CHAPTER XI

 

On the benefits pertaining especially to the punishment of enemies

 

She prospered their works. Here he treats of benefits pertaining to the punishment of adversaries, and, firstly, of benefits pertaining to punishment by lighter penalties aimed at their reform, namely, in this chapter and in chapter twelve;[1] secondly, on benefits pertaining to heavier penalties aimed at their condemnation, namely, in chapter thirteen and further.

 

Firstly, on punishment by lighter penalties considered in two ways

 

In the first point he deals, firstly and especially, with the punishment of the Egyptians unjustly oppressing the Israelites; secondly, with the punishment of the Canaanites unjustly holding on to their land, namely, in chapter twelve.

 

Firstly, on the punishment of the Egyptians because of the double sin, firstly, because of unjust oppression

 

In the first point he deals with the punishment of the Egyptians because of the unjust oppression of the children of Israel; secondly, because of idolatry: some being deceived worshipped dumb serpents and worthless beasts.

In the first point there is shown the mercy of God towards the children of Israel who wanted to stay; secondly, the justice of God against the Egyptians wanting to detain them unjustly: For by what things.

In the first point he treats of the guidance of the Israelites on the way; secondly, the taking away or removal of the obstacles met on the way: They stood against their enemies; thirdly, their refreshment on the way: They were thirsty.

(Verse 1). He says, therefore: She prospered, as if to say: wisdom not only gave these benefits to the Israelite people but also prospered their works; Gloss[2]: ‘Of the Israelites’, namely, after their going out of Egypt; in the hands, that is, in the power and direction, of the holy Prophet; Gloss[3]: ‘Of Moses” who was a prophet in his teaching; Deuteronomy 18:15: ‘The Lord our God will raise up to you a prophet like unto me’; holy, in his life; Exodus 33:17: ‘You have found grace before me’.[4] Because he was a prophet, he taught and ruled them not only with words but also by example and, because he was holy, the text of Luke 24:19 can be applied to him: ‘He was a prophet mighty in work and word’.

(Verse 2). They went, Gloss[5]: ‘Hurrying to the promised land’, through wildernesses, that is, through many abandoned places, namely, abandoned by farmers, that were not inhabited, namely by settlers. This was done by wisdom directing them by the hand of Moses, according to Psalm 76:21: ‘You have conducted your people like sheep, by the hand of Moses and Aaron’. Many did not remember this; so Jeremiah 2:6: ‘They have not said, where is the Lord that made us come up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the desert, through a land uninhabited and unpassable’. And in desert places they made[6] their tents; Gloss[7]: ‘Lodgings’, that is, poor small houses that are called tents from falling because they could easily collapse;[8] a similar thing is said of Abraham who, in Hebrews 11:9[9] is said to have lived ‘in cottages’.[10] They did this moving through forty two dwellings as listed in Numbers 33:1ff.

(Verse 3). They stood against their enemies, namely, by fighting against the Amalekites, as seen in Exodus 17:8ff., and against the Midianites, Numbers 31:3ff. And revenged themselves of their adversaries, namely, the Amalekites by conquering and killing them, and they did this by the prayer of Moses and the raising of his hands, as is clear in Exodus 17:10ff.

(Verse 4). They were thirsty, namely, from bodily thirst due to a shortage of water, as is clear in Exodus 17:2-6 and Numbers 20:2-5; and they called upon you, in their souls, and they did this themselves or through Moses; so Numbers 20:6: ‘O Lord God, hear the cry of this people’; Psalm 106:6: ‘And they cried to the Lord in their tribulation’. And water was given them out of the high rock, that is, from a high cliff; Exodus 17:6: ‘You shall strike the rock and water shall come out of it’; also Numbers 20:8: ‘Speak to the rock and it shall yield waters’. And a refreshment of their thirst, that is, quenching thirst from the drink of water, out of the hard stone, repeat, given them; Psalm 77:20: ‘He struck the rock and waters gushed out’; also Numbers 20:11: ‘There came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank’. It is called the highest rock, that is, exceedingly high, or highest because of what it represents, namely, because it prefigured Christ; so 1 Corinthians 10:4: ‘The rock was Christ’. Spiritual water of graces came out from this rock; John 4:13: ‘Whosoever drinks of this water shall thirst again, but the one who shall drink of the water that I will give shall not thirst for ever’; also John 7:37: ‘If any thirst, let them come to me and drink’.

For by what things their enemies were punished, when their drink failed them, while the children of Israel abounded therewith and rejoiced. Here is shown the effect of divine justice against the Egyptians who wanted to keep the Israelites. Firstly, the punishment of the Egyptians by a lack of water is treated; secondly, the fittingness of the punishment: For instead of a fountain of an ever running river, you gave human blood to the unjust; thirdly, the intention of the one punishing: And whilst they were diminished for a manifest reproof of their murdering the infants; fourthly, the severity of the punishment: For you admonished and tried them as a father: but the others, as a severe king, you examined and condemned; fifthly, the effect on those punished: For when they heard that by their punishments the others were benefited.

(Verse 5). For by what things etc.; Gloss[11]: ‘After recalling the benefits given to the first people, the punishment of the enemies is told’. For by what things etc., as if to say: an abundance of water was given to the Israelites; for, meaning because; for by what things their enemies were punished, namely, when their drink failed them when all the water of Egypt was turned into blood so that they could not drink it, as is clear in Exodus 7:20ff. While the children of Israel abounded therewith, namely, in the waters that were abundant in the land of Goshen,[12] according to a Gloss[13]: ‘That flowed from the rock’, Numbers 20:11; and rejoiced.

(Verses 6-7). By the same things, namely, by the waters, in their need of water, Gloss[14]: ‘among the Israelites’, they were benefited, because the lack was supplied by a miracle.

For instead of a fountain of an ever running river, as if to say: the lack of water was both right and fitting for the Egyptians, while an abundance of water was given to the Israelites; for instead of a fountain, certainly, of an ever running river, that is, of the Nile flowing continuously from the beginning of the world; for it is one of the rivers of paradise;[15] you gave human blood, that is, a kind of human blood, to the unjust, namely, to the Egyptians since, according to a Gloss, ‘their waters were turned into blood, ac is clear in Exodus 7:20ff.

(Verse 8). And whilst they, namely, the children of Israel, were diminished for a manifest reproof of their murdering the infants, that is, from the public killing of the infants, which was done lest the people increase rather than become fewer, as is clear in Exodus 1:16 and 22; you gave to your own, namely, to the children of Israel, abundant water unlooked for, ‘that is, unexpected’[16] because you gave it in the desert and you gave it by a miracle with water flowing from a rock in the desert. ‘A miracle is a difficult and unusual event beyond the hope and ability of the admirer’.[17] You gave human blood to the unjust, as if he were to say, according to a Gloss[18]: You gave blood to the Egyptians in place of water, and water to the Israelites because of the blood of the children that was shed.

