撒迦利亞書註釋 第 1 章 第 8/24 段

And he gives a timbrel who has received the word concerning self-control, mortifying his members that are upon the earth — fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire — bearing about the dying of Jesus in a body which he has brought into subjection and buffeted;

for the timbrel is fashioned from the hide of a dead animal.

This the five wise virgins who bear the torches sound and strike, according to what is sung in the sixty-seventh Psalm:

The princes went before, joined with the singers, in the midst of the maidens playing timbrels. The Hebrew women used the timbrels here interpreted after coming out of Egypt and crossing the Red Sea; their leader was the prophetess Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron, taking in their hands their timbrels;

in concord with their chorus-mistress, singing songs of victory, they said:

Let us sing unto the Lord, for he has been gloriously glorified;

the horse and the rider he cast into the sea — and what follows, up to the end of the ode.

For it is not even plausible to suppose that so great a multitude of timbrels could have been at hand in a wholly desert place for so many myriads of women, since it is quite possible to find the timbrels spoken of allegorically among women who had already for many years been raised in the fear of God, being especially stirred up toward the spiritual dance by the things they had beheld, which had come to pass beyond expectation for their coming forth out of Egypt.

And by those who have received the psalm there is given, besides the timbrel, also a pleasant psaltery with a harp, tuned together by the faculties of the soul and the senses to the divine melody; but there is need of sobriety, lest one take up blameworthy instruments and songs which God rejects, saying:

Remove from me the sound of thy songs, and the psalm of thy instruments I will not hear. He who has turned away from the things rejected by God sings psalms and songs praiseworthily, according to the exhortation of the Apostle who writes:

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in the heart. After the crown for the graces of Zephaniah and for a psalm in the house of the Lord — these having come to pass — those who are still far off among the captives shall come, upon drawing near to him who has proclaimed release to them;

and praising him they shall build in the house of the Lord, that they may minister continually after the manner of priests, like the blessed prophet Samuel.

And each thing shall be accomplished, being fulfilled through vision, when those who are useful and who have come to know the cause hearken and truly hear the voice of the Lord ... of which for a time they endured ...

and being far off, those who ...

in the house, practical works and ...

the wrongdoings of priests to be ...

set forth by the Lord Almighty.

And it came to pass in the fourth year, under Darius the king, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chaseleu;

and the king had sent unto Bethel Sarasar and Arbesser, and his men, to make propitiation before the Lord, saying to the priests who were in the house of the Lord Almighty and to the prophets, saying:

The sanctuary has entered in here in the fifth month, inasmuch as I have already done so for many years.

in the fourth year of Darius' reign ...

it was written in the Hebrew tongue ...

the number nine upon ... being received ... it comes to pass in the ninth month ...

the sanctuary. It has entered in on the ...

The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee;

wherefore also the holy thing that is born shall be called the Son of God.

I have prepared a lamp for my anointed one ...

concerning the sanctuary ...

Sanctify the Lord himself, and he shall be thy fear; and if thou art trusting in him, he shall be to thee a sanctuary. Those who ...

Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.

a letter to them ...

Wherefore, coming into the world, he says:

Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body thou didst prepare for me;

in whole burnt offerings and offerings for sin thou hadst no pleasure; then said I:

Behold, I have come. He came ... to those to whom he appeared ... I am present, that ye may see ... the image of his ...

lovers, of whom one was ... his men ...

And the word of the Lord of hosts came unto me, saying:

Speak unto all the people of the land and unto the priests, saying:

In the sevenths — and behold, seventy years — did ye at all fast a fast unto me? And if ye eat or drink, is it not ye that eat and ye that drink?

Are not these the words which the Lord spoke by the hands of the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prospering, and her cities round about, and the hill country and the lowland were inhabited? When the sanctuary has entered in ...

For many years the word of the Lord ...

on the sevenths, was it not you ...

when you drink, was it not you ...

for seventy years, not a fast ...

in it a spring of water ...

by the Holy ...

the word spoken by him ...

the sower went out to sow ...

from fasting and ...

on the sevenths, that is, of the ... it must be considered

Now these are the ones who have been handed over by God to passions of dishonor and to a reprobate mind, because they worshipped the creation rather than the Creator, having exchanged the truth of God, and not seeing fit to hold God in acknowledgment, so as not to do the things that are fitting.

