And in another sense too, according to the intended meaning, the divine Word's treading upon the heights did not occur in chasms and hollows, nor in lowly, grovelling minds, but was engaged with minds exalted in disposition. It is in this sense, then, more figuratively, that the Lord himself was said to be about to come down upon the heights of the earth.
And the mountains shaking beneath him were indeed those places where he was led up by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil, when the devil took him to a very high mountain, and he was among the wild beasts.
Again, the 'mountains' would, in a still more figurative sense, be the idolatry formerly practiced on the mountains, and the invisible and ruling powers that were at work in them -- powers which the teaching of our Savior shook and stirred up not a little. For his inspired word, and his wonder-working and marvel-producing power, secretly overthrew their long and ancient dominion over mankind.
In the same way, the 'valleys melting like wax before the fire' would be the chthonic and terrestrial demons, against whom he sent forth the burning fire of their own wickedness, saying, 'I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I desire, if it be already kindled?' Burned by this fire, and unable to bear the torments from that invisible flame, they withdrew from human bodies, and confessed the very thing that constrained and drove them out, crying aloud, 'Ah, what have we to do with you, Son of God? Have you come before the time to torment us? We know who you are, the Holy One of God.'
...and he tormented them especially, and cast down the rulers set over them, because, not content with the corruption of the rest of the nations -- by which they had cast them all into the error of polytheism -- they had also plotted against the ancient people of God, that is, the people of the circumcision, and having turned them away from God, had transfixed them too with all manner of impiety. For this reason especially the Lord had made his descent from heaven.
Hence he says next, 'For the impiety of Jacob are all these things, and for the sin of the house of Israel.' And moreover, in addition to these, he goes on to make clear the cause of the Word's descent from heaven, enumerating the impieties of the people of the circumcision and the destruction that came upon them because of these, while proclaiming beforehand the calling of the nations throughout the whole inhabited world. For it was on account of these things that the Word of God came to sojourn on earth from heaven.
And listen to the very words: 'For the impiety of the house of Jacob are all these things, and for the sin of the house of Israel. What is the impiety of the house of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the sin of the house of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? And I will make Samaria into a watch-hut of a field, and into a planting of a vineyard; and I will drag her stones down into a chasm, and I will lay bare her foundations.'
And again, concerning the glory of the daughter of Jerusalem: 'Shave yourself and cut your hair for your delicate children; enlarge your baldness like an eagle, for they have been taken captive from you. Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become a watch-hut, and the mountain of the house shall become a thicket of the forest.'
Now Zion and Jerusalem and the so-called mountain of the house -- these were those very things declared beforehand through the words, 'and the mountains shall be shaken beneath him, and the valleys shall be melted like wax before the fire, because of the impiety of Jacob.' For on account of the impieties committed against him, immediately and not long afterward, both the mountains and their inhabitants were besieged; Mount Zion endured burning and utter desolation, and the mountain of the house of God became a thicket of the forest.
These things, then, the present prophecy signifies would happen to them at the descent of the Lord from heaven, and they have received a manifest fulfillment after the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.
If, then, our own history has any weight, we ourselves have received with our own eyes the report that Zion, so much celebrated of old, is now plowed with yoke-teams of oxen by Roman men, and that Jerusalem, just as the oracle itself says, has been left like a watch-hut, and stands in utter desolation. And this has happened to them for no other reason than their impieties, on account of which the heavenly Word also came forth from his own place.
And for another reason too it was said, even earlier in the text, that the Word of God had come down from heaven and mounted upon the heights of the earth: namely, so that the mountains once exalted and lifted up on high against the knowledge of God might be shaken beneath him -- that is, clearly, the opposing powers, which before his coming had, along with the rest of mankind, enslaved the Hebrew nation as well to the practices of impiety and idolatry -- and so that the evil demons, called 'valleys' because they dwell in dark chasms and in the hollow places of bodies, melting like wax before the fire, might flee from men by the power of the divine Word. And there would be still another cause, distinct from these and no small one, for the Lord's descent from heaven, which the oracle indicates: namely, that all the nations upon the earth, once the demons had been driven off and the ruling spirits shaken, drawing breath again from their long, harsh, and unmoving tyranny, might take up the knowledge of the God over all.
