Commentary on Zechariah 1 part 12/24

Of the words of God, those which concern moral and practical virtue can be put into action, while those which are gnostic and contemplative have their being in being beheld by contemplative and discerning men.

When, therefore, God through the hierophant Moses had given many commandments that works according to virtue should be done, those who understood the words given loudly confessed that they would turn the things enjoined into deeds, saying to the minister of the divine oracles:

All that God has said we will do and we will hear. But since it is fitting that, besides doing the moral precepts, one should also have understanding of them—so that the just may be pursued justly, and self-control with self-control, and courageous and prudent things courageously and prudently (for thus, with understanding, would the practical virtues be rightly accomplished)—indeed, then, one must both hear and do the words of Jesus, He Himself declaring this:

He that comes to Me and hears My words and does them shall be likened to a prudent man, and what follows.

And then above all do the words attain to being done by the hearers, when the instructor himself practises what he tells others; concerning such a one the Lord says:

concerning such a one the Lord says:

Whoever shall do and teach men, this one shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven—the one who does not do what he charges others to do being counted least; for while saying not to commit adultery he does this very thing, and forbidding theft he is entangled in it, but he even commits sacrilege while abhorring idols.

Or does he not commit sacrilege who, by causing a stumbling-block, harms those who have dedicated themselves to the worship of God, as though they were living divine statues? For he who harms such persons, by his most base deed and impious mind, truly commits sacrilege, transgressing the law in which he seems to boast, and dishonouring God.

So then, that no one may be an evil teacher, let him demonstrate in deeds the moral lessons he teaches; for thus will he be a workman that need not be ashamed.

for thus will he be a workman that need not be ashamed.

With this intent the Apostle writes to his own disciple that he should have incorruption, gravity, sound speech that cannot be condemned.

Or has he not sound, uncondemnable speech? For in doing what he prescribes to others, and thinking what he prepares others to hold, he has the word of his teaching sound and beyond condemnation.

To this life—I mean the practical and gnostic life—what follows in the prophet before us, Malachi by name, desires the true worshipper of God to be transformed; and his text runs thus:

and his text runs thus:

The lips of the priest shall guard knowledge, and they shall seek out the law from his mouth—longing to learn from the divine teacher the orthodox doctrines that must be known, and the mysteries of the kingdom, and the law that forbids injustices and enjoins the disciplines of the virtues.

Having learned what sort of words become practical when taken up by those who receive them, let us now consider what sort pertain to knowledge and truth.

When Moses teaches that in the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, he spoke this word so that we might truly know the creation and its Creator;

and however many other words of the Cosmogony were recorded, they were spoken not that we should do them, but that we should contemplate them;

and throughout all the God-inspired Scripture this instruction holds firm.

In some places it enjoins the words that must be done, and in others it hands down those which it is fitting to know and contemplate.

For that which is said by Him:

Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls;

If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me daily—these were spoken for the sake of being put into practice, as again also is the saying:

Be merciful, and you shall obtain mercy, and however many other commandments are of the same force.

I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me; and the saying:

I and the Father are one; and further:

He that has seen Me has seen the Father—and however many other things are theologically declared in both Testaments, were spoken and recorded for the sake of being contemplated and of having true and pious knowledge of them.

The Holy Spirit, having shown which are the words that must be done, declares each one individually and according to its kind.

Let each speak truth to his neighbour—that it may thus be practised, it is written.

Which Paul, who was in Christ, making clear, exhorts the faithful to the keeping of the commandment, saying most plainly:

Putting away falsehood, speak truth each one with his neighbour. And even before the Apostle, the Saviour had handed down the practice of telling truth without an oath, saying:

But I say to you, swear not at all; but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay. And this is above all safeguarded when each one speaks truth to his neighbour;

for thus every false word and oath will vanish, upon which follows the most exact and perfect love of one for another.

Besides each one speaking truth to his neighbour, a judgement of peace also will come to pass, when men no longer set themselves in strife nor are eager to overreach and to do wrong.

For how do they suppose that battles and injustices are still stirred up, when each one proclaims truth to his neighbour? The judgement of peace is the same as the just judgement, concerning which a fuller contemplation was made in the earlier passages.

He says that such a judgement is accomplished not here only, but also in other Scriptures, in the gates of the Hebrews.

For it is said in another prophet:

They hated him that reproves in the gates, and they abhorred a holy word—the impious, that is.

