Commentary on Isaiah 1 part 6/65

For just as the inhabitants of Sodom, being savagely diseased with unbridled lust in their desires and overcome by unnatural pleasures, set upon the blessed Lot, demanding for their abuse the men who had entered in unto him—all sense of shame being trodden underfoot by them, and unbroken shamelessness thenceforth prevailing—

in the very same manner, I think, the Jews also proclaimed their lawlessness, crying out aloud and saying to Pilate concerning Christ:

'Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him.' This cry of theirs He rebuked also through one of the prophets, saying:

'I have forsaken My house, I have abandoned My inheritance, I have given My beloved soul into the hands of her enemies.'

'My inheritance became to Me as a lion in the forest; she uttered her voice against Me; therefore have I hated her.'

'Woe to their soul, for they have taken evil counsel against themselves, saying:'

'Therefore they shall eat the fruits of their own works.'

'Woe to the lawless one; evil things shall befall him according to the works of his hands.' Now also the prophet bewails the multitudes of the Jews, and renders the causes of the lamentations over them.

'For they said,' he declares, 'within themselves:'

For they did not receive through faith Christ the Saviour of all, but continued to dishonour Him, and they truly supposed that He who had come for this purpose would be in no way useful to human life—that in Him all our affairs might become new, and that He might translate the sons of Israel by blood from a life under the Law into a spiritual one.

Therefore, supposing Him to be in no way useful, they bound Him over to death, so far as it lay with them, even though He rose again as God, having emptied Hades and destroyed the power of corruption.

For He is Life, and the giver of life.

Nevertheless they took counsel against Him, wishing to bind the Just One;

'and they shall eat also the fruits of their own works.'

For 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.'

And those who have gentle ways and a God-loving mind shall thereupon find good fruits;

but those who turn aside and are disobedient, and who fight against the divine glory, shall eat the fruits of their own works—that is, fire, and judgment, and punishment, and the things that come from wrath.

For such evils will assuredly follow upon those who have chosen to fight against God.

It is true, therefore, that 'woe to the lawless one; evil things shall befall him according to the works of his hands;'

for just as they delivered Jesus over to Pilate and to the untamed wrath of the soldiers, so also they themselves, he says, shall be delivered over to the armies of the Romans.

And indeed we shall find this same thing clearly stated also through the voice of Ezekiel.

For it was said to the unholy and Lord-slaying Jerusalem:

'As thou hast done, so shall it be unto thee.'

'Thy recompense shall be requited upon thine own head.'

{DISCOURSE III} 'O My people, your exactors glean you, and those who demand back have dominion over you.' Having most transparently and very plainly set forth beforehand that the land of the Jews shall sicken with the desolation of every good thing, and having fully declared what shall befall those who wantonly outraged Christ, he again persuades them beforehand to abstain from their transgressions, and with words of gentleness he all but charms them profitably, translating them to what is better, and teaching them to reject those who had become to them the authors of all evils.

For I do not think it right to be subject in love to those who have been allotted the office of guiding, if they attempt to teach nothing of the things that tend to profit, nor yet—

that it would be justly believed to deserve reproach to be ranked in the class of baseness.

For it is the virtue of a teacher to be able to bring those who are under his tutelage to an accurate knowledge of what is expedient; but it is to debase them to be of a nature that harms, and to command the shunning of that which is wont to work injustice.

And those who are numbered among the disciples would be worthy of all praise, if they should not look simply to the opinions of their teachers, but to the nature of things themselves, and admire their teachers—if any should be upright and knowledgeable and introducers of the best things—but blame those whose aim should not be such.

For some pasture their flocks of sheep in the mountains and glens;

but if a pit lie beside the beasts, or if there be a precipice in sight, the sheep go round about, and do not cast themselves down to death;

for it is guided as by an innate law towards the duty of sparing its own life.

How then is it not absurd that this should be seen to prevail in the irrational animals, but that in us ourselves, though we are rational, there should not be the knowledge of what is useful and necessary for life?

Therefore we ought, even if any of those appointed over us as teachers and guides should choose to lead us to what is not fitting, not simply to endure to love them, nor yet inconsiderately to follow after what seems good to them, but to examine each of the things to be done;

and to proceed to that which is most of all wont to benefit.

Now the guides of the Jews—that is, the Scribes and the Pharisees—were clever at gathering in the means of amassing money, and at collecting from the people the offerings, firstfruits, tithes, and all that the Law gave for an inheritance to those allotted to serve as priests.

And their aim, and that which was set before them with all diligence, was to persuade the people that they must keep the Law especially in these matters;

but of the other commandments there was not very much account among them.

