Commentary on Zechariah 1 part 21/24

'You, Ethiopians, are the slain of my sword.' Ethiopians are those who are struck by the sword of God — all who have shared in the wickedness and sin of the devil, being named after his blackness.

For in the Shepherd and in the Epistle of Barnabas Satan is called black, having fallen away from the brightness and the virtue and the intelligible whiteness which he alone and everyone can have who is made white by God.

When the shepherd had been struck in the manner described, and on account of this the sheep had been scattered, he stretches out his hand against the shepherds — the chief priests and elders and the Jewish teachers of the Law who had conspired together against the good shepherd, who laid down his own soul on behalf of the sheep that they might have salvation.

Scattering has begun for the shepherds and for the flock under them, once the hand of God had been stretched out against them.

With the fourth discourse sufficiently rounded off up to the words 'I will stretch out my hand against the shepherds,' which God has spoken, we shall make the beginning of the fifth — the bountiful One granting it — from the following passage, which reads thus:

'And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that the two parts shall be utterly destroyed and shall fail, but the third shall be left remaining in it;'

'and I will bring the third through fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined, and I will test them as gold is tested;'

'he shall call upon my name, and I will hearken to him, and I will say:'

'This is my people,' and he shall say:

A time is designated, indicated by the name of 'the day,' in which the two parts of the captive people shall be destroyed and shall fail, while the third is shown to be tested, passing through fire, being refined like silver that is purified and tested like gold.

The third of the captives thus purified and tested, calling upon the name of God, shall have God himself hearkening and saving them;

and it fittingly follows that those who have been benefited are designated the people of him who hearkened to them, God henceforth being shown to be their God in the manner in which he is called the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

For to all other human beings God is God as their Creator, but in a special sense he is the God of the patriarchs, who worship and revere him.

These things having been considered in a more general way, it is fitting to see which are the two parts that are destroyed and forsaken, and what is the third that is bettered and led to salvation.

One must begin from the division into three of the captive people of the Hebrews.

Many of those who were removed from their own country and homeland into the captivity of those who prevailed by the law of war, having wholly fallen away from the fear of God, served idols, so as to be enslaved to the ...

and to worship Bel and the dragon, and in addition to these the dumb image of the tyrant Nebuchadnezzar — while others did not do this, yet practiced Judaism unlawfully and as one ought not, such as were the lawless elders who raged with adulterous madness and those who agreed with them against the most chaste Susanna.

Besides those who committed idolatry and unlawfully judaized, there was another most excellent and God-fearing order in the captivity, which did not fall into superstition, nor transgress the Law, but was holy and well-pleasing to God — from which many men were recorded as holy, among whom is the prophet Zechariah here being expounded, and Daniel and those with Azariah, Ezekiel the prophet, and Jesus the great priest son of Josedek, and many others, laying claim to moral virtue and to the knowledge of the truth and of God.

The two impious parts, the Greek and the Jewish, being subject to chastisement for the things they did, are utterly destroyed and fail, so that through a toilsome discipline they may cast off the harms that have accrued to them.

When this has been accomplished, by the judgment of divine providence the third, distinguished from the two parts, is sanctified and bettered by the Giver of good things, God the Word, being led through the fire that purifies and makes them fervent in spirit; concerning which he who saves all himself says:

'I came to cast fire upon the earth, and would that it were already kindled,' and again:

'Everyone shall be salted with fire.' Concerning him the great John also, than whom none greater has arisen among those born of women, teaches — concerning himself:

'I came baptizing in water unto repentance'; but concerning the Savior of all things:

'He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire' — sanctifying and purifying, that is, some through the Holy Spirit, others through fire, or the same persons both in the Holy Spirit and in the fire.

Those who have come through fire, being the third of the captives that is bettered, upon whom God nodded assent when they called, in the person of themselves say to him who held out salvation to them:

'You have tested us, O God; you have refined us as silver is refined;'

'you brought us into the snare, you laid afflictions before us' — or 'upon our back;'

'unto refreshment.' With equal force also in Isaiah the helper says to the one being benefited:

'Do not fear, for I am with you;'

'and if you pass through water, the rivers shall not overwhelm you;'

'and if you go through fire, the flame shall not consume you, for I am with you.' When does anyone passing through fire remain unharmed, except when he has acquired the voice of God concerning which it is said:

'The voice of the Lord that divides the flame of fire'? For just as, when the Red Sea was divided by the holy staff, the people passed over without any loss, so, when the flame of the fire is cut through and divided, the passage is accomplished without being consumed by the flame.