For concerning them the proverbial oracle declares:

Reprove not the wicked, lest they hate you. For they abhor the holy word, since he who begins to possess wisdom does not do this;

he indeed loves the one who reproves and who makes known what must not be done to him who strives to be just.

And since they always hate those entrusted with reproving in the gates, the word promises to restore judgement in the gates unto that which is good and profitable, when a change comes to pass.

One might inquire why the judgements and reproofs were accomplished not in another place or part of the city, but in its gates.

To this it must be said, gloriously and plausibly, that since through the gate there is an exit from the city and an entrance into it, it is fitting that the judges sat there to examine the lives of the citizens, so that they might most easily cast out those convicted of the charges against them, while those who had a pure manner of life, made manifest by the examinations, remained within and came still more deeply within the town.

According to an elevated sense, those who have received from Jesus the keys of the kingdom of heaven have been deemed worthy of this presidency and of the seat of judgement, so that they may cast out those who have done things worthy of being bound, but may bring in those who are not fettered with the bonds of sin, but are freed from them.

And then above all is the judgement of peace accomplished, when each one does not reckon the wickedness of his neighbour, having achieved the utmost freedom from remembrance of wrong.

Since the manner of wickedness is twofold—for by the name is signified now the disposition contrary to virtue, being a most base habit, and now the injurious treatment, as it stands in the passage;

and God works this latter for the conversion of those being chastised, healing the diseases of the soul in a physician's way, as if by cauteries and incisions—the appellation 'wickedness' denotes the most base disposition, from which God said concerning the Ninevites:

The cry of their wickedness has come up to Me. This same thing is presented also from an apostolic text concerning impious men, which runs thus:

As they did not approve to have God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do the things which are not fitting, being filled with all injustice, wickedness, and what follows.

In either sense, therefore, he who obeys the law of God does not reckon wickedness in his own heart against his neighbour, not rendering evil for evil, not requiting him who has treated him injuriously, nor yet, according to the sense of wickedness as a kind, does he reckon anything against his neighbour, wishing in turn to overreach and to do wrong.

Upon the one who wishes to remember the wickedness of his neighbour in his own heart there immediately follows, by a perjured disposition, the loving of a false oath.

The giver of the divine law, having forbidden all these things in order, made manifest the reason for prohibiting them, saying:

All these things have I hated. For how does He not hate the falsely-taken oath, He who commands:

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain? And as He deprecates and turns away from perjury and the other sins, hating that each one should not speak truth to his neighbour, so too He hates the one who stirs up trouble and makes not a judgement of peace, and the wrathful and rancorous man who reckons the wickedness of his neighbour in his own heart.

And in Malachi He speaks in agreement with what is here written:

And all the things which I hated you did. Likewise in the Proverbs, concerning the one who sins much, it is said with a riddle, among other things:

He is crushed because of impurity of soul, since he rejoices in all the things which God hates. He who takes pleasure in the things which the Father of good hates is crushed through his own sin, which is an impurity of the soul and mind of the doer.

And the word of the Lord Almighty came to me, saying:

Thus says the Lord Almighty:

The fast of the fourth, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah for joy and gladness and for good feasts; and you shall rejoice, and love the truth and peace.

The word of the Lord Almighty, having come to me, says the prophet, commanded me to fast on the fourth, and the fifth, and the seventh, and the tenth—of the month, that is;

for it is not possible that there should be a tenth of a sabbath, as we have also noted before.

And it is likely that the Lord Almighty enjoins these things concerning the seventh month according to the Hebrews, in which the so-called Day of Atonement and Humiliation is celebrated, which the Jews keep publicly, calling it a fast, while those who come to the public fast purify themselves beforehand on the fourth, and the fifth, and the seventh.

In how many ways and how a fast is kept by the divine law was made clear in the foregoing;

in addition to those things, it must now also be said that, just as one must abstain from pleasure-loving luxury, so too must one abstain from foods that are, allegorically, harmful and poisonous.

For well-being shall come upon those who have made confession, who are called the house of Judah: joy, gladness, and good feasts, as they keep festival in thinking and doing what is fitting, according to what is said in the Psalms:

'The voice of exultation and confession, the sound of those keeping festival';

'Order a feast with thick branches, up to the horns of the altar.' With these there accords what is proclaimed in another ode thus:

'The thought of man shall confess to you, and the remnant of thought shall keep festival to you.' And good feasts are accomplished when the spiritual Jerusalem lives in peace, being a vision of peace; for the feasts are not held gladly when enemies prevail.

'I have hated, I have rejected your feasts, and I will not smell in your assemblies.' And still intensifying the threat:

'I will turn,' he says, 'your feasts into mourning and your songs into lamentations.' But let these grievous things be far from the assembly of the faithful, so that we, being called to joy and gladness, may accomplish good feasts and divine assemblies, loving deep peace and, together with it, the truth.

For where there is calm of thoughts and an ordered state of soul, there the delight of truth and its beauty are made manifest.

And truth is seen especially when, from the mutual sequence of the virtues, calm is brought about and peace holds sway, while those who have attained to so great and such a well-being rejoice and possess gladness.

It is likely that someone will demand from what basis we conjectured that the seventh month among the Hebrews is the one in which the fourth day and the other days up to the tenth were appointed to be fasts—or rather from what is written at the end of the prophet Zechariah, who is set before us for examination:

'And you shall keep the feast of Tabernacles';

for this feast is lawfully accomplished in no other month than the one mentioned, just as also the feast of Trumpets and the fast.

For that the new moon of the seventh month is also a feast of solemn assembly one may clearly learn from the Psalm, which reads thus:

'Blow the trumpet at the new moon, on the appointed day of our feast.'

Thus says the Lord Almighty:

'Yet again shall many peoples come, and those who inhabit many cities; and those who inhabit cities shall come together into one city, saying:'

'Let us go to entreat the face of the Lord and to seek out the face of the Lord Almighty;'

'and many peoples and many nations shall come to seek out the face of the Lord Almighty in Jerusalem, and to propitiate the face of the Lord.'

As concerning the literal sense, the prophet foretells—the word of the Lord Almighty having come to him—the glad and festive restoration that is to come for the multitude of the Hebrews, for the cities of Judaea, and for the mother-city Jerusalem.

God commanded through Moses all Israel to keep feast to him three days of the year in the place which he chose, which was none other than Jerusalem; whence it came about that from all the cities and villages of Judaea they hastened eagerly to the mother-city, in which all the sacred rites and the festal, mystical observances were accomplished—all of which came to an end at the time of the captivity, when nearly all the Hebrews were cast out from the land that had nurtured them.

Bewailing this most pitiable and grievous condition, the prophet of God, Jeremiah, says in the book of Lamentations:

'The roads of Zion mourn, because there are none coming to the feast;'

'all her gates are laid waste, her priests groan aloud.' For how should the roads of Zion not mourn, being deprived of those who once walked them, when no one any longer had zeal to hasten to Jerusalem for the sake of keeping feast and festival, and her gates were laid waste, torn down by those who had tyrannically prevailed?

Upon this desolation of good things there necessarily followed the groaning of the priests, as they beheld the season in which they ought to have served the God who had chosen them stripped of all glad readiness.

Foretelling that these unpleasant things would very soon cease, Zechariah says:

'Yet again shall many peoples come'—that is, clearly, to Jerusalem;

for the seventieth year of the captivity had already come, as we learn from him when he says in prayer to God:

'How long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judaea, this seventieth year?' Immediately, when the Lord Almighty assented, there was revealed to the one who prayed the peaceful state of Jerusalem—that, as before, many peoples would again come to seek out the face of the Lord Almighty, that word taking its beginning once more:

'All your males shall appear before me'; and this:

'You shall not appear empty before the Lord your God'—clearly bringing the sacrifices for the sacred service and other gifts and the provisions for the festal feasting.

Of the sacred assembly thus zealously pursued, the fitting end is to seek out, through supplications and holy prayers, the manifestation of the Lord Almighty, who shows himself and reveals himself to a mind that is translucent and a partaker of holiness, according to what was said by the Saviour in the Beatitudes:

'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' In harmony with this understanding the inspired Paul writes to the Hebrews to pursue peace and holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord, since he is manifested to those who do not disbelieve in him and appears to those who keep his commandments.

For in the Wisdom of Solomon there is found a saying of this kind:

'Think of the Lord in goodness, and in simplicity of heart seek him out, for he is found by those who do not tempt him, and manifests himself to those who do not disbelieve in him.' And in the Gospel the Saviour speaks thus:

'He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me;'

'and he who loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.' It was to seek out in this manner the face of the Lord Almighty that the many peoples came into Jerusalem—not in order that they might find God dwelling in a place and a temple, but that, sending up acceptable prayers, they might obtain a devout understanding and a right mind concerning the Lord Almighty, who is sought out and rendered gracious.

By way of anagogy, each of the prophet's sayings might be applied to the Church, which is glorious and sanctified by the all-ruling King and Saviour, and which was glorified in the times of the persecutions with every glad and peaceful condition—so far as concerns those who ravaged her, that this took place outwardly: namely, that many peoples would again come to her, and those inhabiting many cities—the churches in the various sojournings—so that those everywhere dwelling in the aforesaid cities in devout mind and blameless life would come together from many into one city, in order to render gracious and propitiate the face of the Lord and to seek it out through acceptable prayers and inquiries made for the sake of seeing God.

And since the things foretold are lovely and greatly to be desired, the prophet himself, having conceived a longing for the things hoped for, yearned to come together with the many peoples gathered to the same place and inhabiting several cities;

and the multitudes are for the most part assured, so as eagerly to await the things foretold, when the one who has spoken beforehand himself takes the lead in hastening toward the things proclaimed.

It is possible that the words are spoken in the person of the Saviour;

for as he goes, those to whom the promise belongs follow him, according to what is said:

'When the Lord turns back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall exult and Israel shall be glad'; so that the Father himself declares:

'I have raised him up as king;'

'he shall build my city and shall turn back the captivity of my people, not for ransoms nor for gifts.' And what shall follow, once the fair city has been built and the people turned back from captivity, but that from everywhere many peoples and many nations come to propitiate the face of the Lord Almighty and to seek out his face—which is his image, since he is the invisible God, and the express character of his substance—so that whoever approaches him with a pure mind sees the Father, that is, the invisible God?

For 'he who has seen me has seen the Father,' since even the angels have a longing to behold the Son;

and the saints among men, yearning to behold him, say:

'Cause your face to shine, and we shall be saved.' To this petition the one entreated having assented, the Holy Spirit, foretelling, says:

'The God of gods shall be seen in Zion.' Having sought out and found the face of this one, when the One who begot him manifests it, we exult, being reconciled, when he appears to us after a sufficient searching for him.

How those who propitiate and seek out the face of the Lord Almighty come together from cities into one city, the Jerusalem above, must be considered.

And observe whether those who have advanced further in the progress of the virtues and in the knowledge of the truth are citizens of more cities, after which, passing over yet further into what is, as it were, the mother-city—the most perfect knowledge of God—they have their citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem.

Fleeing away from grief, pain, and groaning, so as to inherit eternal gladness, he said, one must keep festival together with the myriads of angels and the firstborn of the Church, according to the apostolic Scripture:

'For you have come,' he says, 'to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to a festal assembly, and to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.'

Thus says the Lord Almighty:

'In those days, if ten men from all the tongues of the nations take hold, and take hold of the fringe of a man that is a Jew, saying:'

'We will go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.'

The prophecy delineates the time in which many peoples and many nations shall come to propitiate the face of the Lord Almighty and to seek it out—which is none other than the time of the Saviour's sojourn among men, in which Emmanuel was born of the Virgin, God being thenceforth among us;

in the days of him who was seen upon the earth and conversed with men, there shall be a calling of men everywhere, as the prophecy set forth here makes clear, reading thus:

'In the days when ten men from all the tongues of the nations take hold of the fringe of a man that is a Jew.' Now in order to understand the purport of the prophetic saying set forth, we must first consider who is the one man that is called a Jew par excellence;

he is none other, I think, than the one the Apostle signifies when writing to the Hebrews:

'It is evident that our Lord has arisen out of Judah,' unto leading and reigning over the Jews that are in secret—circumcised in spirit and not in letter, in the heart and not in the flesh;

for it is of him that we take what is said in the hymns by every clear-sighted one:

'Judah is my king.' The same understanding is also suggested in the blessing spoken by Jacob, which reads thus:

'Judah, your brothers shall praise you;'

'The ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until he comes for whom it is reserved; and he is the expectation of the nations.' For he is the blessed expectation not of one nation, but of all together, the prophecy concerning the calling of all men being fulfilled, which reads thus:

'There shall be the root of Jesse, and he who arises to rule the nations; on him shall the nations hope.' This one, who arose from the root of Jesse and sprang up from Judah, being a true Jew, ten men from all the tongues of the nations, taking hold of the fringe of his garment, say to him as to their leader and commander—or rather as to their high priest and King of all:

'We will go with you, because we have heard that God is among you'—clearly among those who are Jews according to the spiritual sense, who worship God in spirit and in truth, not in Jerusalem nor on the mountain of the Samaritans.

For just as the angels do not worship the Son of God in a place—concerning whom the Holy Spirit says:

—they worship, performing it intellectually, in spirit and in truth.

These things having been contemplated beforehand, the sequence calls us to understand how, from all the tongues of the nations, ten men shall take hold of the fringe—that is, of the body of the spiritual Jew.

The number ten is here also set down mystically, according to allegory, as also in other God-inspired oracles concerning which we shall speak in what follows—having first said that it is impossible that, out of all the nations and all their tongues, when men are countless and very many, only ten men, if the number be taken according to the plain sense, should have followed Jesus;

for he himself is the one who is truly a Jew, who arose out of Judah.

May it not then be that all the multitudes, gathered from diverse nations and tongues, who have come to the gospel so as to order their lives according to it and to possess knowledge of the Holy Trinity, are mystically ten, in a manner closely resembling the parable spoken by Jesus in Matthew?

'Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins' — all who have believed being those ten virgins, understood in the following sense.

Every man, being a living creature, has five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch;

and besides these he possesses an equal number according to the understanding of the mind:

enlightened eyes, and hearing, concerning which the prophet, giving thanks to the bountiful Giver, says:

'He hath added unto me an ear to hear.' Kindred to the sight and hearing that operate in secret is smell, by which it is fitting to perceive the fragrance of Christ and the sweet breath of his spiritual ointments.

There are also a taste and a touch beyond the common ones, by which it is possible to taste that Christ is the Lord, and to touch and handle the Word of life.

All then, however many they may be, the disciples of the gospel, whenever they keep their senses uncorrupted, both the outer and the inner, are ten virgins reigned over by Christ;

but if ever some, out of slothfulness, let go the senses of the inner man and exercise only the mortal ones, they become five foolish virgins, clinging only to sensible things, so that, their light being unnourished, there follows a quenching and a failure of oil.

In the said manner, from all tongues and nations ten men are those who journey with the true Jew, having preserved both kinds of senses stainless and uncorrupted, according to what was said by the Apostle:

'Grace and peace shall be with those who love our Lord Christ in incorruption.' It is likely that the friends of the letter suppose the ten men to be those who translated into deeds the Decalogue ministered by the great hierophant;

but also Christians who bear the name of Jesus, which begins with the tenth letter both among Greeks and among Hebrews;

for not only in the Greek but also in the Hebrew letters the iota is the tenth.

Now, in order that the scientific contemplation of numbers may appear unforced also according to the God-inspired Scripture, many things can be adduced;

but for the present it suffices to make use of the words of Paul the Apostle and of John, the disciple beloved by Jesus.

For the one, writing to the Romans, says that God declared:

'I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal'; and the other, that there follow the Lamb — that is, the Savior — a hundred and forty-four thousand virgins, together with women undefiled.

For it is not possible to take these things according to the literal history;

for how, when so great a multitude of God-fearing men remained, could the great prophet Elijah have been ignorant of it, so as to say:

it came about only because the numbers are not to be taken in a sensible way.

For the seven thousand men who did not bow the knee to Baal are those who mystically belong to the sabbath-rest reserved for the people of God, having affinity with the thousand and with the hebdomad constituted from it.

For in many places one may see the number one thousand mentioned in a manner befitting God, as also in what is proclaimed concerning God thus:

'He hath remembered his covenant, the word which he commanded to Abraham for a thousand generations, unto the age.' For in none of its significations will there be a literal thousand generations until the consummation of the world, as has been more fully demonstrated beforehand in other writings.

From this mystical thousand, then, is constituted a hebdomad, according to which those who genuinely fear God bow the knee to the Cause of all things alone.

But also the virgins who follow, undefiled with woman, belong to the number one hundred and forty-four of the thousands.

And the improbability of the literal history is made especially manifest from this: that in due order from each tribe of Israel twelve thousand virgin men are to be completed;

for perhaps not even out of all mankind was it possible to complete so great a number of those living celibate for Christ's sake while John was still sojourning upon earth.