But this gladness of the saints is followed by the trepidation of those whom He conquered together with the world; for it says: 'they shall be troubled at His face, the father of orphans and the judge of widows.' The cause of the trouble He taught to be this, that He is the father of orphans and the judge of widows — for from the face of the father of orphans and the judge of widows they shall flee — not leaving them orphans who, acknowledging the Father in heaven, have renounced the devil as father, and judging as widows those who, having died to the law, have followed the Bridegroom. For a widow who is free from the law, blessed Paul taught to pass to the marriage of another without the crime of adultery, and he applied this whole example to the Church, which, having died to the Law, should afterward join itself to Christ.
But there is also a most fitting sense according to the lot of this world: that God, who gave us another Advocate from the Father, lest we should be orphans in the world, is the father of the bereaved and the judge of widows; because He both has mercy on infancy desolated by its parents, and is the judge of widows who have found rest in themselves. But He is the judge for this reason, because under the name of widows very many are not widows, who either, being given to pleasures, are unwilling to marry in Christ, or deceive human judgments; and because the dignity of the name lies in the resolution of the will preserved, God, searching hearts and reins, is therefore the judge, because He alone judges their mind and thought. And indeed these things, as I said, are said of orphans and widows according to the desolation of the human condition.
But that these things, so signified, may be understood as capable of demonstrating the whole Church, He immediately subjoined: 'God in His holy place: God maketh those of one manner to dwell in a house, leading forth the bound in fortitude, likewise those who provoke, who dwell in the tombs.' This place, then, is holy to God, where there is a widow from the law, where an orphan from the world, where the peaceful and unanimous assembly of one manner and will — for, according to the Acts of the Apostles, the soul and heart of the believers was one — where those who are bound shall be led forth in fortitude.
For having first bound the strong one within his own house, He loosed those who were bound by their own sins, as He led the daughter of Abraham, bound for eighteen years, into liberty by the word of power. And He also led forth those who before provoked — that is, those who by the transgression of the law incited against themselves the wrath of God the judge, or disputed against His name in heathen eloquence — He instructed unto the teaching of divine knowledge, as He made from a persecutor Paul an apostle and teacher of the nations. These provokers, therefore, dwelling before in the tombs — that is, buried within the dead dwellings of their own bodies — He led into heavenly and spiritual life. For there are many dead among the living.
For in the Gospels too the dead who are not thought dead are taught to be no different from the dead, the Lord saying: 'Let the dead bury their dead,' and the Apostle knows that certain women who live are dead — that is, while they live, are already dead. But all these from the tombs the Lord, who are regenerated into sons of God, led forth. But these things which God, ascending above the west in us through the power of the resurrection, has wrought, He performed the same, all foreshadowed for the preparation of this our hope, in the Law, so that not one God of the prophets and another God of the Gospels can be understood. And for this reason toward us also He fulfilled these things by the same moments by which He led the people out of Egypt.
For our fathers too were under the cloud and were baptized in Moses in the sea, and were fed with manna falling from the heavens in the likeness of heavenly bread, and were given drink by Christ, the rock furnishing water; which things indeed, salutarily done among them, held also the symbols of our salvation in themselves, as the ensuing discourse of the prophecy declares, saying: 'O God, when Thou goest forth before Thy people, when Thou passest over in the desert, the earth was moved. For the heavens dropped down at the face of God, Mount Sinai at the face of the God of Israel.' That God went before the way of His people, while He passes over the desert, in the pillar of cloud and of fire, we have recognized, and that even until the people's error the manna dripped from the heavens.
But when He had recounted all the foregoing things which are proper and fitting to the Church — namely, when the Lord ascends above the west, when He is the father of orphans and the judge of widows, when in His holy place, that is, in the house, He gathers those of one manner and the bound in fortitude, and draws forth the provokers from the tombs — yet He is recorded to have consummated these things going forth before the people and passing over into the desert, so that now, from the past, He reports as accomplished that the earth was moved, that the heavens dropped down, and this at the face of the God of Israel on Sinai. This for this reason, that when He did those things which are of the Law, in these too He might be known to have prefigured those things which are of the Gospels. For He went forth before His people and passed over into the desert;
namely into that desert of the Jordan, in which the lilies flowered, in which the fountain of living water watered the desolate and dry places. For before, the cord of the inheritance was Jacob's, and the deserted nations were subjected to the power of the elements. But now, in the sight of him who was the people of God, God passed over to those things which before were desolate; and now the deserts of the borders, watered by Him, shall grow fat. And this is the same who gave manna from the heavens to the people. For if the Law was disposed through angels, and man ate the bread of angels, and the heavens are written to have dripped on Sinai, assuredly it is not doubtful that this ministry was fulfilled from the heavens — that is, by angels.
