撒迦利亞書註釋 第 1 章 第 11/24 段

Wisdom has built for herself a house, and has set up seven pillars. Concerning this house and temple the Lord who became man says to the Father:

But a body You have prepared for me. Since the house thus spoken of has foundations laid, as of a holy temple built, the hands — that is, the practical powers — are strengthened according to the former luminous contemplations, which are called days.

Consider whether the glorious Church is a house founded and a temple built, concerning which the Apostle writes to Timothy his own disciple:

You shall build, and I will lay the foundation of My holy house. And when shall this come about, but when all who have received the Gospel through perfect faith and virtue are built up upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone, into a holy temple in the Lord, for a dwelling-place of the Trinity? In addition to what has been contemplated, each of the God-fearing is also founded as a house and built as a temple, according to the testimony of Christ, who says:

If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come, I and My Father, and We will make Our abode with him. The hands of the disciples of Christ are strengthened as they do what the Gospel enjoins, since the Saviour fulfilled the law and the prophets — from the time the house was founded and the temple was built, when the Holy Spirit came upon the most holy Virgin Mary, the power of the Most High overshadowing her.

For it was then that the words of the former prophets were truly fulfilled, since the things foretold met with their fulfilment.

For how do the hands of those who hear the words of the prophets not grow strong, when there is born of the Virgin He whose name shall be called God-with-us?

for whenever the Lord is with us, then indeed our hands are strengthened, so that we cry aloud as those who sing praise:

The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our protector. For when the supplanter of wickedness — that is, Jacob — has taken hold of us, we, having gained the supernatural strength of God Almighty, cry out in victory:

Know it, O nations, and be conquered; give ear, even to the ends of the earth.

For though you be strong, you shall again be conquered; and whatever word you speak, it shall not stand among you, for God is with us. And when shall these successes come about, but when our hands are strengthened, the house being founded and the temple built, according to all the interpretations rendered of the prophetic saying set forth?

For before those days the wages of men shall not be for profit, and the wages of the cattle do not exist, and to the one going out and the one coming in there shall be no peace from the affliction;

and I will send out all men, each against his neighbour.

Having proclaimed beforehand many things concerning the glorious restoration to come for the people that receives His benefits, and concerning the raising up of holy Jerusalem, the holy house being founded upon her and the temple being built for the benefit and gladness of the people whose hands are strengthened in the prophetic words — before the days of the promise, when the city was laid waste and those who had taken her captive held sway, the wages of men had no profit whatever, since they laboured emptily and accomplished nothing.

In addition to the vain toil of men, the wages of the cattle also do not exist, since they neither labour nor bear burdens for anything profitable — whereas the wages of men have profit, and those of the cattle exist, whenever the house is founded and the temple is built;

for it is then, precisely then, that both to the one going out and to the one coming in there is peace from the affliction — I mean, from the sweat and toil drained out for the betterment and completion of the things pursued.

Since there was in no way peace from the affliction for the one coming in and the one going out, the labour of men and cattle being fruitless and unprofitable, he said:

The wage of rational mortal living beings shall be in vain, and that of the beasts shall not exist, so that men rise up each against his neighbor, all stability and concord having been driven into exile because of the brutishness and savagery that has arisen out of wrath and implacable enmity.

A wage that is profitable — but even this not belonging to those who through folly are more brute-like than the beasts, whose irrationality, both folly and savagery, the Word forbids when it says:

Do not become like a horse and mule, which have no understanding. For how can there be a wage for those who possess no understanding, who do all things with irrationality? And so, even if certain men at times seem to be men while doing everything with wicked craft, working without wage and to no purpose, they have no profitable wage, because wisdom does not enter into their craftily-wicked soul, nor does it dwell in the body enslaved to debt of sin — whereas the wage that is on behalf of virtue and piety does possess profit.

To the soul, then, that works the food which endures unto eternal life and transforms the holy commandments into deeds, God the rewarder says:

There is a wage for your works. Equivalent to this recompense, the Apostle Paul in Christ writes concerning the workmen who need not be ashamed:

Each shall receive his own wage according to his own labor. Consider carefully whether only the things given for praiseworthy works are called a wage, while the punishments meted out for sins are named not wages but chastisements.