(Verse 9). Showing, O Lord, by the thirst that was then, namely in Egypt for the Egyptians and in the desert for the Israelites, how you exalted your own, namely, in the future when ‘you shall make them drink of the torrent of your pleasure’;[19] you have shown this by giving them drink now in such a wonderful  way. And killed their adversaries; Gloss[20]: ‘With eternal thirst’, like the rich man who feasted and of whom Luke speaks in chapter 16; also Isaiah 65:13: ‘Behold my servants shall drink and you shall be thirsty’. Or according to the text in which were prefigured the death of the Egyptians in the Red Sea and the deliverance of the Israelites.[21]

(Verse 10). For when they were tried, namely, the children of Israel in the desert with many temptations and trials; Gloss[22]: ‘God inflicted divine scourges on the sinful Israelites and consoled the penitents’. The text adds: And indeed, that is, certainly, they accepted discipline with mercy;[23] Psalm 59:3: ‘You, O God, have been angry and have had mercy on us’;[24] with consoling mercy and reproaching discipline; or: a merciful and light correction or punishment for their sins and so they should not reject discipline; Proverbs 3:11: ‘My son, reject not the correction of the Lord’; Hebrews 12:8: ‘If you be without chastisement, then you are bastards and not sons’.[25] They knew, namely, by experience, how the wicked were judged with wrath, that is, how roughly, what the Prophet[26] feared when he said: ‘O Lord, rebuke me not in your indignation, nor chastise me in your wrath’; the wicked were judged, namely, now, and tormented, in a future with incomparably more grievous torments: ‘The Lord shall rain snares upon sinners, fire and brimstone and storms of winds shall be the portion of their cup’. I say, they knew, by the experience of being so roughly coerced; Luke 23:31: ‘If in the green wood one does this, what shall be done in the dry?’[27] Also Proverbs 11:31: ‘If a just person receives in the earth, how much more the wicked and the sinner?’ Also Jeremiah 25:29: ‘Behold, I bring evil on the city wherein my name is called upon, and shall you be as innocent and escape free?’ As if to say: no.

(Verse 11). For you admonished and tried them; Gloss[28]: ‘The Israelites’; as a father, namely, for their greater progress and advance to what is better, that is, by admonishing them with your correction you made them upright. ‘The Lord scourges everyone whom he receives’, Hebrews 12:6; Proverbs 3:12: ‘For whom the Lord loves, he chastises, and as a father in the son he pleases himself’; also above in Wisdom 3:6: As gold in the furnace he has proved them. But the others; Gloss[29]: ‘The Egyptians or the Canaanites;’ as a severe king, as judged from the punishment, you who by nature are kind; you examined, namely, by punishments and examinations by torture, just as bandits, thieves and evil doers are put on trial and tortured; Gregory[30]: ‘Punishment searches out whether or not a calm person loves truth’. Condemned, because from the scourging they did not change for the better but got worse; Ezekiel 24:12: ‘Great pains have been taken, and the great rust thereof is not gone out, not even by fire’; also Jeremiah 6:30: ‘Call them reprobate silver for the Lord has rejected them’.

(Verse 12). For whether absent or present, they were tormented alike, as if to say: I have said well that you condemned them rigorously. For whether absent, namely, the Egyptians from the presence of Moses and Pharaoh, or from the children of Israel, or present, namely, explicitly consenting to the malice of Pharaoh; or even, according to a Gloss,[31] the Canaanites, or those who were killed by Israel, or who heard of their victory; were tormented alike, because the plagues were ‘in all the land of Egypt’, as is clear in Exodus 7:21.[32] Or: present, they were tormented, in body, absent, those who heard of it, were tormented, in mind.

But then it is asked: how, therefore, are they tormented alike, namely, those absent in mind, those present in body?

It has to be said that they are alike in general, namely, referring to the thing, that both one group as well as the others were tormented but not alike in detail or in the method.

(Verse 13). For a double affliction came upon them, namely, like something owned, affliction, that is, torment, according to Psalm 108:29: ‘Let them be covered with their confusion as with a double cloak’;[33] Jeremiah 17:18: ‘With a double destruction destroy them’. I say double, and, meaning that is; groaning, from the infliction of present evils; for the remembrance of things past, that is, with the sorrow they had from remembering past evils, and seeing how plague followed on plague. Gloss[34]: ‘A double affliction, that is, the memory of past evils and the storm of the present moment’.

For when they heard that by their punishments the others were benefited, they remembered the Lord, wondering at the end of what was come to pass. Here is shown the effect of the punishment of those punished, firstly, by the Israelites; secondly, by the Egyptians: For when they heard etc.; thirdly, by both: being unlike.

(Verse 14). As if to say: truly you have tried and you have condemned them.[35] For when they heard, namely, the children of Israel when Moses preached this; that by their punishments the others were benefited, that is, it was of value for their salvation, according to Romans 8:28: ‘To them that love God, all things work together unto good’; they remembered the Lord, who had handed them over to being forgotten; these became desperate; Psalm 77:42: ‘They remembered not God’s hand in the day that God redeemed them from the hand of him that afflicted them’; also: ‘They forgot God’s benefits and the wonders God had shown them’;[36] however, after they had been afflicted, they remembered God: ‘Punishment opens the eyes that sin closes’, as Gregory[37] says; Psalm 77:35: ‘They remembered that God was their helper’. Wondering, namely, at the power and wisdom of God, at the end of what was come to pass, that is, after the matter had been concluded; for right judgment depends on the conclusion. ‘The conclusion tests actions’;[38] so Peter followed Christ ‘that he might see the end’, Matthew 26:58.

(Verse 15). For whom they scorned before, when he was thrown out at the time of his being wickedly exposed to perish, him they admired in the end, when they saw the event: their thirsting being unlike to that of the just. This is equivalent to saying: and this is rightly so; whom, namely, the Israelite people or Moses, when he was thrown out, that is, wrongly and dangerously thrown in the river, they scorned, namely, the Egyptians as he was about to perish in the river, in spite of the basket.[39] They admired in the end, that is, after seeing the result, namely, Moses rescued from there by miracles; so Exodus 11:3: ‘Accordingly, Moses was a very great man in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and of all the people’.[40] Or: they admired in the end, namely, the people delivered miraculously; Exodus 14:25: ‘The Egyptians said: Let us flee from Israel, for the Lord fights for them against us’. In this way the wicked erred by not considering the end of the just, but only their present affliction; above in Wisdom 5:4: We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honour. Their thirsting being unlike to that of the just, as if to say: in this way you condemned the wicked and delivered the just; you, I say, not treating the just in the same way;[41] Gloss[42]: ‘As if to the unjust’; because Proverbs 24:16: ‘For a just person shall fall seven times and shall rise again, but the wicked shall fall down into evil’. The reason for the difference does not come from God for God ‘is not an acceptor of persons’, Acts 10:34, but it comes from the unjust.

(Verse 16). The text continues: However, for the devices; I have said well: unlike; however, meaning rather but; for the foolish devices, that is, hardened in evil, of their iniquities,[43] namely, those that are exterior, as if to say: because of their evil thoughts they were allowed to fall into evil actions; so a Gloss[44]: ‘Wicked actions come from thoughts’, because the reprobate do not have a change of heart even when afflicted by the Lord; Romans 2:5: ‘But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up to yourself wrath, against the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of God’; Revelation 22:11: ‘Let the filthy still be filthy’.

 

 

 

Secondly, on the punishment of the Egyptians for their idolatry

 

That some being deceived worshipped dumb serpents and worthless beasts, you sent upon them a multitude of dumb beasts for vengeance. Here he treats of the punishment of the Egyptians for idolatry, and this is done by sending flies. And the fittingness of this punishment is shown, firstly, from the viewpoint of the sinner; secondly, from the viewpoint of the judge punishing, as in the words: For your almighty hand, which made the world of matter without form, was not unable to send upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions.