Wherefore the Saviour Himself also said to them:

'Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye tithe the anise and the mint and the cummin,'

'and ye have left the weightier matters of the Law, judgment and mercy and faith.' They were then, therefore, lovers of gain and covetous of money, and at times they brought bitter penalties upon those who erred, in order that, terrifying those who were accused of anything whatsoever, they might persuade them to bring to them even things beyond their power at times.

Wherefore He says to those who were wronged by them:

'O My people, your exactors glean you, and those who demand back have dominion over you.' And by saying 'people,' He gives to understand that He still calls them Israel, so that if they should choose to go over to that which seems good to Him, they shall obtain gentleness and lovingkindness, and shall not utterly fall away from their intimate relationship with Him.

And by saying that the exactors glean them, He shows the magnitude of the insatiableness and love of gain that is in them.

For in the cornfields some cut off the ears with the iron sickle, while others, gathering up those that fall from the hand of the reaper, leave nothing in the fields.

And it is customary also for those who gather the grapes to do this.

'Your exactors, therefore, glean you,' He says. It is like saying:

'They have gathered in like a vintage your abundance, and their insatiableness does not stop at this;'

that is, they lay their hands even upon the things that are still left over.

And very well indeed, and fittingly to them, He says that they are not guides, not teachers, nor anything else of such a kind, but names them exactors and demanders.

But the aim of those who are in Christ was not of this kind.

The divinely-inspired Peter, therefore, writes to those who have been called to the office of oversight and have obtained the leading of the rational flocks, that they should tend them not as lording it over the allotted charges, but as becoming examples to the flock.

But the mystical word knows also of other tax-collectors, whom those who wish to live rightly must decline.

For the wicked and hostile powers all but exact from each one of those upon the earth their zeal for evil, and gather from us, as it were a kind of tribute, the inclination of the mind toward the passions.

And so the sacred word pronounces blessed those who have not heard the voice of the tax-collector;

for those who rise up against the desires of the flesh, and with a youthful and vigorous resolve thrust away the harm that comes from sin, and trample upon the principalities, and conquer the spirits of wickedness, have become stronger than the voice of the tax-collector.

'O my people, they that call you blessed lead you astray, and trouble the path of your feet.' He rouses them again to watchfulness, and desires that they be testers of matters, not simply lulled by smooth speeches into slothfulness.

For the Pharisees, going about the houses of the Jews, undertook to flatter them with fair words, and called them a blessed people and God's inheritance.

And perhaps somewhere they cried out to them the words spoken through Baruch:

'Blessed are we, O Israel, for the things pleasing to God are made known to us.' In order, then, that they might further bring in the offerings appointed for them by the law, and moreover the tithes, or rather firstfruits, they made a pretence of speaking kindly, and often wished to appear approachable, and cultivated a mild and pleasant demeanour;

but for the sake of gain and profit they even taught the people under their hand to relax the law itself.

Our Lord Jesus Christ therefore charged them with making void the commandment of God for the sake of their own tradition.

'They therefore lead you astray,' He says, 'those who call you blessed, and trouble the path of your feet.'

Leading them aside, as it were, from the straight way, they carry them down over cliffs and pits.

And the straight and level way is intimacy with Christ through faith.

But since the leaders of the Jews knew that, once the commandment given through Moses was abolished, they would be left outside of gains and profits, they troubled, as it were, the path of the feet of the people, adulterating the word of Christ and commanding them to cling to the shadows of the law.

For the wretched men dared to say:

'We know that God has spoken to Moses;

but as for this man, we do not know where he is from'; and again:

'If this man were from God, he would not have broken the Sabbath.' And what is yet more impious than these things, they impiously said to those who wished to hearken to Christ and to cleave to the words from Him:

and then holy men, indeed, and he pronounces blessed also as being now become friends of God, and as having ascended to the summit of every virtue.

Then, having engendered in them the passion of arrogance, he causes them to strike against God, and thereafter shakes them, as it were, some plant, from the very foundation.

For he was not ignorant that the God of all gives grace to the humble, but resists the proud.

We must therefore decline, as I said, those thoughts within the mind and heart that call us blessed.

For they do not permit us to run the straight way, by which one might come, and that very easily, to that which is pleasing to God.

'But now the Lord shall stand up for judgement, and shall place his people in judgement.'

'The Lord himself shall come into judgement with the elders of the people, and with its rulers.'

'But you, why have you burnt up my vineyard? And the spoil of the poor is in your houses. Why do you wrong my people, and put to shame the faces of the poor?' The prophet declares that the multitude of the wronged shall not be without help, nor indeed bereft of all care, but rather that the God of all shall most strongly champion them.

'And he shall trouble the path of their feet.'

For he redeemed his people from the house of bondage, and delivered them from the wickedness of their masters, raising up against them the whole creation.

And working changes of the waters into blood, and smiting them with hail, and with deep three-day darkness, and with all the rest.

For it would be long to recount each thing.

Then, having led them across through the midst of the sea, he fed them in the wilderness.

He brought them into the land of promise, removing great and most warlike nations like thorns.

'You brought a vine out of Egypt, you cast out the nations and planted it; you made a way before it;

you stretched out its branches unto the sea, and its shoots unto the rivers.' For Israel became, as the prophet Jeremiah says, a vine with goodly branches, and its fruit flourishing.

But those who obtained the office of leading were appointed as husbandmen;

yet they so wronged the Master's vineyard that it seemed by now to have been utterly burnt up.

This charge, therefore, He Himself will bring, saying:

'But you, why have you burnt up my vineyard?' For those whom it was fitting to make that spiritual and richly-branching vine — that is, Israel — even more precious, these very men brought it down to utter desolation, and rendered it dry and useless to the Master.

It has therefore been burnt up by those from whom it was fitting that it should be fair-clustered and laden with fruit, and beyond all harm.

But in what manner they are said to have burnt up the spiritual vineyard, how is it not worth seeing? For those who possessed the office of teaching, and knew the law that carries one to every single thing pleasing to God, ought above all others both to have lived most lawfully themselves, and to have adorned themselves exceedingly well with the boasts of righteousness, so that their life might become, as it were, a type and image of the excellent life for the peoples under their hand.

Then, in addition to this, they ought to have wished to lead those yoked under them, by the instruction of the law, toward every single good thing, and

to reprove those who transgressed, and by chastising to set them right, and to point out the way of godliness, and to train them toward better things, and to persuade them to look toward the goal of the law — I mean, Christ;

for Christ is the end of the law and the prophets. And concerning Him Moses spoke through shadow and types, foreannouncing to the men of old the august and great mystery.

But, having been heedless of all these things, they were themselves wicked in their ways, unbridled toward greed, immoderate in the love of gain, accounting the giving of right judgement worthy of very little regard;

and in those things at which it would have been better to blush, in these very things they were wont to boast.

The vineyard, therefore, has been burnt up, neither profited by the life of those who obtained the office of leading, nor indeed trained by the instructions of the law toward a right and blameless life — that is, toward the knowledge of Christ, and this too when He had already shone forth upon those on the earth, and said plainly:

'I am the light of the world, I am the way, and I am the truth.' Let them therefore hearken:

'But you, why have you burnt up my vineyard, and the spoil of the poor is in your houses? Why do you wrong my people, and put to shame the faces of the poor?' For they seized the poor in respect of understanding unto what seemed good to themselves, and caused their faces to be put to shame.

For just as those who care for righteousness stand, one might almost say, with a bright countenance and one full of much boldness in the eyes of God, so we say that the lovers of baseness have the face of the heart gloomy and cheerless, full of shame and confusion.

But just as he who trains toward understanding, and is a guide to the noblest things, benefits others, so, I think, any one whatever of those appointed as teachers does wrong, if he does not render the one being taught a lover of better things.

For he shames, as it were, his face, and, poor as he is toward understanding, all but forces and seizes him away toward baser things.

But the leaders of the Jews were also in another way unjust and rapacious, putting to shame the faces of the poor, but attaching themselves to the rich, though the law says:

'Judge righteous judgement,' and everywhere enjoining, 'You shall not respect a person in judgement.'

'Because the daughters of Zion were haughty, and walked with a lofty neck, and with beckonings of the eyes, and with the gait of the feet, at once trailing their tunics and toying with their feet, therefore God shall humble the ruling daughters of Zion, and the Lord shall uncover their fashion in that day.' The word has already declared to us that among the leaders of the Jews it was set as the foremost concern that they must be rich, and have the glory that is conspicuous in this.

And they were full of injustices and greed, so that they made their processions splendid both in the city and in the fields, riding upon horses, and being not moderately puffed up by the outward show of those who were wont to be their bodyguards.

For He charged them in the passages above, saying:

'And the land was filled with horses, and there was no number of their chariots;

and the land was filled with silver and gold, and there was no number of their treasures.'

Then it came about that the wives of those in wealth, inasmuch as they lived in luxury, sought to give themselves airs, and to take exceeding delight in adornments of gold and precious stones, and in embroidered raiment, and in the costliness of garments.

For somehow the female sex, in exceeding prosperity, is always fond of glory and given to display.

And most gladly does she deck herself in fine array, and moreover gilds herself with gold, and, raising her brow high, prides herself on the bloom of the body.

And upon this very thing, most often, the mind of those dwelling with them is puffed up;

and some make a glory of their own out of the wantonness of their women.

This, perhaps, is what the notable men of the Jews suffered, having been heedless of godliness toward God.

For in order that they might have the supplies of wealth ever remaining to them, while the peoples brought their offerings according to the law, they would not admit the faith in Christ, nor indeed did they wish others to believe, shutting up the kingdom of God, as it is written, and neither entering in themselves, nor allowing those who wished to enter.

For this very reason they were also given over to the Roman armies for desolation, for plunder, and they have been destroyed, together with their women, and their dearest ones, their houses and their wealth.

For the things they had gathered together with the utmost zeal have become another's;

but they themselves are seen as pitiable and wanderers, and reduced to the uttermost misery.

The discourse, then, inveighs against the women among them, that is, the daughters, and especially those of the ruling class and the more distinguished, who also belonged to the powerful; and it says:

'with an outstretched neck, and with beckoning eyes,' and what follows.

They were exalted not according to virtue, but as in a carnal and utterly earthbound mind.

For it seemed to them a great thing, as I have said, to pride themselves upon wealth, glory, and outward adornments, which they gather together from precious stones and gold and richly embroidered raiment.

In these words the prophetic discourse depicts for us the disposition and outward manner of a pleasure-loving and unseemly woman, decked out in gaudy adornment, exhibiting, as it were from a single one, the arrogance of every woman among them.

'For they walked,' he says, 'with an outstretched neck and with beckoning eyes.'

And yet for a most decorous woman, one who honours a life of gravity and modesty, modesty is above all things dear, and it would be fitting that she should not even be looked upon by the eyes of men.

But these women had run aground into such wantonness and shamelessness that they made a show of themselves in public thoroughfares, lifting their necks on high and beckoning to those who looked at them, at times smiling, and by their laughter all but promising to those who beheld them a rendezvous.

For the harlot's mind is ever fluid, and is greatly relaxed toward a readiness for pleasures; and he intensifies against them the charges of licentiousness, saying that they have played the harlot, at the same time trailing their tunics and playing with their feet.

And it was likely that they thought this too contributed to their adornment;

but the practice is that of a harlot, and a demonstration of the utmost abomination.

For where the stamping of the feet sounds in unison with well-rhythmed songs, there assuredly the clapping of the hands also resounds, and every kind of shameful practice, and an incitement of the onlookers to uncleanness.

At that season, then, he says, God will humble the ruling daughters of Zion, and will uncover their outward form—that is, either He will strip away their adornment, or He will lay their shame bare and open.

And this will come to pass when, made desolate and stripped of all adornment and covering, they fall into the hands of their enemies, slaves and captives, and filled with every misery.

'And the Lord will take away the glory of their raiment and of their adornment;

and their fringes, and their plaited work, and their crescent-shaped ornaments, and the necklace, and the adornment of their face, and the arrangement of their glorious apparel, and their armlets, and their bracelets, and the wreathed work, and the ornaments for the right hand, and the finger-rings, and the earrings, and the purple-bordered garments, and the garments shot with purple, and the mantles, and the household robes, and the transparent Laconian fabrics, and the fine linen, and the hyacinth-coloured, and the scarlet, and the byssus woven together with gold and hyacinth, and the trailing summer-garments.' Saying that their outward form shall be uncovered in that day, he goes through it precisely, and in what manner their outward state shall befall them.

For he further persuades them by adding that they shall be in want and in the loss of all those things that had been so daintily devised, and of that ancient prosperity and luxury; that they shall be stripped of every adornment, having cast off their fringes and crescent ornaments and the necklace and the things joined to these.

For to women who are good in mind and lovers of decorum, such practices are altogether hateful, together with those things by which they would be in an unseemly guise, which are to be shunned and abhorred; rather they have set it down that one ought to be praised through good deeds.

But as for the courtesans, to whom it seems dear to prostitute themselves and to be given over to lust, their mind has passed over into the entire opposite, and their eagerness is borne in the reverse direction.

With all zeal they beautify themselves, and gather from every quarter the things useful for this end.

And it would be fitting for each of such women to hear:

She is flighty and dissolute.

Solomon too makes mention of such an unseemly and flighty woman, saying:

'The woman who is a snare and a hunting-net—her heart is a fetter, her hands are bonds.'

Let this suffice for us, for the present, to be said concerning unseemly and wicked women.

