Chapter 9

Chapter Eight

¹ This is their contempt in the land of Egypt; into their bosom it shall return as a waterless land, as an eagle upon the house of the Lord, because they transgressed my covenant, and acted impiously against my law. Just as, he says, their fathers in Egypt despised the words of Moses and Aaron, who had been sent by me to set them free, so also these men despised my laws. But this contempt shall be repaid into their own bosom, and they shall become as a waterless land. For this war-trumpet, and this king of the Babylonians, shall come against the house of the Lord with a rushing and swift onset, like an eagle.[1] For Nebuchadnezzar, having sent his army, burned the temple; concerning whom Ezekiel also says: The great eagle, the great-winged. And the contempt also with which the Jews scorned the Savior was like that in the land of Egypt; for the Hebrew said to Moses: Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us? and those men said concerning Christ: We have no king but Caesar. This contempt, then, shall be heavy upon them, like a waterless land and dust which, cast into the bosom, weighs it down; and it shall make them trodden underfoot before all, like a trumpet proclaiming their lawlessness and the sufferings that come because of it; and like an eagle it shall snatch away the glory of the ancient temple, transferring it to the calling of the nations. And everyone who exalts himself and is high-minded above every man is as an eagle upon the house of the Lord — the contempt, that is; for he shall be punished in his inmost and most intimate parts, and shall become as a waterless land. For such a soul shall not be ground that God can tread. For that which is lofty among men is an abomination to the Lord. And why shall these things be his? Because, like a trumpet, he was proclaiming himself, or magnifying himself — such as were the Pharisees, who sounded the trumpet over their almsgiving before men; such as was the one praying in the temple, recounting his own achievements, and despising the publican. And the house of the Lord is every man who is capable of receiving His great wealth, the Word. He, then, who exalts himself and is high-minded above every man is as an eagle upon the house of the Lord.

² To me shall they cry: O God, we have known you; because Israel turned away from good things, they pursued an enemy. Having done such works of impiety, as has been said, performing rites to the idols, these men in their calamities shall cry out to me, and shall confess that they knew me. But whence did they know me? Because Israel was deprived of good things, and fell into evils — although formerly they pressed hard upon and pursued their enemies, when they were counted worthy of my alliance. Or: They shall cry out, he says, and confessing shall say: Because Israel turned away from your good ordinances, they all but pursued their enemies — that is, they themselves ran to their enemies and drew these upon themselves; just as if someone, seeing a sick man living wretchedly, should say: This man is pursuing death. And those of the circumcision who believe shall cry to Christ: O God, we have known you. But as many as turned away went over to the spiritual enemy; and this also applies to —

³ They made themselves kings, and not through me; they set up rulers, and they did not make it known to me. Here he reproaches the ten tribes, that they appointed Jeroboam and the kings after him contrary to his judgment. And they set up rulers, instead of saying, they elected rulers by show of hands. For they did not ask God whether this ought to be done. But someone will be perplexed: how is it that in the Books of Kingdoms it is recorded that Ahijah the Shilonite, an old man, tore his garment into twelve pieces, and gave the ten to Jeroboam, and foretold to him that he would reign over the twelve tribes; and again it is written, From me has this word come, that Jeroboam should reign; while here he says, They reigned, and not through me. One may answer, then, that God sent the prophet Ahijah not to the people themselves, but to Jeroboam; and Jeroboam knew that God willed him to become king, but the people, not as fulfilling God’s counsel, elected him. For they did not draw near to God, nor ask him — which here too he reproaches in them. And then they understood this also, that of the things spoken by God, some come to pass by his leading, namely according to good pleasure, and others by permission. When, therefore, you hear God saying, From me came this word, that Jeroboam should reign, understand this as having come about by concession. But when here he says, Not through me did they reign, he means that this was not God’s antecedent will. These things will also fit the God-slayers. For they inscribed Caesar as king over themselves; and they had those around Annas and Caiaphas, who held their offices as bought. And when sin reigns in our mortal body, such a kingship is not through God. But also when the flesh, with its passions and lusts, rules in us, such a rule is not acknowledged by God. For the Lord knew those who are his. But the passions are not his, as being not at all in being.

