Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 47/65

He therefore makes his defence by saying, 'Let us plead together,' and declares that they themselves have become the cause and procurers of these things upon their own heads.

'For your fathers,' he says, 'and your rulers have transgressed against me.'

And it is not without purpose that in these words he lays blame upon our ancestral fathers.

Rather he seems to wish to hint at something of this kind.

For those chosen for the sacred service, the wise and learned in the law, who are accustomed to instruct the peoples under their hand, might well be called fathers of those subject to them, as also rulers and leaders.

Whenever, then, some improper thing is done not by the common crowd but rather by those from whom one would reasonably expect the ability even to set right the affairs of others, the matter is grievous, and the penalty hard to escape and justly owed thereafter to the impious.

'Therefore,' he says, 'those set in the rank of fathers, though allotted to rule over you, have transgressed against me.'

And in saying 'against me,' he shows clearly that the outrageous and unholy offences committed by them were not against any single one of us, but against the very glory of God who is above all things.

For whenever anyone wrongs some of his neighbours, whether by encompassing them with greed and insolence, or in some other manner, he sins indeed, but against a man of his own nature, and in no way against God.

But he who thrusts away the worship due to him, and subjects himself to the deceits of demons and bows down to them, rises up against God, and as far as in him lies removes him from the thrones of his Godhead, and attempts to unsettle him from the pre-eminence and glory befitting him and him alone.

And this the Israelites have done from time to time.

For they served idols, and indeed, bidding farewell to the sacred oracles, they wished to stretch out a hard and haughty neck against God.

He therefore lays blame upon them, and says:

'The priests said not, Where is the Lord? And they that held fast the law knew me not, and the prophets were impious against me.'

'you were impious against me, says the Lord Almighty.'

'The rulers, therefore,' he says, 'defiled my holy things.'

For they dared to raise up the pillars of the demons not in Jerusalem alone, but they would be found to have done this impiously even in the very divine temple.

The God of all things therefore said concerning the synagogue of the Jews:

'Why has the beloved wrought an abomination in my house?' — calling 'abomination' the statue and image fashioned as a figure of God.

But the holy things are defiled also in another way, if what has been ordained to be performed reverently and in holiness for the glory of God be despised by some, and if certain persons count as nothing the transgression of his divine laws.

'Therefore, since your fathers,' he says, 'transgressed against me, and the rulers also defiled my holy things, I gave this over to the enemies, so as to destroy Jacob, and I clothed Israel with the reproaches that came upon these things.'

Again he promises them forgetfulness of wrongs, and wishes to renew them unto a complete and blameless obedience.

And passing over, as it were, the time of ignorance in which the one who was devoted to God, who possessed the law, was detected in fault, he again appoints for them another time, calling it 'Now':

I say that to this resembles the saying, 'Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation.' For in the time already past, he says, very great and altogether just was the outcry against you.

For you gave yourself over to apostasy, you gave offence, thrusting aside not moderately the law that trained you, turning to what is unlawful, and casting yourself into the charges of disobedience.

'But let those things be passed over,' he says.

'Now hear' — that is, 'Lay aside the haughty mind;'

'come under the yoke of obedience, considering that you have been named my child.'

'And I made you also chosen out of all,' that is, out of the nations that are upon the earth.

'For when the Most High divided the nations, when he scattered abroad the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.'

'The Lord's people became his portion, Israel the line of his inheritance.'

He therefore shames them, and as it were reproves those who had transgressed and given offence in no small measure, though they had come to be in the rank of children to him and lay in the portion of the chosen.

{DISCOURSE II.} 'Thus says the Lord God who made you and formed you from the womb: You shall yet be helped.' Having accused those of Israel of apostasy, and of departing from the love toward him and giving themselves over to those who are no gods —

for he said, 'Your fathers and your rulers transgressed against me, and the rulers defiled my holy things' —

he adds these words also in a most providential manner:

for he does not allow them to be carried off into apostasy, or indeed despair, nor yet to slip away utterly from the hope in him.

But he again promises them gentleness, and by his wonted loving-kindness recovers them, and brings them back to repentance.

And he gives them to understand that he has not utterly turned away from those who have sinned, nor will Israel perish root and branch, since he takes pity, and smooths out very well the way of salvation for those who believe in him.

And by calling himself Lord and God, who made and formed them from the womb, he seems to intimate that they had gone astray in ascribing the name of the Godhead to others, and had thoughtlessly fastened the glory of lordship upon those who are no gods.

having leaped away from the love toward him.

