Letters (CSEL) 2 part 3/24

Let us recall the history of when Tamar, defiled and violated by her most wicked brother Amnon, placed her hands upon her head sprinkled with ashes and so returned to her house. The common reading has — for which the Septuagint has rendered merely 'if it is said' —: 'If a man dismisses his wife, and she, departing from him, marries another man, shall she return to him again? Shall not that woman — or that land — be polluted and defiled? Yet you have committed fornication with many lovers — or shepherds.' For the very word, which is written with four letters (resh, ain, yod, mem), signifies both 'lovers' and 'shepherds': if we read 'rehim,' it sounds 'lovers'; if 'rohim,' 'shepherds.'

'Nevertheless return to me, says the Lord' — or 'and you kept returning to me, says the Lord.' In the Hebrew, even after fornication he receives the penitent and exhorts her to return to him; but in the Septuagint he does not summon to repentance, but rebukes the shamelessness of the harlot, that after adultery she should dare to return to her husband. And as for what he says: 'and that woman shall be defiled,' for which in the Hebrew we read 'land,' he abandons the figure and speaks more plainly about the land of Israel, which is compared to an adulterous woman. Let us use this testimony against those who, abandoning faith in the Lord and hindered by the errors of heretics, after many fornications and the deception of souls, pretend to return to their former truth —

not that they may lay aside the venom of their breast, but that they may instil it into others. 'Lift up your eyes straight ahead and see where you have not been prostituted: on the roads you sat waiting for them like a robber in the wilderness — or like a solitary crow.' For 'robber' and 'crow' the Hebrew has 'arabe' written, which can also mean 'an Arab,' a people given to robberies who to this day raid the borders of Palestine and, for those descending from Jerusalem to Jericho, beset the roads — a matter which the Lord too recalls in the Gospel. 'Lift up therefore your eyes, O Jerusalem, and look this way and that and see where you have not been prostituted in fornication.

For just as robbers are wont at evening and in desert places to lay ambushes for travellers, so you, like the harlot of Proverbs, sat on the roads at evening, so that by your embrace you might slay the souls of those fornicating: for which reason the whole land is polluted in your fornications.' And significantly, according to the anagogical sense, those who promise to abandon heretical errors are twice commanded to lift up their eyes straight ahead. For unless they begin to see rightly, they cannot condemn their former depravity. 'You have polluted — or slain — the land with your fornications and with your evils. For this reason the drops of rain were withheld, and the latter rain did not come — or, you have had many shepherds to your offence.'

The land was slain, or polluted, because of the slaying of those who perished in the fornication of idolatry: whence the blessing of all things was taken away, so that they suffered a drought of the word of God. Or, it had shepherds through whom it offended God, so that those who ought to have been teachers, to hold others back from error, became the authors of impiety. 'The brow of a harlot woman has become yours; you refused to blush.' The Septuagint: 'The face of a harlot has become yours; you have become without shame toward all.' Because he had said above: 'I have not sinned,' and had sinned the more by denying her crimes, therefore he now rebukes her as a bold woman of excessive shamelessness, who is carried by her bold countenance not toward one man or another, but blushes at none.

Let us use this word against the assembly of heretics, who glory in their errors. 'Therefore at least from now on call to me: My father, you are the guide of my virginity; will you be angry for ever, or will you persevere to the end?' Let the heretics blush, who refuse to be converted to better things nor to return to the Father their Creator, and let them hear: 'At least from now on call to me: My father, you are the guide of my virginity.' He himself betrothed your soul to his own embraces, and teaches how one ought to pray and to do penance. And the more merciful he is, who shows the way of salvation after fornication, the more wretched is the harlot who, after her wounds, refuses to receive healing. 'Behold, you have spoken and done evils, and you have prevailed.'

'Instead of words of penitence you have blasphemed with words of pride, and you have filled up your evil intent, and you have shown your strength against the man, that you might be able to do what you devised in speech.' 'And the Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what apostate Israel has done? She has gone off by herself upon every high mountain and under every leafy tree, and there she has committed fornication. And I said, after she had done all these things: Return to me — and she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw that, because apostate Israel had committed adultery, I had dismissed her and given her a bill of divorce; yet treacherous Judah, her sister, did not fear,

but she also went and committed fornication herself, and by the ease of her fornication she polluted the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. And in all these things her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but in falsehood, says the Lord.' The torments of some are the remedies of others: when a murderer is punished, he indeed receives what he has done, but others are deterred from the crime.

When therefore the ten tribes, which were called Israel, had been taken captive by the Assyrians and carried off to Media, the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, which ought to have dreaded like things and to have turned to God with their whole mind, surpassed the crimes of the ten tribes and followed idols to such a degree that they set up a statue of Baal in the temple of God — which in Ezekiel is called the idol placed to provoke the jealousy and rivalry of the Lord. But he speaks under the figure of two sisters, because they are descended from the one stock of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and he calls the former one 'apostate,' the latter 'treacherous.'

For the former utterly turned away from God as soon as the golden calves were worshipped in Dan and Bethel; but the latter, among whom was the temple and the religion of the true God, by imitation of her sister gradually withdrew from the Lord and for that reason is called 'treacherous.' But according to the anagogical sense, the prophecy is about heretics, who, while they think they are following the knowledge of a false name by heretical subtlety, ascend the mountain of pride and, soothed by the pleasures of this flesh, display their fornication under every leafy and pleasant tree.

And when these are handed over to the devil for the destruction of the flesh, it frequently happens that the house of Judah — that is, of confession and true faith — is by no means terrified by the example, but commits far greater things and by the ease of its fornication pollutes the land of the Church and commits adultery with stone and with wood, following those dogmas which are hostile to God. But if a churchman wishes to correct the one who errs and to cut away the putrid flesh and to draw back to repentance those who had followed falsehood, and nonetheless they, under the appearance of ecclesiastical truth, follow their old error, it can be said of them: 'In all these things treacherous Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but in falsehood.'

Now this prophecy is made in the times of Josiah, a just king, under whom Jeremiah also began to prophesy. 'And the Lord said to me: apostate Israel has justified her soul in comparison with treacherous Judah.' 'Israel,' he says, 'is more just in comparison with Judah, because the former perished at once at the beginning, but the latter could be corrected by the other's torments.' Let the new heresy sprung from the old take note that Israel is said to be justified in comparison with a worse one. And no wonder about the sisters of a single people, since Sodom too, in comparison with Jerusalem, receives the name of righteousness — the Lord saying through Ezekiel: 'Sodom is justified by you' — and the publican becomes just in comparison with the Pharisee.

'Go and cry out — or read — these words toward the north, and you shall say: Return, apostate Israel, says the Lord, and I will not turn away — or I will not set fast — my face from you — or against you — because I am holy — or merciful — says the Lord, and I will not be angry for ever. Only know your iniquity, that you have acted treacherously against the Lord your God — or you have acted impiously — and you have scattered — or poured out — your ways to strangers under every leafy tree, and you have not heard my voice, says the Lord.' The Hebrew word 'carath' is understood both as 'call' or 'cry out' and as 'read'; whence Aquila and Symmachus rendered 'cry aloud,' the Septuagint and Theodotion 'read.'

Now the word is directed toward the north and against Babylon and the Assyrians, to the ten and to the two tribes, and their return is proclaimed. 'And I will not turn away,' he says, 'my face from you' — or 'I will not set my face against you' — 'so that I may by no means receive you with the sternness of a judge, but with the countenance of mercy. For I am holy and merciful, that I may no longer remember your iniquity nor recall that you departed from the Lord and in his stead the idols delighted you, and you committed fornication under every shady and leafy tree.' This indeed is fitting to be said also to heretics or to the negligent in the Church, who are daily called to repentance through churchmen, and to whom this can properly be applied: 'and you have not heard my voice.'

Now every heretic dwells in the north and has lost the warmth of faith and cannot hear that word of the Apostle: 'fervent in spirit'; and because he has given himself over to pleasures, he has withdrawn from the Lord and has scattered his ways to strange dogmas and has followed pleasure. For no heresy is constructed except for the sake of gluttony and the belly, that it may seduce silly women laden with sins, ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth — of whom it is truly said: 'who devour my people as though it were the food of bread,' and whom Christ marks out as devouring the houses of widows.

'And when,' he says, 'I have had mercy on you, do not think yourself righteous, but ever remember your iniquity, and know that you have committed fornication against the Lord, and bow down the neck of your pride, so that you who offended through arrogance may please God through humility.' And to that person the prophetic word suits, which we mentioned above: 'and I will not set my face against you' — 'turn away your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.' 'Be converted, O returning sons — or wandering and departing ones — says the Lord, for I am your husband — or I will have dominion over you — and I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you into Zion, and I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and doctrine.'

'And when you have been multiplied and increased in the land in those days, says the Lord, they shall no longer say: the ark of the covenant — or testament — of the Lord, neither shall it come up into the heart, nor shall they remember it, nor shall it be visited, nor shall it be made any more.' The Jews think this was fulfilled after the return from Babylon under Cyrus, king of the Persians, and Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel — even though not all returned; and that this is what is signified by: 'I will take one from a city and two from a family.' But it is better understood at the coming of Christ, when a remnant was saved, as the Apostle says and expounds: 'Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we would have been as Sodom and would have been made like Gomorrah.' Then they were brought into Zion, of which it is written:

glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God.' And shepherds were given after his own heart, the apostles and apostolic men, and they fed the multitude of believers, not in Jewish ceremonies, but in the knowledge of Christ and in doctrine, and by the preaching of the Gospel sown in all the world. By no means shall they place their trust in the ark of the Lord, which was the guardian of the Mosaic law, but they themselves shall be the temple of God, nor shall they serve according to the erring Nazarenes with sacrifices abolished, but shall follow the spiritual worship. But others understand this at the end of times, when, with the fullness of the Gentiles entering in, all Israel shall be saved.

'In that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall be gathered to it in the name of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer walk after the depravity of their most wicked heart.' By no means shall the Lord sit upon the ark of the testament and the cherubim, to whom it was formerly said by that people: 'you who sit upon the cherubim, show yourself'; but all who believe with a perfect mind shall be the throne of God. Or rather, it is better to understand the whole about the Church, when all nations are gathered in the name of the Lord in Jerusalem — in which is the vision of peace — and by no means do they walk after the depravity of their most wicked heart, so as to do what they desire, nor do they follow their own errors, but say with the prophet: 'my soul has clung after you; your right hand has upheld me.'

'In those days the house of Judah shall go to the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land which I gave to your fathers.' This is properly fulfilled at the coming of Christ, when out of the twelve tribes together they believed the Gospel, leaving the land of the north of the harshest cold and withdrawing from the dominion of the devil; then they received the land of promise which he had promised to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I recently published a small book on the land of promise. 'But I said: how — or, I will set you among the sons and give you a desirable land, a glorious inheritance of the hosts of the nations! I said: you shall call me Father, and after me you shall not cease rightly to walk.'

For 'the glorious inheritance of the hosts of the nations,' which the Septuagint had rendered 'the named inheritance of God almighty of the nations,' Theodotion rendered more significantly: 'the renowned inheritance of the most mighty strength of the nations,' signifying Christ, who is the leader and lord of all the nations that believe in his name and passion. He himself said to Israel: 'you shall call me Father,' and: 'he who believes in me, believes in the Father.' He himself promised: 'I will set you among the sons' — namely in the number of my sons, who have believed in me from the people of the nations, and to whom I have given a desirable land. For as many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God.

'But as when a woman despises her lover, so the house of Israel has despised me, says the Lord.' It is the voice of Christ toward the Jewish people, to whom he had said: 'I will set you among the sons and will give you a desirable land, and you shall call me Father, and after me you shall not cease to walk.' 'As,' he says, 'a woman despises not her husband but her lover, if once she has been joined to him, seeing him a slave to her lust and the law of nature changed in her, by which she was once made subject to the man — the Lord saying: and to you shall be his turning — so the house of Israel, that is, the people of the Jews, despised the Lord Saviour to their own ruin.' 'A voice was heard on the roads — or on the lips —,

the weeping and wailing of the sons of Israel, because they made their way wicked, they forgot the Lord their God. Be converted, O returning sons, and I will heal your turnings away — or your bruises — for which Symmachus rendered 'conversions.' Gladly does God receive the penitent, and he runs to meet the son worn out with want and squalor, and at once he clothes him in the former garments and restores glory to the returning one — provided only that he return in weeping and wailing. For by his own fault he made his way wicked and forgot the Lord his God and Father, to whom the prophetic word now speaks: 'Be converted, O returning sons.' 'Whom I therefore call sons, because, having understood your sins, you return to your parent in weeping and wailing.'

'And when you,' he says, 'have returned to the Lord, he will heal all your bruises — or turnings away, by which you had departed from the Lord — or indeed your conversions.' For although we return to the Lord by our own will, yet unless he draw us and strengthen our desire with his protection, we cannot be saved. Let us understand this both of the people of the Jews returning to the Lord and of the heretics who have forsaken the Lord. 'Behold, we come to you; for you are the Lord our God. Truly the hills were lying and the multitude — or the strength — of the mountains; truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.' Let the penitent say this, forsaking all pride and the multitude — or the height — of mountains and hills,

by which he was proud against God, and prostrate in humility let him say: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. 'Confusion has devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.' All the labours of the heretics, of which it is written: 'they failed in searching out with searching,' from the youth of those whom they had deceived, the sons and daughters of those who had made progress in heresy or were held only by luxury — our confusion has crushed them. Whence they conclude: 'We shall sleep in our confusion, and our ignominy shall cover us, because we have sinned against our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not heard the voice of the Lord our God.'

Let Israel say this, who did not hear their Lord; let every heretic say this, who does penance; and yet part of salvation is to confess and to know one's own sins. 'Tell,' he says, 'your iniquities first, that you may be justified.' For truly Israel forsook Christ the Lord their God and sinned in him, not only at that time when he came in the flesh, but also before his coming. Whence they say: 'We and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, have not heard the voice of our God,' who spoke to our fathers: 'if you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for he wrote of me.' 'If you will return, O Israel, says the Lord, be converted to me,' for which the Septuagint rendered: 'if being converted

O Israel, says the Lord, to me, he shall be converted.' And the sense is: 'if he shall have returned to me, he shall return from captivity'; or otherwise: 'when he shall have offered what he has.' For 'he who has, to him it shall be given; but he who has not, even that which he seems to have shall be taken away from him.' Further, according to the Hebrew the sense is this: 'if you will return to me, O Israel, and once truly desire salvation and say that you have sinned and have not heard the voice of your Lord, be fully converted; believe him whom you denied, and then there shall be full conversion.' 'If you will take away your stumbling-blocks from before my face, you shall not be moved.' When therefore we are moved and say:

'but as for me, my feet had almost slipped,' we suffer this not through the weakness of nature, but because we place our stumbling-blocks and our idols against the Lord. 'And you shall swear: the Lord lives, in truth and in judgment and in righteousness, and the nations shall bless him and shall praise him.' And how does the Gospel forbid us to swear? But here 'you shall swear' is said for confession and unto the condemnation of the idols by which Israel used to swear. In short, the stumbling-blocks are taken away and one swears by the Lord. And as for what is said: 'the Lord lives,' in the old testament the oath is unto the condemnation of the dead by whom all idolatry swears. And at the same time it must be observed that the oath has these companions: truth, judgment, and righteousness; if these are lacking,

it will by no means be an oath, but perjury. 'And when,' he says, 'Israel shall have done this too and shall have become through the apostles a teacher of the nations, then all the nations shall bless — or shall be blessed — in him and shall praise him, because salvation has proceeded from Israel.' 'For thus says the Lord to the man of Judah and Jerusalem: break up for yourselves a fallow ground, and do not sow upon thorns; be circumcised to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest perhaps my indignation go forth like fire and be kindled, and there be none to quench it, because of the wickedness of your thoughts — or devices.' For that which we have said: 'be circumcised to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your hearts,' Symmachus put:

'purify yourselves to the Lord and take away the wickednesses of your hearts,' understanding circumcision as cleansing, and the foreskins as vices. Now this is commanded to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, who follow the true faith and dwell in the Church, that they should not sow upon thorns — which the Gospel word signifies — which would choke the seed of God, but should first make a fallow ground and dig up all the brambles and take away the briars, so that clean fields may receive clean seeds. This is what is said in another place: 'Do not cast your pearls before swine, and do not give what is holy to the dogs.' For how can he hear the word of God and conceive the seeds and bring forth fruit, whose mind is full of the troubles of the world? And what follows:

'be circumcised to the Lord and take away the foreskins of your hearts,' is commanded to none other than the man of Judah and the inhabitant of Jerusalem, that they may forsake the killing letter and follow the quickening spirit. 'For if,' he says, 'you do not do this, my indignation will go forth like fire and be kindled, and there will be none to quench it.' And he warns and foretells beforehand for this reason, lest he be compelled to do it — which we prove also in the case of the Ninevites, to whom the sentence was foretold, that by repentance they might turn aside the impending wrath. But all these evils will come about because of the wickedness of our thoughts, or devices. Where are those who in their thoughts say there is no sin, since all vices, according to the Gospel truth, proceed from the heart?

'Announce in Judah and in Jerusalem, make it heard; speak, sound the trumpet in the land, cry aloud, say: gather yourselves together, and let us enter the fortified cities.' Let Judah hear this, let Jerusalem hear this, in which is the confession of faith and in which the peace of Christ dwells, and to which it was said through Isaiah: 'Go up onto a high mountain, you who bring good tidings to Zion, lift up your voice, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem'; let him cry aloud and thus command: 'Let us enter the fortified cities — the wars of the heretics rise up: let the defences of Christ hold us — ; lift up the sign of the cross upon the watchtower and the height of the Church; take courage, you who fear, do not stand still, but run to the aid of Christ;

for I bring evil,' he says, 'from the north and a great destruction,' namely Nebuchadnezzar, who for this reason is permitted by me to be in this world, that your strength and victory may be proved. 'A lion has come up from his lair, and the destroyer of the nations has raised himself up; he has gone forth from his place to make your land a solitude; your cities shall be laid waste, remaining without inhabitant.' This is, as we have said, the true Nebuchadnezzar, of whom Peter too speaks: 'our adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion.' And he comes up either from the depths, into which he is to be bound and which he begs not to be sent, and 'the destroyer or ravager of the nations has raised himself up,' of whom it is said:

'he shall have dominion over all his enemies,' and he who boasts in the sight of the Lord: 'I have gone about the whole earth and trodden it down.' For who is there whom the venom of the devil does not touch, except that one alone who can say: 'behold, the prince of this world comes and finds nothing in me'? This one frequently makes the whole land of the Church a solitude, so that those who have gone out from the Church fight against the Church — of whom John the Evangelist also speaks: 'they went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.' The cities of the land of Judea are laid waste and the assemblies of the heretics flourish: if therefore anyone is a supporter of the authors of perverse dogmas, of him it can be said:

'a lion has come up from his lair, and the destroyer of the nations has raised himself up,' and the rest. 'For this reason gird yourselves with sackcloth, lament and wail, because the wrath of the fury of the Lord is not turned away from us — or, as the Septuagint rendered, from us.' Otherwise we cannot escape the lion and the most savage beast, unless we do penance and turn to the Lord not only in mind but also in deed. For as long as he lays waste the Church and the land of Judah, and ravages Jerusalem too, the wrath of God is manifest. 'And it shall be in that day, says the Lord: the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes, and the priests shall be astounded and the prophets shall be dismayed.' While the ravager lays waste the Church of the Lord and the wrath of the Lord remains against us, all help will be useless. 'The heart of the king shall perish' —

he whose heart ought to be in the hand of God, and the heart of the princes, who were thought to be wise; for God has made foolish the wisdom of the world, because through it they did not know God. The priests too, who ought to teach the law of the Lord and to defend the peoples subject to them from the fury of the lion, struck by a kind of stupor shall be turned to madness — for so the Septuagint rendered, expressing 'stupor' by 'ecstasy of mind' — and the prophets shall be dismayed, or, as Aquila rendered the Hebrew word 'iethmau,' they shall be senseless. For who would not go mad, would not lose heart, when he sees princes and kings and priests and the prophets who were once his own laid low under the lion? 'And I said: alas, alas, alas, Lord God' — for which the Septuagint rendered:

'O Lord God, hast Thou then deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying: it shall be well with you? And behold, the sword hath reached even to the soul.' For since He had said above: 'In that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered together to her, in the name of the Lord, unto Jerusalem,' and now He says: 'The heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes, and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall be confounded' — the prophet is troubled and thinks that God has lied to him, nor does he understand that the former was a promise for many ages hence, but this was to come in the near time, according to what the Apostle also says: 'Hath God cast away His people? God forbid.' But the sword reached even to the soul when nothing of life is left preserved in the soul.