And the same is the bestower of that bread which is from heaven, He who at Sinai was the giver of manna. But passing over to the desert, that is, crossing over to the once arid and desolate hearts of the Gentiles, He set apart that blessed rain of good will. For He Himself set apart Paul from his mother's womb to be an apostle: because those whom He foreknew, these He also foreordained. This rain of speech and preaching Solomon too, in the psalm, announced to the earth for the assurance of hope, saying: and He came down like rain upon a fleece, and like drops falling upon the earth. And we recall that a command was given to certain clouds that they should not rain upon the vineyard.
Holy Moses also, who under the veil of common words laid up the mighty mysteries of heavenly hope, sang that his words should be received as rain and as a shower—a rain watering the deserted and arid inheritance made ready for God. And therefore it follows: Thou shalt set apart a voluntary rain, O God, for Thine inheritance: and it was weakened, but Thou hast perfected it. Thy living creatures shall dwell in it; Thou hast prepared it in Thy sweetness for the poor. For God, provident of wills, set apart the voluntary rain by His foreknowledge. This rain is weak, when Paul had within himself the sentence of death, when Peter was shaken by the scandal of the cross and, though warned not to deny, thrice denies, when the apostles fear, flee, and lose heart.
But because in them there was the disposition of good will, they were so perfected that they became both the foundations and the pillars of the churches. This rain, then, is set apart for God's inheritance. And what that inheritance is, is not obscure: namely that which is given to Him who asks, when it is said: Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance. The nations, therefore, who after the manner of beasts and cattle have no understanding—and therefore, since God has no care for cattle, that inheritance lies in this voluntary rain set apart—are shown to dwell in it. For it follows: Thy living creatures shall dwell in it; Thou hast prepared it in Thy sweetness for the poor. The living creatures, then, shall dwell either in the inheritance of God or in the voluntary rain;
and this—whether inheritance or rain—is prepared in sweetness for the poor. For the words of God are sweet in the mouths of the saints, and blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And though they were living creatures, they were made spiritual. All these things, then, are set apart for the service of the inheritance, or for the ministry of the voluntary rain. And that, according to the sweetness prepared for the poor, this word might be understood to signify either the assembly of the Church—which is God's inheritance—or the apostolic preaching, He added: The Lord God will give the word to those who evangelize with many powers; the king of powers, of the beloved, even to the beauty of the house to divide the spoils.
To the rain that has been set apart for watering the gospel the Lord will give the word, pouring that very word into our understanding and our mouths, according to that saying: For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. But the powers that evangelize are many, to whom He will give the word, so that there is power in Paul, power in Peter, power in John, and power in the rest, and He signifies that on this account there are many powers of gospel preaching; to whom, although God and Lord and King will give the word, yet these powers are of the beloved, that is, of Him who is beloved to the King and Lord and God. But the Latin translation, since it does not alter the arrangement of the words, sets this forth more laboriously and more obscurely.
But this whole passage, expressed from the Greek, states it more clearly, namely that this our God and Lord is the king of those powers which are of the beloved: so that the powers refer to the apostles, but the beloved refers to Christ, whose powers either these are, or all these are understood to be. But it was fitting, on account of what follows, that—although in all there was one and the same Spirit—mention should nevertheless be made of numerous powers, because unto the beauty of the house He would Himself divide the spoils of the powers.
For unto the glory of the Church the spoils, taken from the devil and the Gentiles, are divided; and even from these spoils the beauty of the house is completed, when men are drawn away from the altars and temples of demons into the priesthood of God for the sanctification of the ministry, and, watered by the Holy Spirit and made evangelists, they become the powers of the beloved. For to these same powers, which either divide the spoils unto the beauty of the house or are themselves the spoils, the divine word referred, saying: If you sleep among the midst of the lots, you shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and the hinder parts of her back with the greenness of gold.
These are the vows of prophecy, by which it earnestly desires that these spoils, divided unto the beauty of the house, should remain in the midst of the lots, so that they may persevere in the beauty of the house even unto the day of their consummation—since death is wont to be signified by sleep. And these indeed are, for the use of preaching, like the silvered wings of a dove, that is, precious in the gift and adornment of the Holy Spirit. But in those things which are behind them, they shall abide in the greenness of gold, so that to these, after the preaching of the gospel, kingly honor and unwearied eternity may be rendered from the fruit of their own conscience in the greenness of gold: since both gold refers to honor, and in the greenness eternal vigor is shown.