⁴ Their silver and their gold they made into idols for themselves, that they might be utterly destroyed. Being enriched by me, he says, and having enjoyed my good things, they used this for the honor of the idols, fashioning most costly idols. And these things, by their outcome, became their utter destruction. And mark the word That; for it will help you with the verse, That you might be justified in your words. For neither did those men make the idols with such an aim, that they might be utterly destroyed, but it turned out so by the result; nor did David sin for this purpose, that God might be justified, but this comes about from the outcome. And the philosopher too, having received power from God to know the nature of beings with a gold-like and pure mind, and to interpret what he has conceived with a bright and silver-like speech, then setting up for himself idols — whether the Platonic forms, or the spiritual idols so called according to the Chaldean philosophy; and, to put it simply, fashioning a phantasm of human wisdom and vain deceit — shall be utterly destroyed from the people that is according to the Gospel, as one who uses God’s gifts badly. Such also are the Hebrews of the present day, who, with the conceptions of the law (likened to gold) and with words (likened to silver), misuse them for idols and vain phantasms, making idols within themselves — both the temple and the rest of the things in which they hope to be restored.

⁵ Turn away your calf, O Samaria. Your anger was provoked against them. How long will you be unable to be cleansed in Israel? And a craftsman made it, and it is not God; for your calf, O Samaria, was a deceiver. After the reproaches he brings an exhortation, admonishing them to scrub off the calf — that is, to cast away the golden heifer. And he well said scrub off, as of a stain and filth. For how long, having become unclean through idolatry, will you remain unchanged? Or do you not understand that a man, a craftsman, made the idols? And by craftsman he here means the artisan generally, not the carpenter; for surely it was not a carpenter who wrought the golden heifer. Or, passing from the calf to the discourse about the wooden idols, he made mention also of the carpenter, for the greater shaming of the idolaters. For the golden calf, he says, has some honor on account of its material, deceiving those who behold it; but that which is made by the carpenter makes you the more unclean, being worshiped by you.

⁶ Because they have made wind-blasted things, and their overthrow shall await them. You reap no fruit, he says, from the service of the idols, but their things are like wind-blasted ears of grain, which show their husks full from outside, but within have no wheat. For so also the idols: from outside they have some form — of a woman, or a man, or some other living creature — but they stand bereft of all strength and activity. Therefore their overthrow shall await them too — that is, the overthrow of those who worship them; for together both they and the idols shall be destroyed.

⁷ The sheaf has no strength to make meal. And if it should make it, strangers shall devour it. Either he speaks concerning the idols, that they have no substance; and if they seem to have any, the enemies, coming upon them, shall take them, since they are of gold and silver. And for helping in any other way they have no strength; but for supplying their own material they will show that they have strength. Or he speaks also concerning Israel, that it shall have such weakness as to resemble a feeble sheaf, unable to nourish anyone. And if it has any strength in wealth and in other such good things, the foreigners shall devour them. The teachers of the Jews sowed wind-blasted and light things. Therefore, as having no weight, they were scattered into all the inhabited world, and all their ancient polity was overthrown together with them and their doctrines. And they are a sheaf having no strength. For they do not have Christ, the power of God, who gave their meal to the nations that were formerly strangers, having graced them to work the things in the law by an iron mind, like a kind of millstone, finely and spiritually, and not to receive these things grossly and according to the letter. If you intend to make meal out of the law, set also a stone beneath, the same Christ; for another foundation no one can lay besides this, because in him all things were created. And set a stone above, the same Christ, who is the head of the Church. And he who sows to the flesh, and from the flesh reaps corruption, sows wind-blasted things, having received this harm from the spirit of wickedness, and having no strength to do a work nourishing to the soul. For he cannot say with Paul: I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me. And if ever he does any good thing, doing it not according to a divine aim, but for human glory, or pursuing some manner that is not praiseworthy, he gives this to the demons.

