slew them by the word of my mouth” — that is, by my command; and my judgment upon them, like a bright light, shall not be hidden, but shall shine, and shall be made known to all by the deeds themselves. For Elijah too slew the prophets of Baal, and the priests of the groves; and Jehu, who also utterly destroyed the house of Ahab, on the pretext of celebrating a feast to Baal, gathered them into the house of Baal and slaughtered them all.

⁸ Because I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than whole burnt offerings. But they are as a man transgressing a covenant. Above he charged them with two things: the injustice toward their neighbors, and the service of idols; and now he says: I accept mercy toward one’s neighbor rather than sacrifices, and the knowledge of God rather than whole burnt offerings. For in giving the Law he enjoined these two things: You shall love the Lord your God; and, You shall love your neighbor. But you transgressed this covenant of mine and the Law. For you are both unjust and merciless toward your neighbors, and you have thrust away the knowledge of me. And one might say that, since the Jews, while performing sacrifices but having no mercy, were transgressing the covenant, it is plain that whatever the Law seemed to say about sacrifices was really some other things, more mystical and more spiritual. By mercy, then, the practical life is signified; and by knowledge, contemplation. And the judgment of God in the age to come will also go forth, as light, through the Only-begotten; for the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son; who, having come into the world, saved us not through sacrifices, but according to his own mercy; and not by whole burnt offerings, but through knowledge and faith he justified us, and taught mercy (both in the words he spoke: Blessed are the merciful; and, Whatever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them; and in those places where he brought forward this very saying as a testimony, and in countless others); and the knowledge of God, in those places where he ever ascribed his words and works to the Father, and where he said to Philip: He who has seen me has seen the Father. Whence also he said: I have manifested your name to men; not to Jews only, but to all. Those, then, who did not receive him, altogether transgressed the covenant of the Father, which also made the Son heir of the vineyard. And the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth, they were — the house of Israel, and the man of Judah, a beloved new plant; but when the Son came to his own, his own received him not, but said: This is the heir; come, let us kill him. But this same covenant of the Father made them heirs of adoption, of glory, of the kingdom of heaven; yet they would not follow the covenant even in this respect, but transgressed it in both ways — both in not willing that the Son should reign over them, and in making themselves unworthy of the heavenly glory.

⁹ There she despised me, working vanities, troubling the water.[2] Not without judgment, he says, did I slay the false prophets. And “there” — that is, at that time, when Israel turned aside — Gilead despised me, in that it had been allotted to the priests and Levites for an inheritance; and those who ought to teach the people unto the knowledge of God, themselves wrought the vanities — that is, the idols, themselves fashioning them. And they troubled also the water of teaching, not offering it pure to the people.

¹⁰ Your strength is as that of a robber-pirate; the priests hid the way, they murdered Shechem, because there they wrought lawlessness in the house of Israel. I saw there a horrible fornication of Ephraim. Shechem is a city near Gilead. Some of the Shechemites, then, having taken thought of the God of their fathers, resolved to go up to Jerusalem, to worship God; but the Levites and priests in Gilead, learning this, hid certain robbers in the way, and slew the Shechemites. For this reason he says: Your strength, O Gilead, is that of a pirate-man — that is, of a robber. For properly a “pirate” is a robber by sea; but it is taken in the divine Scripture for the robber by land as well. Wherefore he names this a more horrible fornication, because not only did they themselves not do the good in the house of Israel — that is, among the Israelites — but they even murdered those who purposed to do it. Or else thus: that as pirates set upon seafarers by stealth, so also you idolaters in Gilead, by certain secret trickeries, make the idols to move, that you may show them as partaking of divine power; and the priests, who ought to reprove these things and make plain the way of God, instead hide it. And yet they ought to have considered that their forefather Levi slew all the Shechemites, when Hamor, the son of Shechem, violated his sister Dinah. And he was zealous for the virginity of his sister; but these are not zealous for me. The priests, then, he says, hid the divine way — they who of old murdered the Shechemites in their zeal; for what their forefather Levi did is ascribed to the priestly line. These things are also accusations of the God-slaying Synagogue. For these wrought vanities — the false accusations and the cross; for their devices were vain indeed, since the Crucified one shone forth and reigned all the more. And they troubled the water, confounding the knowledge of the Scriptures, and slandering the teaching of the Savior, which was spirit and life. And their strength was as that of a pirate-man; for they took up stones against Jesus, and went out against him with swords and clubs, and that by night, which is the way of those eager to escape notice. And their priests hid the way — that is, they put to death the Lord, who said: I am the way. And they murdered Shechem also — that is, Jesus, the fruit of chastity and virginity; since Shechem was the special portion of the chaste Joseph. And in the Church too you will see some working vanities, who are of an evil life. These, then, also trouble the water of spiritual teaching, slandering the things concerning resurrection and judgment, and deceiving themselves so as to sin without fear; whose strength is not that of a man who gives life, but of a pirate; concerning whom the Lord said: The thief does not come, except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. And the priests too hide the way of the Lord — perhaps both when they do not reprove sinners, disregarding him who says: Rebuke the one who sins in the presence of all; and perhaps also when they themselves do not walk in it, but practice another way of life; wherefore they will also murder the Church, which was set apart for Joseph, whose name is interpreted “purpose.” And such was the Lord too, who added to the Law what was lacking; wherefore he also said: I came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it. For of “You shall not commit adultery,” the purpose and fulfillment is, “Neither look upon a woman to lust”; and of “You shall not kill,” the “Do not be angry”; and the rest likewise.

¹¹ Israel was defiled, and Judah forsook his harvest. The most grievous thing of all is this: that when Judah ought to have been reaping the fruits of the divine promises, he then emulated Israel, who had been defiled by idolatry, and forsook such a harvest.

¹² Begin to gather the vintage for yourself, when I turn back the captivity of my people, when I heal Israel.[3] These things he says to Judah: Since before the experience of evils you would not know what was needful, nor gather the fruits of righteousness, yet at least after the return from captivity live according to the Law, and begin to pluck the fruits that grow from such a manner of life. And pluck this for yourself; for we bring no gain to God by living lawfully, but to ourselves. The phrase “when I heal Israel” signifies this: that when I comfort him over all the pains he had while in captivity, and bring him up from Babylon, do you understand what is needful, and become of a good life.