The hinder parts of the back, then—which the Greek word rather signifies as the space between the shoulder-blades—that is, those things which are in time behind good conscience and honor, are to be honored beyond the honor of this preaching; while meanwhile the silvered wings, remaining under the gift of the Holy Spirit, shall afterward also attain, as the fruit of their own conscience, the greenness of gold, that is, the flower of perpetual honor. But that these spoils, divided unto the beauty of the house—for which it was wished that they should sleep among the midst of the lots, that is, that they should be so consummated by death—may be understood as referred to the princes of the churches, through whom the beauty of the house stands, He immediately added:
While the Heavenly One distinguishes kings over it, they shall be made white as snow in Selmon, the mount of God, a mount of rich abundance; a consecrated mount, a fertile mount. While then He distinguishes these heavenly kings over it—that is, while the Lord, descending from heaven, appoints those who were the spoils as kings, and disposes each one over that house which through them is most beautiful—they shall be made white as snow in Selmon, that is, in peace (since Selmon is by interpretation 'peace'), and shall receive the glory of eternity. For this is the mount of God, in which the peace of God's own name is signified by its very power, and it is fertile and consecrated and rich. And that these are kings is not obscure, of whom it was said: Already you have reigned without us, and would that you did reign:
that we also might reign together with you. The heavenly Lord, therefore—since as is the Heavenly One, such also are the heavenly—will set these as kings over His house in Selmon, through whom it will be adorned by the spoils that have been divided, made white as snow. For His place was made in peace, and, according to Isaiah, His dwelling in Phoenicia shall be made white as snow. But it is necessary that the kings, in whose keeping is the beauty of the house, should be granted a whiteness beyond that of snow. For they are the light of the world; and whoever shall be worthy to ascend with the Lord the mount of the heavenly kingdom shall be whitened beyond the snow: for when He showed Himself to the apostles in the garb in which He was to reign together with the saints, His garments were seen white beyond the snow. This mount, then, and this kingdom belong to the God of peace.
But there are many who feign the peace of the Church under fellowship with heretics, dissolving the reason of the New and Old Testaments that is bound and joined together, while many fashion one God of the Gospels and another God of the Law. Some, indeed, coming against the nature and name of the only-begotten God, confess Him to be only a man, born in time, and pretend that He was not brought down from the form of God into the form of a servant, but began to exist only from the form of a servant. Others assert that He is not God of true divinity, nor subsists from the property of the paternal majesty and nature, but is of an external substance and diverse from God, which was chosen unto the adoption of a son, after the manner of creatures made out of nothing, for whom there existed no prior origin.
Many also speak of the Father as extended into a body and stretched out and flowing forth from Himself, so that that assumption of flesh from the Virgin received the name of Son—not that He who was previously the Son of God, the same was born as Son of Man in a body. And indeed all these things are fitted together to the appearance of human prudence, after they failed to comprehend the reason of heavenly wisdom; to whom, as I hope, a fuller and more copious answer has been given in other places. Since, therefore, this is the one seat of the true faith which is pleasing to God, and here is the one mount of the eternal kingdom in peace, the prophet reproaches us concerning the many things we have received, saying: Why do you suppose the curdled mountains? Milk, when it is corrupted, thickens and, from a defect, grows solid into the appearance of rennet and cheese.
For the one Greek word comprehends both of these. Therefore, just as milk itself, from its own nature, degenerates when a defect sets in and, by a certain corruption of itself, turns sour, so these kinds of doctrines, which draw the beginnings of knowledge from harmless and sincere milk, are corrupted into defects and, by their own corruption, become curdled or turned to cheese, so that they are no longer milk. This same thing He recalls elsewhere thus: Their heart is curdled like milk: but I have meditated on Thy law; because a heart infected with the counsels and deeds of impiety, though through the simplicity of infancy it had had the nature of milk, afterward degenerating by the corruption of vices, was thickened and solidified into rennet.
