Letters (CSEL) 1 part 4/85

'And their cry went up to the Lord' — although according to the literal history they ought rather to have rejoiced then, and to have sighed earlier, while he was living. When Ezekiel too was prophesying, Pelatiah the son of Benaiah fell dead; and after the destruction of that most wicked leader he says: 'I fell upon my face and cried with a loud voice and said: Alas for me, alas for me, Adonai Lord, dost Thou make an end of the remnant of Israel?' If, then, you understand by Uzziah and Pharaoh and Pelatiah and others of this sort the adverse powers, you will see how, while these live, none of us sees, nor sighs, nor falls into repentance. 'Let not sin reign,' says the Apostle, 'in your mortal body.'

When sin reigns, we build cities for the Egyptians, we are turned to ashes and filth, we pursue straw instead of grain, works of mud instead of the solid rock. There follows: 'I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up.' Daniel too saw the Lord sitting, but not upon a throne high and lifted up. Elsewhere also the divine voice promises, saying: 'I will come and will sit and will judge the people in the valley of Jehoshaphat,' which is interpreted 'the judgment of the Lord.' He who is a sinner and like me sees the Lord sitting in the valley of Jehoshaphat, not on the hill, not on the mountain, but in the valley, and in the valley of judgment; but he who is righteous and like Isaiah sees Him sitting upon a throne high and lifted up. And that I may add yet another point:

When in my mind I consider Him reigning over thrones, dominions, angels, and the other powers, I see His throne exalted; but when I consider how He governs the human race and is said often to descend to earth for our salvation, I see His throne lowly and near the earth. There follows: 'I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the house was full of His glory. And the seraphim stood round about Him.' Certain persons before me, both Greek and Latin, expounding this passage, interpreted the Lord sitting upon the throne to be God the Father, and the two seraphim, which are said to stand on either side, to be our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

To whose authority, though they are most learned, I do not assent, since it is far better to utter truth rustically than falsehood eloquently — especially since John the Evangelist, in this very vision, writes that it was not God the Father but Christ who was beheld. For when he spoke of the unbelief of the Jews, he at once set forth the causes of their unbelief: 'And therefore they could not believe in Him, because Isaiah said: With the ear you shall hear and shall not understand, and beholding you shall look and shall not see. These things Isaiah said when he saw the glory of the Only-begotten and bore witness of Him.' In the present volume of Isaiah, it is by Him who sits upon the throne that the prophet is commanded to say: 'With the ear you shall hear and shall not understand.' But He who so commands, as the Evangelist understands, is Christ;

whence it is now gathered that the seraphim cannot be understood as Christ, since Christ is the very one who sits. And although in the Acts of the Apostles, against the Jews disagreeing among themselves, Paul says: 'Well did the Holy Spirit speak through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, saying: Go to this people and say: With the ear you shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive;'

'for the heart of this people is grown fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted, and I heal them' — to me, nevertheless, the diversity of person raises no question, since I know that both Christ and the Holy Spirit are of one substance, and that the words of the Spirit are none other than those of the Son, and that the Son commanded nothing other than the Spirit. There follows: 'And the house was full of His glory.' The house of God which is above is seen to be full of glory; but this one, which is below, I know not whether it is full of glory, unless perhaps according to the sense of the psalmist who says:

'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof' — let us too say that those are full of glory on earth who can say: 'We all have received of His fullness.' This house the wise women build, and the foolish one destroys with her hands; of this Isaiah also speaks: 'And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be made manifest, and the house of God upon the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills.' This is the house of which, elsewhere too, the aforesaid Paul testifies with sacred voice: 'And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken; but Christ as a Son over His house, whose house we are, if indeed we hold firm from the beginning of His substance unto the end.' Of this he also speaks to Timothy:

'These things I write to you, that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church.' There follows: 'And the seraphim stood round about Him: six wings to the one and six wings to the other; and with two they veiled the face, and with two they veiled the feet, and with two they flew. And they cried one to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabaoth; the whole earth is full of His glory.' We wish to know what the seraphim are that stand round about God; what the six wings of each and the twelve joined together are; how with two they veil the face and with two the feet and with two they fly, though above they are said to stand round about God; or how they stand round about, though they are but two;

what that is which they cry one to another and reduplicate the thrice-holy Name; how above the house is said to be full of glory and now the earth. Since these things stir up no little dust and at the very first glance present a difficulty of interpretation, let us together entreat the Lord that to me also a coal may be sent from the altar, and that, every filth of sins being wiped away, I may first be able to behold the sacraments of God, and thereafter to relate what I have seen. The seraphim, as we find in the interpretation of Hebrew names, are interpreted either 'burning' or 'the beginning of their mouth.' We ask what this burning is. The Savior says: 'I have come to send fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it were kindled!'