But it must be known that, through the voice of Ezekiel, God addresses the Synagogue of the Jews as though to a single woman;

whom He says He adorned with manifold adornment.

And it stands thus written concerning her:

'And I spread my wings over thee, and covered thy nakedness, and I swore unto thee.'

'And I entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord Adonai, and thou becamest mine; and I washed thee in water, and washed away the blood from thee, and anointed thee with oil;

and I clothed thee with embroidered work, and shod thee with hyacinth, and girded thee with fine linen;

and I clad thee with fine woven hair-work;

and I adorned thee with adornment, and put bracelets about thy hands, and a necklace about thy neck.

And I put a ring in thy nostril, and rings about thine ears;

and a crown of boasting upon thy head.

And I adorned thee with adornment of gold and silver;

and thy garments were of fine linen, and fine woven work, and embroidered.' Therefore God brightens with manifold adornment the soul that is being made His own, and with the adornments that come from the virtues;

with such boasts He crowns her in manifold ways.

But for those who keep their manner of life blameless and continue in sanctification, the things of the spiritual comeliness shall be theirs in greater increase, and shall remain unshaken.

As for those who readily fall away into what is unbecoming, and lightly incline toward the works of baseness, it shall assuredly befall them to come into the loss of every good, and to sicken with the desolation of the things once granted them.

For she shall fall in with wicked and unclean lovers—the rulers of this age, and the world-rulers of this darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness, who especially hunt after virtuous souls.

For it is a delight to them to overthrow such souls.

Just so, no doubt, to hunters of birds too, the more beautiful of the little birds seem to be a prize worth taking.

And it is written somewhere concerning Satan, that his food is choice.

It follows, therefore, that we should be watchful and play the man together with God, and keep in mind the blessed Paul when he says, so that:

'O Lord, in Thy will Thou hast given power to beauty. And instead of a sweet fragrance there shall be dust;

and instead of a girdle, thou shalt be girded with a rope, and instead of the golden adornment of thy head thou shalt have baldness because of thy deeds;

and instead of the tunic shot with purple, thou shalt gird thyself with sackcloth.

And thy son, the most fair, whom thou lovest, shall fall by the sword.

And your mighty men shall fall by the sword, and shall be brought low; and the storehouses of your adornment shall mourn, and thou shalt be left alone, and shalt be dashed to the ground.' Not in vain, one might suppose, does the prophetic word here speak so finely and minutely, but it goes through in detail each of the things belonging to the women who lived voluptuously in pleasure—both the kinds of their adornment, and their former luxuries themselves.

Then, since it shall wholly and by all means come to pass that they suffer the loss of things so sweet, he wishes them to be so disposed as almost to melt away into griefs, and, into the remembrance of their prosperity, he gracefully brings them back as though already suffering, so that by the expectation of things to come, and by the terrors thence arising—nay rather by intolerable calamities—having swiftly struck them with dismay, he may transfer them to decorum, and persuade them to run back to what seems good to God.

It shall come to pass, then, he says, that those who so live voluptuously shall not merely be in the deprivation of adornment, but there shall be, instead of a sweet fragrance, dust—that is, instead of houses filled with incense, long and dusty journeys, as they are carried off into captivity on feet still tender.

And not this only, but they shall also be in a most utterly dishonoured guise and appearance, so as to be girded, instead of a golden girdle, with a mere rope, and in baldness of head—that is, in baldness—although of old her head had been bound up with golden fringes;

of a tunic shot with purple and of luxurious garments.

And to these things he adds: And thy son, the most fair, whom thou lovest, shall fall by the sword.

For it is the custom of those who capture a city or a country to snatch away females from it, and from their mothers' bosoms cruelly to slay the little suckling infants, so that their mothers might walk unburdened, and not be weighed down by care for their babes.

Therefore either in this manner he says the son beloved by them shall fall by the sword, or else fighting in another way, and having died by the hand of the enemy.

He said that the storehouses of their adornment shall mourn—not as though the perceptible storehouses were able to mourn, but as one might say that even a house mourns when no one dwells in it.

And to these he adds: And thou shalt be left alone, and shalt be dashed to the ground—that is, thou shalt become some pitiable and cast-down thing, and as it were lying on the ground.

For such, in some sort, is the life of those in captivity and wretchedness, and in harsh and intolerable slavery.

It is therefore an utterly dreadful thing to offend God, and to despise the beauty that is in souls.

For those who have declined exceedingly toward slothfulness, God removes from every adornment—clearly the spiritual—and, having shown them stripped of all virtue, He delivers them over to their enemies.

Thus we say that some have been given over to a reprobate mind, and to passions of dishonour.