⁸ Israel was swallowed up; now it has become among the nations as a useless vessel, because they themselves went up to the Assyrians. As though shipwrecked by some sea of his own sins, he was swallowed up. For having asked the help of the Assyrians, they shall be handed over to them for slavery, and shall be useless in the midst of the nations that took them captive, fulfilling no service to God, nor performing the festivals according to the law. The Christ-slaying people too was swallowed up through pride, having become intimate, through the spiritual Assyrians, with the demons, and having gone up, through their self-exaltation, into the high-mindedness of those spirits; therefore they also became a useless vessel to God. For he no longer needs anything of theirs, the bodily worship having ceased. And every proud man, or one who reaches after the things above himself, even if he seems to go up, yet is swallowed up by a chasm of the earth, as were those around Dathan and Abiram. For well did someone define pride as an ascent toward the things below.

⁹ Ephraim flourished by himself; he loved gifts. He still reproaches them for their want of subjection. For they wished, he says, by themselves — that without me they would flourish, and, like some tree in danger of withering through wars, would sprout up again, if by gifts they should gain the Assyrians as allies;

¹⁰ for he loved gifts — not so as to receive them, but so as to give them. But there is no profit to them from these things; for what shall they suffer?

¹¹ They shall be handed over among the nations. He did not say, They shall be handed over to the nations, but, Among the nations. For this shall not be the end of their punishment, to be handed over to the nations and taken captive; but, being among the nations and taken captive, they shall yet be handed over to other punishments and other afflictions, so that They shall be handed over stands for, They shall be forsaken by God. And whenever someone, increased by God and made to flourish, does not recognize his benefactor, but lives by himself — that is, establishing his own will — and thrusts aside the divine laws, and, not content with what he has from God, still loves gifts, he shall be handed over by God, and forsaken, and shall come to be among the nations — wholly indeed among the spiritual ones (for he made himself of their portion), and perhaps he shall be subject to perceptible enemies as well. The Jews too thought, by themselves, that they would flourish again if they crucified Jesus; therefore they also loved to give gifts — this to the betrayer, and that to the soldiers guarding the tomb, to conceal the resurrection. They were scattered, therefore, among all the nations, handed over to suffer every evil.

¹² Now I will receive them. Formerly, he says, I let them pass their life unexamined and unjudged, plainly through love for mankind and in awaiting repentance; but now I will receive them — clearly, to bring them to trial, and I will call them to judgment, and exact penalties. Now — that is, quickly, or in the land of the enemies — I will receive them. For just as among their fathers I went before them, and received them into their inheritances and the lands allotted to them, so for these, preparing beforehand the places of captivity, as for men worthy of it, I will receive them in Babylonia.

¹³ And they shall cease a little from anointing a king and rulers. For since, he says, they did not wish to be ruled as king by me, but chose kings for themselves by their own will, I will deprive them of these; and, being ruled by their enemies, they shall cease — that is, they shall stop electing for themselves kings and rulers. For those whom they elected were not set up unto my honor, but together with them practiced idolatry. And observe, in the threat, kindness also: For a little while, he says, they shall cease from anointing. And through this he gives hopes of the return from Babylon. And one must know that after the captivity Ephraim — the ten tribes — no longer had its own king in Samaria, but in Jerusalem Zerubbabel led all the people, and to him the twelve tribes submitted. I will receive, says the Father, those of Israel who have turned to Christ; but when? When they shall cease from dreaming — or until the kingship and the priesthood shall be restored to them. For it is in fantasy that they anoint for themselves kings and priests, those who await the restoration of the legal polity. And, anointing the son of lawlessness, they make him their Christ. And each of us too, when he is received by God and becomes his own, having been before of another fold, ceases from having other kings and rulers — I mean the world-rulers of the darkness, who are not kings and rulers, but we anoint these for ourselves and set them up as kings. But he alone has God as king who is subject to him, and is led by his commandments, and is not displeased with the daily dispensations of his life, even if they be unpleasant.

¹⁴ Because Ephraim multiplied altars; the beloved altars became to him for sins. Justly, he says, will I bring to rest their lawless kingdom; for since Jeroboam, having reigned over them, led them astray into the multiplying of idolatrous altars, which became to them an occasion of many sins. For they both sinned against my honor, and practiced every other kind of sin; and they loved such altars, and were warmly disposed toward them, when they ought to have mourned over them all their life long, and lamented.

¹⁵ I will write down for him a multitude, and their ordinances. Unto sin, he says, and as an accusation against them, I will write down and reckon the multitude of such altars, and their ordinances — that is, the laws and the manners according to which they performed the idolatrous rites. Or: I will make the memory of them recorded, for the reproof of their great impiety. The legal altars became a sin also to the people that slew him; and as many ordinances as they received from God were written as an accusation against them, since they transgressed these. For, he says, the uncircumcision which is by nature, fulfilling the law, shall judge you who through circumcision are a transgressor of the law; and, To whom they entrusted much, much also do they require of him; and, He who knows the will of his lord, and does it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.

¹⁶ The altars were reckoned as another’s.[2] Of the idolatrous altars, he says, they took much thought; but my altars were reckoned by him as another’s, and were left untended. Now there were two altars to God according to the law: that of the burnt offerings, outside in the court, and that of the incense, within in the second tabernacle. Each of us too has two altars: the one outside, on which he sacrifices to God his bodily works; the other inward and according to the mind, on which he sends up the incense of prayer and the upward-borne and spiritual offering of divine contemplations. These indeed are the truly beloved ones. But if anyone, thrusting these aside, multiplies altars for himself, being carried away into the manifold forms of vice, through deeds and reasonings, and being borne about by various and strange teachings, such altars become a sin to him. And those who commune with heretics have them likewise becoming a sin to them.

¹⁷ Because if they sacrifice a sacrifice, and eat flesh, the Lord will not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquities, and will avenge their sins.[3] For since the things they sacrifice upon those many altars they sacrifice to idols, the Lord will not accept them; but rather through these he is reminded also of their other iniquities, and is provoked to vengeance. For just as, propitiated and made merciful through the holy sacrifices, he forgets the lawlessnesses and the iniquities, so, seeing them sacrificing to the idols, he comes to the remembrance of their other evils as well. And what is the meaning of, If they eat flesh? It was their custom, of the victims not wholly burnt, to offer to God the kidneys and the fat upon them and the lobe of the liver; to set apart for the priests the right shoulder and the breast; and the rest of the flesh those who brought the sacrifice ate themselves, as they wished. But some understood it thus: that he speaks not concerning the idolatrous sacrifices, but judges their disposition from these. For since he said, My beloved altars they reckoned as another’s, lest anyone should suppose that God has need of sacrifices, he now says, I have no need of the sacrifices, but I judge their disposition from these. And observe the abolition of the legal things foretold, and the spiritual and rational worship being brought in, according to the saying, Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High. And he praises God who makes the light of his own works to shine before men, so that God is glorified by those who behold these things; just as he who does the contrary makes his name to be blasphemed among the nations.

¹⁸ But they themselves turned back to Egypt. For they both asked an alliance from there, and, when the calamities came upon them, fled there for refuge. Or, worshiping the heifers, they reverenced the calf Apis, like the Egyptians.

¹⁹ And Israel forgot him who made him, and they built shrines, and Judah made walled cities; and I will send forth fire upon his cities, and it shall devour his foundations. He rebukes both kingdoms: that of the ten tribes, that, when the war was coming upon them — which I threatened on account of their lawlessnesses — they were not eager to serve me, but the idols; therefore they raised up more shrines for them, propitiating them forsooth, that they might avert the war. And Judah, he says, made strong cities, that through them it might be saved, and not through my help and shelter. The fire of the enemies, then, shall devour their foundations. He builds shrines to the demons who destroys the temple of God — that is, himself — through bodily uncleannesses. Those demons take up their dwelling in what was formerly the temple of God. And so does he who, through the falsely-named knowledge of sophistry, secures the heretical doctrines, building walled cities; but the foundations and the bases and beginnings of such cities the fire of the evangelical and apostolic word devours, which the Lord came to cast upon the earth, and the fire of the Spirit, which the Lord sent forth in the form of a dove. And the fire of the Romans devoured the cities of Israel according to the flesh, because they built their plots against the Lord, as though forsooth presenting certain shrines to God.