And in this very way, in what follows, the words of this same prophecy proclaim, in one continuous connection of sense, and to the same effect: 'And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, prepared upon the tops of the mountains, and it shall be raised up above the hills; and peoples shall hasten to it, and many nations shall go and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and they will show us his way, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem, and he shall judge between the nations.'
Such, too, are the things concerning the calling of the nations -- what meaning they hold, and how they too reached fulfillment after the coming of our Savior -- matters one might examine at leisure. Following upon these, the prophetic word, beginning afresh, as though the Lord's descent to mankind were to take place for the salvation not only of the Jewish nation but also of all the nations, cries aloud to the peoples and to all who are upon the earth, saying: 'Hear, all you peoples, and let the earth pay heed, and all that are in it.'
And he also hinted darkly at the testimony of the Lord's passion, adding, 'And the Lord your God shall be for a testimony.' Then next, the same prophet, proceeding further, as one who had already given prior instruction concerning the existence of the Word of God and his descent from heaven, and having foretold the causes of his coming to mankind, in due course teaches also of his birth that was to take place among men, and the very place where he was to be born, speaking in this way: 'And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, you are by no means the least to be among the thousands of Judah; out of you shall come forth for me a leader, to be a ruler in Israel; and his goings-forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity.'
Attend carefully to the manner in which he says that the goings-forth of the one who was to appear at Bethlehem -- this place is in Judea -- subsist from above and from eternity, thereby indicating the divine pre-existence and being of the ruler who was to come forth from Bethlehem. If, then, anyone is able to refer this oracle to someone else, let him show who this is; but if it is impossible to find any other than our Savior Jesus Christ -- who alone, after this prophecy, is proclaimed as having set out from this place -- what, then, remains to prevent us from acknowledging that the truth agrees with the prophecy, which fixes its prediction upon him alone? He alone, at any rate, of all who have ever become renowned, coming forth after the times of the prophecy from the aforesaid place, Bethlehem, and having taken upon himself the human form, came forth; and at the very time of his coming the things previously spoken were fulfilled.
At once, then, and not long after, each of the things prophesied as grievous came upon the Jewish nation, while, on the other hand, the things consequent upon the oracles came upon the nations; and this very Savior and Lord of ours, having set out from Bethlehem, was declared leader of the Israel-according-to-understanding, since the whole clear-sighted and God-fearing people is so designated. And observe, too, how it is said that the goings-forth of his divine pre-existence are from the beginning and from the days of eternity -- which could not befit human nature.
Following these, the prophetic word, descending a little further, again now indicates the circumscription and abolition of the ancient legal worship, saying, in the person of the people: 'With what shall I approach the Lord? Shall I lay hold of my God most high? Shall I approach him with whole burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Shall I give the firstborn of my womb for the sin of my soul?'
And then, speaking in the person of God, he makes them a reply such as this: 'Has it not been declared to you, O man, what is good? And what does the Lord seek from you, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to be ready to walk after the Lord your God?'
You have here, then, all together and in the same connection, a great many things signified concerning the prophesied descent of the Lord from heaven to mankind: the rejection of the Jews, the exposure of their impieties, the destruction of their royal metropolis, and the renunciation of the worship formerly carried out among them according to Moses; and, on the other hand, concerning the nations, good promises -- the knowledge of God, a new manner of piety, and a new law and word that would go forth from the land of the Jews but be disseminated to all the nations. What outcome and what fulfillment these words received after the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, I leave for you to consider. From Habakkuk.
And the Lord answered me and said, 'Write the vision, and write it plainly upon a tablet, so that the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for a time, and it will rise up at the end, and not in vain. If it should tarry, wait for it; for it will surely come, and will not delay. If it should draw back, my soul has no pleasure in him; but the righteous shall live by my faith.'
And here, expressly, he prophesies that the one foretold will come, being about to arrive. And who else was this but the one indicated above according to the words, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; God is the Lord, and he has appeared to us'? And of him, since he is as light, he says that he will rise up at the end -- that is, clearly, at the consummation of the ages. With this the prophet Zechariah agrees also, saying, 'Behold, a man! His name is Rising, and from beneath him it shall rise up.'
And indicating the time, he adds, 'At evening there shall be light. If he should tarry, wait for him' -- for which Aquila has rendered: 'But if he should delay, expect him, for he who comes will surely come, and will not be slow.' The Epistle to the Hebrews also recalls this, in the words: 'Do not, then, cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that having done the will of God you may receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he who is coming will come, and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.'
And observe how, in these words, the epistle has set forth more clearly the prophetic text, which was obscurely worded on account of its being expressed with a transposed order.
For the wording of the prophecy says, 'He who comes will come, and will not delay.' And it adds, 'If he draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him' -- which, if taken as joined together, would seem to be referred to the one who comes and does not delay, which is absurd. For how could it be fitting to say of him that God takes no pleasure in him? But the placing of the punctuation, by altering the syntax of the sentence, has preserved the sense.
For after 'yet a little while, and he who comes will come, and will not delay,' it next joined on, 'but the righteous shall live by faith.' Then it subordinated as second what stood first in the prophecy, in the words, 'and if he draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.' For the Word, having once declared through the prophecy that the light promised to all the nations through the coming of Christ would arise late, as it were, and at evening, and would not prove false --
(for so Aquila rendered, instead of 'and not in vain') -- then, because the coming of the one prophesied was to be late and, as it were, at evening, having exhorted to endurance through the words, 'if he should tarry, wait for him,' or, as Aquila has it, 'if he should delay, expect him, for he who comes will come and will surely not delay,' he urges the hearer toward faith in the prediction, saying that the one who believes these things, being, by that very faith, shown to be righteous, shall live the life that is according to God; whereas, conversely, the unbeliever, in whatever respect he draws back, not having taken courage, nor put his trust in what has been spoken -- 'my soul has no pleasure in him.'
Accordingly, we too, in agreement with these words, by transposing what stood first to a later place, and shifting what stood later to the first place, shall preserve the sense of the text: after 'that he who comes will come and will not delay,' joining, by hyperbaton, 'but my righteous one shall live by faith.'
And to this adding, 'and if he draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.' With this Aquila too concurs, saying, 'If he should delay, expect him, for he who comes will come, and will not be slow. Behold, of him who lingers, my soul is not upright in him; and the righteous shall live by his faith.' From the same book.
'O Lord, I have heard your report, and I was afraid. O Lord, I have considered your works, and I was amazed. In the midst of two lives you shall be known; when the years draw near you shall be recognized; when the time is present you shall be manifested; when my soul is troubled, in wrath you shall remember mercy. God shall come from Teman, and the Holy One from a shady, thickly-wooded mountain. His excellence covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise; and his brightness shall be as the light. Horns are in his hands, and he set a mighty love of his strength. Before his face shall go forth a word, and it shall go forth into the plains.'
But the sacred prophet, singing this song of himself -- or rather of the divine Spirit breathing and prophesying within him -- concerning the one prophesied who had said, 'he who comes will come, and will surely not delay, but the righteous shall live by my faith,' having believed the oracle as a righteous man, says, through the words now in hand, 'O Lord, I have heard your report, and I was afraid,' and what follows, by which he clearly proclaims that God would come to mankind. Who else could this be, formerly known, yet later to be known when the years draw near, and to be manifested at the time prophesied, than that very one declared beforehand, the second Lord of all things, who, in accordance with the prediction, was proclaimed at the consummation of the ages so as to be heard by all mankind? His deeds, then, are recorded in the sacred Gospels: namely, his birth from a virgin, of whom he took up the tent of flesh; and how, being in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God a thing to be seized, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant; and the wonder-workings accomplished by him among men, and the things dared against him by the Jewish nation, which he foresaw with the eyes of his soul, and the things that would come to pass, which he learned with a mind purified by the divine Spirit that taught him -- these things the prophet, astonished at what he heard, confesses that he was afraid, saying: 'O Lord, I have heard your report, and I was afraid; O Lord, I have considered your works, and I was amazed.'
And our Savior and Lord, this same Word of God, was known 'in the midst of two lives' -- the word 'lives' here being understood in the plural and with the circumflex accent, as derived from the singular noun 'life.'
For it is not said with the paroxytone accent, as 'of animals,' from the neuter noun 'animal,' but 'of lives' with the circumflex accent, from the plural nominative 'the lives.' 'You shall be known,' he says, 'in the midst of two lives.' For since there is one life that is according to God, and another that is according to man -- the one mortal, the other everlasting -- the Lord, having come through experience of both, is fittingly said to have been known 'in the midst of two lives,' according to the interpretation of the Seventy. For according to Aquila it is not said this way, but rather, 'when the years draw near, give it life' is what is said.
'And what is this,' he says, 'but your work?' And Theodotion too says, 'In the midst of the years give it life'; and Symmachus rendered it, 'Within the years give it new life.' All of them, then, in saying 'give it life,' clearly showed that the discourse does not concern some kind of irrational or rational animals.
For this reason, as regards what is said in the Seventy, 'In the midst of two lives you shall be known,' we have not understood it as those before us did, but we have said that two lives of the one prophesied are indicated: the one divine, the other human.
To these words the prophet adds, 'When my soul is troubled, in wrath you shall remember mercy,' teaching that, having perceived by the Spirit the time of the passion of the one prophesied, he had been thrown into turmoil. Yet, he says, at that very time in which my soul was troubled -- when wrath such as had never before hung over mankind was impending on account of the impieties dared against the Lord -- the most benevolent Lord himself remembered mercy instead of wrath, as being the Son of a good Father.
His passion, then, became for the whole world the cause of salvation according to God, and of mercy. Next comes the phrase, 'God shall come from Teman.' Now 'Teman' is translated into the Greek tongue as 'consummation,' so that it makes no difference if one plainly said, 'God will come at the consummation.' For at the consummation of the age, and in these last days, the beneficence of the God of all things, through our Savior, has appeared to us.
But perhaps here he also prophesies his second and glorious arrival, so that the words beginning from 'God shall come from Teman' would be read as a fresh starting point, to the effect that he will come, at the consummation of the age, from the southern regions of heaven; for 'Teman' is also translated as 'the south.'
For this reason Theodotion renders it in this way: 'God shall come from the south.' And the words that follow, 'and the Holy One from a shady, thickly-wooded mountain,' you will understand by placing beside them the words in Zechariah that run thus: 'I saw in the night, and behold, a man mounted on a red horse, and he stood among the shady mountains.'
This one, then, who is mounted on the red horse and stands among the shady mountains -- this I take to be the one indicated in the prophecy now before us, which says that the Holy One would come from a shady, thickly-wooded mountain. In both passages, at any rate, 'shady mountains' is spoken of, and I take these to belong to the paradise of God, which he planted in Eden toward the east, or else to the heavenly Jerusalem; for 'mountains are round about her, as the Lord is round about his people.'
These, then, being full of divine powers and holy spirits, are called 'shady' as though thickly grown and luxuriant. But in Zechariah, a man is clearly seen mounted on a red horse, thereby indicating the incarnation of our Savior and the flesh upon which he was borne; whereas here he has been named 'God' and 'Holy One.'
For as one who has made his arrival from God to mankind, and as one who has, so to speak, come to visit from the more divine regions, it is said, 'God shall come from Teman, and the Holy One from a shady, thickly-wooded mountain.' Then he adds next, 'His excellence covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise, and his brightness shall be as the light.'
By these words is set forth, together, both his glorious kingdom in the heavens and the praise of the teaching concerning him, which has come to pass since then and will come to pass yet more throughout all the earth. And 'horns in his hands' signifies the symbols of his kingdom, by which horns, thrusting and goring, he drives away the invisible and hostile powers. In keeping with this he next adds, 'and he set a mighty love of his strength.'
And the greatest proof of his mighty disposition and love toward mankind was that a word went before his face -- clearly the saving and evangelical word -- and that this, going forth, ran swiftly into the plains, so that in a short time it filled the whole inhabited world with the salvation procured by him for all mankind, in accordance with the prophecy which said, 'before his face shall go forth a word, and it shall go forth into the plains.' At his second coming, moreover, still more, and in a more authoritative manner, his word shall set the final seal both upon the things now spoken and upon those brought forward next, which it is not now the time to examine. From Zechariah.
'Thus says the Lord Almighty: After glory he has sent me to the nations that plundered you; for he who touches you is as one who touches the pupil of his eye. For behold, I bring my hand upon them, and they shall be spoil to those who served them, and you shall know that the Lord Almighty has sent me.'