Just as, therefore, it is salvific to abstain from the flesh of the dragon—and the flesh of the dragon are godless doctrines and false opinions—so too it is profitable and to be chosen to decline and flee the grape gathered from the vine of Sodom, and the wine gathered from it, which is the wrath of dragons and the incurable wrath of asps.

The fast that is fulfilled in this way one ought to pursue eagerly, and to smite oneself in kinship with it, mourning and beating the breast.

But to be declined, and very harmful, is the fast which those keep who turn away from the use of the bread of life and of the flesh of Jesus, which is the bread of life, the bread of truth that came down from heaven; from which, since it is the food of life, it is by no means fitting to abstain.

Concerning this twofold fast, seeds were sown in the God-inspired Scripture:

for concerning the praiseworthy fast it is commanded in Joel the prophet:

Sanctify a fast, proclaim a healing;

and elsewhere it is announced:

it delivers from death. But concerning the blameworthy fast, wicked and impious men, blaming God, say:

Why is it that we have fasted and you did not see? We humbled our souls and you did not know? To whom, concerning that of which they impiously complain, he says:

It was not this fast that I chose, but rather the abstinence from deadly foods that comes together with good works;

For, he says, break your bread for the hungry;

if you see one naked, clothe him, and bring the homeless poor into your house.

For then, he says, your light shall break forth as the morning, and your healing shall speedily arise. To those who fasted and beat their breasts on the fifths and the sevenths not as was fitting, the Lord says:

Behold, for a full seventy years you spent in Babylon, having been led away into it by the law of captivity;

did you fast to me the fast which I accept, eating and drinking the things pleasant to you, doing nothing according to the words that were in the hands of the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous before the captivity, and the cities of Judea round about her, of which she is the mother-city, and the hill-country and the plain were inhabited? For how would the mother-city not be prosperous, together with the cities under her, and the hill-country and plain around her inhabited, enjoying deep peace and ruled under righteous law, every warrior and enemy driven far off? Thus, while Jerusalem and the cities round about her were at peace and enjoyed much stability, abundant prosperity prevailed, since the plain and hill-country were inhabited.

Now it happens that such places are inhabited when there is much fruitfulness and abundant prosperity, since people are able to dwell without grief in the hill-country, the planting of trees being full of orchard-fruit, and the plain bearing wheat and barley and the other produce.

For it is characteristic that in places abounding in fruitfulness a multitude of people dwell, some tilling the ground, others enjoying the plenty.

Jerusalem inhabited and prospering, and the cities round about her, are, according to the anagogical sense, the Church and the orthodox opinions;

of which the hill-country, abounding in fruits, is the doctrines of piety and of the orthodox faith, while there is a great multitude of produce in the moral instruction in the low-lying plain.

Concerning such spiritual prosperity it is said in the sixty-fourth Psalm:

You visited the earth and made it drunk, you multiplied it to enrich it.

Make its furrows drunk, multiply its produce; in its droplets it will rejoice as it springs up.

You will bless the crown of the year of your goodness, and the plains will rejoice, and all that is in them.

The mountains of the wilderness will be made fat, and the hills will gird themselves with exultation.

The rams of the flock have clothed themselves, and the valleys will multiply grain;

The rams of the flock have clothed themselves, and the valleys will multiply grain; they will cry aloud, yes, they will sing hymns. This bountiful and all-fruitful abundance being intelligible in nature, how would the hill-country and the plain not be inhabited by people who do all things with the right word, so that they cry out in thanksgiving and sing hymns to the God who has bestowed so much? And a sign that the dwelling in the hill-country and plain is free of grief is that the rams of the flock have clothed themselves with deep-woolled fleeces, because much herbage has sprung up in the places of the hill-country and plain.

Whoever is entered by longing to enjoy this spiritual good season, let him listen to the words given by God in the hands of the prophets, turning them into deeds, so that from his own active powers there may rise up a spring of life, of water leaping up unto eternal life, by the grace of the Savior who bestows all these things.