For it is among the absurd things that the highest honours should be offered by us to our parents according to the flesh — the divine law also awarding this — while the Author of all things should not rather than they be honoured and glorified by us with the praises befitting him, through utter submission.

Something of this kind he says also through one of the holy prophets:

'A son honours his father, and a servant his master.'

'And if I am a father, where is my glory? and if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord Almighty.' For he is at once both Lord, as holding the whole creation under yoke and servitude,

for the inspired Psalmist somewhere said to him, 'All things are yours' — and again he is Father, as fashioner and maker and the one who brought them into being.

Therefore, as though owed as a debt, one must render to God both the submission befitting sons and the fear fitting to household servants.

Whenever, then, God says that he is fashioner and maker, he leads us up to the thought that we ought to honour him, as having become the very giver of being, and the cause of existence to those who once were not.

And in saying to those who have sinned, 'You shall yet be helped,'

he grants them confidence that, although they are entangled in many and inescapable charges, a remnant of gentleness and loving-kindness has been kept for them.

And nothing would hinder even them from being saved, if only they should choose to pass over to what is better and more fitting, and in accordance with the laws given by him.

'Fear not, my child Jacob, and beloved Israel, whom I have chosen.'

'For I will give water in thirst to those who journey in a waterless land.'

'I will put my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessings upon your children.'

'And they shall spring up as grass amid water, and as a willow by running water.'

'This one shall say, I am God's, and this one shall cry out in the name of Jacob.'

'And another shall inscribe, I am God's, in the name of Israel.' In these words he seems to name by 'Israel' and 'Jacob' the choir of the holy apostles, understood as one person.

For all are one in Christ.

For observe how he says that he is beloved and chosen; and yet, is it not clear to all that he would never have named those who had rejected faith in him beloved and chosen?

But since, being of the blood of Jacob who is also Israel, they became vessels precious and choice, and were called to the sacred ministry of the evangelical proclamations, he thought it right to crown them with such splendid words, inasmuch as they were also to be as luminaries in the world, holding forth the word of life, and initiators into the mysteries for those under the sun.

'Fear not, therefore,' he says — that is, 'be manly, and be strong, keep a mind patient and brave, and laughing to scorn the risings-up of your persecutors, hold your faith firm upon God.'

For very many will there be who contend against the sacred proclamations, and an unholy multitude will rise up in opposition, working against your words.

But be, he says, superior to cowardice, to hesitation, and to unmanliness.

'For I will give water to those who journey through a waterless land.'

For it is a sweet and saving thing for those walking through a parched land to chance upon springs of water.

And we say that it is thrice-desirable, and still more so, for those who labour for the sake of piety to be watered by the divine and spiritual streams — that is, by the consolations that come through the Spirit — through which the human mind, when it has somehow grown a little weak, may be restored again unto manly vigour.

And by 'water' in these words, which God promises to supply to those journeying through a waterless land, we say is meant the Holy Spirit.

The Saviour himself accordingly said, as the Scripture declared:

...and the spiritual creation is enriched with the increase unto every good whatsoever, and, as it were, leaps up as it advances toward spiritual growth.

That by promising water to those walking through a waterless land he hints at the life-giving power and operation of the Holy Spirit, and the spiritual consolation that comes through him, what follows will make clear.

'For I will put my Spirit,' he says, 'upon your seed, and my blessings upon your children.'

And we say that the seed and children of the holy apostles are those who through them have been called to the knowledge of the truth and to spiritual regeneration, whereby they beget them anew not of corruptible seed, but through the living and abiding word of God, and through the operation of the Holy Spirit himself.

The all-inspired Paul accordingly writes to those who had been called through him, and says:

'For though you have countless tutors in Christ, yet you have not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begot you through the Gospel.'

And we shall find everywhere that they call 'children' those who through them have come to believe in him.

'I will therefore put,' he says, 'my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessings upon your children.'

And by 'blessings' we say are meant those things bestowed by God upon the saints — the manifold variety of the spiritual gifts.

For to one is given a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge, and the things that follow upon these.

And the all-wise Paul writes somewhere that 'each of you has his own gift from God.' Then, what benefit the blessings might bring, he made plain by adding: 'They shall spring up like grass amid water, and like a willow beside flowing water.'

Grasses and plants that are in waterless places rise up altogether slowly, and when they have risen up they straightway wither.

But exceedingly flourishing are those beside which lies a gushing of streams and a flow of waters sustaining them unto life; and an evergreen plant is the willow, ever growing beside springs and rivers.