The third that was left remaining in the Hebrew multitude, when the two parts had been destroyed and had failed, was tested — as spiritual gold and silver — passing through fire.

Similarly to this it is said in the Book of Wisdom:

'As gold and silver are tested in a furnace, so chosen hearts are with God.' The same understanding is also had by what the apostle Peter writes in his epistle, exhorting his readers to bear afflictions nobly and magnanimously, especially those endured for the sake of the faith.

His wording is as follows:

'In which you rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the proving of your faith, being much more precious than gold that is tested by fire, may be found;'

'for thus it shall be found unto praise and glory.' In agreement, James also is brought forth, addressing the disciples of the gospel:

'Count it all joy, beloved brethren, whenever you fall into various trials, knowing that the proving of you works patience;'

'but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.' For those to whom the word is addressed, being thus disposed — refined like silver in respect of reason, and tested like gold in respect of their mind — shall have God hearkening to them, calling upon his name, so that they are designated the people of the Benefactor, and he their God.

The passage set before us must be examined also in another way.

In the Church of Christ there are some who are given to superstition, and others besides them who judaize, as again there are those who are genuinely God-fearing, among whom, being perfect, the apostles speak wisdom, all having advanced so as to attain to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of the knowledge of the Son of God.

The two parts shall fail, being destroyed, so that they may no longer be given to superstition or judaize after the manner of the Ebionites.

For when this has been accomplished, the perfect of the Church alone shall be left remaining in it, so that they may be designated the people of God, and he confessed to be their God.

Consider carefully whether a third interpretation can also be given for the matters before us.

Each of the virtues lies as a mean between two vices, excess and deficiency;

courage and temperance — the one is a mean between rashness and cowardice, the other between licentiousness and insensibility; just as piety has as its excess superstition, and as its deficiency impiety.

Likewise the liberal man, being sociable and ready to share, has the best disposition, whose excess is prodigality and whose deficiency is stinginess.

And since, among those who sin, some are qualified by their excesses — rashness, superstition, prodigality — while others by their deficiencies — impiety, cowardice, stinginess — necessarily these two orders and parts are destroyed and fail, falling under punishment, while the third is perfected, being refined and tested in respect of the silver and the gold, which are reason and mind, in that, by having been tested and perfected according to the mutually consequent virtues, it has transcended the deficiencies and the excesses.

There might also be stated, out of abundance, yet another scientific understanding, thus:

those who bear the image of the earthy, partaking of a materialistic choice, prove to be unclean, resembling what is called by some the indeterminate dyad;

the incorruptible virgin being the hebdomad, since seven by seven were brought into the ark.

And since those who bear the image of the earthy are a dyad, the quality of these fails and is destroyed, so that the third — the race of those who bear the image of the heavenly — may be shown to be tested.

The wise man will fit each word of the passage before us to each of these renderings.

It is possible to understand that the third is left remaining in that very day in which these things foretold shall come to pass.

'Behold, days of the Lord are coming, and your spoils shall be divided in your midst.'

And I will gather together all the nations against Jerusalem for battle, and the city shall be taken, and the houses shall be plundered, and the women shall be defiled, and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, but the rest of my people shall not be utterly cut off from the city.

He speaks of the days of the Lord, those days on which grievous and punitive things are brought upon the guilty; and it is possible from many passages to bear witness to this understanding.

In Isaiah too, at any rate, the season of God's chastisements is called 'day' in this manner:

An incurable day of the Lord comes, of wrath and anger, to make the whole world desolate and to destroy sinners from it. Since, then, he announces that fearful things shall come upon those against whom God is indignant because of the impiety that has prevailed among them and their other sins, he fittingly says that there shall be days of the Lord in which most pitiable calamity shall befall both Jerusalem and her citizens.

For what is so pitiable and grievous as the spoils which the invading enemies took, being divided in her midst on account of the great weakness that had come upon her? Yet this does not always happen;

for there are times when those who have taken spoils, having carried the plunder far from the city—or rather from the country—divide it, fearing lest, if they were to divide it within the city, they should be hindered by the captives who had recovered their breath.

'Behold, the days of the Lord are coming, and your spoils shall be divided in your midst.' The Lord immediately says that he will gather against them all the nations for battle, just as it comes to pass on a day of battle-array, when the assembled nations wage war to make war upon Jerusalem.