And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying:

Thus says the Lord Almighty, saying:

his brother; and the widow and the orphan and the stranger and the poor do not oppress, and let none of you remember in his heart the evil of his brother.

The word of the Lord, having come to the prophet as was said before, announces the things which the Almighty Lord commanded, beginning from this:

Judge righteous judgment, and let each of the hearers show mercy and compassion to his brother;

and furthermore not to oppress the widow and the orphan, and furthermore the stranger and the poor.

For thus most easily it will come about that each does not remember in his own heart the evil of his brother.

But what these things mean—I speak of the commandments—it is time to see.

The word of the Lord, having already come many times upon Zechariah, and now also having come to be in him, proclaims these things:

Thus, he says, says the Lord Almighty to each of the rulers of the people:

Judge righteous judgment, since it is possible even to judge unjustly for those who pass sentence contrary to the right word on account of bribery and of gratifying a friend, and sometimes also out of hostility toward some of those on trial.

To such charges were they liable against whom the divine word cries out and shouts:

How long will you judge unrighteousness and accept the persons of sinners? Judge for the orphan and the poor, do justice to the lowly and the needy. And such also are those concerning whom the prophet Isaiah speaks:

Those who justify the impious for the sake of gifts, and take away the righteousness of the righteous. Concerning those who thus transgress the law, the prophet Habakkuk cries out to God:

Judgment has come forth against me, and the judge takes bribes;

therefore the law is scattered and judgment is not carried out to the end, because the impious oppresses the righteous. And it must be said that those who thus examine the affairs of the parties disputing with one another are not even lawful judges, but wholly on this account unjust and lawless judges.

For it is fitting that the one judging look neither to comradeship, nor to wealth, nor to rank, nor to nearness of kin, nor to give preference to friendship, nor to look toward hostility, but to the matters of those being judged.

These things the God-possessed hierophant proclaims to those ordained to judge, thus:

You shall judge the great and the small alike; you shall not respect persons, and you shall not pity the poor in judgment, for the judgment is God's.

But one must not distribute and mete out the things of God to those who happen along.

For let each have authority over his own things to give them freely to whomever seems good to him;

but the judgment according to the divine law is not his own, but God's.

It occurred to one of the ancients to say that the judge is living justice, that is, substantial and subsistent, perfectly qualified according to righteousness, so that just as in the other works of virtue he justly pursues the just, so also in judging.

But the power of the thing contemplated will be known from its opposite;

for as the one who has both his disposition and his action formed according to righteousness justly pursues the just, so unjustly does he pursue the unjust who has both his mind and his deed molded according to inequity and vice.

Such were all those to whom the word says:

How long will you judge unrighteousness and accept the persons of sinners? while the divine lawgiver says:

You shall judge the great and the small alike, not respecting persons, even if the one being judged be rich, even if he have some petty glory and rank.

For the law does not reckon up the abundance of possessions and poverty, ranks and obscurity of those being judged, but the works and deeds accomplished according to virtue or vice.

Just as, therefore, one must not take account of the superiorities arising from the wealth and rank of those being judged, so neither the deficiencies of possessions and the lowliness arising from obscurity;

For you shall not pity the poor in judgment either. For according to the righteous judgment the affairs of the poor also must be examined.

so that the lawful judgment be not perverted.

Having commanded that righteous judgment be carried out, right reason next proclaims:

Do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the sojourner, or the poor. For it is not fitting to fall upon those deprived of human help in a tyrannical manner, but on the contrary to stretch out a helping hand to them, according to the command:

For be, he says, a father to orphans, and in the place of a husband to their mother, judging for the orphans and doing justice for the widow. For this is a blameless conduct, in accordance with the will of him who established all things, as James writes in the epistle in which he addressed the faithful, thus:

Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this:

to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. He who serves God in this way, how could he judge unjustly those whom he visits in their affliction, supplying their lack through almsgiving and other aid and protection, of whatever kind the beneficiaries may need? And just as one must not oppress the widow and the orphan because of the loss of a husband and parents, so neither must one oppress the sojourner who takes lodging among those to whom he has fled for refuge, but they must regard him as a native-born citizen and fellow-townsman.