But what will follow from the wage of men being not profitable, and the wage of beasts not existing, except that there is no peace from affliction for him who goes out and comes in, since men are sent out by him who reigns peacefully each against his neighbor, ever lusting to murder one another and being thrown into turmoil?

Depicting such a savage condition, the hymn-singer says in the eleventh Psalm:

Each spoke vain things in his heart; with deceitful lips, in a heart and in their heart they spoke. Equivalently, Jeremiah too says concerning those who thus set upon one another:

Do not trust in friends, and do not rely on brothers, for every brother will utterly supplant with the heel, and every friend will walk deceitfully;

they will surely not speak the truth; their tongue has learned to speak lies. Concerning such people the holy psalmist David also cries out:

To me indeed they spoke peaceable things, yet in anger they devise words. And the prophet again says:

He speaks peaceable things to his neighbor, yet within himself he holds enmity — the deceitful and treacherous man, clearly.

For those who thus busy themselves and do the works of the flesh, even if they seem to be men, there will be no profitable wage, nor will that of the more brute-like beasts exist.

By beasts here we must understand the pleasure-lovers and passion-lovers, and by men those who champion the knowledge falsely so called and the wisdom of this age and of its rulers, which has no profitable wage, in that it is being brought to nothing and does not endure beyond this age and the life that belongs to it.

For when in the age to come the true Light appears, every sophistry that holds deceit and every irrational pleasure shall be dissolved, so that their wage — which existed only in appearance — no longer has any profit or existence, since he who goes out and comes in in no way has peace from the affliction that has worn him down, every man having been sent against his neighbor so as to ravage and harm him.

And now not according to the former days do I act toward the remnant of this people, says the Lord Almighty, but rather I will show peace;

the vine shall give its fruit, and the earth shall give its produce, and heaven shall give its dew, and I will cause the remnant of my people to inherit all these things.

Inclining toward beneficence, the Author of all good things promises that he will no longer deal with the remnant of the people according to the former days, when the enemies prevailed, gaining mastery over those whom they had led captive:

God to the remnant of this people.

As regards the literal sense, the foregoing things were promised for the time of the return of the captives, at which those who fared well said in thanksgiving:

When the Lord turned back the captivity of Zion, we became as those who are comforted, when God no longer acts toward the remnant of his chosen people according to the former days, when Jerusalem lay desolate, God henceforth granting the peace by which they sent up their prayer, saying:

O Lord our God, grant us peace. But the things of the glorious restoration have taken their beginning in the spiritual sense when he came who says:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because of which he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to heal those who are broken in heart. He promises the same things also in the prophet Amos, saying:

I will bring back the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build up the ruined cities, and I will plant them. When these graces and divine gifts have been given by the greatly-bountiful One, there shall be peace, arising together with righteousness, in the days of the coming of the King who received judgment from God, concerning whom it is said:

In his days shall righteousness spring up, and abundance of peace, so that there is no bound to his peace, since not one nation but all nations and the whole inhabited world are ruled as kingdom by him, he having said to his acquaintances and to those who wish to serve as soldiers under him:

My peace I give unto you, he said, a great tranquillity prevailing, and, not acting according to the former days toward the remnant of Israel, he will procure surpassing fruitfulness, the vine giving its fruit and the earth its proper produce, and heaven its corresponding dew.

The vine that bears its own fruit is the spiritual contemplation of the truth, and the rational substance qualified in accordance with it, which has grown out of the true vine by way of partaking.

Concerning this manner of life, the Savior said in the Gospel:

I am the vine, you are the branches;

every branch that abides in me, the Father prunes it, that it may bear more fruit. Concerning these branches which have the beginning of fruit-bearing, it is written in the Song of Songs:

Our vines are in blossom, they have given forth their fragrance. And when the fruit has advanced and come to ripeness, it is gathered, and being cast into the winepress it is pressed out, and it becomes a drink that gladdens the heart of the one who drinks, according to what is said in the Psalms:

Wine gladdens the heart of man. Concerning the spiritual vintage, songs 'over the winepresses' were inscribed, such as the eighth, the eighty-first, and the eighty-third;

for these three Psalms alone out of the hundred and fifty were inscribed 'for the winepresses.'

Harmoniously with the vine that gives its fruit, in the anagogical sense, the earth also shall give its produce, having brought to fruition the seed which Jesus cast upon it, so as to yield a hundred, sixty, thirty, according to the interpretation of the parable; for the Savior interpreted the heart that is good and upright as the good earth.

And these produce of the earth — the divine seeds — are given to the one who has sown in tears, that is, with sweat and toil, that he may reap them in exultation.

For concerning these sowers, who do this not sensibly but spiritually, it is set forth in one of the Songs of Ascents:

Those who sow in tears shall reap in exultation;

going forth they went and wept, carrying their seeds;

coming they shall come with exultation, carrying their sheaves. Concerning such abundance, which is spiritual, the divine Word also commands in the prophet Hosea:

The good earth gives edible and gladdening fruit and its own produce, heaven having given its dew.

But we shall understand what this dew is, once we have come to know what the heaven is that gives it — being perhaps none other than the man who bears the image of the heavenly One, having his citizenship in heaven.

Concerning all those who have been conformed to the heavenly Savior, it is said in the plural in the eighteenth Psalm:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands. Concerning these it is also written in the great Song in Deuteronomy:

Rejoice, O heavens, together with him — with the Savior, clearly.

For how should they not rejoice and exult together with him, having been conformed to him, according to the teaching of the holy Apostle Paul, who in one place writes concerning those who worship God faithfully and genuinely:

Whom he foreknew and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son;

Let us bear the image of the heavenly One. Those who have thus excelled in moral and intellectual virtue, being fitly framed together in the same mind and the same judgment, must be spoken of, by way of concord, as one heaven, giving spiritual dew.

But also each one of such persons gives his own dew, in like manner to Moses the hierophant who says:

Let my utterance be awaited as rain, and let my words come down as dew. Nevertheless, even if it is given by the heavens that have been interpreted, yet it is chiefly supplied by the Master of the heavens, according to the divine voice of Isaiah which runs thus:

The dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall be raised, and those in the earth shall rejoice;

for the dew that is from you shall be healing to them. And since the dead in the earth who have obtained the intelligible, healing dew rejoice concerning it, one must say that the dead who rise and come forth from the tombs will also partake of it — most especially then, when, the perfect having come whereby one confronts the truth face to face, the seeing in part and through a mirror shall cease, that which shall be most fully contemplated having prevailed.

Concerning the dew thus rendered you will also take up the blessing of Isaac upon Jacob, which begins from here:

From the dew of heaven, and from the fatness of the earth. All the things that came to belong to the people redeemed from Babylon were given, since God caused them to inherit.

And since it was said passively that God caused the remnant of the people to inherit all things — namely the fruit of the vine, and the produce of the earth, and the dew of heaven — it must be understood both ways, both actively and passively.

Israel is called the portion and inheritance of God for no other reason than because of the virtues that belong to it, virtues performed and contemplated by free choice and willingly.

Of the same understanding is also this:

Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, all men being inherited by the Savior through the pious faith and works of virtue.

But if some passivity be signified by the passive expression 'shall inherit,' the understanding will be as follows:

God shall inherit all the aforesaid things, giving them by way of inheritance to the remnant of his people; and these are those who, according to the prophet Isaiah, say:

If the Lord of Sabaoth had not left us a seed, we would have become as Sodom, and been made like Gomorrah. And after other things:

Even if the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand beside the shore of the sea, the remnant shall be saved. Taking up these prophetic voices, the Apostle applies to them, saying thus:

So too at the present time there has come to be a remnant according to the election of grace; and if by grace, then no longer of works, since grace would no longer be grace. Now that the text before us has been clarified as far as we are able, let us set forth what follows.

It shall come to pass that, just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you and you shall become a blessing;

take courage and be strong in your hearts.

For thus says the Lord Almighty:

Just as I purposed to bring evil upon you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, says the Lord Almighty, and I did not relent, so in these days I have set myself in array and purposed to do good to Jerusalem and the house of Judah.

To fall under sorrows and curse comes from nowhere else than from sin and impiety, while the blessing is given to the righteous from God because of the things they rightly do and rightly think.

For men, being self-determining and having a free and autonomous choice, bring upon themselves, by their own doing, either the things that lead to chastisement or those that lead to divine promises.

Indeed then, by the very manner in which they come to be under a curse, by that same manner they also come to be in well-being and blessing.