(Verse 16). That some being deceived etc., as if to say: they were punished for oppressing the Israelites; that, meaning because; some, of the Egyptians, being deceived, namely, about faith; Proverbs 14:22: ‘They err that work evil’. Worshipped dumb serpents; he says dumb to distinguish it from the serpent that spoke to Eve in the earthly paradise; Genesis 3:1;[45] and worthless beasts, that is, useless for worship; for the Egyptians worshipped Aesculapius in the image of a serpent, Mercury in the image of a dog, Jupiter in the image of a ram, Apis in the image of an ox; Romans 1:23: ‘They changed the glory of the incorruptible One into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and of creeping things’. You sent upon them a multitude of dumb beasts for vengeance, namely, frogs, flies, stinging insects and locusts, according to Psalm 77:45-46: ‘The Lord sent among them divers sorts of flies which devoured them, and frogs that destroyed them, and gave up their fruits to the blast, and their labours to the locust’.[46]

(Verse 17). That they might know that by the things, that is, by what things, a person sins, by the same, that is by similar things, also the person is tormented; Gloss[47]: ‘So that from the likeness of the punishment he might acknowledge the gravity of the sin’, just as ‘Haman was hanged on the gibbet which he had prepared for Mordecai’, Esther 7:10; and Goliath was killed by his own sword, 1 Samuel 17:50ff.;[48] and Holofernes was killed with his own sword by a woman he had wrongly desired, Judith 13:8ff.

Your almighty hand was not unable to send upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions. Here the fittingness of the punishment is shown from the viewpoint of the judge punishing who prefers to use mercy rather than power. And there is shown, firstly, that such a light punishment did not come from a lack of power; secondly that it came from mercy: but you have ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight; thirdly, the proof of power is brought out: For great power always belonged to you alone; fourthly, a proof of mercy: And[49] you have mercy upon all.    

He shows in the first part that God could have punished in other ways, namely, either by means of punishment already created, or by something to be created new, as in: Or unknown beasts of a new kind; or by immediately acting alone: And,[50] without these.

(Verse 18). Therefore, he says: For your almighty hand, which made the world of matter without form, was not unable to send upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions. I have said well, that you have punished them by those things in which they sinned, and this because the punishment fits the sin, not because of a lack of power. For your hand, ‘that is, your Son’,[51] was not unable, that is, quite powerless, according to Psalm 143:7: ‘Put forth your hand from on high’; almighty; so below in Wisdom 18:15: Lord, your almighty word leapt down from heaven. Which created, that is, formed the world; for to create is to make something from nothing, but to form is to use pre-existing matter. The world came from pre-existing material but it was first created without form; so he adds: of matter without form, that is, from prime matter which is unseen, invisible. From the point of view of the world, it was then without a distinct form, and from the view of the one acting, it lacked light which is necessary for bringing the sense of sight from potency to act; so Genesis 1:2: ‘The earth was void and empty’, as regards the first defect, ‘and darkness was upon the face of the deep’, as regards the second defect. To send upon them, namely, for punishment, a multitude of bears, or fierce lions, strong and rapacious animals; for this reason, in 1 Samuel 17:36, David gloried in having overpowered them: ‘For I your servant have killed both a lion and a bear’. I say, to send upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions, as was done when the Lord sent lions into the land of Samaria and they devoured the people dispersed there because they did not worship God.[52]

(Verses 19-20). Or unknown beasts of a new kind, full of rage, and so more frightening; Deuteronomy 32:24: ‘I will send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the fury of creatures that trail upon the ground and of serpents’. Either breathing out a fiery[53] vapour, or of fires, or sending forth, namely, to devour, a stinking smoke, to infect the atmosphere, or shooting horrible sparks out of their eyes, to cause terror.

Whereof not only the hurt, caused by striking, might be able to destroy them, that is, to put them beyond the limits of life; but also the very sight, from seeing, might kill them, the unjust and the evil, through fear; Psalm 90:13 says of a just person: ‘You shall walk upon the asp and the adder and you shall trample under foot the lion and the dragon’.

Note that the six kinds of sins can be understood in the six kinds of animals just mentioned: by a bear the vice of gluttony; by a lion, pride; by beasts full of rage, anger; by those breathing out a fiery vapour, lust; by sending forth a stinking smoke, avarice; by those sending forth a stinking smoke, envy.

(Verse 21). And[54] without these, they might have been slain with one blast. The Lord was able to punish them not only in this way, for without these, that is, without the help of these beasts, they might have been slain with one blast; Gloss[55]: ‘That is, by one act of displeasure or by a command’. The word blast[56] is to be understood as in Genesis 6:3: ‘My spirit shall not remain in mortals forever’, that is my displeasure etc. Or: with one angelic blast, as happened to Sennacherib and his army, as is clear in Isaiah 37:36. Persecuted, namely, for a reason meriting this, by their own deeds, so that they were destroyed by their own actions, just as a viper perishes when giving birth; Luke 3:7: ‘You offspring of vipers, who has taught  you to flee from the wrath to come?’;[57] Psalm 27:4: ‘According to the works of their hands, give you to them’. And scattered, namely, to different places away from their own land, by the breath of your power. This can be understood as intransitive, and then it refers to the uncreated Spirit; or as transitive, and then it can be understood of a created spirit;[58] Job 4:8-9: ‘I have seen those who work iniquity,[59] perishing by the blast of God and consumed by the spirit of God’s wrath’.

But you have ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight. Here he shows that God punished out of mercy and punished less than God could have done; and, firstly, showing by this, firstly, that God punished in measure by not punishing beyond what the weight of the sin demanded; secondly, that God punished in number by not punishing beyond what the number of sins demanded; thirdly, that God punished in weight by not punishing beyond what the condition or quality of the sinners demanded.

(Verse 21). I have said well that you do not punish according to the greatness of your power, that is, as much as you could; but you have ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight, as if to say: you have ordered in measure not only the creatures themselves but also their retributions, penalties and punishments so that they do not exceed the weight of the sin; in number, so that they do not exceed the number of sins; in weight so that they do not exceed the condition of the sinner nor the circumstances of the sin. That God punishes according to measure, Revelation 18:7: ‘As much as she has glorified herself and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give you to her’; also Isaiah 27:8: ‘In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, you shall judge it’; also Luke 6:38: ‘With the same measure that you shall mete, withal it shall be measured to you again’. That God punishes according to number, Revelation 18:6: ‘Double unto her double according to her works’; also Isaiah 40:2: ‘She has received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins’, that is, double punishment, namely, the punishment of loss and a punishment of the mind, or an exterior bodily punishment and an interior spiritual punishment, that is, remorse of conscience. That God punishes according to weight, is clear from above in Wisdom 6:7: For to him that is little, mercy is granted: but the mighty shall be mightily tormented.

This can be interpreted in another way: all things, namely, things that are corporal by their nature, you have ordered in measure, and number, and weight, because the four elements  are the measure of everything corporal for they have number, weight and measure, as it clear.

Or in another way: weight, as applied to the power of the one working; number, as applied to the wisdom of the one putting in order; measure, as applied to the kindness of the one preserving; Romans 11:36: ‘For of him’, referring to the power of the Father, ‘and by him’, referring to the wisdom of the Son, ‘and in him are all things’, referring to the kindness of the Spirit. - According to a Gloss of Rabanus[60]: ‘In measure, quality; in number, quantity, in weight, reason’. – According to Augustine,[61] measure is the same as manner of acting; species is the same as number; order the same as weight. ‘These three’, namely, manner, species and order, ‘where they are great are great benefits; where they are small, there are small benefits; where they are not, there are no benefits’, as he says.[62]

Or it can be interpreted of measure, number and weight in uncreated beings as follows: in measure, that is, by measuring in yourself all things by setting the mode of everything; in number, that is, by numbering all things in yourself by conferring the species proper to each thing; in weight, that is, by weighing in yourself what is proper to everything and by setting a certain order. An interpretation of Augustine[63] agrees with this when he says: ‘In measure, that is, in yourself who are measure without measure setting the mode of everything; number without number granting species to everything; weight without weight drawing everything to stability’. You are the first as the efficient cause, the second as the exemplary cause, the third as the final cause. – In a moral sense it can be interpreted as: In measure, against the vice of over abundance; in number, against the vice of singularity; in weight, against the vice of fickleness.[64]

But it is objected: if everything is ordered in measure, number and weight, therefore, there is measure in measure etc and so on to infinity.