And if any of those named—I mean the widow, the orphan, and the sojourner—is deprived of goods, to him too a share of equality must be given, not oppressing him or in any other way afflicting him.

It is good, then, and pleasing to God to give aid to those in such condition according to the literal sense, but most of all according to the anagogical meaning.

The widow, according to the higher contemplation, is praised—she who has cast off the evil husband she had, who is none other than the devil or some other wicked spirit.

Likewise the orphan is a good one for whom the father who begot him according to sin has died.

A symbol of this is he who went out from the house of his own father, being called by God, and also she to whom it is said in the Psalms:

Forget your people and the house of your father—which is already dead to you.

The souls that are thus widowed and orphaned, the divine Bridegroom, who is also Father, lifts up on high, according to what is said of him in the Psalms:

He will take up the orphan and the widow. For he is a father of orphans and a judge of widows, according to what is said in another Psalm, caring also for the sojourners—those who have abandoned idolatry and been joined to true religion—enriching by the poverty which he took on for our sake every poor and needy person, according to the apostolic saying which rouses to thanksgiving those who have been well treated, which runs thus:

You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for our sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty we might become rich. Having taught that one must not oppress those who need protection and help, he fittingly added that they should also be free of malice, not in word only but from the depth of the mind, saying:

And let none of you remember in your heart the evil of his brother. What was said by the Savior in the Gospel is equal in force to the prophetic word:

If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your trespasses. In harmony with the prophetic word set forth, Jeremiah too, in the person of God, says:

And let none of you remember in your hearts the evil of his neighbor. This perfect amnesty of the things one has done sinfully the Savior makes clear in the parable of the servant who owed ten thousand talents;

for it is added by the master who forgave the debts to the worthless servant, addressed to all of us:

to all who owe you, no longer remembering anything of what the one who wronged you has sinned against you.

Since the brother is understood in two ways—the one being a true kinsman according to the flesh, the other one begotten of God, who also begot you—it is fitting to bear no malice from the heart toward either.

But they refused to give heed, and turned a stubborn back, and made their ears heavy that they should not hear, and set their heart disobedient that they should not hear my law and the words which the Lord Almighty sent by his Spirit through the hands of the former prophets.

God having given a divine law to the people of the Hebrews, an exhortation was offered by him who gave it, in the seventy-seventh Psalm, thus:

Give heed, my people, to my law. He who follows this admonition meditates day and night on the law of the Lord, according to what is philosophized in the first Psalm—things which the hierophant Moses had earlier ordained, speaking in the person of God:

All these words which I command you today shall be in your heart and in your soul, and you shall speak of them sitting in your house and walking on the way, lying down and rising up, and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be moving—or unmoving, for the text is transmitted both ways—before your eyes.

For him who thus keeps the given commandment, there follows the giving of heed to and obeying of the legislation.

For how shall he be disobedient in giving heed, who holds the holy words in heart and soul, so as to speak of them while at home and walking on the way, lying down and rising up? Or does he not utter them while lying down, who says to the Master of all things:

If I remembered you upon my bed, in the early dawns I meditated on you. But the one who rises up does the same, having the oracles of God through memory, so as to speak boldly to God:

O God, my God, to you I rise at dawn. This same zeal the prophet Isaiah also had, when he said:

From the night my spirit rises early to you, O God. Consider whether that which is thus proclaimed has the same meaning:

At midnight I rose to give thanks to you. He who is thus zealously disposed toward the words of God, turning them into deeds, binds them upon his practical faculty—called allegorically a 'hand'—so that, having them thus before his eyes, he may contemplate the beauty of their meaning, holding them as movable or immovable—for I said that there are two readings of the text.

Now the words, and the discourses formed out of them, are moved before the eyes of the heart whenever we act according to what has been ordained by the law.

Or are not the words bound upon the hand movable, being both conceived and practiced—while the other reading, which says that what has been ordained by law is immovable before the face of the eyes, makes clear the permanence and stability of the things decreed, in agreement with the prophetic saying which runs thus:

The word of the Lord abides forever, and with the saying of the psalmist:

Faithful are all his commandments, established forever and ever. According to this understanding, the words of Jesus do not pass away, even though heaven and earth pass away.