Straightway, then, the very Author of all good things says to Judah and Israel:

When your fathers acted impiously and lawlessly so as to provoke me against them, I did not repent, but brought upon them what it was fitting that those who had provoked me should suffer; so now I have set myself in array and have purposed to save those of Judah and of Israel, and I have not repented.

It is possible to adduce testimonies to these things from the God-inspired Scriptures.

The inhabitants of Nineveh once sinned and acted impiously beyond measure, so that the cry of their wickedness went up to God demanding punishment, so that the Provider and Judge of all things said:

Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. When those who were guilty learned this—the prophet Jonah having proclaimed it to them—by the direction of him who had threatened them they came to repentance, so as to confess and to do the things that dissolve the wickedness that had gone before.

So then, when these repented, he who had beforehand announced the affliction against them repented, having taken the occasion for beneficence; whereas this did not come to pass in the case of the Sodomites, because of the persistence of their impiety and sins—although the merciful God wished to find in them some occasion for doing good.

The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has been multiplied, and their sins are exceedingly great.

I will therefore go down and see whether they are being brought to their end according to their wickedness which has come up to me;

and if not, that I may know—all but saying:

Since the cry of their great sins has summoned me, I go down together with it, so that if they be found still committing their great sins, they may be brought to their end, falling under the punishment foreannounced; but if they be found only moderately liable to the impious things they devised and to the forbidden deeds, I may know them as my own, according to what is written:

The Lord knows those who are his; and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness. With this same thought Paul, the vessel of election, writes to the Galatians:

But at that time indeed, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those which by nature are not gods;

but now, having come to know God—or rather having been known by God. For he knows those who know him, not then taking the beginning of being acquainted with them, but rather of holding them to account as knowing those foreknown; and this in no way applies to the base who still persist in wickedness.

At any rate it is said by the Saviour to those who have continued in evil until the season of the consummation of the world and the manifestation of the Judge of all—who is evidently himself:

Depart from me, you workers of iniquity;

I never knew you—that is, you never had any experience of me or share in me, nor I in you.

For if knowing be taken in its ready sense, it would be the same as being acquainted; how then did he know them to be workers of iniquity? Since, then, there are two kinds of knowing—and also of not-knowing—in the God-inspired Scriptures, according to the one kind God the Knower of hearts is acquainted with all, both the righteous and the sinners;

the living and the dead, he will separate the righteous from the sinners, so that he may bring those who partake of righteousness and holiness into the kingdom to inherit it, but may send away the unrighteous and wicked, who did not love their neighbour as themselves, into punishment, saying:

Depart, you cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. According to the mode of being acquainted, the Knower of hidden things and he who understands the mind of all says to certain ones:

I know that your sins are many. Likewise also in the Gospel:

You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. According to this contemplation, one must understand also what is repeatedly set down in the Gospel:

But Jesus, knowing their reasonings—which were evidently base;

for being cunning and malicious in their disposition, they supposed they could escape the notice of him who understands the mind of all.

As, then, it is possible to be known in the sense of being acquainted—to which ignorance is opposed—so also it is possible to know and not to know by way of experience.

For if Paul writes concerning the Saviour that he knew no sin, we understand what is written as equivalent to:

him who had no experience of sin, whether in deed or in thought.

Understanding it—of what power it is and by what deliberate choice it is accomplished—he came indeed to take it away from the world.

This distinction extends also to the case of men;

at any rate it is said in Ecclesiastes:

He who keeps the commandment will not know an evil thing—that is, he will not be disposed toward an evil thing, the evil thing being known cognitively to him who keeps the divine commandment, which is a word of God;

for since the knowledge of opposites is one, he who knows the good word also is acquainted with its opposite.

Scripture reports the twofold nature of knowing also concerning Adam: in one place saying that he was acquainted with what the essence of the woman was—for when the Creator had presented her after her formation, Adam said:

This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;

and later knowing her in the manner of experience:

Adam knew Eve his wife, and having conceived she bore Cain. And in the case of every man who lives with a wife this is used, both in ordinary speech and in the divine instruction.