From all these things, therefore, both understanding and zeal must be turned away, and no other place is to be dwelt in more than this mount of peace. For after the reproach of the curdled and coagulated mountains, He immediately added: The mount in which it is God's good pleasure to dwell: for in it the Lord shall dwell unto the end—showing that in that mount of eternal habitation the seat is well-pleasing to God, which was chosen for the seat of peace. But since, after the times of the Law and the prescriptions of circumcision and the precepts of sacrifices, through the faith of gospel confession, by those who
glory in the Law, that is, by carnal Israel—there seems through us to have been made a certain change of the peace of God, and a confession of another knowledge, different from that prescribed in the Law, to have been introduced (since we teach that all things which were commanded in the Law were, through the Lord Jesus Christ, foreshadowed unto gospel hope), while they boast that God the Father spoke with them and gave the Law against us: it must be answered that, by this very prophecy of the psalm, the Law was rather ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator, and that nothing has been changed by us, but that we remain in these same things. What things? They alone are, that is, to inhabit the one and same seat of the God of peace, since we hold the same Lord Jesus Christ as both the preacher of the gospel and the giver of the Law.
For after the seat of the one mount pleasing to God, which the Heavenly One will inhabit unto the end, so that this seat of gospel peace might be understood as prefigured in the Law through the mediator of the Law, He immediately added: The chariot of God is manifold, ten thousand; thousands of them that rejoice: the Lord is among them in Sinai, in the holy place He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, He gave gifts to men—not believing that men should dwell there. These brief words indeed signify the whole faith, but by their own powers they embrace great and infinite things. And this dignity of the chariot or seat of God Daniel the prophet described in a not dissimilar way, saying: His throne was a flame: its wheels a burning fire: a river of fire went before Him:
thousands of thousands served Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. And in these things indeed—whether under the appearance of such adornment, or under the example of a signification—the notion and perception of a heavenly retinue is brought to us in the chariot, so that under a harmonious yoke we may understand a heavenly obedience of the thousands that rejoice. And this those burning torches shining together in Sinai, the growing thunders, and the terror of the whole coming of the Lord showed—namely that the ministries of the angels, ordaining the Law in the hand of the mediator, stood present. This chariot of God, then, is manifold, of ten thousand, and there are thousands that rejoice. And because the Lord is the mediator of God and men, in whose hand, as has been said, the Law was borne through angels, the following word added:
The Lord is among them in Sinai—that is, among those rejoicing thousands: and the chariot in manifold number of ten thousand, that is, the understanding of infinite things placed under the multiplication of ten thousand. In these, therefore, God is in Sinai. But lest perchance the Gospels should seem in any way not to be supplements of the Law, He who is among them in Sinai, the Lord, this same One in turn ascended on high in the holy place and led captivity captive. That is, in that holy One whose form, being emptied out from the form of God, He received. And that He is holy, both many prophecies and the angel Gabriel testify to Mary, saying: And that which shall be born of thee, being holy, shall be called the Son of God; and the demons cry out: We know who Thou art, the Holy One of God. In the holy One, then, He ascended on high.
And what it is to ascend on high, Paul taught under the signification of this very saying: Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same who also ascended above all the heavens. Ascending, therefore, on high, and bringing Himself as man back from the dead into the heavenly places, He received those who had been captured by the devil, whom He also divided as spoils unto the beauty of the house. Thereupon He received gifts among men, when, as the firstborn from the dead, He Himself testifies of Himself, saying: The Lord said to me: Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance and the ends of the earth for Thy possession. He received, then, gifts among men, namely the nations for an inheritance;
among whom, in the holy One, He as firstborn from the dead ascended on high, having led captivity captive. And because it is beyond the belief of human hope that He translated the corruption of earthly flesh into heavenly glory, and that the impious nations, formerly overrun by the fury of vices and superstitions, were led to the knowledge of God and to fellowship with Him, for this cause He received gifts among these men who did not believe that they would dwell with God. And thus the knowledge of this mediator, completed from the Law, is such that He who had been among the rejoicing thousands in Sinai, this same One, in turn ascending on high in the holy One and having led captivity captive, might receive us as gifts—us who had lost faith that we would dwell together with Him.
After this inheritance, then, of the gifts received among men against the diffidence of our hope, this worthy confession to God was added by the prophet: The Lord God be blessed from day to day; the God of our salvation will make a prosperous journey for us. Blessed, therefore, is the Lord and God, ascending on high, leading captivity captive, receiving gifts among men—those, namely, who did not believe that they would be inhabited by Him. And daily, through the accession of the believing people, His confession of blessing is multiplied and increased, when Gentile superstitions and impious fables about the gods, when the altars of demons, when the emptiness of idols are abandoned, and the way and the advancing course is directed for all unto salvation.