For it is announced to her that her spoils shall be divided within her, and further that the houses of her inhabitants shall be plundered, and their women defiled.

For just as it is painful and exceedingly grievous that the conquerors should make division before the eyes of the citizens—especially when they seize not only the common and public treasures but also each man's own possessions, the houses being plundered—yet more than all these, the shameful defiling of the women is a thing of sorrow and heavy oppression, while those who share their life look on, unable to prevent the lawless deed, since great weakness has prevailed, so that even half of the city itself is torn away outside its own town; whereas those who are guarded by the right hand of God shall suffer nothing of this kind.

These are they who make up the third part, said to be saved after the two parts have been utterly cut off and have failed.

Such a most savage plundering the divine word threatens also in Isaiah;

and the prophetic saying runs thus:

Whosoever are gathered together, banded together among themselves, shall fall by the sword;

and they shall dash your children to pieces before your eyes, and they shall plunder your houses, and they shall take your women. The excess of the women suffering violence, before the very presence of the men who dwell with them, at the hands of tyrannizing enemies, is shown also from what was said to the wicked priest Amaziah by the keen-sighted prophet Amos:

outside of it, the marriage rights being corrupted by most savage foes, and one's own land being measured out by a line, while the owners are present but not strong enough to prevent the violence.

Such things, having much inhumanity in them, befell those who dwelt in Jerusalem and Judaea, when the Jews were taken captive by the nations because of the pollution they incurred in slaying the Lord.

For when the nations raged, and the peoples meditated things empty and vain, and the kings stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ, God laughed them to scorn and mocked them, speaking to them in his anger and troubling them in his wrath, so that the Apostle wrote the same things concerning those who killed the Lord and the prophets and drove out the apostles:

The wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. It has also been said before, how a Jewish historiographer, Josephus by name, truly and with exactness recorded the misfortunes and famines that befell the nation, and other calamities far more grievous than these—things which the lover of the good, who delights in readings that conduce to love of learning and to the fear of not suffering the same, may consider.

By 'the rest' he means those who are not torn away outside the city by the cruel tyrants, whom God, leading them through fire, refines as silver and tests as gold, that their honour and worth may be made known.

And the Lord shall go forth and shall array himself for battle among those nations, as on a day of his battle-array in the day of war.

And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is over against Jerusalem on the east;

and the Mount of Olives shall be cleft, half of it toward the east and half of it toward the sea, a very great chasm.

Since God is incorporeal—or rather beyond every intelligible essence—he is incapable of receiving the things that belong to bodies, I mean colours and shapes and magnitudes; whence he is invisible.

For it is altogether necessary that visible essence exist under shapes and magnitudes, colours and the like; but God is invisible, as many sayings of the Scriptures testify, being an intelligible essence, and he neither moves by transition nor is he in place at all.

For the present it suffices to adduce testimonies that read thus:

'Who is the image of the invisible God'; and again:

'To the King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible God.' Together with the apostolic sayings, the evangelic ones also declare the same:

'No one has ever seen God;

the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him'; and again:

'Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from the Father.' Since, then, these things are rightly said and thought concerning God, the things announced about him in a more corporeal manner, by way of dispensation, in the divine Scriptures, must be understood in an intellectual and God-befitting way.

For just as when he says in the prophet,

'I change not,' and when the theologians speak with one accord—the psalmist saying to him who is glorified:

'But thou art the same'; and:

'But thou shalt endure'; and James writing concerning the impassible and unchangeable One:

'Every good gift and every perfect present is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.' And just as we understand and interpret the sayings about his repentance and anger and the like, so also, since he is incorporeal, we receive the utterances about his ascending and descending, his going forth and coming in, in a manner fitting to the conception we hold concerning him.

Whence, in the prophecy set before us where it is written,

'The Lord shall go forth,' we do not imagine a movement by transition;

for such movements belong to bodies.

Being a fountain of goodness and full of grace and truth, the Cause of all things, in condescending to those who are dispensed by him, comes in a manner outside of himself.

Indeed, at any rate, in the Gospels our Lord and Saviour says concerning himself:

'I came forth from God and am come;

for neither have I come of myself, but he sent me.' With the same understanding the prophet Habakkuk cried out to him:

'Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, to save thine anointed ones.' And just as he goes forth and comes to those who are being saved, so much more when he is angry or wages war.

For in Micah it is written:

'Behold, the Lord comes forth out of his place, and shall be among us for a testimony, and shall come down'; and in Isaiah:

'The Lord of hosts shall go forth and shall shatter war, and shall stir up jealousy, and shall cry out against his enemies with strength.' When these things are viewed in a God-befitting way, God is said to go forth against the nations, that he may array himself against them as on a day of war, when also his feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives which is toward the east;

for where must his feet stand, when he no longer moves in indignation according to what was said before:

'And the Lord shall sound the trumpet and shall go forth in the threat of his anger'? In this manner Adam, having transgressed, heard the sound of the feet of God in the evening, perceiving that he who was formerly present with him and conversed with him had forsaken him and walked away from him.

With this thought the Saviour said in the Gospel to the Jews who had come to be outside the truth:

'Behold, your house is left unto you'; and earlier in the prophet:

'I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my inheritance,' and what follows.

Nevertheless, even if he has come to be outside those who were forsaken because of impiety, still his feet stand unshaken upon the mountain where there is a planting that bears fruit saving and preservative of the divine light, and that loosens diseases and pains.

And they stand not in a lowly planting, but in one that abides on a height and a mountain, from the east of the divine light of the Sun of righteousness.

But what has come to pass, when the feet of the Lord stand toward the east of the Mount of Olives, save that the divine planting is divided, so that one part of it, having cast its roots toward the east, remains, while the rest passes over into the sea, where there is a very great chasm?

And since it is possible in Scripture to find both praiseworthy olive trees and blameworthy ones brought together into the same place, let us see which of these lie in the light and the east, and which have inclined toward the sea.

The holy psalmist, singing aloud concerning himself, announces:

'I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God.' And concerning him who has set his piety aright, it is borne in one of the songs of ascents:

'Blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee.

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine on the sides of thy house;

thy sons as newly-planted olive trees round about thy table.'

'Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.

The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion, and mayest thou see the good things of Jerusalem, and mayest thou see thy children's children.' No one who genuinely engages with this song is so dull and simple as to suppose that all these promised things belong to every pious man, since many have possessed the fear of God that perfects the one who has it, according to what is written:

'There is no want to them that fear him'—that is, God—though they by no means possessed the sensible things.

For Jerusalem is the heavenly city of the living God.

The olive trees thus rendered, and their new plantings, have their planting on the Mount of Olives toward the east, being destined to be transplanted into the paradise which God planted in Eden toward the east.

And what is announced is no paradox;

for if the robber who repented, having confessed the Saviour as King, heard from him:

'Today shalt thou be with me in paradise,' how shall not those who have conducted their whole life, or the greater part of it, in such a manner receive far more such a promise—so as to say with boldness:

'For our citizenship is in heaven'; and again:

'Groaning upon earth, we have our citizenship in heaven.' Into this blessed planting, understood by way of anagogy, must also be reckoned the wild olive that has been grafted into the holy root and fatness, to become part of the cultivated olive, so that it too, having gained the same boldness as the psalmist, may say:

But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God; whereas the branches that were broken off through unbelief — and these are the Jews who slew the Lord — are found in the sea, that is, in the surge and the salt brine of the affairs of this world, where there is a great abyss.

In agreement with the Apostle, God likewise in Jeremiah, speaking concerning the broken-off branches, addresses the synagogue of the circumcision and says:

"What has the beloved done abomination in my house? Shall vows and holy flesh take away your wickedness from you, or shall you escape by these things?" When he who sees the hidden thing had convicted her who had wrought abomination in his house, the divine word says to her:

"The Lord called your name a fair-shaded olive tree in appearance;

your branches have become worthless." For how could the branches that were broken off by their own unbelief not have become worthless branches — above all when they have passed over into the tempest of this life, in which are great waves and a multitude of salt and bitter waters?

In addition to the fact that the unbelieving branches came to be in the sea, they were also dragged down into a most violent abyss.

Concerning this city that was harmed by its own doing — I mean the Jewish city — it is also spoken by God in another prophet, and this is Micah:

"I will drag her stones down into an abyss, and I will lay bare her foundations." Since these grievous things have come upon the wretched synagogue of the Jews, let it be our earnest endeavour, we who have believed in the Saviour, to become a fruitful olive tree in the house of God and toward the east, on the Mount of Olives, so that by the grace of God we too may be transferred into the divine paradise, becoming imitators of Christ, concerning whom it is written:

"Behold a man, the Dayspring is his name."