For instance, concerning the father of the prophet Samuel it has likewise been written:

And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and she conceived, and bore Samuel. According to this same signification it is said concerning Rebecca:

She was a virgin; a man had not known her. And the virgin Mary, who had no experience of marriage, upon hearing from the great angel Gabriel concerning the conception of a child, said:

And whence shall this be to me, since I do not know a man? We consider that we have not digressed uselessly from the prophetic text before us;

for this was undertaken for the sake of clarity concerning what was obscurely spoken thus:

I will therefore go down and see whether they are being brought to their end according to their cry which comes to me;

and if not, that I may know. For it was necessary to make plain in what sense it was said by God:

Having shown for what reasons God, having purposed to afflict those who provoked him and to render them accursed, did not repent but abode by his sentence against them, it is now time to see for what reasons he repented by his innate goodness.

Even as, having purposed to bless Judah and Israel, he did not change his mind, since they abode by the virtue which they had taken up at God's exhortation and that of his law;

for it is said in one of the Psalms:

The Lawgiver will give blessings—evidently to those who keep his divine law.

Equivalently it is brought forward also in another Psalm, beginning from this point:

...his soul, nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour.

This one shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and mercy from God his Saviour. For, it having been asked by way of inquiry:

Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place? an answer is given describing who and of what sort is the one concerning whom the question is asked: that in hands—that is, in deeds—he is guiltless through purity of heart, in no way having received his soul upon a vain thing, nor having sworn deceitfully to his neighbour, and that he shall receive for these noble deeds both blessing and mercy from God his Saviour.

In agreement it is also brought forward in Proverbs:

A blessing of the Lord is upon the head of the righteous. He who has received these saving things will not fall away from the promise, being brought into the divine promises by him who says:

I have set myself in array to bless Judah and Israel, and I have not repented, having abode by my own grace so as to do good and to lead to eternal salvation those concerning whom I did not repent, confirming what I promised;

even though, when your fathers provoked me through sins and impiety, a curse took hold—since I did not repent of the threat, because you did not, through repentance from the wickedness you held, afford that I should become reconciled to you—nevertheless even now let your heart take courage to look for the gifts from me.

For they shall assuredly come to be, since I have willed and set myself in array to bless you;

for thus it shall be well with you, who come from Judah—who confesses—and from Israel and Jerusalem.

For willing to save all men and to bring them to the knowledge of the truth, I threaten and scourge those who resist coming to the knowledge of the truth of the salvation that is beyond the ages, subjecting to toils for a little while those whom I wish to better and to benefit.

For thus most easily, being benefited, they shall be saved, since I have set myself in array, without repentance, to save and to do good to those who have been chosen, that they may be my portion and inheritance.

If we too wish to have God propitious, that he may deal well with us, let our reasoning faculty—which is called heart—take courage, when we have made careful attention to the noblest deeds, so that firmly and incontestably the things of well-being and of endless salvation may be established for us, when the curse which prevailed for a little while has been circumscribed and utterly blotted out.

Wherefore take courage without hesitation, looking for the things which the God who cannot lie has promised:

Take courage—the good things hoped for are to be awaited without doubt.

The second volume upon the prophet Zechariah having been sufficiently circumscribed, let us make our pause somewhere hereabouts, being about to begin the third book, which furnishes discourse in the opening of the mouth of God who has also enlightened the prophet with the eternal light.

Book III. The God who cannot lie, being the fountain and father of truth, never ceases instructing and teaching those who have readily presented themselves to make room for the gifts of the Holy Spirit;

at any rate he furnishes without delay a word of wisdom and a word of knowledge to those who long to receive it;

for it is said in the epistle of James:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives and does not reproach;

but let him ask in faith, nothing doubting. The proverbial saying accords with this, having thus:

The Lord gives wisdom, and from his presence come knowledge and understanding. He who is shown to be wise according to the God-sent wisdom is thrice-blessed, having as his teacher the God of all;

him whom they longed to have as their instructor, to whom the Lord and Saviour said:

the Lord and the Teacher, and you say well:

For I am. This gift will come to us also, through the unceasing prayer of those who intercede on our behalf: wisdom and eloquence in the opening of the mouth, so that we may blamelessly and rightly take up what follows in the prophet set before us, which begins here.

These are the words which you shall do:

Let each one speak truth to his neighbour, and judge a judgement of peace in your gates.

And let none of you reckon the wickedness of his neighbour in your hearts, and love not a false oath; for all these things have I hated, says the Lord Almighty.