He who is made secure through all that has been contemplated, having the words of the Lord in heart and soul, speaking of them while at home and while walking on the way, lying down and rising up, will in no way be inattentive or disobedient, nor again will he turn a stubborn back.

But how the one who refuses to give heed 'turns a stubborn back' must be examined.

This happens whenever someone becomes so wicked that there is spoken to him, most reprovingly, what is said in the forty-ninth Psalm, beginning from here:

To the sinner God said:

You cast my words behind you. For how has he not turned away from the divine commandments, having given his back to them—he who runs with a thief and sets his portion with adulterers, doing the same things as the lawbreakers, who turn away from this:

You shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, and the laws given along with these.

And it comes about that those who have turned their back to the words of God rave and are out of their mind, so that they even turn away from him whose the words are.

For each of those thus maddened and deranged dishonors God the lawgiver by transgressing what has been ordained, as the Apostle says to the one who falsely and deceitfully pretends to have the truth and to keep what God has legislated:

You who boast in the law, through your transgression of the law you dishonor God; so that it is said by the very God who is dishonored, to those who have been perverted in mind, who not only cast the divine words behind them but also turn their backs upon him whose the words are, having most wickedly turned away:

They turned to me their backs and not their faces—though one ought to hold toward the cause of all good things the enlightened face of the inner man, in like manner to what is said by the wise man to whom all the hidden and secret things of wisdom have been made manifest:

To you I lifted up my eyes, to you who dwell in heaven;

My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the snare. Not only did these accursed ones fail to do this, but they even showed their backs to the sleepless, watching eye, having gone wholly after Baal and all idolatry, so as to revere and worship wicked demons—those set up beside soulless images, delighting in the savor and smoke, in cakes and libations burned upon altars built lawlessly and most impiously.

But from where these ill-fated ones began to 'turn a stubborn back' the following makes clear:

For they made their ears heavy, he says, that they should not hear, and they set their heart disobedient that they should not hear the divine law and the words which the Lord Almighty spoke by his Spirit. Now someone makes his ears heavy—not those of the body, for that is not in our power, but those of the soul;

for by deliberate choice these are made heavy, or possess keenness of hearing.

For the hymnist speaks concerning certain persons, saying thus:

The sinners are estranged from the womb, they have gone astray from the belly, they have spoken lies.

Like that of a deaf asp that stops its ears, which will not hear the voice of the charmers, or of the drug administered by a wise one. For how are they not deaf and unhearing—those who make their ears heavy and stop them, who are estranged from the womb from God, having gone astray and spoken lies from the belly? And let these things be said also by way of moral instruction concerning those estranged from the womb of the Church that bore them, who have gone astray and spoken lies as soon as they came forth from her belly, having stopped their ears like the asp;

for it is a wicked and venomous power.

Concerning such people the most wise John, the disciple beloved by Jesus, says in the holy epistle which he wrote:

They went out from us, but they were not of us;

for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. For, seeming to be of the apostles and disciples of Christ, and having received the same gospel, and having been begotten through the washing of regeneration, they came to be outside the holy mother who bore them and outside those begotten of her who remained in the possession of the spirit of adoption—

a holy rod from the root of Jesse.

But more fully concerning these things we have spoken when clearly interpreting the passage of the prophet Isaiah, having reached this point:

And an infant child shall lay his hand upon the lair of asps, and they shall not do harm nor injure anyone upon my holy mountain, for the whole earth has been filled with the knowledge of the Lord. That the making heavy of the ears of the inner man is a matter of choice, as was just said, the prophecy of Isaiah bears witness, being thus proclaimed against those who maliciously practice this:

For the heart of this people, he says, has grown gross, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn, and I should heal them. For delighting to abide in the wickedness and impiety which they chose to have, they made their ears heavy and closed their eyes, their heart having grown gross, so that, not hearing the words concerning virtue and the knowledge of the truth, they might not be improved and turn back to him from whom they had departed, who heals their dullness of hearing and their blindness.

Many symbols of such healings are recorded in the Gospels, Jesus having healed these things also in the sensible realm;

for he brought the deaf and the blind to hear sharply and to see keenly, healing every disease and infirmity of the body, and much more of the soul.