: "And half of the mountain shall incline toward the north and half of it toward the south."

"And the ravine of my mountains shall be stopped up, and the ravine of the mountains shall be joined together as far as Asael, just as it was stopped up in the days of the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah."

"Half," he says, "of the mountain" — that is, of the Mount of Olives — "shall incline toward the north," belonging to that part which slopes away toward the sea and the abyss, while the remaining half reaches toward the south.

Who the north and the south are, one may learn from the Song of Songs, where the Church, escorted as a bride to her own Bridegroom, says:

"Awake, O north wind, and come, O south; blow upon my garden, and let my spices flow." Here the north wind is the wicked power, or rather Satan himself, while the south is called the Saviour himself, who is the Bridegroom.

Since, then, when the north wind that has been mentioned is present, being most cold, the flowing of the divine spices is hindered — the pores being closed because they are packed tight by the coldness of the north wind, which is also harsh — the bride drives it away from herself and calls upon the south, so that, when the spiritual pores have been rarefied by its warmth, the spices may flow, those spices concerning which it was said to the Bridegroom by the spiritual spouse:

he is also a fire that came to be cast upon the earth, as he himself declared, saying:

"I came to cast fire upon the earth, and would that it were already kindled." It must be said:

"Awake, O north wind" — not by voice alone but in very deed, that it may be sent far away.

"Awake, O north wind": the faithful soul says this to the teacher who says:

"Turn aside from evil and do good," and to the Apostle who wrote to the whole Church:

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

"Abstain from every form of evil," since the abstaining from every form of evil and the turning aside from evil drives away the north wind and urges the south to come, through drawing near to it in devout faith and moral virtue.

For to those thus cleansed, who are thus well-pleasing, there comes the Giver of all good things, as the theologian James wrote:

"Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." The soul that has longing for his presence, similarly to the words "

Come, O south," says in that very bridal drama:

"Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field." It is equivalent to the words:

"Awake, O north wind, and come, O south," the words:

"Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you; resist the devil, and he will flee from you" — every single one who resists the devil saying to him:

"Awake, O north wind," and he who draws near to God calls upon the south to come to him — the God-Word — concerning whom, in the ode of the prophet Habakkuk, according to one of the interpreters, it is rendered in place of the words:

"God shall come from Teman," "God shall come from the south," the Father coming from the south of the Bridegroom, according to what was said by him in the Gospel:

"He who receives me receives him who sent me." For in the same manner as he who sees him sees the Father, so he who receives him receives the Father who abides in him, in whom is his Only-begotten ...

What will come to pass when the mountain of olives that has been made clear inclines toward the north and the south, except the stopping up of the ravine of the mountains of God and its being joined together as far as Asael?

The ravine and the joining could not be understood otherwise than by knowing which are the mountains of God.

His mountains, according to one rendering, might be said to be the prophets, on account of the height belonging to them — not only of knowledge and wisdom but also of the loftiness of the practical life.

For concerning these the hymnwriter cried out to the Author of the being of all things:

"You give light wondrously from the everlasting mountains." For how are they not everlasting mountains, from which God wondrously gives the light of the knowledge of the truth and, in a word, shining forth the knowledge concerning the Trinity — they who, according to the apostolic exhortation, look upon the things not seen, which are everlasting? Of these mountains the ravine is the depth of the obscurity of the things spoken in enigma, which he stopped up who came to fulfil the law and the prophets, levelling by his own teaching and coming the rough and uneven ground of the things uttered under concealment, so that from its smoothness it might be seen to be easily passable.

When this had come to pass, the ravine of the mountains was joined together, through the harmony that appeared, as far as Asael — who, on account of the swiftness of his fleet-footedness, is called light in his feet, after the manner of the sharp-sighted gazelle;

for this animal is keen-sighted, as the very name declares, being derived from "to see clearly."

Wherefore the joining of the mountains will be as far as Asael, being known to those who are clear-sighted.

And in the same manner the stopping up of the mountains came to pass as in the days of the earthquake that took place in the days of Uzziah, the king of Judah.

We have by no means found that a perceptible earthquake occurred while Uzziah was reigning, neither in the books of Kingdoms nor in the books of Chronicles;

wherefore the things written concerning it must be taken in an anagogical sense.