Here the Lord Almighty himself says that he has been sent, and teaches who the one who sent him is, saying, 'and you shall know that the Lord Almighty has sent me.' Here, then, too, you clearly have two persons sharing one and the same appellation: the one who sent, the Lord Almighty, and the one who is sent, bearing the same name as the one who sent him.
Whom else could you say the one sent to be, but the God the Word, spoken of beforehand by us through many testimonies, who confesses that he was sent by the Father, and who has clearly said, 'After glory he has sent me'? -- indicating that, pre-existing in the glory that is with the Father, he was afterward sent to the nations that plundered you. For the Word of God, being sent against the nations formerly hostile and warring against the people of God, brought them under himself, plundering them through his own disciples, who were part of the people of the circumcision -- the very people whom the nations had formerly enslaved, plundering them by their own idolatry.
These things, then, he says the nations shall suffer, which they had inflicted. For just as they, having turned the people of God away from their ancestral piety, made them spoil for their own demons, so also they themselves will one day, in their turn, be plundered of their ancestral idolatry by those who had formerly been enslaved to them, and will be transferred under the yoke of the piety that is according to the Hebrews. And the Lord says that this will come about through himself, upon his being sent by the Father for the accomplishment of such a work.
One might also say that certain intelligible and invisible powers are here called 'nations' -- the ones that plundered and took captive the souls of men; and it is these souls that the Word of God, who loves mankind, is said to care for in this way, as one who cares for the pupil of his own eye. And a proof of such solicitude of his for the human race is that he did not shrink back, though being the Word of God and possessing the glory that is with the Father, from undertaking the sojourn and dispensation among men.
'Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I am coming, and I will encamp in the midst of you, says the Lord; and many nations shall take refuge in the Lord in that day, and they shall become a people to him; and I will encamp in the midst of you, and you shall know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you.'
Since it now lies before us to demonstrate from the prophets the second cause of his coming to dwell as a citizen among men upon earth, I think that the present prophecy too is illustrative of this, as being so evident that it needs no further elaboration. You will observe, moreover, that it again indicates the cause of his coming, in the words, 'and many nations shall take refuge in the Lord in that day, and they shall become a people to him.'
These things the Word proclaims as good news to the daughter of Zion -- thus addressing the church of God, as being deemed the daughter of the heavenly Jerusalem, that Jerusalem being the mother of the saints, according to the sacred Apostle.
Or else, the church of Christ might otherwise be called 'daughter of Zion,' as having taken its foundation, through apostles and evangelists, from the former congregation of those of the circumcision -- men who were themselves the offspring of a mother that had been cast off on account of her own impieties, and had become a widow through having driven away her husband, who, through the prophets, reproached her, saying, 'Did you not call me husband, and father, and leader of your virginity?' -- the same one who, censuring the character of the mother to those who were sprung from her, says, 'What is this bill of divorce of your mother, with which I sent her away?' And again, 'Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband.'
Fittingly, then, since they had disowned their mother, the present prophecy proclaims to the daughter of Zion the good news of the Lord's own coming. And this daughter would be the church of the nations, reckoned, on account of the apostles of our Savior, in the place of a daughter to the former mother.
'Behold, the days of the Lord come, and your spoils shall be divided in your midst; and I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be captured, and the houses shall be plundered, and the women shall be defiled, and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, but the remnant of my people shall not be utterly destroyed; and the Lord shall go forth and array himself for battle among those nations, as on the day when he arrays himself for battle, on the day of war.'
'And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split, half of it toward the east and half of it toward the sea, a very great chasm; and half of the mountain shall lean toward the north, and half of it toward the south; and the valley of my mountains shall be blocked up, and the ravine of the mountains shall be joined together as far as Asael, and it shall be blocked up as it was blocked up before the face of the earthquake, in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. And the Lord my God shall be present, and all the holy ones with him. And it shall come to pass in that day, there shall be no light, but cold and frost shall be for one day.'
'And that day is known to the Lord, and it is not day, and not night; toward evening there shall be light. And it shall come to pass in that day, living water shall go forth from Jerusalem -- half of it toward the former sea, and half of it toward the latter sea; in summer and in spring it shall be so. And the Lord shall become king over all the earth; in that day the Lord shall be one, and his name one, encircling all the earth and the wilderness.'