'Being therefore drunken,' he says, 'with the spiritual streams, those who have become rich in these things will confess that they alone know me, and will inscribe as God the one who called them.'

By saying that 'this one shall say, I am of God,' and 'this one shall cry out,' and 'another shall inscribe,' he signifies the multitude of those who run to them through faith in Christ.

For not a mere people shall be called, but rather the whole multitude of the nations that dwell beneath the sun, and all shall confess that they have become God's, and shall inscribe him as Saviour and Redeemer; and they shall thenceforth bear the name of Jacob — that is, that they are the measured portion and the inheritance of God.

'For the Lord's portion,' he says, 'became his people, Jacob the measured line of his inheritance, Israel.'

And we who have believed boast in having become God's inheritance and the portion of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of us all.

'Thus says the Lord God, the King of Israel, who delivered him, the God of hosts:'

'I am the first, and I am after these things;'

'Who is like me? Let him stand up, and call, and prepare himself for me, from the time when I made man for ever.'

'And let them declare to you the things that are coming before they come.'

'Hide not yourselves, and I declared it to you.' Having made mention, through the readings just now set before us, of the knowledge that is in Christ, he shifts his discourse to another of the necessary matters.

For since at that time in which the inspired prophet Isaiah composed for us these words concerning such matters, while a God-hated man reigned over them, they had also fallen into intolerable transgressions —

for to each one whatever seemed good to him was a god and an object of worship —

God makes the exhortation necessary for them, woven together with most apt refutations,

removing them, on the one hand, from polytheism and from the sicknesses that lie therein,

and, on the other hand, summoning them through repentance unto the knowledge of the truth, and bringing them back to the remembrance of his glory and incomparable power.

'Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, who delivered him, the God of hosts':

...they were rescued from their rapacity, when he worked wonders and displayed the greatness of the power that dwells in him and of his surpassing excellence.

For what marvellous thing was not performed? What plague was not brought upon those who oppressed them? Or how could there fail to be a clear demonstration of his unutterable power — that the sea divided, that the waters stood fast as it were a wall, and that the fugitives passed through their midst? And what of the wonders wrought in the wilderness after this? Did he not give them bread from heaven? Did he not cleave a rock in the wilderness, and give them drink as from a great abyss? And did he not bring down waters like rivers? Did he not, laying as it were a bridle upon the streams of the Jordan, make ready for them to pass over on foot? Necessarily, therefore, he here calls himself not simply Lord and God;

and he added, 'and who delivered him,' bringing them back, as I said, to the remembrance of the marvellous things accomplished on his account.

'Know therefore,' he says, 'that I am God the first, and I am after these things, and besides me there was no God.'

For God is the beginning of all things, being himself without beginning, and from him all things were brought forth into being;

he himself, then, came to be by no one, but is the one who is and who shall be.

For this is his name and his everlasting memorial for generations of generations.

Neither, therefore, was there another God before him, nor shall there be any after him.

For God is one by nature, and there is none other beside him.

And exceedingly useful is the exhortation to those who had denied him, and out of very great senselessness had slipped into supposing that there are many gods.

That none is according to him — that is, no other —

...can be reckoned alongside him, he plainly shows by saying:

'Who is like me? Which then of the gods supposed by you, or rather senselessly named, shall there be according to my glory and power? Out of what mighty work have you come to believe that they are gods? Let someone stand up, if indeed he is according to me.'

'Let someone bring forward one who possesses a nature of equal weight, whether in strength or in glory.'

'Let them call whichever of the falsely-named gods they may choose, from the time when I made man for ever.'

'For I created,' he says, 'the heavens and the things in them, having countless hosts of holy spirits worshipping and serving me; but from the time I made man upon the earth, and in the times that follow — that is, for ever — let someone show me one that is according to me.'

And by saying again, 'from the time I made man,' he shows himself to be Creator, and the falsely-named gods to be altogether nothing.

'For whom of those who worship them have they brought forth into being? Rather, I am recognized as being Creator, and Fashioner of all things, and possessing the knowledge of all.'

'Search this out among the gods spoken of by you: let them declare to you the things that are coming before they come.'

For it would befit God according to his nature to possess all the knowledge both of things already past and of things to come.

But if none among the falsely-named gods is found to have obtained this, is it not evident that those who do not have the knowledge of God could not be gods?

'Hide not yourselves' — meaning, 'Be not silent, nor feign indifference.'

'Did you not from the beginning give ear, and I declared it to you?' For as one who is God by nature, and knows all things to come and things already past, I foretold it to you through the holy prophets, through the all-wise Moses.

For I unveiled the mystery of Christ, and there is nothing of what was fitting to become manifest, and to come to the knowledge even of us ourselves, which has not been foretold beforehand by me.

Those, therefore, are not gods, having obtained nothing of the things that pertain to God.

But I am by nature that which I am believed to be — God, evidently of all things, and possessing a generation befitting God.

The word, therefore, leads into the mysteries those who have been carried away from the true vision of God, and have inclined toward lifeless idols, and who say to the wood:

'You are my father,' and to the stone:

'You begot me.' You are witnesses whether there is a God besides me. Again he brings back to remembrance the power and authority displayed to them, such as would befit the one who is truly God by nature and Lord of all, when they were redeemed from the land of the Egyptians.

...he rose up against the perversity of those who oppressed them, for they were smitten with transformations of the elements —

For the water was changed into blood, and a deep darkness three days long was stretched out.

And the heaven poured down hail upon them, and gnats and frogs and dog-flies, and the death of the firstborn was brought upon them; and they passed through the midst of the sea.

And when they hastened into the land of promise, they conquered many nations, and mightier than the strength that was in them, and became formidable and hard to withstand for the neighbouring nations, and objects of dread and renown even to those far off.

Therefore not others rather, but you yourselves would know the things concerning your own selves: who it was that accomplished these things, who it was that had creation as a fellow-soldier in the things concerning you, who it was that shattered the powers of your enemies and crowned you with victories over all.

You are the witnesses of my surpassing excellence, if only you would choose to think rightly, and you will not need other tutors.

For among the Egyptians the gods were very many, and the shrines they kept were crowded with images.

And in like manner there were very many among the Amorites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, and the other nations.

Yet not one of those gods is seen to have availed for the salvation of its own worshippers;

rather, you crushed together the very objects of worship along with their worshippers.

For it was decreed through Moses: 'You shall tear down their altars, and shatter their pillars, and burn the graven images of their gods with fire.'

Therefore, if you would choose to speak the truth, bear witness to me: is there any God besides me?

For if any has risen up against my powers and prevailed, let him be reckoned by you as a god.

But if they have been exposed as being nothing at all, and have become the work of fire at your hands, then by that very experience you have known, he says, that there is no God except me, who alone am truly God.

'And they did not then hearken, both those who fashioned and those who carved; all are vain, those who make the things of their own desire, which shall not profit them;'

'but they shall be put to shame, those who fashion a god and carve what is unprofitable; and all, as many as were made, were dried up, and are deaf, apart from men.' Through these words he declares grievous and altogether severe the charges against the apostates, seeing that, though they possessed such full assurance that there is no other besides him who is by nature and in truth God,

yet, as though persuaded out of the very things which had been accomplished that he alone exists, they nonetheless slid down into such folly that—even when the very Law openly cried out to them and said:

'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve, and you shall not make for yourself an idol, nor any likeness of the things that are in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth'—they counted obedience to him as nothing worth;

but turned instead, in godless fashion, to the shaping and fashioning of gods out of wood and stone.

Vain, then, are such men, and very rightly so, since they proceed to this for no necessary cause, but rather make the things of their own fancy; for they have become lovers of vanity.

For what benefit is there from stone and wood? The making of an idol, then, would clearly be understood as the fruit of senseless counsel and the work of frigid imaginings.

Yet that the matter is not without penalty, he had already declared, saying:

'They shall all be put to shame, those who fashion a god and carve what is unprofitable; and all, as many as were made, were dried up, and are deaf, apart from men.'

Now if the words spoken be taken as referring to the hand-carved things themselves, we say that 'were dried up' is to be understood in the sense of 'were destroyed.'

But if it be laid against those who are accustomed to do such things, it would be well to understand it thus also:

for it is spoken as of plants that are wont to bear no fruit—if they are somehow withered away and thereafter cut down for flame and burning.

And the phrase 'deaf, apart from men' stands for: 'being no longer counted among men, but rather deaf and utterly senseless,' so as in no way to resemble those from whom they came.

For the blessed Psalmist somewhere sings and says:

'The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of men's hands.'

'They have a mouth, and shall not speak;'

'eyes, and shall not see;'

'ears, and hear not.' And he adds to these:

'Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them.' For such evils as these might be understood as the fruits of the uttermost insensibility.

And yet, having known by that very experience the God who is by nature and in truth, and then sending up to stones and pieces of wood the glory most fitting to him alone—how could they not be reckoned as fools, and heartless, and having their heart filled to the brim with utter stupefaction, and this though they differ but little from the very things fashioned by their own hands? 'Let them all be gathered together, and let them stand at once, and let them be confounded, and let them be put to shame together, because the smith sharpened iron, wrought it with an adze, and bored it with a drill.'

'He wrought it with the arm of his strength, and shall hunger, and shall grow faint, and shall drink no water.' Not one by one merely, but—if they should so choose—gathered even in a multitude, he says the servants of idols shall be put to confusion by their own ill counsels, and shall be unable to solve the question set before them. And what that question is, he straightway adds, saying:

'The smith,' he says, 'sharpened iron.'

For if it were a god, it would not have had need of craft, nor of any skill.

But if you deem wood that is unwrought and unshaped to be worthless matter, yet, once it has been fashioned by the carpenter, you worship it and call it a god, then craft has become your god—and that the craft of a weak man, subject to corruption.

For the need of food and drink is proof of corruptibility.

For the phrase 'shall drink no water,' we affirm, was not spoken by way of assertion.

Rather it is to be read as in a question and with a half-pause.

For the sense will follow, that assuredly and in every way he will also drink.

The worship of those who go astray, then, is a display of the adze and the drill, and of the carpenter's strength and craft—

if indeed it be true, as I said, that they would not choose to worship wood or stone unshaped;

but once a form has been turned upon it, all the things they behold are gods in their eyes.

'The carpenter, having chosen wood, set it up by measure, and framed it with glue, and made it like the form of a man, and like the beauty of a man, to set it up in a house.'

'He cut down wood out of the forest, which the Lord planted—a pine, and the rain made it grow, that it might be for men to burn; and taking of it he warmed himself, and having kindled it they baked loaves upon it, and the rest they wrought into gods, and they worship them;'

'half of which he burned in the fire, and having kindled it he baked loaves upon it, and roasting flesh upon it he ate and was filled, and being warmed he said:'

'It is pleasant to me that I am warmed and have seen the fire.'

'The rest he made into a graven god, and he worships it and prays to it, saying:'

'Deliver me, for you are my god.'

'They knew not how to understand, for they were darkened so as not to see with their eyes, nor to understand with their heart.'

'And he did not consider in his heart, nor did he reflect in his soul, nor did he know with understanding, that the half of it he burned in the fire, and baked loaves upon its coals, and roasting flesh he ate, and the rest of it he made into an abomination, and they worship it.'

'Know that their heart is ashes, and they go astray, and no one is able to deliver his own soul.'

'See, will you not say that there is a lie in my right hand?' Very clear indeed is the meaning of the words set forth, and there is nothing difficult in them.

For the idolater—and moreover the craftsman—is described as heartless, and as having become void of all understanding, and as wholly deprived of the reasoning that is fitting.

And he dwells at length upon the accounts concerning him,

putting them to shame as men gone astray, and opening the eye of those who are caught in the evil, and persuading them to look upon the truth itself—which, if they should take it to heart, they will be outside the snare, and will deliver their own heads from the wounds that come of folly.

For in these matters the word seems to us to devise something both piercing and wise, and, not being ill-equipped to be able to persuade many, it would move them to depart from the error of polytheism, and rather to choose to be under God, who is such by nature and in truth.

'For a carpenter,' he says, 'having chosen wood, set it up by measure, and framed it with glue;'

'he made it like the form of a man, and like the beauty of a man, to set it up in a house.'

The craft, he says, of those who are wont to make gods would then be deemed most of all worthy of every wonder, whenever it works into the wood the form and comeliness of a man.

But that which is wrought by someone in imitation of some other thing falls altogether short of the true, or comes behind it.

Therefore those who worship pieces of wood or stone shaped into the form of a man would be caught worshipping their own form, and, though being far better than the imitations, they outrage their own nature by assigning the superior glory to those things.

The charges of Scripture, then, are of the uttermost insensibility and of folly carried to the extreme.

For he sets up in a house—that is, in a temple—the wood which he cut down out of the forest.

By these things he shows plainly that those who are wont to make gods have not even been ignorant of the material out of which they came into being—lest they should say, after the custom of the Greeks, that the things set up in the shrines are fallen from heaven and self-generated, that is, self-born.

And that they mistake the purpose of God's creation, he refutes by saying that the wood was planted in a forest and reared by the supply of rains, that it might be for men to burn;

but those who make gods of the things that came into being for burning shall themselves, together with them, become food for the fire.

He all but strikes them with amazement, saying that half of it he burned in the fire and spent upon his own needs;