It can be said, that speaking of number, weight, and measure in uncreated beings, the distribution is universal; but when speaking of created things, the distribution is accommodated, in such a way that it is understood of a distribution made for things that are measured, numbered and weighed.[65] Or: all things, complete beings that are not created together in another. Such are without measure, number and weight; but in beings created together in others, the beings are not self sufficient and complete.[66]

For great power always belonged to you alone: and who shall resist the strength of your arm? Here, the proof of divine power is considered, firstly, in its greatness in itself; secondly, in the smallness of a creature: For the whole world before you is as the least grain of the balance.

(Verse 22). For great power etc., as if to say: it is clearly apparent that it was not from weakness that they were punished in this way; for great power, that is, to be able to act strongly, always belonged to you alone, without the help of others, namely, from your infinite  power. ‘For the infinite is that in which the parts or quantity as in one receiving always has something outside it;’[67] Luke1:37: ‘No word shall be impossible with God’; always, that is, at all times and for eternity, according to Daniel 7:14: ‘The power of the Ancient of days is an everlasting power’. The strength, that is, of perfect power, because, according to the Philosopher,[68] ‘strength is the limit of potential in something’; of your arm, according to Isaiah 51:9: ‘Put on strength, you arm of the Lord’; who shall resist, as if to say: no one can; and that implies not suffering from any other.

(Verse 23). For the whole world before you is as the least movement of the balance, and as a drop of the morning dew, that falls down upon the earth, as if to say: this is truly so for the whole world, that is, the total of all creatures, before you, that is, in your ordering or in comparison with you, is as the least grain of the balance, that is, a particle by which a balance leans this way or that; it is called a movement from the verb to move,[69] or because, it is so easily moved this way or that, just as the world is moved by divine power as God wishes; so Isaiah 40:15: ‘Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the smallest grain of a balance’; and as a drop of the morning dew, that is, falling before dawn, that falls down upon the earth,  but is easily dispersed by the face of the sun, unable to resist. And note, that he says a creature is as the least movement etc., before God who can act on it so easily; and as a drop of the morning dew, to imply the impossibility of being affected by a creature; Isaiah 40:17: ‘All nations are before God as if they had no being at all’.

And[70] you have mercy upon all, since you can do all things, and overlook the sins of human beings for the sake of repentance. Here he treats of the proof of divine mercy; and, firstly, he proves it by the effect of overlooking; secondly, by the effect of love: For you love all things; thirdly, by the effect of conservation: And how could anything endure, if you had not willed it, or be preserved, if not called forth by you; fourthly, by the effect of pardon: But you spare all because they are yours.

(Verse 24). And you have mercy upon all, that is, you carry out the effect of mercy in all things, according to Psalm 144:9: ‘The Lord’s tender mercies are above all the Lord’s works’; also Psalm 24:10: ‘All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth’; also Psalm 32:5: ‘The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord’. Since[71] you can do all things; hence all things are your creation and your works, according to Psalm 145:6: ‘Who made heaven and earth and all things that are in them’. And overlook, by not punishing at the time, the sins of human beings; he does not say of angels because the sin of the Angels was immediately punished; so Isaiah 14:12: ‘How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who did rise in the morning?’ For the sake of repentance; so Romans 2:4: ‘Do you not know that the kindness of God leads you to penance?’ Ezekiel 18:21: ‘If the wicked do penance for all their sins which they have committed, and keep all my commandments, and do judgment and justice, living they shall live and shall not die’.

(Verse 25). For you love all things that are, namely, by approving and preserving the good in them; so Genesis 1:31: ‘And God saw all the things that God had made and they were very good’; Gloss[72]: ‘A good worker loves his work’; but God did not make sin, so John 1:3: ‘Without him was made nothing’, that is ‘sin, according to Augustine.[73] So God does not love sin, but hates it, according to Psalm 44:8: ‘You have loved justice and hated iniquity’. And you hate none of the things which you have made, namely, by condemning no one.

Against this it is said in Psalm 118:113: ‘I have hated the unjust’; also in Psalm 5:7: ‘You hate all the workers of iniquity’; also Sirach 12:3: ‘The Most High hates sinners’.

But it has to be said that God does not hate what God has made but the vice of the one made, just as a statue maker loves what is done, and yet hates some imperfection in the material used.

And hate, that is, not wanting, none of the things which you have made, namely, by creating them from nothing, or make anything hating it, by forming it from pre-existing material; so Boethius[74]:

 

Who to your work moved by no external cause:

But by a sweet desire, where envy has no place,

Your goodness moving you to give each thing its form.

 

So Proverbs 16:4: ‘The Lord has made everything for himself’.

(Verse 26). And how could anything, that is, any creature, endure, namely, in its being, if you had not willed it, that is, unless you preserved it willingly by your goodness, as if to say: in no way; so Gregory[75]: ‘Everything that exists would tend to nothing unless the hand of the Creator were to sustain or hold it’. Or be preserved, if not called forth by you, that is, unless you were to approve it by looking at it with your wisdom; Romans 4:17: ‘Does not God call those things that are not, as those that are?’ This is equivalent to saying: nothing.

(Verse 27). But you spare all, namely, human beings who are called every creature, according to Mark 16:15: ‘Preach the Gospel to every creature’; I say spare because it is proper to God according to the text: ‘God to whom it is proper always to be merciful and to spare’. Because they are yours, O Lord; Ezekiel 18:4: ‘Behold all souls are mine’; who loves souls; this is clear because you laid down your life for us; John 15:13: ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’; so Bernard[76]: ‘You had greater love because you laid down your life for your enemies’.

CHAPTER XII

 

Secondly, on the punishment of the Canaanites and Amorites

 

O how good and sweet is your spirit, O Lord, in all things! After dealing with the benefits shown to the children of Israel mainly in the affliction and punishment of the Egyptians, he treats here of the benefits shown to them mainly in the affliction of the Canaanites and Amorites, the inhabitants of the promised land.

In the first part he shows, firstly, the just punishment of these peoples; secondly, the mercy shown in the manner of punishing: Yet even those you spared; thirdly, the instruction by both [punishment and mercy] of the people of God: But you being master of power; fourthly, the condemnation of the incorrigible enemies by both: Wherefore you have also greatly tormented them.

 

Firstly, on the just punishment of these people from two points of view

 

In the first part he treats of the kind intention of the one punishing; secondly, the equity of the punishment: For those ancient inhabitants. – He shows, firstly, the cause of the kind intention, secondly the sign: And therefore you chastise them that err; thirdly, the purpose: that leaving their wickedness, they may believe in you, O Lord.

(Verse 1) O how good and sweet is your spirit, O Lord, in all things! This exclamation implies the inability of the speaker to express the goodness of the Creator; it is also the meaning of: O how good and sweet is your spirit, O Lord, as if to say: I am unable to express how great it is because of the infinity of your goodness. Good, namely, by sharing your good things; according to Dionysius,[77] ‘good is self diffusive’; Matthew 19:17: ‘No one is good other than God alone’;[78] only God shares what belongs to God, every creature shares what belongs to another because a creature has nothing of its own; so 1 Corinthians 4:7: ‘What do you have that you have not received?’ And sweet is your spirit, O Lord, in all things, namely, in forgiving our sins; Psalm 33:9: ‘O taste and see that the Lord is sweet’; I say your spirit in all things, that is, in us, Gloss[79]: ‘Because the love of God is the source of all good’. In all things, especially in things in which the mercy of God is more evident; Psalm 144:9: ‘The Lord is sweet to all’.