The two disciples, to whom the Lord on the road had opened the Scriptures, beginning from Moses and all the prophets, after their eyes were unlocked and they recognized Him, said one to another: 'Was not our heart burning within us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?' And in Deuteronomy God Himself is written to be 'a consuming fire,' and in Ezekiel too He is seen fiery from the loins to the feet; and 'the words of the Lord are chaste words, silver tried by fire from the earth, purged sevenfold,' and many other passages, which, were I to rehearse from all the Scriptures, it would be very long. Therefore we ask where this saving burning is. There is no doubt for anyone that it is in the sacred volumes, by the reading of which all the vices of men are purged.

But as to what follows, 'the beginning of their mouth,' how it can be referred to the Scriptures, I fear that, if I begin to say it, I may seem not so much to interpret as to do violence to the Scriptures. That the beginning of speech and of common utterance, and all this which we speak, was the Hebrew tongue, in which the Old Testament was written, all antiquity has handed down. But after, at the building of the tower, through offense against God, a diversity of tongues was allotted, then the variety of speech was scattered among all the nations. Therefore both the burning and the beginning of the mouth are discerned in the two Testaments, which it is no wonder stand round about God, since through them the Lord Himself is learned.

'Six wings to the one and six wings to the other.' Our Victorinus interpreted these as the twelve apostles. We can also take them as the twelve stones of the altar, which iron did not touch, and the twelve gems of which the priest's ornament was constructed, which Ezekiel mentions and the Apocalypse does not pass over in silence. Which of these is true, let God see; what is probable, we shall set forth in what follows. 'And with two they veiled the face, and with two they veiled the feet, and with two they flew.' They veiled the face — not their own, but God's. For who can know His beginning, what He was in the eternity of things before He founded this world, when He established the thrones, dominions, powers, angels, and the whole heavenly ministry?

'And with two they veiled the feet' — not their own, but God's. For who can know His extremities? What shall be after the consummation of the age; what, after the race of men has been judged, is the life that follows; whether again there shall be another earth, and after the passing away, other elements again, or another world and another sun to be created. 'Announce to me the former things, and the things that are to come in the last, and I will say that you are gods,' says Isaiah, signifying that no one can relate what was before the world and what shall be after the world. 'And with two they flew' — we know only the middle things, which are opened to us from the reading of the Scriptures:

when the world was made, when man was fashioned, when the flood came, when the law was given, so that from one man all the expanses of the lands were filled, and in the last time the Son of God took flesh for our salvation. But the rest, of which we have spoken, these two seraphim covered over with face and feet. 'And they cried one to another' — beautifully is it set, 'one to another.' For whatever we read in the Old Testament, this same we find also in the Gospel; and what has been read in the Gospel, this is derived from the authority of the Old Testament; nothing is discordant, nothing is diverse. 'And they said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabaoth.' In both Testaments the Trinity is proclaimed.

But that our Savior too is called Sabaoth, take an example in the twenty-third psalm: the powers which ministered to the Lord proclaimed to the other heavenly hosts, that they might open the gate to the returning Lord: 'Lift up your gates, O princes' — or, as Aquila interprets, 'raise up, O gates, your heads' — 'and the King of glory shall enter in.' Again those, because they behold Him clothed with flesh, astonished at the new mystery, ask: 'Who is this King of glory?' And they receive the answer: 'The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory,' which in Hebrew is written 'the Lord of Sabaoth.'

And it should be known that wherever the Seventy translators have rendered 'Lord of hosts' and 'Lord almighty,' in the Hebrew is set 'Lord Sabaoth,' which Aquila interprets 'Lord of armies.' The Lord Himself, moreover, here is of four letters, which is properly applied to God: yod he yod he, that is, of two 'IA,' which, being doubled, form that ineffable and glorious name of God. 'The whole earth is full of His glory.' This is still said by the seraphim concerning the coming of the Lord and Savior, how His preaching is extended into all the earth and the sound of the apostles penetrates the boundaries of the world. There follows: 'And the lintel was lifted up at the voice with which they cried.'

We read in the Old Testament that the Lord always spoke to Moses and Aaron at the door of the tabernacle, as though before the Gospel He had not yet led them into the Holy of Holies, just as the Church was afterward brought in, saying: 'The King brought me into His chamber.' When therefore our Lord descended to the earth, that lintel — that is, a kind of obstacle, as it were — was taken away from those desiring to enter, and this whole world was filled with smoke, that is, with the glory of God. But where in the Latin we read 'lifted up,' in the Greek is set 'taken away.' But because the ambiguity of the word can be interpreted either way, our translators rendered it 'lifted up' for 'taken away.' 'And the house was filled with smoke.' God, as we said above, is fire;

when He descended upon Mount Sinai to Moses, at His coming there were seen lamps darting about, and the whole mountain was full of smoke. Whence in the psalms it is said: 'Thou who touchest the mountains, and they shall smoke.' From the fire, therefore, since we cannot grasp the whole substance, a certain lighter and, so to speak, thinner nature of smoke is dispersed throughout the whole world, which, grasping it, we may say: 'We know in part and we prophesy in part,' and: 'Now we see through a glass, in a riddle.' 'And the seraphim stood round about Him: six wings to the one and six wings to the other.'

A certain one of the Greeks, a man exceedingly learned in the Scriptures, expounded the seraphim as being certain powers in the heavens, which, standing before the tribunal of God, praise Him and are sent on diverse ministries, especially to those who need cleansing and, on account of former sins, are in some part subject to punishments. 'But as to the lintel being taken away,' he says, 'and the house being filled with smoke, it is a sign of the Jewish temple to be destroyed and of the burning of all Jerusalem.' Some, however, agreeing in the former points, disagree in the last.

For they proclaim that the lintel was taken away at that time when the veil of the temple was rent and the whole house of Israel was confounded by the cloud of error, when Josephus relates that the priests heard from the inner sanctuaries of the temple the voice of the heavenly powers: 'Let us pass from these seats.' But there is a certain one from whom I rejoice to have learned very many things, and who has so polished the Hebrew speech that among their scribes he is reckoned a Chaldean; he entered by a far different path. For he says that none of the prophets except Isaiah saw the seraphim standing about God, nor indeed are the seraphim themselves read of elsewhere; and next, that a sign was set forth beforehand of the consummation and captivity of Jerusalem which took place under Nebuchadnezzar.

For from Uzziah, under whom he began to prophesy, down to Zedekiah, who reigned last and who was led blind into Babylon, there were eleven kings, and a twelfth, Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon had appointed over the land — whom Ishmael the son of Nethaniah killed in the midst of a feast, a parricide of the remnants of his fatherland; and these are the twelve wings, of which four veil their face, as is found in some copies, four fly, four cover their feet. For of these twelve kings only four were righteous kings — Uzziah, Jotham, Hezekiah, and Josiah — who, lifted up through each of the captivities, dare to glorify God: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabaoth.'

But the rest, because of their sins, veil their face; and others, because they were led into captivity, hide the footprints of their feet. But the lintel taken away and the house filled with smoke, as we said above, he expounded as the overthrow of Jerusalem and the burning of the temple. And since I have once begun to relate his opinion, let me touch also upon those things which have not yet been touched by me: the tongs, from which the coal of the altar was taken, and the lips purged, he asserted to be the proper Passion of Isaiah, by which he was slain under King Manasseh. And then, truly with purged lips, he said to the Lord: 'Behold, here am I, send me,' and he said: 'O wretched me, for I am pierced with compunction!' As long as Uzziah lives, you do not understand, Isaiah, that you are wretched; you are not pierced, you are not moved;

but when he died, then you perceive that you have unclean lips, then you recognize that you are unworthy of the vision of God. Would that I too might be pierced with compunction, and after compunction be made worthy of the preaching of God, since, being a man and having unclean lips, I dwell also in the midst of a people having unclean lips! Isaiah, as a righteous man, had sinned only in speech; therefore he had only his lips unclean. But I, who see with my eyes unto lust, and am made to stumble with my hand and with my foot and with every part of my members, have all things unclean; and because, having once been baptized in the Spirit, I have defiled my tunic, I stand in need of the cleansing of a second baptism, that is, of fire. There are not, as some think, in the Scriptures simple words;

very much is hidden in them. The letter signifies one thing, the mystical discourse another. Behold, the Lord in the Gospel girds Himself with a towel, prepares a basin to wash the feet of the disciples, performs the office of a servant. Granted — let Him teach humility, that we may minister one to another: I do not gainsay it, I do not refuse. What is it that He says to Peter, who refuses: 'Unless I wash your feet, you shall have no part with Me,' and he answered: 'Not only my feet, Lord, but also my hands and my head'? The Lord, about to ascend into heaven — because the apostles, as men standing upon the earth, still had feet defiled with the filth of sins — wills to free them utterly from their offenses, that the prophetic saying might fit them: 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace!'

and that they may be able to imitate the words of the Church, which says: 'I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?'; so that, even if after the resurrection some dust should afterwards cling to these feet, they may shake it off into the impious city as a testimony of their labour, that they had striven thus far for the salvation of all, becoming to the Jews as Jews and to the Gentiles as Gentiles, so that they even in some measure sullied their own footsteps. Therefore, to return to our subject: just as the apostles needed a cleansing of the feet, so, because Isaiah had sinned in speech alone, he had unclean lips; and, as I judge, because he had not rebuked Uzziah as he rushed into the temple, nor, after the example of Elijah, had denounced the impious man with a free voice, he had unclean lips.

'That I dwell in the midst of a people that has unclean lips.' Isaiah, because he is pricked in conscience and testifies himself wretched, is made worthy of cleansing; but the people, not only doing no penance but not even knowing that it has unclean lips, does not merit the remedy of cleansing. Therefore under this example it must be provided not only that we ourselves be righteous, but also that we do not dwell among sinners, since the prophet reckons even this too as belonging to sin and misery. There follows: 'and I saw the king, the Lord of hosts, with my eyes.' The Jews say that Isaiah was for this reason put to death by their forefathers: because, whereas Moses saw the back parts of God, this man writes that he saw the Lord of hosts with carnal eyes, though God says concerning this: 'No one shall see my face and live.'

We shall ask them how it is that God in the law says he was shown to the other prophets in vision and dream, but conversed with Moses face to face; and how that saying stands: 'No one shall see my face and live,' when he confesses that he spoke to Moses face to face. They will assuredly answer that God was seen according to human capacity—not as he is, but as he willed himself to be seen. To them we too shall say that in the same manner he was seen also by Isaiah, the chief point remaining: whether Moses either saw God or did not see him. If he saw: then Isaiah too, who says he saw, was impiously killed by you, since God can be seen. If he did not see: then kill Moses along with Isaiah, since he is guilty of the same falsehood, saying that he saw him who cannot be seen.

Whatever understanding they have concerning Moses in the exposition of that passage, we too shall apply to Isaiah's vision. There follows: 'and one of the seraphim was sent to me, and in his hand he had a coal, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: Behold, this has touched your lips, and it shall take away your iniquities and shall purge away your sins.' According to all the editions which we have expounded above—whether you wish to understand the two testaments, or certain ministering powers in the heavens, or, as a sign of the captivity, a certain shadow prefiguring the future truth—now receive the seraphim.

We, because we follow the first opinion, assert that the evangelical testament was sent to the prophet, which, having in itself both commandments—that is, both its own and those of the old testament—comprehends the fiery word of God with a double edge of precepts, and, the lips being touched, drove away by the truth of its cleansing whatever there had been of ignorance—if indeed we interpret the unclean lips thus. This is the tongs which Jacob beholds upon the ladder; this is the sword twice sharpened; these are the two mites which the widow woman casts into the gifts of God; this is the stater bearing two denarii, which, found in the mouth of the fish, is paid for the Lord and for Peter;

with this twofold power, which is held in unity, the coal, being grasped, is sent to the prophet. This coal we know was granted to the prophet also in the hundred and nineteenth psalm, when the prophet was entreating God, saying: 'Lord, deliver my soul from unjust lips and from a deceitful tongue,' and after the questioning of the Holy Spirit: 'What shall be given to you, or what shall be added to you, against a deceitful tongue?' when it was said: 'The sharp arrows of the mighty, with desolating coals.' For truly the desolating coal, which makes the tongue pure from sin, is the divine word, of which it is also said in Isaiah: 'you have coals of fire, you shall sit upon them, these shall be to you for a help.' And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: whom shall I send, and who will go to this people? And I said:

'Behold, I; send me.' And he said: 'Go and say to this people: hearing you shall hear and shall not understand.' These are the words of the Lord questioning, not commanding, whom he ought to send and who is to go to the people; to whom the prophet readily responded: 'Behold, I; send me.' And after the promise he is commanded to say: 'Go and say to this people: hearing you shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing you shall look and shall not perceive,' and the rest which the discourse of the prophecy itself weaves together. I heard on this passage no small disputation of my Hebrew teacher, of which I shall set down a few things, so that you may perceive the man's meaning. He said: 'Let us inquire concerning Moses and Isaiah, which of them did better: whether Moses, who, when he was being sent by God to the people, said: I beseech you, Lord, I am not worthy, and again:

provide another whom you may send—or Isaiah, who, when he had not been chosen, offered himself unbidden, saying: Behold, I; send me. Nor am I ignorant,' he said, 'that it is perilous to dispute about the merits of the saints and to wish to assert anything, whether less or more, concerning him whom the Lord has crowned; but because he himself said: Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you, we too—not to detract from anyone, but that, knowing the meaning of scripture, we may direct ourselves toward its examples—ought to inquire into what can raise a question. He who is the advocate of Moses,' he said, 'proclaims his humility and meekness, in that, judging himself unworthy of the ministry of God, he was made the greater;

but Isaiah, because he offered himself unbidden, beginning to prophesy, began with curses: hearing you shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing you shall look and shall not perceive. On account of which, having suffered many things and been held for a madman by all the people, when the divine voice had again said to him: cry out, knowing what he had endured through his earlier readiness in offering himself, he did not say: Behold, I; send me, but he asked what that was which he ought to cry: and I said, he says, what shall I cry? To which is like that saying of Jeremiah: Take the cup of this pure wine from my hand, and you shall make all the nations drink to which I shall send you, and they shall drink and vomit and be maddened and fall before the face of the sword which I shall send into their midst.'

When the prophet had heard this, he did not refuse; he did not say, after the example of Moses: I beseech you, Lord, I am not worthy, and: provide another whom you may send; but, a lover of his people and thinking that by the drinking of the cup the hostile nations would be slain and fall, he willingly received the cup of pure wine, not understanding that among all the nations Jerusalem too was included. And indeed, among the other nations: 'and I received,' he says, 'the cup from the hand of the Lord and made all the nations drink to which the Lord sent me, and Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and its princes, to set them into desolation and into a trackless waste and into a hissing.' Concerning which prophecy—although in very many codices the order is corrupted—hear also what he says in another place:

'You have deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you were stronger and prevailed; I became a laughingstock, all the day I was in derision.' On the contrary, let him who is the advocate of Isaiah,' he said, 'bring forth these things: that the prophet, trusting not so much in his own merit as in the mercy of God, after he had heard the seraph say, Behold, this has touched your lips, and it shall take away your iniquities and shall purge away your sins, was unwilling to grow torpid in idleness, and unbidden, in zeal for the faith, offered himself into the ministry of God, as though free from sins. But Moses, because he had been educated in secular disciplines, and, the Egyptian having been slain, his conscience had in some part been soiled—whence also the voice came to him from the bush, saying: do not draw near here; loose the sandal from your feet;

for the place on which you stand is holy ground—and because he knew that there would be for him a contest against the magicians, against Pharaoh the worst of kings, he excused himself, saying: I beseech you, Lord, I am not worthy—for which in the Hebrew is read: I have not circumcised lips, the seventy translators expressing the sense rather than word for word. From which it can plainly be understood both that Isaiah rightly, after his lips had been circumcised, offered himself into the ministry of God, and that Moses, with lips still uncircumcised, refused so great a ministry.' Hearing you shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing you shall look and shall not perceive.

This whole passage, as the Saviour says in the gospel, pertains to that time in which he himself, having deigned to descend to the earth, wrought signs while the Jews did not understand. And since a manifold explanation follows all the way to the end of the chapter, and we who take down the dictation have already filled our wax tablets, let it suffice to have dictated thus far; because a discourse which is not polished by the pen of one's own hand, when it is of itself unrefined, then becomes far more tiresome if it redoubles the tedium of itself by prolixity, and, tormented by pain of the eyes, we labour only with our ears and our tongue. XVIII B. TO DAMASUS. (17.) The Seventy: and one of the seraphim was sent to me; Aquila and Theodotion: and one of the seraphim flew to me; Symmachus: and one of the seraphim flew to me.