Who then are his fellows? In the Old Testament indeed the patriarchs were fellows of Christ in this anointing; according to what is read in the psalm, the Lord saying of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to Abimelech and to the other kings of the Philistines: 'Touch not my anointed ones.' Kings too, and priests, and prophets were his fellows, because the anointing especially pertained to them, through which they merited to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit; for we read that Saul was anointed, and Samuel, and David; Solomon too was anointed at Gihon. Priests were anointed, as Aaron was anointed by Moses, the Lord saying to him: 'Thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons unto me as priests by a perpetual right.'
Prophets likewise were anointed, as Elisha was anointed by Elijah, to whom the Lord said: 'Thou shalt anoint Elisha the prophet in thy stead.' These three orders prefigured the Lord, who is the true King, Priest, and Prophet. But in the New Testament his fellows are the apostles, martyrs, confessors, and all who, washed by the grace of baptism, obtain the gift of the Holy Spirit; and from Christ they are called Christians. Christ therefore was anointed with the oil of gladness above all his fellows, because all receive the Holy Spirit by measure; but he receives it not by measure, but through fullness, according to that saying: 'For God the Father giveth not the Spirit by measure to his Son'; but in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
'And thou, Lord, in the beginning didst found the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands.' After the excellent humanity of the Son of God, he turns again to the eternity of his divinity, saying: 'Thou, Lord,' he says, 'in the beginning of creatures didst found the earth.' Where did he found the earth? If we weigh it rightly, we shall see that it subsists by the divine nod and disposition, founded upon nothing except upon itself. And as for his saying, 'The heavens are the works of thy hands,' it is not to be supposed that the Word of God the Father, which is incorporeal, works with hands, since there are no bodily features in the nature of the divinity, as we have. By 'the works of his hands,' therefore, we ought to understand the power of his command:
how by the word and power of his command he works whatever he wills; according to what the psalm says: 'He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created.' By the power of the Word of God, therefore, heaven and earth subsist, because by the power of his command all things were made, and without him was made nothing. But since Moses at the beginning of Genesis said that heaven was made first, and then the earth, saying thus: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth,' a question arises: why does the Psalmist place the earth first, and then the heaven, as though the earth had been made before the heaven? This is resolved thus: what the one placed before—heaven before earth—the other placed after; and this was done in order to show that the two were made simultaneously:
but what the divine majesty made simultaneously, the human voice could not utter simultaneously; wherefore it was necessary to say one before the other. 'They shall perish, but thou shalt remain.' Here the plural number is put for the singular, as in many other places of divine Scripture; for this is not to be understood of that firmament in which the stars are contained, nor of the ethereal heaven, through which the courses of the seven planets are driven; but rather it is to be taken of that airy heaven, from which the birds too are called 'birds of heaven.' On the day of judgment, therefore, that airy heaven shall perish, from which we draw in our breath and give it back:
not that it should utterly cease to exist in its nature, but it shall be changed from this appearance into a better, and from this density into the subtlety and clarity of the ether; whence the Apostle says in another place: 'The fashion of this world passeth away.' If the fashion passes away, the substance shall remain; for as great a space as the water occupied at the time of the flood—so that it was higher by fifteen cubits above all the mountains under the whole heaven, and, as some say, reaching even to the circle of the moon—so great a space shall the fire hold on the day of judgment, accompanying the Lord's coming; according to what the Psalmist says: 'A fire shall go before him,' because it shall consume all the clouds and all the density of this air; and there shall be a new heaven and a new earth.
Of this transformation the Lord also speaks in the Gospel, saying: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away'—they shall indeed pass away from this fashion and appearance into a better through renewal, and shall remain in their own substance. 'And they all shall grow old as a garment.' By 'garment' here we ought to understand the human body, which is worn out by length of time and by the pain of infirmity, and is reduced to dust; just as, therefore, the human body indeed grows old and is reduced to dust, but on the day of judgment shall be renewed through the resurrection—so this airy heaven, by reason of its excessive age, already in a manner grows old, but on the day of judgment shall be renewed through the burning of fire. 'And as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed.'
'Vesture' (amictus) is so called from 'wrapping around' (amiciendo), that is, from encircling; well, then, is heaven compared to a garment, by which we are encircled, since just as a garment girds the human body on every side, so heaven girds the earth from every part, poised on an equal balance; whence too it is compared in another place to the skin of an animal, the Psalmist saying: 'Stretching out the heaven like a skin.' 'Thou shalt change,' he says, 'the heaven as a vesture'; as if he said: Just as a garment is easily folded when it has been stretched out, and again, when folded, is lightly stretched out; and if it has been soiled with filth, it can easily be cleansed—so heaven, stretched out and composed by thee;
and thus with incomprehensible ease it shall be changed on the day of judgment from this fashion and appearance into a better; and to show that the works of the Lord, once made, shall abide under eternity, he added: 'And they shall be changed'; as if he said: After they have been changed, they shall remain in that newness, never to return to this corruptible state. 'But thou art the selfsame, and thy years shall not fail.' Behold the difference between the creature made in time and the Creator abiding equably in his eternity; for upon the omnipotent God there falls no past or future, nor any mutability; but all things are present to him, and he is ever immutable;
whence the Psalmist, weighing the eternity and immutability of the Word of God with subtle consideration, used the substantive verb of the present tense, speaking of him: 'Heaven,' he says, 'and earth shall be changed; but thou art the selfsame,' that is, thou who wast before all ages. 'And thy years,' that is, thy eternity, 'shall not fail.' He, therefore, who always has being, says of himself to Moses: 'I am who am. Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He who is hath sent me to you.' Wherefore every rational creature, which is of itself mutable or temporal, ought to labour to the utmost that it may be able to be joined and to cleave to him who ever remains the same. 'But to which of the angels said he at any time:
Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool?' After he has shown the majesty of divine eternity to be in the Son, the blessed Apostle again turns his discourse to the glorification of his humility, saying: 'To which of the angels said he at any time: Sit thou at my right hand?'—understand: To none; for to none of the archangels, to none of the dominations, or virtues, or principalities did God the Father grant this glory, that he should say to him: 'Sit thou at my right hand,' that is, dwell with me and rest in the fullness of my majesty. But to the victorious Son, and the triumpher over the whole world through the dispensation of his Incarnation, after the glory of the resurrection, on the fortieth day, he says to him:
'Thou hast laboured in the passion, thou hast laboured in the redemption of the human race; rest with me in glory, until I make thy enemies as thy footstool.' 'Until,' or 'till,' does not signify the end of any time in this place, but is put for the infinite and the everlasting; as if he said in other words: Thou shalt ever dwell in the fullness of my majesty; because I shall ever subject to thy eternity thy enemies—the Jews and other unbelievers. For the feet of the Lord designate the stability of eternity, where he stands, as it were, upon firm footprints, by the power of his omnipotence. We may also not incongruously understand the feet as the mystery of his Incarnation, in two ways:
his enemies are daily subjected to him, namely, when—having abandoned the contrariety of vices and unbelief—they willingly submit themselves to him unto salvation, that under him they may be protected; or certainly, when, being unwilling to believe in him, they are compelled to be subjected to him, and are trodden under the dominion of his power. 'Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them who receive the inheritance of salvation?' If all the spirits of the heavenly powers are sent for the salvation of believers, what is it that Daniel said: 'Thousands of thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before him'? For how are they all sent, if ten thousand times a hundred thousand stand before him?
It is to be understood, therefore, that the omnipotent God, who is an uncircumscribed spirit, fills all things and is wholly everywhere; wherefore the angelic spirit, which is circumscribed, wherever it be sent, runs within the Lord, and ever has the Lord present; and therefore those same who are sent, they also stand before him. Or certainly, all are said to be sent for this reason: because, as Didymus the Greek says in his book on the Holy Spirit, they are sent from all the orders of the heavenly dignities; just as we read that the archangels Gabriel and Michael were sent in the volume of Daniel, and Raphael to Tobias; one of the seraphim too is read to have been sent to Isaiah, when with a coal he touched his lips, and just as angels are frequently read to have been sent to the saints.
But generally, as the doctors say, to each of the faithful, from the moment of birth—or rather from the time of baptism—an angel is given by God for his guardianship, and to persuade him to do good; whence the Apostle here says: 'They are sent to the ministry of salvation, for the sake of those who are to receive the inheritance of the heavenly homeland.' In this place, therefore, as we have said, all are sent, because they are sent from all the orders; and those who are sent are of the same dignity as those who stand before him; or certainly, because all are of the same will, and while those who ever stand before him consent with those who are sent, in a manner all come in them, and all are sent. And the meaning is:
What wonder is it, if the angels render their ministry to the only Son of God, since it is established that they were made ministers of our salvation? Wherefore to none of them did he say: 'Sit thou at my right hand.' CHAPTER II. 'Therefore ought we more abundantly to observe the things which we have heard, lest perhaps we should let them slip.' 'Therefore'—what wonder is it, that the Son of God, who gave his Gospel, is more excellent than all the angels? Or certainly, since the angels minister to us, who ever report our works to God, though he himself is everywhere, we ought more abundantly and fully to observe the things which we have heard from Christ in the Gospel, and from his Apostles, than we were wont to observe in the law, which was given through a servant. And why 'more abundantly'? Lest perhaps we should let them slip:
that is, lest perhaps we perish, and fall away from salvation. Or, lest perhaps we vanish away, passing into perdition after the manner of a river running into the sea, while our senses run through empty things of every kind. But he joins his own person with them, acting after his custom. And why he said 'more abundantly,' he gives the reason, when in the following words he explains, saying: 'For if the word spoken by angels became firm, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward: how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation?' The word of the law and the prophets was spoken by angels to our fathers; because through a subject creature he spoke to Moses and the prophets:
according to what the blessed Stephen also manifests in his disputation concerning Moses: 'This is Moses, who was with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai.' And 'became firm,' that is, true, that same word spoken through the angel; since, as was there foretold, so all things came to pass, whether good or evil. Every transgression, that is, breach of the law, and disobedience, perpetrated against that word, received a just recompense of reward, namely the judgment of eternal damnation; thus it befell those who murmured. But it is to be noted that, although 'reward' (merces) is chiefly taken in a good sense, here the Apostle put it for evil, after his usual manner, not caring about the propriety of words, but indifferently putting one for another:
just as here 'reward' for evil, and elsewhere 'captivity' in a good sense, where he said: 'Bringing into captivity every understanding, unto the obedience of Christ.' The Apostle therefore makes a comparison from the word of the law, which was spoken through an angel, to the grace of the Gospel given through the Son, and says: For if the word of the law spoken through angels became true in all the good things which it promised, or the evil things with which it threatened: how much more shall the word of the Gospel be firm, given through the Son! And if those who were disobedient to the law had damnation, and could not escape judgment: how shall we escape the vengeance of God, if we neglect so great a salvation?
namely, the faith of the Gospel and life eternal, so great, inasmuch as it is announced and promised to us through the Son? Understand: by no means. By these words the Apostle manifests that there was not so great a salvation in the law as there is in the Gospel; for the law promised the land, saying: 'If you be willing, and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land.' The Gospel promised the kingdom of heaven, saying: 'Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' The former furnished vengeance upon earthly foes; the latter furnishes it upon spiritual ones. The former held out a long temporal life; the Gospel grants a life that shall abide without end. 'Which'—understand 'salvation.' 'Having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.'
The salvation, therefore, which is contained in the Gospel, received from God the beginning of its declaring; for he himself first announced it through himself, saying: 'Do penance,' and so forth, and: 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.' Then indeed it was confirmed, that is, it was believed by those who heard him—namely, by the apostles, who were with him, and by their successors; or certainly, it was confirmed, that is, consolidated and perfected in us, by those who received it from the Lord himself; because the salvation which is given to us through the Holy Spirit remains for ever. For the sake of humility he joins his own person with them, saying: 'It was confirmed in us by them that heard.' To this someone might say:
'How was it confirmed by them?' To whom he replies: 'God also bearing them witness by signs, and wonders, and divers powers, and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his own will.' 'It was confirmed,' he says, 'in us by them that heard, God bearing witness'—that is, at the same time affording testimony to their doctrine and preaching, not by voice, but by power, and by the exhibition of miracles, and by the variety of tongues; because, as one of the apostles used to say to a dead or infirm man, 'Arise, be living or whole,' at once he would rise up unharmed. And 'signs,' and 'wonders,' and 'powers' are here taken as one and the same.
But what he subjoins, 'distributions of the Holy Spirit,' signifies the affluence of graces which the Fathers of the Old Testament did not have, which was given after Jesus was glorified, as the Gospel testifies, which says: 'For as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.' These are the distributions, or divisions, which the Apostle commemorates in another place, saying: 'To one indeed by the Spirit is given the word of wisdom,' and the rest which he enumerates in what follows, until he subjoins: 'All these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as he will.' Whence here too he says: 'According to his own will'; for he attributed all things to the divine will and counsel, lest anyone should trust in his own merits.
For the Holy Spirit himself knows what is profitable to each, or what is fitting for each. 'For God hath not subjected unto angels the world to come, whereof we speak.' He looks back to what he said above, that God the Father had said: 'Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool,' but he delivered it to his Son, to whom he himself said in the psalm: 'Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance.' Whence too the Son himself, rejoicing that the world which should believe was delivered to him, says: 'But I am appointed king by him,' that is, by God the Father. 'But one in a certain place hath testified, saying.'
That he passes over in silence the names of the prophets in this epistle, whose testimony he knows, he does not do this out of envy or an intent to conceal, but out of a wish to honour, and to show that the Hebrews, to whom he was writing these things, had much knowledge of the divine Scriptures, so much that he had no need even to set down the name of the speaker. This testimony, then, is taken from the Davidic Psalter: how it speaks to God the Father: 'What is man?' This must be pronounced in a subdued way and with a certain contempt. 'What is man?'—understand: frail, mortal, perishable, and one who, in the original sin of Adam, has been overcome by a general depravity. 'That thou art mindful of him.' Understand: even thus dost thou bestow the gifts of thy mercy. There follows: 'Or the son of man.' Understand: what is he?
This same thing the doctors refer to Christ, who in the Gospel very often calls himself the Son of man, that is, the son of Mary; and therefore, in the form of a question, the voice must be raised upward: and the meaning is: What did that man, assumed by the Word, merit, that he should become the Son of God? And what follows, 'That thou visitest him?', they refer to the human race, of which a little above, under the name of man, it was said: 'What is man?' And the meaning is: That thou visitest the human race through thy Son, and bestowest perpetual benefits, is not its merit, but thy grace; and therefore it subsists, because it is visited by thee. Visitation pertains to the physician and to the sick: for one is said to fulfil the office of visitation, as a physician, when he enters in to the infirm;
and the human race, which was infirm and languishing, God the Father then visited, when he sent his Son, who is the Word made flesh, and dwelt among us. Of which visitation Zacharias too, the father of blessed John, says: 'The Orient from on high hath visited us.' Certain doctors refer this, which he says—'What is man, that thou art mindful of him; or the son of man, that is, that thou visitest him?'—wholly to the human race; but that which follows they refer concordantly to Christ. 'Thou hast made him a little less than the angels.' Through the death of the body and the reproaches of the passion, God the Father made his Son less than the angels—he who according to his divinity was equal to him in omnipotence—because the angels are immortal and impassible:
but he was made less, not by necessity, but by spontaneous devotion, as the same Apostle says elsewhere: 'Who, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant'; and he became obedient to the Father even unto death, and death upon a cross. For from that part in which he could die, the Creator of the angels was made less than the angels. But he said well, 'a little less,' because, although he assumed a mortal body, yet he had no stain of sin. 'Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour.' The Psalmist speaks to God the Father concerning the humility and exaltation of the Son, saying: 'Thou hast made,' he says, 'thy Son a little less than the angels,' in that thou didst create him mortal; but because he was obedient to thee even unto death, 'thou hast crowned him with glory and honour.'
Such is also that which the Apostle says in another place: 'For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.' With glory, therefore, did God the Father crown him in the resurrection, and with honour in the ascension, when on the fortieth day of his resurrection he exalted him above every creature. Otherwise: With glory he was crowned in the multitude of believers—namely, when, after the triumph of the resurrection, he received the inheritance of the whole world in that which he is man; and with honour, in the confession of eternal majesty, that is, in that he dwells in the fullness of the paternal glory. 'And thou hast set him over the works of thy hands.'
By the fact that He became man, He was appointed by God the Father over the works of His vision: namely over the heavenly things, and the earthly, and the things beneath; He who, according to the power of His divinity, just as He had created all things together with God the Father, so together with Him possessed all things. For by saying, 'Thou hast set him over the works of thy hands,' every creature is shown to be subject to Him; because just as all things were created by the Word, so that man taken up by the Word possesses, together with the Word, all things: 'Thou hast put all things under his feet.' That is, under His eternity and His power, so that every creature may adore Him. And this is what He Himself said to them when He appeared after the glory of the resurrection: 'All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.'
For in that He subjected all things to Him, He left nothing that was not subject to Him. In this, that is, in this gift or deed by which He subjected all things to Him, He is seen to have excepted neither the heavenly things nor the earthly, so that He would say, 'after the angelic creation'; but He concluded thus, saying: 'He subjected all things to Him.' 'But now we do not yet see all things subject to Him.' For what is it that the blessed Apostle says? For when he had said that all things were subjected to Christ, he immediately added, saying: 'But now we do not yet see all things subject to Him.' If all things are subject to Him, how are they not subject? It must therefore be understood in this way, as above, where he said:
'He left nothing that was not subject to Him' — let us understand a universal subjection, both voluntary, namely through faith, and necessary, by which every creature is compelled to be subject to its Creator. But here, where he said, 'We do not yet see all things subject to Him,' we ought to take it only of the voluntary subjection which stands through faith: by which certain ones are unwilling to believe in Him. For because at that time, when the Apostle was speaking these things, the evangelical preaching had not yet been spread throughout the whole world, and not yet did all those predestined to life believe, he rightly says now: 'Not yet are all things subject to Him'; and not only then, but even still all the predestined do not believe.
'But Him who was made a little lower than the angels, we see, namely Jesus, on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour.' Here he openly manifests that the glory and honour of Christ was His cross, for which He was made a little lower than the angels, by dying for our salvation: whence the Apostle also, when he had said elsewhere, 'He became obedient to the Father unto death, even the death of the cross,' immediately followed, saying: 'Wherefore God also hath exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name'; so also the Lord Himself provoked it, saying: 'That the Son of man may be glorified.'
If He who is Lord calls the things He suffered for His servants 'glory,' much more oughtest thou, O man, not to doubt that what thou sufferest for God pertains to thy everlasting glory. Him, I say, that is Jesus, we see crowned, not with bodily eyes, but with the eyes of the mind, while He sits in the fullness of the paternal majesty. 'That by the grace of God He might taste death for all.' The Son is called the grace of God the Father, in that He was freely given to us by God the Father, and because He freely endured death for us; for it was not owed to us by our merit that the Son of God should taste death for us, but He did this by ineffable grace.
As for what he says, that He tasted death 'for all,' certain teachers understand this absolutely, so that it be said 'for all for whom He tasted it,' that is, for the elect, predestined to eternal life. But indeed certain others take it so generally, that it be said He died for all, although not all are saved. And what if not all believe? He nevertheless did what was His to do. Whence the blessed Prosper sets forth this likeness: There is some most skilled physician who, coming into a populous city where many sick are found, prepares a potion against all kinds of infirmities, and calls together all, saying:
'Come, all you peoples who labour under various infirmities, and drink of this potion which I have prepared for the sake of your health: I promise you with solemn assurance that if anyone drink of it, he shall straightway deserve to obtain healing.' Those who believe his words come, drink, and are healed; but those who refuse to drink are not healed, but waste away in their infirmity. As far, therefore, as pertains to the physician's devotion, he tempered the potion for the health of all of them, although it profits none but those who drank of it; so also Christ, as far as in Him lay, died for all, although His passion profits none save only those who are willing to believe in Him. And at the same time it is to be noted that the Apostle did not say:
'He lay under death,' but properly: 'He tasted death,' by which He willed to show the swiftness of the resurrection: for indeed He could be held by death only a short time, and having conquered it He at once rose again victorious. For it became Him, on account of whom are all things and by whom are all things, who had brought many sons into glory, to consummate the author of their salvation through suffering. 'He was saying' (he says) that He, namely, was to consummate the author of their salvation through suffering, that is, to perfect the salvation of all through the passion of Christ, who is the author of salvation of all believers, and who before His passion had brought many adopted sons into the glory of faith, hope, and charity;