This, therefore, is the Lord and God of our salvation, whose blessing from day to day is signified over the idols. For in that which is daily, it is continued and perpetual, since so great an infinity of time is extended forth as the succession of days upon days follows. And the prophetic word most cautiously always warned, lest anyone, through Gentile fables and the teaching of philosophy, should disturb our notion drawn from the knowledge of divine truth; because their varied and most impious opinions have foolishly and profanely embraced many things about God. But we, instructed unto the knowledge of God the Father and God the Son, have obtained the mystery of true and heavenly prudence in this, that the Word was made flesh.
For that very thing which is a scandal to the Jews and to the Gentiles foolishness, that is, the passion of God, the cross, death, burial—whether through the reason of the divine will it is a perfected and heavenly wisdom, or through the power of the resurrection it is the eternity of power. To this knowledge, therefore, of the God who both suffered and died and rose again for us and is our Lord, the prophet instructs us, saying: Our God is the God of saving, and the going forth from death belongs to the Lord—intimating to us as God Him who, though He was God, took upon Himself all things unto the increase of our salvation. And on this account He is our God, because He is the God of those who shall be saved. And He, our God, made us saved by this, that He is the going forth from death, the departure;
for this is contained in those words which have been translated into Latin less expressly and less absolutely. For I warned above that nearly all translators, since they do not dare to alter and moderate the arrangement and order of the words, have set forth the propriety of the sayings less clearly. Nevertheless, in these words which have been said—Our God is the God of saving, and the going forth from death belongs to the Lord—both the God of our salvation and His going forth is shown to be beyond the going forth of death, because they are the goings-forth from death of the Lord. For to all who come into life there is an entrance into death; but to the firstborn from the dead alone was the departure out of death proper.
And therefore the going forth from death is proper to the Lord, because this is the power of the flesh assumed by Him: that after the goings-forth from death it should carry the corruption of our nature up into heavenly glory. But of the death itself which He took upon Himself, neither the cause nor the reason was to be hidden; and what aid the only-begotten God, emptied out from the form of God and assuming the form of a servant, would bring us, it was fitting to be revealed unto both the security and the knowledge of our faith. And first indeed it can seem not alien from the mercy and goodness of God that He should restore life to all in Himself out of the dead:
for He who first poured forth for us the soul unto the breath and respiration of living, when He constituted man according to His own image and likeness, poured it forth from the treasures of His power and divinity. For according to the apostle we are His offspring, and according to the same: all things are from Him and through Him and in Him: namely, so that in Him our habitation and dwelling of a seat is shown, since He embraced all things by the immense power of His might; while through Him the work and effect of the inaugurated origin was manifested, since He wrought in us that very thing which we are; and from Him the beginnings of life, granted unto the commencements of the spirit, became known.
It was not, therefore, alien from the beneficence of the divine goodness that He who from Himself had bestowed on us—who are His offspring—the elements of life and spirit, should also in Himself, through the only-begotten God, inaugurate for us the beginnings of our eternity. And that we should now truly abide both from Him and through Him and in Him, since—when we had been placed in this habitation and seat of this world by Him who is all in all—He might again, more fully now and more perfectly, in Himself and through Himself and from Himself, having entered into the fellowship of our flesh, after the goings-forth from death now place us as eternal. Let these things indeed be so said unto the signification of the divine goodness. But there is one to be received?
A greater and more profound reason concerning the flesh to be assumed and the death to be undergone by the only-begotten God is treated both through the apostle and now through the prophet. And first let us understand, through the apostle, what was effected in the mystery of the cross and of death by the only-begotten God and Lord of majesty, so that, taught with him as our guide, we may attain the knowledge of the prophet. For he says thus: And you, when you were dead in sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made alive together with Him, forgiving us all sins, blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us, and He took it out of the way, fastening it to the cross, and stripping Himself of the flesh, He made a show of the principalities and powers, confidently triumphing over them in Himself.
The mystery of our salvation, then—He first Himself rising from the dead, and, abolishing in Himself the sentence of our death by which we were formerly held, since He now abides eternal from the dead—fulfilled it. But in that very thing, in that He is in Himself the author of life for us, while through the assumption of the body, born as man and now dead, He is again eternal from the dead, He also rendered a spectacle of all the hostile powers and worldly authorities and princes of this air—that is, He made them exhibits either of our hope or of their own damnation, and constituted them as certain portents, as it were, out of the gods of the age, they themselves being triumphed over in Him with confidence: