Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 55/65

for he redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse on our behalf; and in that which he himself suffered, being tempted, he has come to the help of those who are tempted; and he suffered outside the city, that he might sanctify the people by his own blood.

Therefore—for I will say it yet again—the passion of Christ, and the precious cross, and the nailing of his hands, have become a security, and a wall unapproachable and unbreakable for those who have believed in him.

Therefore he might fittingly say the words: 'Behold, upon my hands I have painted your walls.'

You will understand the piercing of the hands, that is, the passion, as being made plain through this one thing.

And the word 'I have painted' stands in place of 'I have imprinted,' he says.

'And you are before me continually.'

For if he suffered on our behalf, how could he forget us? Or how could they fail to be in his eyes, for whom he was nailed to the tree? And if anyone should wish to approach the meaning of the matters set before us in yet another way, I think there is nothing improbable in conceiving some such thing:

one might say, I think, that all who have believed in Christ are in the hands of God the Father, and one would not err from the truth.

'My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me.'

'And I give to them eternal life.' And moreover to these things, that 'No one shall snatch them out of the hand of my Father,' inasmuch as they are indeed under the shelter above, and well fortified as with a tower by the help from on high.

Since, then, all are in the hands of God the Father—who, as it were, upholds us and saves us and keeps us with himself, and does not allow us to be carried off anywhere to things that are unlawful, nor indeed to be brought low by the perversities of those who plot against us, that is, to become the prey of diabolical malice—nothing prevents us from understanding that the walls of Zion also are, as it were, painted upon his own hands; that is to say, wrought toward spiritual elegance, and having a beauty in that they are clearly discerned by every virtue.

evangelists, appointed to this by God, and having their purpose held firm and unwavering with him.

For their names had been written in the heavens, and they have been set down also in the book of the living.

And do not be amazed if he says that the saints are the enclosures and walls of the Church.

For he himself is the wall and the encircling rampart;

being also the whole security of those who have believed in him, he has given to the holy mystagogues, as it were in the rank of a splendid dignity, to be called the walls of his Church.

'And you shall quickly be built up,' he says, 'by those by whom you were pulled down.'

For the Jews—that is, the teachers of the Jews—pulled down the earthly Zion, that is, their own mother, carrying her away from Christ, and teaching that the faith was to be held as unacceptable.

But just as the Jews pulled her down, so again the divinely inspired disciples, being themselves Jews, raised her up—she being clearly transformed, no longer remaining what she was, that is, disobedient and slayer of the Lord, but rather distinguished in faith, that is, plainly the faith which is in Christ.

'But those who laid her waste went out from her.'

For the first teachers were cast out, and others stood up in their place, whom we have just now mentioned;

'You shall appoint them rulers over all the earth, and they shall remember your name in every generation and generation. Lift up your eyes round about, and see all of them.'

'Behold, they have gathered together, and have come to you.'

For when they were disobedient, the Church from among the Gentiles was brought in alongside, which we also say is the spiritual Zion.

But those others too shall be called, and they shall be one flock, one shepherd, so that no longer are two Zions named, but both are perfected into one Church, having come under the hand of the one chief Shepherd of all.

And that these things shall altogether and in every way come to pass, he gives full assurance, saying to the mother of the Jews:

'Lift up your eyes round about, and see all of them.'

'Behold, they have been gathered together, and have come to you.'

'As I live, says the Lord, you shall clothe yourself with them all, and put them about you as the ornament of a bride.'

For they had been scattered, as no longer having a shepherd standing over them.

For it has been said somewhere, through one of the holy prophets, as from the person of Christ:

'And I said, I will not shepherd you;'

'let that which dies, die, and that which fails, fail, and the rest'

'let each one eat the flesh of his neighbor.'

For that which has utterly fallen away from the sparing care and love that come from God—what harm would it not suffer? For they shall be set upon by those who wish to tear them apart, and to carry them off wherever it seems good to each of the wrongdoers.

And the wicked and destructive demons carry them away from God.

What then does the divine word promise in these matters? A calling and a gathering together of the scattered, and the turning back in the Spirit of those who were lost, and the return of the runaways, both a conversion and an awakening, and the rewards of love toward Christ.

'For look,' he says, 'and behold them all.'

'Behold, they have been gathered together to you.'

And that he might render the promise trustworthy, he confirms what has been said with an oath, and says:

'As I live, says the Lord, you shall clothe yourself with them all as the ornament of a bride.'

For the whole company is the adornment of the churches.

For just as the manifold and most costly of stones—I mean those of India—set in settings of gold, accomplish a wondrous and admirable adornment,

So too the souls of the saints, adorned with the boasts that come from the virtues, flash forth a radiant beauty in the eyes of the Godhead, so that each one, giving thanks to Christ, says:

'Let my soul rejoice greatly in the Lord.'

'For he has clothed me with a garment of salvation, and put upon me a coat of gladness; as upon a bridegroom he has set on me an ornament, and as a bride he has decked me with a headdress.'

'For your desolate places, and your perverted and fallen places, shall now be too narrow because of those who dwell in you, and those who swallowed you up shall be removed far from you.'

'For the children whom you had lost shall say in your ears:'

'The place is too narrow for me; make room for me, that I may dwell.'

'And you shall say in your heart:'

'Who has begotten these for me? For I was childless and a widow.'

'And who has reared these for me? For I was left all alone.'

'And where were these of mine?' As from matters that are visible and more manifest, he now also weaves the form of his discourse:

when Israel had disbelieved and laid hands upon Christ himself, the whole land of the Jews was laid waste, and together with it Jerusalem, and the very temple, were burned with fire; and so great a scarcity of men took hold of Judaea that the blessed prophet Isaiah in many places declared this very thing in riddling fashion.

For he said that 'Seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and clothe ourselves with our own garments; only let your name be called upon us.'

'Take away our reproach.' For it was said through the Law: 'There shall not be one that is barren, nor a childless woman, among the sons of Israel.' And they counted the reproach of childlessness as unbearable.

So then, since the war had consumed the entire male race, and only a very few were left altogether, he said that seven women would be received by one man, in order to take away from them the reproach, that is, the childlessness.

And since it was burdensome for seven women to please one man, they promise to eat their own bread and to clothe themselves with their own garments, as needing absolutely nothing at all from him.

So then, since their land had fallen into utter desolation, he promises a release from what had befallen, and he says that the desolate and fallen places shall be too narrow because of those who dwell there.

Namely, when those who had swallowed her up had been removed far off — and it is clear that these are those who had been allotted to be her leaders —

who all but, like certain wild beasts, destroyed and swallowed her up.

'For your children,' he says, 'whom you had lost, shall say in your ears, Make room for me.'

And it has been said somewhere also to the spiritual Zion:

'Enlarge the place of your tent, and fix firmly the curtains of your dwellings.'

'Do not spare; stretch out yet further to the right and to the left.' And we have read also in the books of Moses that around the tent in the wilderness — made, I mean, of the skins — broad and long courts were set in place, some looking toward the dawn and the sun's ray, others toward the west behind the tent, and indeed toward the north and the south, the type foreshadowing what would come to pass in due seasons — namely the breadth and length of the sacred courts, that is, of the churches.

Nevertheless, even so, as the grace that is from Christ ever increases, the places are everywhere too narrow for those who have believed, so that one may reckon the Church — which is the spiritual Zion — to be rejoicing, and crying out within herself:

'Who has begotten these for me?' And I would say that it is faith in Christ.

This it is that has reared for you your peoples; and you who long ago were left all alone have unexpectedly grown rich, and are seen to be blessed with many children — you who long ago were naked and alone.

'Behold, I lift up my hand to the nations, and I will raise my signal to the islands, and they shall bring your sons in their bosom, and shall carry your daughters upon their shoulders.'

'And kings shall be your foster-fathers, and their princesses your nurses upon the face of the earth.'

'And they shall bow down to you, and shall lick the dust of your feet.'

'And you shall know that I am the Lord, and you shall not be ashamed nor confounded.' Having promised Zion that she would be blessed with many and goodly children, and that her offspring would come to such a multitude that she would need places broader than of old, and would call upon the tent to be enlarged, he shows straightway that the multitude of the children promised to her would appear not so much from Israel as from the flock of the nations.

And the thing is true, and it may be seen through the very facts.

For the remnant of those from Israel has been saved;

but this is small and easily numbered;

yet all that is under heaven has been caught as in a net through faith in Christ, and the power of the apostolic and evangelical proclamations has brought to him those throughout all the earth.

So then, to show that this would be so, he declares, saying:

'Behold, I lift up my hand to the nations.'

Now 'I lift up' signifies 'I exalt' and 'I raise on high.'

And the 'hand' would indicate strength, that is, power.

For when Christ was made known to the nations through the evangelical proclamations, he became lofty and illustrious through the wonders he wrought, and through the resurrection from the dead, when the signal of the precious Cross was displayed, and among those who once did not know the one who is by nature and truly God — then Zion grew rich in her many children, then from every side men came running headlong toward her, calling out to one another and saying:

'They shall bring your sons in their bosom, and shall carry your daughters upon their shoulders.'

For the blessed disciples became as nurturers to those from the nations, and those after them who still hold forth the word of the sacred mystagogy and preside over the Churches.

For those who draw near to the faith they all but take up in their bosoms, and lift up and carry upon their shoulders, laying upon them nothing burdensome, but nourishing them as with milk in a manner suited to infants, and setting before them the simple and easily surveyed word of catechesis.

This again the prophet Isaiah himself taught us, saying elsewhere somewhere:

'The way of the godly has become straight, and prepared is the way of the godly. For the way of the Lord is judgment.'

And he has brought in also the inspired Baptist, crying out and saying:

'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God.'

'Every ravine shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough into smooth ways.' So then, that the coming through faith would be without any sweat at all, for those eager to go to Zion as to a mother, the being taken up into their bosoms and carried upon their shoulders, of both her sons and indeed her daughters, would signify.

And that they would be full also of the highest honor, of glory and of well-being, he further declares, saying that 'Their kings shall be foster-fathers, and the princesses nurses.'

For it is possible, indeed possible, to see those who have believed in Christ being ministered to with honor through the godliness of the rulers, and deemed worthy of all consideration, so that these seem rather to be their nurturers, and nothing else.

For if they fall upon their face and worship Zion — that is, the Church — and, as it were, cast to the ground with hands outstretched, all but even lick the dust of her feet;

then, being adorned with glory, would they not add to their own pursuits also the duty of honoring the chosen ones, and would they not reckon in the rank of children those who might believe in Christ? And when this has come to pass, no longer as one childless and a widow shall she be put to shame — Zion, who as regards the Jews had been made childless — but she shall be crowned with glory.

'Will anyone take spoils from a giant? And if anyone takes captives unjustly, shall he be saved?' The form of the discourse feigns a question, yet it demands understanding.

And the sense of what is set forth is something of this sort:

For all that is under heaven had been seized by the devil and the flock of the demons;

there was not one upon the earth who had escaped the tyranny of their malice.

For there was none that did good, there was not even one, but one net of sin was stretched over all, and darkness and gloom, having fallen upon the hearts of all, carried them away from knowing the one who is by nature and truly God, and consigned them to those who had prevailed over them.

At any rate they worshipped — some, the creation instead of the Creator, and the elements of the world; others actually served those very ones who laid upon them their unbearable rapacity.

So then they became, as under a harsh tyrant, spear-won and captive, and as regards the mind within them, subject to the one who had subdued them.

But there was absolutely no one able to come to the aid of those who had been wronged.

At any rate he said, puffed up into uncontrollable presumptions: 'I will seize the whole inhabited world in my hand as a nest, and I will take it up as eggs that have been left behind, and there is none that shall escape me or gainsay me.'

Since the devil bore such haughtiness against those on earth, the Savior inquires and says, 'Will anyone take spoils from a giant?' — which is a hard thing, he says, and difficult to accomplish, to overcome the strong one (for by 'giant' here he names the strong one) and to take spoils from him.

'But I,' he says, 'will take, and will deliver those who have been wronged, and having broken the yoke of their slavery, I will make them radiant with the grace of freedom.'

Moreover, that the just decree of God will despoil Satan, and will exact penalties from the wretch for the offenses committed against us, he confirms by further adding, 'And if anyone takes captives unjustly, shall he be saved?'

For again we shall take the verse as in a question and with a comma.

For he who unjustly leaps upon those who have wronged him in nothing, and then takes these captive and casts them into inescapable miseries, shall not be saved, but rather shall have exacted from him the penalties for the things he has dared.

Therefore he will release those in the rank of spoils, that is, those who had become spear-won by them, but he will still owe an account for those who had come under them not by right.

Something of this sort he says also elsewhere somewhere:

'As a garment defiled with blood shall not be clean, so neither shall you be clean, because you have destroyed my land and slain my people; you shall not remain for everlasting time.'

And one may remind those who will meet with this writing that the Savior himself is found saying something of this kind in the evangelical oracles:

'Or how can anyone,' he says, 'enter into the house of the strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first bind the strong man, and then he will plunder his house?' For by the house of the strong man — that is, of Satan — he meant the earthly region, and not as being his in truth, but because it had been seized by him.

But when the Word, having become flesh, entered into it, and by unspeakable power bound the strong man, he transferred to himself his goods — that is, those who once held to his mind.

Just as we call the saints vessels of election, so also we call vessels of the devil those who have come to be under him and who have chosen to think his thoughts—or rather, who have been constrained to do so.

'If anyone takes a giant captive, he shall receive the spoils.'

Employing means ineffable and befitting God, our Lord Jesus Christ entered into the house of the strong one—that is, He came into this world in the flesh—and the one who of old had preyed upon and done violence to men throughout all the earth, subjecting them to the yokes of sin and reducing them to the condition of prisoners of war, Him He despoiled; and casting him, as it were, into unbreakable bonds and consigning him to chains of gloom in Tartarus, He handed him over to be kept for the judgment of the great day, to be punished. And after this He despoiled him yet again, persuading those who had come to be under him to run back the other way, namely, to be willing to be subject to the God who is truly God, to hold fast to His beckonings, and to hasten to accomplish what leads them to the finding of salvation.

But since Christ has prevailed, He has transmitted the victory to us ourselves as well—yet not apart from Him;

for He Himself is the boast of the strength of the saints, according to the word of the Psalmist.

And indeed the all-wise Paul says:

'I can do all things,' he says, 'in Christ who strengthens me.' Therefore, showing that even for us the power to despoil the strong one—that is, the giant, by which I mean Satan—is, so to speak, an easy course to ride,

'If anyone takes a giant captive,' he says, 'he shall receive the spoils.'

For when we get the better of the devil's strength and escape the assaults of our enemies—having Christ Himself as, in a general sense, the weapon of good pleasure—then we despoil the evil one, carrying off the vote of victory and being shown to be superior to the malice and wickedness that reside in him.

Nevertheless, that the power to conquer would come to those who play the man from Christ, and that no one could otherwise attain to this glory, he shows very clearly by adding:

'And receiving from the strong one, he shall be saved.'

And Christ Himself, too, having despoiled Satan, said somewhere that the road can be trodden smoothly and be easy to ride for those who believe in Him, declaring:

'Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.' It is true, then, that having received from the strong one—that is, from Him, for He is Himself the Lord of hosts—we have both been saved and have conquered.

But one might also despoil Satan in another way, by skilfully bringing back those who have come to be under him and have been led astray into the light of true knowledge of God, and by transferring them from baseness to a holy manner of living.

'But I will plead your cause, and I will deliver your sons; and those who afflicted you shall eat their own flesh, and shall drink their own blood as new wine, and they shall be drunken; and all flesh shall perceive that I am He who delivers you and upholds the strength of Jacob.' He frames the words as addressed, I say, to Zion.

And by her 'sons' in these words He seems to name the holy apostles and evangelists, and those who after them were still called to the sacred ministry;

who indeed became luminaries in the world, holding forth the word of life, and proclaiming everywhere the glory of Christ, and making manifest to all throughout the whole earth the power of the salvation that is from Him—men against whom there lay in wait, like some cruel and savage beast, the dragon who is the author of evil, heaping tribulations and persecutions upon them, and unbearably whetting on the shield-bearers of the wickedness that dwells in him.

Persecutions, at any rate, were attempted very many times against the holy Churches, and the cruelty of tyrants, savagely leaping upon them, carried off many into the contests of martyrdom;

and we say that this is the Church, which indeed He also calls Zion;

'I will plead your cause, and I will deliver your sons.'

Nevertheless, as far as concerns the intent of those who plotted against them, they died and perished.

Therefore the judgment upon these matters—that is, a righteous judgment—will in every way and altogether be from God.

For those who for piety's sake swam through the most glorious contests, and attained to the prize of the upward calling, shall be crowned with the crown of incorruption;

but those who brought persecution upon them and unjustly slew those whom it were rather better to be zealous to emulate, shall eat their own flesh, and shall gulp down not so much the blood of those who suffered as, rather, their very own.

For what they brought upon others they shall not suffer in the same measure of justice, but rather by the righteous vote of God, who crowns those who suffered, yet subjects the wrongdoers to long and unending punishment.

And such a righteous judgment will be most clearly known to all flesh—that is, to every human being.

For they shall be among those who are in danger for piety's sake.

namely, that the help from Me shall in every way and altogether uphold you, Jacob—you whom I also strengthen; that is, him who is of the seed of Jacob.

I have said that the prophetic word in these passages is written, as it were, in the person of the holy apostles and evangelists, who were of Jacob—according, I mean, to the flesh.

Nor is it improbable that everyone should be named Jacob—that is, the one who supplants Satan and skilfully, and at the same time vigorously, drives off the snares of sin.

For 'Jacob' is interpreted 'supplanter.'

'What is the bill of your mother's divorce,

by which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors have I sold you? Behold, for your sins I sent your mother away.' Now the Divine is bodiless, immaterial, invisible, and simple.

And no one, acting fittingly concerning Him, would take up any bodily imagination.

Nevertheless the sacred Writing speaks to us of the things concerning Him in a human manner.

For those who are in simple and gross bodies could not otherwise be able to conceive.

Except that things pertaining to us are brought forward as it were in the order of examples, so that from things perceptible and visible we might be able, at least in part, to conceive the things concerning the divine and supreme Essence, which is also beyond all bodily imagination.

Observe, then, in these words, that the discourse has become suited to man for the prophet's sake.

For like some man dwelling with a wife and joined to her, He converses with the peoples of the Jews, and speaks concerning their mother;

I mean the earthly and perceptible Jerusalem;

so that again through her, and as in the person of a single woman, their whole body might be understood.

For just as, when we say 'Church,' we are not accustomed to apply the force of the word to the enclosures of walls, but rather signify the most holy multitude of those within it who have chosen to worship God rightly;

so also, if anyone should say 'the mother of the Jews,' again he no less signifies them themselves.

'Therefore it is not I,' He says, 'who have cast away your mother, though I had become to her as it were in the rank of a bridegroom, and had sown the seeds of righteousness through the law and the prophets;

rather, she herself departed, making light of what was just toward Me, and reckoning it of almost no account at all to be with God.

Since what bill of divorcement has been given to her by Me? For God sends no one away from intimacy with Himself;

and He casts off none of those who are accustomed to walk uprightly;

but to those who would be genuine toward the faith and skilled in every good work, to these He grants the possibility of enjoying intimacy with Himself steadfastly and forever.

Outside such glory, however, comes the one who has a mind incongruous and incompatible with His divine oracles, and who is a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God.

Therefore, having dwelt with the mother of the Jews as in the rank of a husband,

'What,' He says, 'is the bill of your mother's divorce, by which I sent her away?' For no one could show, He says, that I rather thrust her out and hated her; rather he shall condemn her, as having of her own accord chosen the apostasy.

'And to which creditor was I in debt when I sold you?' Here the figure of the discourse is different.

For He converses as a master with servants.

'For surely,' He says, 'is it as a man pressed by want of money and fallen among creditors, that I sold to other masters those who are My own servants? And yet how is this not utterly foolish, either to think or to say? For the Divine is beyond necessity, and nothing at all is beyond the totality of what belongs to Him.'

'Therefore I did not sell,' He says, 'nor would I have handed over to other masters those who love Me and are attached to My oracles.

How then did you undergo the yoke of servitude to others? The occasion of the evil for you was sin.

For on account of this the father of sin

and inventor of all baseness took possession of you all;

seizing to himself those who fall away from intimacy with God, and casting them down into the pits of evils, and dragging them down onto the gallows-perch of Hades.

For it altogether follows for those who have slipped from intimacy with God, that they must be pierced through by inescapable snares.

For such are ever the wages of that one's malignity.

'Why is it that I came, and there was no man? I called, and there was none who obeyed? Is My hand not strong enough to deliver? Behold, by My rebuke I will make the sea desolate, and I will make rivers a wilderness, and their fish shall be dried up because there is no water, and they shall die of thirst.

And I will clothe the heaven with darkness, and make its covering as sackcloth.' Having very well set forth that the children of Zion—that is, those of the blood of Israel—and Zion herself, namely the earthly Jerusalem, had been sold by their own sins and cast out from intimacy with Him, He brings them under reproach, and writes an indictment of their utter madness together with their ignorance ending in ruin.

For when the Only-begotten shone forth in the flesh upon those on earth, and appeared in a form like ours, they impiously became forgetful both of the law and of the prophets, and remained hard and unyielding, and incurably sick with unruliness.

For they would not know the Redeemer, the ruler of salvation, who justifies the ungodly and is able to free from every charge those who are entangled in human infirmities.

'I came, therefore,' He says—that is, I became man and appeared to those of Israel—'and there was no man among them,' meaning of sound understanding and able to recognize the time of redemption.

'I called, and there was none who obeyed.'

For as the prophet Isaiah himself again says somewhere, in the person of Christ the Saviour of us all:

'I was found by those who sought Me; I became manifest to those who did not ask after Me.'

'I said, Behold, here I am, to a nation who did not know Me.'

'All the day long I stretched out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.' And indeed in the writings of the Gospels we shall very often find the Lord calling His own people to faith.

'Take My yoke upon you.' And at another time again He says:

'He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.' Yea moreover, showing that to believe in them is both fruitful and profitable, He declares: