who had a sure hope that they could receive the joys of the heavenly fatherland and the inheritance of the eternal King: or certainly, through the passion it became Him to fulfil all things that had been foretold concerning Him. Whence He Himself said, hanging on the cross: 'It is consummated.' 'On account of whom are all things,' that is, through His death all things heavenly and earthly were restored: namely man redeemed and the number of the angels made whole again. 'By whom are all things': supply, 'were made'; according to what John says: 'All things were made by Him.' You see how He is in the midst of us and joined to us: He the Son, and we the sons; He the proper, we the adopted; but He saves, and we are saved. You see how He joins us and distinguishes us; for when He says:
'He had brought many sons into glory,' here He joined them together. But when He adds, 'the author of their salvation,' here He distinguishes. 'For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.' Who is it that sanctifies? Christ, through the faith of His passion and through the gift of baptism. Who are they that are sanctified? All who believe, who are sanctified by faith in the passion of Christ and by the grace of baptism. But both He who sanctifies, Christ, and we who are sanctified, are of one God the Father, because from Him all things received their origin: for there is one God, from whom are all things. But He is in one way, we in another. He, as the proper Son, can sanctify; we, as adopted, are sanctified by Him: yet we have one Father in the heavens.
He the proper, we the adopted. 'For which cause': supply, because both He and we are of one God the Father, though distinctly. 'He is not ashamed to call them brethren.' Who are the adopted sons. Saying: 'I will declare thy name unto my brethren.' He is not ashamed to call them brethren, showing that the brotherhood of our humanity is not the same: but in His great mercy and utmost humility, He chose us as brethren. This too He affirms by prophetic testimony, lest it should be thought something new and not long before foretold: for he says: 'I will declare thy name unto my brethren'; that is, by His sacred passion and glorious resurrection He promises that He will make known the glory of the paternal divinity, and even His name, by which He was called Father.
'I will declare,' He says: that is, I will cause it to be narrated by my preachers, that you may believe in me; for rising from the dead He says to the women: 'Go and declare to my brethren.' And to Mary: 'Go to my brethren.' Now both those who love and those who are loved are called brethren. And He added: 'In the midst of the Church I will praise thee.' 'In the midst of the Church,' that is, in the assembly of the faithful. The Son praised the Lord the Father when, the apostles having returned from preaching, He said: 'I confess to thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,' that is, I praise thee and glorify thee: 'because thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto little ones.'
He too praises God the Father in the midst of the Church, while all the faithful, redeemed by His passion and washed by His baptism, render unwearied praises to God the Father in heart and in deed. And in these three ways God is to be praised. And again: 'I will be trusting in Him.' That is, in God the Father. It is the voice of the Son of God speaking of God the Father according to His humanity: for the man taken up by the Word had placed all His confidence in God the Father: whence He was saying: 'Father, glorify thy name.' And, supplicating for His faithful, He said: 'Father, I will that where I am, they also may be with me.' And exhorting them to have confidence, He commanded: 'Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.' And again: 'Behold I and my children, whom God hath given me.'
These two testimonies are taken from the oracle of the prophet Isaiah, speaking in the person of the Son of God. Now these are, namely, the holy apostles, to whom the Lord said: 'Children, have you any meat?' Who are rightly called children on account of their innocence and humility, of whom Truth itself says: 'Suffer the little ones to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' Because therefore the children have shared in flesh and blood, He also in like manner partook of the same. This is said of the apostles and of all the faithful, that through this they were brethren of the Lord, because He had a true body and blood, just as they had.
In which place Marcion is manifestly confounded together with his followers, who dared to say that our Lord did not have a true body, whereas the Apostle says that by taking flesh He became a partaker of theirs: for just as those children and we consist of flesh and blood, so also Christ partook of flesh and blood, having become man: and just as Christ shared in our substance through the taking up of the man, so also we are partakers of Him through the taking up of His body and blood. But why Christ shared in flesh and blood, He manifests in what follows, when He adds: 'That through death He might destroy him who had the empire of death,' that is, the devil;
'and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.' Here the Apostle shows something wonderful, showing that the devil was conquered by Christ through that very thing by which he held power in the world: the weapons which were once strong for him against the world—that is, death—by it Christ struck him down: just as David, having drawn Goliath's own sword, cut off his head with it, in that very thing in which that victor was once wont to conquer. Because therefore the devil had usurped dominion in the world through the death of man, through the temporal death of Christ he was conquered. Wherefore Christ shared in flesh and blood, that He might be able to die for a time; and thus while He died, who had committed no sin, He destroyed the devil and death;
because He was ever dead to sin, in that He did not sin, and the empire of the devil being destroyed, He freed His elect, who through fear of death, throughout their whole life in which they lived in this world, were subject—that is, bound and held fast—to the bondage of death and of the devil. For in this they feared death, because they were slaves of death, since all lay under death. 'For nowhere doth He take hold of the angels, but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold.' What he had said above, that the children shared in flesh and blood, and that Christ partook of it, he further pursues this sense, wishing to show whence He shared with them, and says: 'Nowhere,' that is, in no place, neither in heaven nor on earth, did He take up the angelic creation;
but He took up a human body from the seed of Abraham. By which words He favours them with kindness: for whom of them did He take up? Because therefore man was to be retained by the death of the Son of God, He therefore did not take up the angelic nature, which cannot suffer death; but the human, in which He could die; nor was so great a dignity conferred upon the angels, that in one person of them the nature of the Son of God should be joined; which dignity and honour divine grace bestowed upon human nature, that God and man should be one person. And why did He say, 'He taketh hold,' which pertains to one fleeing? Because He, pursuing us as it were withdrawing from Him and fleeing far off, took hold of us. Whence He ought in all things to be made like unto His brethren.
'For this reason' (he says), by which He did not take up the angelic nature, but the human from the seed of Abraham, 'He ought in all things to be made like unto His brethren.' What is 'in all things'? That is, being reared He grew, hungered, suffered, and died: in all these He is like His brethren, because they are subject by condition. But perhaps someone asks: Why was man restored rather than the fallen angel? To whom it must be answered that man did not sin as much as the devil: for man, at the devil's persuasion, sinned; but the devil, with none persuading, but through pride, fell. Man too, because he had a body, needed to eat; but the devil, because he is spirit, is wholly inexcusable. There was also a third cause:
namely, that man had not yet come to the place where he was to reign eternally with God, but was tarrying in the earthly paradise, from which he was to be transferred to heaven, the number of the elect being completed; but the devil was already established in heaven. 'That He might be a merciful and faithful high priest before God, and might make propitiation for the sins of the people.' 'Merciful' is derived from 'a wretched heart,' namely one who bears mercy and knows by experience how to have compassion. And so there was no other cause for His being made like His brethren in all things, except that He might show us mercy by redeeming us, and might become a faithful, true, and powerful high priest, by interceding with God the Father for us, and make propitiation for our sins.
Now this was the cause of this pitiable dispensation: for indeed He saw the human race intent on death, bound by the chains of sins, and He had mercy on it, as a faithful high priest, reconciling us to God the Father, and by reconciling, purging. For it is the ministry of the priest and high priest to be faithful, that he may be able to free from sins those whose priest he is. He is called 'pontifex' (high priest) in that he provides a 'pons,' that is, a way, to his followers by his good example. So also the Lord made a bridge for us, that is, showed the way of life, when He said: 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.' He also made a bridge for us, since He opened to us the gate of the heavenly fatherland, where He now abides interceding for us with God the Father.
'For in that wherein He Himself suffered and was tempted, He is able to succour them also who are tempted.' 'In that,' he says, that is, in that He is man. In which He Himself was tempted. But not overcome, and suffered by His ministers: He is able to free the bound, and to help the tempted lest they be overcome, because He knew temptations not only as God, but also proved them by experience as man. And therefore not only through this that He is God, can He have mercy on us, but moreover through this that He is man, since the man taken up by the Word is of the same power of which the Word itself also was. CHAPTER III. 'Wherefore, holy brethren,'
'partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, who is faithful to Him that made Him, as also Moses in all His house.' He calls them brethren both in flesh and in spirit, who were of the same race and had the same faith: 'holy,' who had been sanctified by faith in the passion of Christ and by the water of baptism, because they were partakers of the heavenly calling, that is, of the heavenly fatherland, to which He called all, saying: 'Come unto me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.' 'Consider,' he says, 'the Apostle and High Priest of our faith, Jesus.' 'Apostle' in Greek is called 'sent' (missus) in Latin;
and the Lord Jesus was an apostle, because He was freely sent by God the Father, as He Himself testifies, saying: 'I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' And: 'As the Father hath sent me, I also send you.' Whence the excellent preacher says in another place: 'God sent His Son, made of a woman.' And He is the High Priest of our confession, because He puts forward the confession of our faith before God the Father. 'Who is faithful to' that same God the Father, 'who made Him'; according to what is said elsewhere: 'Who was made to Him of the seed of David according to the flesh.' Yet this is not said only of the essence of His humanity, in which He Himself was faithful, obedient to God the Father unto death.
Was He not faithful to God the Father, when all that He did He reckoned not to His own glory, but to the Father's? saying: 'The Father who abideth in me, He doth the works.' 'As also Moses,' he says, 'was faithful in all His house.' By 'the house of God' here we ought to understand the people of God, namely the Israelite folk, over which Moses was set by God, of which house Isaiah says: 'The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel.' And again, exhorting: 'O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.' In which house Moses was faithful, that is, devout and of good will, delivering the things that were God's, and not usurping to himself the glory of God. 'For this man was counted worthy of greater glory than Moses: by how much greater honour hath He who fabricated it.'
But in this place there will be a hypallage in the sense, or a sufficiently necessary implied understanding, to be supplied in this manner: 'Christ was found worthy of so much greater glory than Moses, by how much greater honour He has'—supply, 'the Lord of the house, who fabricated that same house.' Or: 'Christ was found worthy of so much greater glory than Moses, by how much greater honour the builder has than the house which he himself fabricated.' And he renders the reason why the Lord is of greater glory than the house fabricated by Him. 'For every house is fabricated by someone: but He who created all things is God.' Here he distinguishes the maker from the thing made, wishing it to be understood that God is the author of both houses, namely also of the people. 'And Moses indeed was faithful.'
That is, devout and of good will. 'In all His house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things.' Supply, 'of the words.' Which were to be spoken. 'But Christ as a Son, in His own house.' He dwells, ordering and disposing it. As great a difference as there is between a servant, whom the head of the household sets over his house, and a son whom he leaves as heir, so great a difference and distance is there between Moses and Christ. But Moses was a faithful and devout servant in the house of God almighty, that is, in the Israelite folk, for a testimony of those words which were to be spoken through him to the people, since he was a witness of the words of God to the people, and again of the people to God.
But Christ freely orders His own house, as a son the paternal inheritance, concerning which the Apostle now adds, saying: 'Which house are we, if we hold firm unto the end the confidence and glory of hope.' The Apostle again exhorts the Hebrews to stand firmly in faith and to persevere in good work, joining himself as usual to them. 'We are the house of God,' he says, 'if we hold firm the confidence,' that is, right faith, 'and the glory of our hope,' firm unto the end of our death, or unto the day of judgment. The glory of our hope is that by which we glory that we are already in hope the sons of God, and just as we hold it in Him, we believe that we shall possess it in reality.
For the good things that are promised to us we can by no means have in this penal life; wherefore, having right faith, let us patiently look for with sure hope the rewards promised to us by the Lord. There follows: 'Wherefore, as the Holy Spirit saith: Today if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts,' and the rest, up to: 'If they shall enter into my rest.' The blessed Apostle had spoken a little above concerning hope, that we ought to hope for the things that are to come, and then adds a prophetic testimony under a comparison, how those perished who despaired of the power of almighty God, and what those few merited who under sure hope believed God's promises:
because therefore the Apostle spoke obscurely, it is necessary that the history of the Old Testament be recounted, so that the discourse may become clearer. The Israelite people, led out of Egyptian bondage amid the signs and wonders of the Lord, when they had traversed much desert way, fed by the Lord with manna, given drink of water from the rock, and guarded by His protection, took counsel all to send from each of the tribes princes as scouts, who should reconnoitre and consider the land granted to them by the Lord.
Who traversed the land through the nations, and returned after a space of forty days to the multitude, reporting the land to be most fertile and the producer of great fruits, but that it had impregnable cities, and that most mighty men were in it, being of the stock of Enac, that is, of giants. But the Israelites, ungrateful and senseless, who ought to have remembered such great benefits of God—how He had rescued them shut in the midst of so great a host of the Egyptians, and from the perils of the rivers, and had given them fountains from the rock without fail, had bestowed manna, and had conferred on them innumerable other benefits—yet did not believe, despairing of His power, nor were they held back by any of these things;
but, terrified by hopeless fear, murmuring they said: 'Would that the Lord may not bring us into that land! Let us return into Egypt.' God therefore, angered that they had so quickly forgotten His works and wonders, swore that that generation should not enter into the rest and the fatherland once promised to their fathers, and thus those six hundred thousand who went out of Egypt perished, except only Caleb, namely the son of Jephone, and Joshua the son of Nun, who strove to quell the sedition of the people, being believers in the Lord's promise.
It must be noted, moreover, that three rests are commemorated by the Apostle in this epistle: one of the Sabbath, in which God rested from His works; a second, Palestine, into which the Israelites having entered were to rest from misery and many labours; and a third also, which is the true rest, namely the kingdom of heaven, to which those whom it shall befall to attain will most fully rest from the labours and hardships of this world; concerning which the Apostle here speaks prophetically and spiritually, saying: 'Wherefore'—supply, 'because we are the house of God, if we hold firm right faith and the glory of hope'—'harden not your hearts,' lest you suffer such things as your forefathers suffered, being deprived of the promised rest.
The Apostle exhorts the Hebrews with these words, that they should not be unfaithful and unbelieving, and lose the eternal rest promised to them by the Lord, just as their fathers lost the temporal rest. 'Harden not,' he says, 'your hearts, as' your fathers 'hardened' them. 'In the provocation.' That is, in the embittering, when they provoked me to bitterness. 'According to the day of the temptation in the wilderness, where your fathers tempted me.' In many ways, saying: 'Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?' And: 'Can He bring us into the land promised to the fathers?' But as for what he says:
'Today,' the Psalmist does not speak to those who died in the wilderness by murmuring against God and being unbelieving, but rather to those who lived in the time of the Lord's preaching and of the apostles, and who shall be even unto the end of the age. 'Today,' he says, that is, in the day of the New Testament, or at every time when 'today' is said, 'harden not your hearts'; for 'today' is put for the everlasting, so long as the world and the present life remains. There follows: 'They proved and saw my works. For forty years.' As for what he says, 'They proved my works and wonders,' it is not to be understood as if it were said, 'they proved,' that is, 'they chose them for the sake of giving thanks,' but rather this proving is to be referred to curiosity and temptation.
'They proved,' he says, 'my works': that is, out of curiosity they had sought to test whether I was almighty. But what came of it? They saw them for forty years, and remained ungrateful. What he says, 'For forty years,' can be joined also to what follows. Now the number forty is held to be mystical in divine Scripture. For forty days the Lord fasted in the wilderness, that He might triumph over him through whom they murmured for forty years in the wilderness against God: and these being completed. From the glory of victory in the passion and resurrection He was forty days with the disciples, before He penetrated the height of the heavens.
In the first forty days, therefore, He showed the temptation of this pilgrimage; in the latter forty days, the consolation, by which they are to be consoled in the fatherland: for His body, that is, the Church, must needs suffer temptations in the present age, that afterward it may be able to attain to the joys of the heavenly fatherland: yet even in the present that Consoler is not lacking, who said: 'Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age.' There follows: 'Wherefore.' Supply, 'because they tempted me, and out of curiosity for forty years proved my works.' 'I was offended with this generation.' To be said 'offended,' or 'incensed,' is more than 'angered': for he who is angered can easily be called back from anger;
but he who is 'incensed' or 'offended' can be appeased either scarcely, or in no way at all. So the almighty God was offended, that is, greatly and implacably angered against those six hundred thousand who perished in the wilderness. 'And I said.' To Moses, and Aaron, or even to Joshua. 'They always err in heart.' In many ways the almighty God chastised them; but they always erred in heart, straying from the way of truth and rectitude; for whoever does not comply with the will of God strays from the rectitude of justice. 'But they have not known my ways.' 'They have not known,' he says, that is, they have not approved me, nor chosen my actions and my precepts. Or, 'They have not known,' because they were unwilling even to know them, so as both to hold and observe them.
'So I swore in my wrath: If they shall enter into my rest.' 'If' is sometimes put for affirmation, sometimes for doubt, sometimes for negation, as in the present place for 'not,' also in the Psalm where the prophet says: 'If I have rendered evil to them that repaid me,' that is, 'I have not rendered.' The order of the words is: 'They shall not enter into my rest, as I swore in my wrath.' For the wrath of God is His vengeance: for it is a great thing for God to speak: but to swear is exceedingly to be feared, for since every word of His ought to be taken for an oath, because He is true, He is sometimes said to swear to exaggerate the force of the matter, and that He may strike terror into the hearers.
So He is said also to be angered in a human manner, though He Himself ever remains the same, to the end that, while we hear Him angered, we may fear to sin. But as for what He said, 'They shall not enter into my rest,' here, as was said above, we ought to understand a twofold rule: one, namely, of the earthly promise promised to Abraham, which they lost on account of their unbelief; but the other, eternal life, of which the Apostle speaks spiritually, into which the Jews remaining in unbelief shall not enter. 'Take heed, brethren, lest perhaps there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, to depart from the living God.' The Apostle again exhorts them with kindness, calling them brethren, and giving counsel how they may be able to enter into the rest.
My brothers by flesh, and brothers also by faith, take heed—that is, beware—and with the greatest diligence give attention, lest perhaps there be in any one of you an evil will and a wicked heart of unbelief, to depart from the living God, as it was in those who went astray in the desert by worshipping idols, and lest you perish as they perished. But exhort one another every day, so long as it is called Today, that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For because he was writing to those Jews who had already believed, and among whom were such as could exhort others in faith, in hope, and in good works, therefore he speaks in this manner:
Exhort, he says, one another, and correct yourselves every day, so long as it is called Today—that is, at all times of the present life, in which there is space for repentance: if anyone should sin, let him not despair of pardon as long as he lives; let none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin—that is, by despair, when the sin of unbelief deceives, as though through repentance one could not merit indulgence. For he who does not fully believe in salvation is wont for the most part to fall into despair; and he gives the reason why no one ought to despair of pardon, saying: For we are made partakers of Christ. What is it, that we are made partakers of Christ? We share in Christ and are joined to Him, being as it were one, and existing in Him:
inasmuch as we share in Him in this, that He is our head, and we are His members, co-heirs and members of one body with Him according to the spiritual man, who is created in Him. In Him also we share, because we take His body and blood for our redemption; wherefore we must not despair—provided, however, that we hold firm from the beginning of His substance even to the end, as it is said: Today, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts—against God through unbelief—as in that provocation. Understand: your fathers hardened their hearts. By the beginning of the substance he means the faith of Christ, by which we subsist and are reborn, because He Himself is the foundation of all the virtues.
And well does he call it substance, because just as the body subsists and is quickened by the soul, so the soul subsists in God by faith, and lives by this faith, without which it is nothing; whence it is said through the prophet: But my just man lives by faith. And the same eminent preacher: Without faith it is impossible to please God. Now the faith is called the substance of Christ, either because it is given by Him, or certainly because through it He Himself dwells in the hearts of the faithful, according to what the same Apostle elsewhere says, desiring that Christ dwell through faith in the inner man in your hearts.
Then therefore are we truly partakers of Christ, if we hold His faith firm even to the end of our death, or even to the day of judgment—that is, at all times, so long as it is said through the prophet: Today, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts. For some who heard did provoke; but not all who set out from Egypt through Moses. He silently makes mention of that history, when, the spies having returned, they said, murmuring: Would that the Lord had not led us into that land! But Joshua and Caleb glorified God, saying to all the multitude: The Lord is mighty in faith. And therefore it profited them nothing that they heard, since they did not deserve to enter into it. CHAPTER IV.