(Verse 2). And therefore, because you are good and sweet, you chastise them that err, that is, who err in faith or conduct, like those of whom Isaiah 53:6 says: ‘All we like sheep have gone astray’; also Lamentations 4:14: ‘They have wandered as blind men in the streets’; you chastise by little and little, that is, scourging at intervals, not all at once, but by sending at different times, according to Exodus 23:29-30: ‘I will not cast them from your face in one year’, but ‘by little and little I will drive them out’;[80] Job 35:15: ‘For God does not now bring on fury, neither does God revenge wickedness exceedingly’, but a little; you chastise, I say, either yourself or ‘by others whom you fill with the Holy Spirit, according to a Gloss;[81] John 16:18: ‘The Paraclete will convince the world of sin’. Concerning the things wherein they offend, that is, of the sins by which they sin; you admonish, namely, by promising pardon, according to Matthew 4:17: ‘Do penance because the kingdom of heaven is at hand’; also Isaiah 45:22: ‘Be converted to me, and you shall be saved, all you ends of the earth: for I am God and there is no other’; Gloss[82]: ‘Blessed are they who hear the voice of the one admonishing’; Isaiah 30:21: ‘Your ears shall hear the word of one admonishing you  behind your back’. And speak to them, that is, by threatening punishment; Isaiah 1:19-20[83]: ‘If you hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you will not, the sword shall devour you’; that leaving their wickedness, namely, of sin or infidelity; they may believe in you, O Lord, namely, with a formed faith;[84] I say in you, not you, or only to you; Isaiah 55:7: ‘Let the wicked forsake his ways etc.’. A work of penance is contrary to a work of malice, because, just as one is from good into evil, so the other is from evil into good.

For those ancient inhabitants of your holy land, whom you abhorred. Here is treated the equality of punishment and, firstly, from the point of view of the sin itself; secondly, from the point of view of the punishment: It was your will to destroy.

(Verse 3). For those ancient inhabitants of your holy land, whom you abhorred. I have said well: You chastise them that err, by little and little; and this is clear in an example. For those ancient inhabitants, namely, the Canaanites, Amorites and other such inhabitants of our holy land, that is, promised to the Saints, namely, Abraham, Genesis 15:16 and 18; Isaac, Genesis 26:3ff.; Jacob, Genesis 28:13ff; whom you abhorred because you did not want your people to marry or intermingle with them, according to Deuteronomy 7:2-3: ‘You shall make no league with them nor shall you make marriages nor show mercy to them’.[85]

(Verses 4-5). Because they did works hateful to you, namely, frightful sins, as below in Wisdom 14:9: But to God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful alike; by their sorceries, namely, poisonous, and wicked sacrifices, to idols, and this is against God. But there were just sacrifices offered to God as by Noah in Genesis 8:20-21.[86] And those murderers of their own children, and this against one’s neighbour, without mercy, that is, without compassion, because in their sacrifices to the demons they offered them with much devotion, according to Psalm 105:37: ‘They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils’. This is against Deuteronomy 18:9-10: ‘Beware lest you have a mind to imitate the abominations of those nations, neither let there be found among you anyone that shall expiate his son or daughter, making them to pass through fire’. And eaters of people’s bowels, this is not recorded as having happened but it is believed that it could have happened, just as at the time of the siege of Samaria it is said to have happened in 2 Kings 6:25ff.;[87] and Lamentations 4:10: ‘The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children’; and devourers of blood,[88] of human blood, against Genesis 9:4: ‘Flesh with blood you shall not eat’.

(Verse 6). And those, that is, those shedding blood, parents, who, even though they were parents, shed blood and this is more serious; of blood, I say of souls, that is, of people; a part stands for the whole and this is synecdoche, as in Exodus 1:1 and 5: ‘All the souls that went into Egypt with Jacob’;[89] helpless souls; Gloss[90]: ‘That is, of those unable to defend themselves, or for  whom they were unwilling to offer help’, namely, of their own children for whom they provided blood and whose blood they poured out in sacrifice and which they ate by eating of what was sacrificed. I say, and those merciless murderers of their own children, and eaters of people’s bowels, it was your will to destroy, that is, to expel from the midst of your consecration, that is, from the sacred land of promise; it is called the sacred land of promise or a consecration because of the meaning of a sacred thing, that is, of the land of the living,[91] because of the institution in it of the Sacraments such as the Eucharist and baptism, because it was to be the future dwelling of holy people such as the Patriarchs, Prophets and Apostles, because of the shedding and irrigation of the blood of Christ in it, and because of the death of the holy bodies and dust, namely, of the ancient Fathers buried there; also because in it was built a sacred place, namely, the temple, and because of the birth and life of the Holy of Holies. By the hands of our parents, namely, of those who entered the promised land with Joshua.[92]

(Verse 7). That the land which of all is most dear to you might receive, that is, that our parents might receive, a worthy colony, that is, the land of the journey, of the children of God, namely, the Patriarchs of whom is said in Hebrews 11:13: ‘Confessing that they are pilgrims and strangers on the earth’. That land, namely, the land of the pilgrimage, which of all is most dear to you, namely, of the lands, that is, in all the lands because of the salvation won there for the human race, according to Psalm 73:12: ‘God has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth’.

 

Secondly, the mercy shown in the manner of the punishment is explained in two ways

 

Yet even those you spared as human beings, and sent wasps, forerunners of your host, to destroy them by little and little. Here the mercy shown in the manner of the punishment is explained; and, firstly, of the way in which he takes away the false reason; secondly, he adds the true reason: For so much then as you are just, you order all things justly.

In the first part he explains, firstly, that his manner of punishing is not due to a lack of power; secondly, nor to ignorance: But executing your judgments by degrees you gave them place of repentance; thirdly, nor from fear: Neither did you for fear of anyone give pardon to their sins; fourthly, nor from injustice: For there is no[93] other God but you who has care of all that you should show that you do not give judgment unjustly.

(Verse 8). Yet even those you spared as human beings etc. Some understand this of the Fathers being brought in, whose enemies the Lord had mercifully destroyed, not wanting to leave them vulnerable as mortal people subject to the dangers of war; however, it seems more fitting to apply it to the Canaanite people who were to be cast out before them. Therefore, he says: Yet even those, even though they had sinned grievously, you spared, namely, by not driving them out immediately and all together, as human beings, clothed in weak flesh and so prone to sin. ‘The imagination and thought of the human heart are prone to evil from youth’, Genesis 8:21. The Lord gives this reason in Genesis 6:3: ‘My spirit shall not remain in mortals[94] because they are flesh’. And sent wasps, forerunners of your host, that is, a kind of stinging wasps; a Gloss[95] says: ‘Most piercing enemies by whom the hearts of people were stung’. These are hornets of which Deuteronomy 7:20 says: ‘Moreover, the Lord your God will send also hornets among them until God destroys and consumes all’; Exodus 23:27-28: ‘I will send my fear before you’; and then: ‘Sending out hornets before that shall drive away the Hivites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, before you come in’. To destroy them, namely, the Canaanites, by little and little, that is, that they might settle or flee beyond the boundaries of the promised land, or beyond the boundaries of this present life, or beyond the boundaries of the land of the living; so Baruch 3:19: ‘They are cut off and are gone down to hell’, that is, excluded from the land of the living.

(Verse 9). Not that you were unable to bring the wicked under the just by war, according to Psalm 17:40: ‘You have girded me with strength unto battle, and have subdued under me them that rose against me’; or by cruel beasts, that is, or by wild beasts, according to Jeremiah 5:6: ‘a wolf in the evening has spoiled them, a leopard watches for their cities’; above in Wisdom 11:18-19: For your almighty hand, which made the world of matter without form, was not unable to send upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions, or unknown beasts of a new kind, full of rage. Or with one rough word, namely, by a harsh[96] word, to destroy them at once, according to Jeremiah 23:29: ‘Are[97] not my words as a fire, says the Lord, and as a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?’

(Verse 10). But executing your judgments by degrees you gave them place of repentance, not being ignorant that they were a wicked generation, and their malice natural, and that their thought could never be changed. Here, he shows that this was not done out of ignorance, namely, of their actual or original sin, saying: But executing your judgments by degrees you gave them place of repentance. I have said well that it was not because you were unable to bring the wicked under the just by war; but by degrees, ‘that is, gradually or part by part’[98] and successively, executing, namely, punishing justly; Deuteronomy 7:22: ‘God will consume these nations in your sight by little and little and by degrees,[99] lest perhaps the beasts of the earth should increase upon you’; you gave them place of repentance, so that when some were punished others were corrected; Job 24:23: ‘God has given him place for penance and he abuses it unto pride’. Not being ignorant, because ignorance has no place in God just as darkness has no place in light; so 1 John 1:5: ‘God is light and in God there is no darkness’. They were a wicked[100] generation, from the malice of sin because they are wicked children of wicked fathers; so above in Wisdom 4:6: For the children that are born of unlawful beds, are witnesses of wickedness against their parents;[101] and their[102] malice natural, that is, like a natural malice from the adoption of an evil habit. ‘Habit is another nature’;[103] for just as what comes from nature is difficult or impossible to shed, so also what comes from habit; so Jeremiah 13:23: ‘If the Ethiopian can change his skin, or the leopard his spots, you also may do well, when you have learned evil’; Gregory[104]: ‘One has difficulty in rising when weighed down by a heavy mass of habit’. And their malice natural; Gloss[105]: ‘Remaining deep-seated’, namely, from the practice of an evil habit. And that their thought could never be changed, namely, from the stubbornness of their perverse will; Gloss[106]: ‘Their own deep-seated wickedness’; Lamentations 1:14: ‘The Lord has delivered me into a hand out of which I am not able to rise’.

But contra: The will is free to sin and to be penitent after sin.

I reply: Their thought could never be changed, that is, it was hardly possible; or it was not possible on their own, but only with God inspiring. A human being is ‘a wind that goes’, namely, by sin, ‘and returns not’,[107] namely, except by grace.

(Verse 11). For it was a cursed seed from the beginning, that is, in its first parent, namely, in Canaan; Genesis 9:25: ‘Cursed be Canaan’. Or according to a Gloss[108]: from the beginning, that is, in the foreknowledge of God’, because ‘there was in them a certain evil quality worthy of being cursed’. Neither did you for fear of anyone give pardon to their sins. Here, for four reasons he excludes fear from God: firstly, because no one can dispute God’s judgment; secondly, because no one can resist it: Or who shall withstand your judgment; thirdly, because no one can take revenge on God: Or who shall come before you to be a revenger of the wicked; fourthly, because no one can accuse God: Or who shall accuse you, if the nations perish, which you have made.

(Verse 11). Therefore, he says: Neither did you for fear of anyone give pardon to their sins. Neither fearing as if they were greater than you; Sirach 3:21: ‘Great is the power of God alone’; Isaiah 51:12: ‘Who are you that you would be afraid[109] of a mortal?’ Also Job 22:4: Shall God reprove you for fear’, as if to say: no; rather: ‘The pillars of heaven tremble, and dread at God’s beck’, Job 26:11?

(Verse 12). For who shall say to you, that is, would dare to say, or can reasonably say: What have you done, namely by discussing the reason for your action, as if to say: No one? So Romans 9:20: ‘Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why have you made me thus?’ Isaiah 45:9: ‘Shall the clay say to him that fashioned it: What are you making?’ Or who shall withstand your judgment, namely, by resisting your decree? Job 9:13: ‘God whose wrath no one can resist’; and in 9:19: ‘If equity of judgment be demanded, no one dare bear witness for me’. Or who shall come before you, that is, would dare to contest and to be a revenger of the wicked, ready to avenge the wicked, by punishing you as if you do them an injury by condemning them? This is equivalent to saying: no one, because Deuteronomy 32:35 says: ‘Revenge is mine and I will repay them in due time that their foot may slide’; also in 32:39: ‘See you that I alone am and there is no other God besides me’. Or who shall accuse you, namely, by reproving you for doing wrong, as if to say: no one; so John 8:46: ‘Which of you shall convince me of sin?’ I say, who shall accuse you, if the nations perish, which you have made? They perish from their own fault, with reference to their nature; Gloss[110]: ‘If they perish, it is not the fault of the Creator but a vice of nature’; Job 12:14: ‘If God pulls down there is no one that can build up’.

(Verse 13). For there is no[111] other God but you who has care of all that you should show that you do not give judgment unjustly. I have said well that who can carry out any of the aforementioned against your judgment? For there is no other God but you, according to Isaiah 45:21: ‘Have not I the Lord foretold this, and there is no God else besides me?’[112] Above in Wisdom 6:8: God ‘has equally care of all’.[113]

But contra: 1 Corinthians 9:9: ‘Does God take care for oxen?’

It has to be said that God’s care of providence is for all, the care of discipline is only for rational creatures.

That, precisely by this, you should show that you do not give judgment unjustly, in the punishment of the wicked; in Psalm 118:137: ‘You are just, O Lord, and your judgment is right’.

(Verse 14). Neither shall king, nor tyrant in your sight inquire about them whom you have destroyed. This is equivalent to saying that you so judge rightly that neither a king, who rules his own well and in accord with justice, nor a tyrant, who rules badly and unjustly, shall inquire about them whom you have destroyed; Gloss[114]: ‘Whether you will have lost justly’, according to Job 9:12: ‘Who can say, why do act so?’

For so much then as you are just, you order all things justly, thinking it not agreeable to your power, to condemn him who deserves not to be punished. Here he shows the reason why God displayed mercy in the abovementioned way of punishing, and he does this by showing, firstly, that God uses justice in all things; secondly, that, notwithstanding this, God shows mercy: And because you are Lord of all; thirdly, that God sometimes shows power to unbelievers: For you show your power, when people will not believe you to be absolute in power.

(Verse 15). For so much then as you are just, namely, in your nature, you order all things justly, namely, in a creature, ‘justly punishing the son’ now, so that you may spare him in the future; Hebrews 12:6: ‘For whom the Lord loves , the Lord chastises’; Tobit 3:2: ‘You are just, O Lord, and all your judgments are just’; also in Psalm 18:10: ‘The judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves’. He who deserves not to be punished, that is, to correct by temporal punishment, you condemn;[115] Gloss:[116] Eternal punishment, sparing one now so that you may punish in the future; so Ezekiel 16:42: ‘My jealousy shall depart from me, and I will cease and be angry no more’.[117] Thinking it not agreeable to your power; Gloss[118]: ‘That is, foreign to and unworthy of divine mercy’. For the power of God is mercy, according to a text of Gregory[119]: ‘God to whom it is proper always to be merciful and to spare’; also in Psalm 53:3: ‘In your strength’, that is, in your mercy, ‘judge me’. Or as follows: Him who deserves not to be punished, namely, in eternity, you condemn, according to what the wicked deserve; you reproach him now; thinking, that is, you make others judge, it is not agreeable to your power to condemn such a one by your power, something foreign to and unworthy of your mercy, just as the friends of Job[120] thought him unworthy of your mercy because you had punished him so severely.

(Verse 16). For your power is mercy. The work of justice is said to be foreign to God, Isaiah 28:21,[121] but the work of mercy is proper to God. This means that God is merciful to us out of God’s own goodness, but that God exercises justice for a reason within us, namely, our sin. I say, for your power, which is mercy, of justice, that is, of our justice, is the beginning of our justification, according to the Apostle in Titus 3:5: ‘Not by the works of justice, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us’; also Romans 3:24: ‘Being justified freely by his grace’. And because you are Lord of all, namely, by power, you make yourself gracious to all, by mercy; so a Gloss[122]: ‘So that you who are pre-eminent in power might by nature show mercy’; above in Wisdom 11:24: You have mercy upon all, because you can do all things.

(Verse 17). For you show your power, that is, power in punishing, when people, namely, those in error, will not believe you to be absolute, that is, perfect, in power; Job 22:17: ‘They looked upon the Almighty as if he could do nothing’. And those who do not know you, namely, unbelievers, in boldness you convince,[123] that is, you lead boldly to punishment, and rightly so because of their sins, above in Wisdom 4:20: Their iniquities shall stand against them to convict them

 

Thirdly, he shows the lesson for the people of God in both

 

But you being master of power, judge with tranquillity; and with great favour dispose of us, for your power is at hand when you will. Having shown the punishment of the enemies and the mercy of the judge in punishing, here he shows the lesson for the people of God in both, and he treats, firstly, of the example by which God instructs; secondly, the mercy from which God instructs: You have taught your people by such works; thirdly, the way in  which God instructs: You did punish the enemies of your servants who deserved to die, with so great deliberation; fourthly, the purpose for which God instructs: Therefore whereas you chastise us, you scourge our enemies very many ways, to the end that when we judge we may think on your goodness.

(Verse 18).  You, however, being master etc. I have said well, that you show your strength and power to the incorrigible; however, for but; being master of power, judge with tranquillity; this can be understood as intransitive so that the meaning of you being master of power, is virtuous; or as transitive: master of power,[124] that is, the Lord of all strength, namely, both of angelic and human; Psalm 23:10: ‘The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory’. You judge with tranquillity, that is, with no disturbance of mind or affection; James 1:17: ‘With whom there is no change’; Isaiah 42:3ff.: ‘He shall bring forth judgment unto truth, he shall not be sad nor troublesome’. And with much favour,[125] in effect, that is, with much moderation, you dispose of us, not like the judge ‘who feared not God nor regarded man’, Luke 18:2.[126] For your power is at hand when you will; Behold, the cause of tranquillity in judging and reverence in disposing, or in carrying out, namely, because God is all powerful; Psalm 113:3: ‘God has done all things whatsoever he would’.[127]

But it is objected that according to reason the power of understanding precedes the will, not the will power. Therefore, he ought to say: you want your power to be at hand when you will be able, not able when you so wish.

It has to be said that power precedes in being but the will precedes in acting; so God is able to do many things which God does not do because God does not so will.[128]

(Verse 19). For[129] you have taught your people; however, others were not taught, so Sirach 21:14 says: ‘One who is not wise in good, will not be taught’; by such works, namely, of justice and mercy together[130]. That they must be just, because you are just, and humane, that is, meek, because man is an animal meek by nature; and this is so because you are not only just but merciful; so Psalm 100:1: ‘Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord’; also Psalm 111:4: ‘The Lord is merciful and compassionate and just’. And if the Lord is such, so should the servant be; so Matthew 18:33: ‘Should not you have had compassion also on your fellow servant, even as I had compassion on you?’ Ecclesiastes 7:17: ‘Be not over-just’,[131] namely, in such a way that you exclude mercy from your justice; for the Samaritan poured on the wounded man not only wine but also oil.[132] And have made your children to be of a good hope, that is, for the kindness to be shown to your faithful who are your children; so John 1:12: ‘He gave them power to be made the children of God, to them that believe in his name’. This is a good hope of which is said in Psalm 61:9: ‘Trust in God all you congregation of people’; also Psalm 27:7: ‘In the Lord has my heart confided and I have been helped’; 1 Peter 1:13: ‘Trust perfectly in the grace which is offered you’. Because in judging, that is, in punishing sinners, you give place for repentance for sins, that is, for those persevering in sin, namely, by waiting for them to do penance; Isaiah 30:18: ‘Therefore, the Lord wais that he may have mercy on you’. This world is the place for penance; for after leaving this world there is no further place for  penance; so Ecclesiastes 11:3: ‘Wherever a tree falls, whether to the south or to the north, there shall it be’.[133] Chrysostom[134]: ‘Then there will be no place for penance, no time for making satisfaction nor for restoring virtue’; so Ecclesiastes 9:10: ‘Whatsoever your hand is able to do, do it earnestly, for neither work, nor reason, nor wisdom, nor knowledge shall be in Sheol, whither you are hastening’.

(Verse 20). For if you did punish the enemies of your servants, for a sin against a neighbour, for which servants, I say, it is said in Luke 10:16: ‘Whoever hears you, hears me, and whoever despises you, despises me’; who deserved to die, for a sin against God who is the life of souls, according to Augustine[135]; deserved, I say, to die, according to Romans 1:32: ‘Not only they who do such things are worthy of death’ etc.[136] You did punish with so great deliberation, namely, not together but punishing by stages and successively, as is clear in the plagues of Egypt;[137] and you did deliver,[138] namely, from the temporary torments because, at the prayer of Moses, they were delivered from each torment; a similar thing happened to the Canaanites. Giving them time and place whereby they might be changed from their wickedness; time, namely, a period of life, and place, namely, the exile of this world; on time, Revelation 2:21 says: ‘I gave her a time that she might do penance’; on place, Job 24:23 says: ‘God has given him place for penance, but he abuses it unto pride’.

(Verse 21). With what circumspection have you judged your own children, to whose parents you have sworn and made covenants of good promises? This is as if to say: with much diligence and attention, according to what the Psalmist[139] asked for when saying: ‘Arise, and be attentive to my judgment, to my cause, my God and my Lord’. A prefiguring of this is read in Genesis 3:8,[140] that God, about to judge the sin of Adam, walked etc. Your own children, namely, the Sains as above in Wisdom 5:5: Behold how they are numbered among the children of God and their lot is among the saints. Or: your own children, namely, your faithful, according to John 1:12: ‘He gave then power to be made the children of God, to them that believe in his name’. To whose parents, namely, of the children, that is, the Patriarchs such as Abraham in Genesis 15:5ff. and 22:16ff.; Isaac as in Genesis 26:4; Jacob in Genesis 28:13ff; you have sworn and made covenants of good promises, that is, sworn covenants. Note that a covenant is a simple promise, but an oath is a promise made by calling on something sacred; Hebrews 6:18: ‘That by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have the strongest comfort, who have fled for refuge to hold fast the hope set before us’.[141] Of good promises, namely, of the promise of land and the blessing of the seed. 

(Verse 22). Therefore whereas you chastise us, you scourge our enemies very many ways, to the end that when we judge we may think on your goodness; and when we are judged, we may hope for your mercy. This is as if to say: you are so generous and merciful towards enemies; therefore whereas you chastise us, that is, a correcting punishment which is not to be cast aside, according to Proverbs 3:11: ‘My son reject not the correction of the Lord’, because it teaches; so Psalm 17:36: ‘Your discipline has corrected me unto the end, and your discipline, the same shall teach me’. Our enemies, who have hated us even though they were loved by us, according to the warning of the Lord in Matthew 5:44: ‘Love your enemies’; you scourge very many ways, namely, internally and externally, according to Psalm 31:10: ‘many are the scourges of the sinner’;[142] Gloss[143]: There is a great gap between the judgment on the elect and on the reprobate; God corrects the former so that they might amend; the others pay the penalty for pride and breach of faith’. To the end that when we judge we may think on your goodness, namely, on others whom we see are being scourged by you; Gloss[144]: ‘Happy judge who always weighs the goodness and kindness of his judgment’, so that, after perceiving the kindness of God judging, learns to be kind when judging others; Psalm 72:1: ‘How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart’; Nahum 1:7: ‘The Lord is good and gives strength in the day of trouble, and knows them that hope in him’. And when we are judged, namely, by present troubles sent to us, we may hope for your mercy, in the future, namely, the reward of eternal life; James 1:2-3: ‘My brethren, count it a joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations knowing that the trying of your faith works patience’; Romans 5:3-5: ‘We glory also in tribulations knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience trial, and trial hope, and hope confounds not, because the charity of God is poured on our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us’.

 

Fourthly, the condemnation of incorrigible enemies for their contempt is treated under six headings

 

Wherefore and you have also greatly tormented them who in their life have lived foolishly and unjustly, by the same things which they worshipped. Here he treats of the condemnation of the incorrigible enemies because of their contempt of both divine justice and mercy; and, firstly, he treats of the whip with which they had to be corrected: secondly, the suitability of the whip: For they went astray for a long time in the ways of error; thirdly, the incorrigibility of those scourged: But they that were not amended by mockeries and reprehensions; fourthly, the evidence of incorrigibility: For in the things they suffered, they bore them with difficulty;[145] fifthly, the reason why they had to be corrected: By those very things which they took for gods;[146] sixthly, the carrying out[147] of the condemnation: For which cause the end also of their condemnation will come upon them.

(Verse 23). Wherefore and you have also greatly tormented them, as if to say: in this way you give discipline to your own; wherefore, as by an opposite; and, for however; them who in their life have lived foolishly and unjustly, by an error in faith; or: in their life, that is, by having lived for themselves and not for God; and unjustly, by an error in conduct; by the same things which they worshipped, namely, brute animals; you have also greatly tormented them, that is, by most severe torments such as by frogs, flies, locusts, wasps and such like animals.[148] By the same things which they worshipped, namely, in genus and without number or species.

(Verse 24). For they went astray, not for a short time, but for a long time, and this increases their sin because, as Gregory says,[149] ‘sins are so much wore, the longer the unhappy soul remains bound’. In the ways of error, that is, of infidelity that, by antonomasia, is called error. Of this way, Proverbs 16:25 says: ‘There is a way that seems right to a person, and the ends thereof lead to death’. Holding those things for gods which are the most worthless among beasts, that is, animals made artificially, not naturally. Artificial animals are called most worthless, because they are useless; but all natural animals have some value, as Damascene[150] says. Holding those things for gods which are the most worthless among beasts; Romans 1:23: ‘They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible human person’; also Psalm 105:20: ‘They changed their glory into the likeness of a calf that eats grass’. Note that it does not say ‘into a calf’ but ‘into the likeness of a calf’ which is less and against what is worse. Living after the manner of children without understanding, concerning sins in behaviour; 1 Corinthians 14:20: ‘Do not become like children in sense’; also 1 Peter 2:2: ‘As newborn babes, rational’, not stupid.[151] However, they were living like senseless infants because they made and adored images they had made, just as when, as stated in Genesis 21:9ff.,[152] Ishmael was playing with Isaac and forcing him to adore clay images, as the Hebrews say….[153]

(Verse 25). Therefore, you have sent a judgment upon them as senseless children to mock them, that is, a punishment in which they were mocked because it was with frogs and flies and similar small and contemptible animals, not with large and noble animals such as lions and bears, as is clear in Exodus, chapters 7-12.

(Verse 26). But they by mockeries and reprehensions, in reprehension full of mockery, were not amended, namely, from unfaithfulness and a perverse way of life; experienced the worthy judgment of God, namely, of condemnation and death. And that some were corrected by the whips would seem to be implied; hence some Egyptians went with the Israelites, as is clear n Exodus 12:38;[154] and the Gibeonites made a treaty with them as is clear in Joshua 9:15.[155] For in the things they suffered, namely, from the divine scourging, they bore them with difficulty,[156] bearing them with impatience. They suffered, that is, endured, by those very things, endured, because the word for suffering comes from passion, not from patience;[157] with indignation, namely, by murmuring against God; Sirach 33:5: ‘The heart of a fool is as the wheel of a cart’. By those very things which they took for gods,[158] namely, brute animals; when they were destroyed, that is, punished, by the same, namely, by these images; Baruch 3:19: ‘The are cut off and are gone down to hell’; seeing him, that is, God, as if pondering God in a sensible experience; for they could not see God as God is; 1 John 4:12: ‘No one has seen God at any time’. Whom in time past, namely, in prosperity, they denied that they knew, according to Exodus 5:2: ‘I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go’. The true God, add, to be; they acknowledged, not from a voluntary belief but from a belief forced by the punishments; such is the faith of the demons; James 2:19: ‘You believe that there is one God. You do well; the devils also believe and tremble’; Isaiah 26:16: ‘Lord, they have sought after you in distress’. ‘For punishments open the eyes closed by sin’, as Gregory[159] says. Seeing, namely, the Egyptians and Canaanites, him whom in time past they denied that they knew, add, to be, the true God; they acknowledged, I say, by those very things which they took for gods, that is, by brute animals; and this happened when they were destroyed by the same. For which cause, namely, because they acknowledged God, but did not glorify God, according to Romans 1:21: ‘Because when they knew God they have not glorified him as God or given thanks’; the end also of their condemnation will come upon them, that is, their final condemnation of which Matthew 25:41 says: ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire’. The beginning of condemnation is in the separation of soul and body; the middle, in the torment of a separated soul; the end, however, in resurrection when it will be tormented in hell with the risen body; the end, I say, of their condemnation, of those who now would not be corrected; the end also of their condemnation will come[160] upon them; Gregory[161]: ‘Those whom scourging now does not correct, put it off for the future’; upon them, because it comes from heaven to oppress  them, so that they cannot resist as overwhelmed or oppressed; Psalm 10:7: ‘The Lord shall rain snares upon sinners, fire and brimstone and storms of winds shall be the portion of their cup’.

CHAPTER XIII

 

Secondly, on the punishment decreed for the heavier penalties for condemnation discussed in two ways

 

However all people are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God, and who by these good things that are seen, could not understand the one that is, neither by attending to the works have acknowledged who was the artisan. He determined above[162] the punishment of the enemies by lighter penalties decreed for correction, but here he determines their punishment by heavier penalties for condemnation. He determines, firstly, on the merit of their sin, namely, till the sixteenth chapter; secondly, on the torment of their penalties, namely, from chapter sixteen on.

 

Firstly, on the demerit of sin treated in three ways

 

The merit of sin in regards to the condemnatory penalty was idolatry, by which they transferred divine honour to a creature or directed it to a creature. So he treats, firstly, of the multiple error of idolaters, namely, in this chapter; secondly, the renouncing of idols, namely, in chapter fourteen; thirdly, the commendation of the true God, namely, in chapter fifteen.

 

Firstly, on the error of idolaters

 

The error of idolaters is treated in two ways: of those worshipping creatures of God; second, of those worshipping their own products: But unhappy are they, and their hope is among the dead, who have called gods the works of human hands.

 

Their first error

 

In the first part he treats, firstly, of the cause in them of so great an error, namely, ignorance of God; secondly, he treats of the effect of this cause, namely, the worship of a creature: either the fire; thirdly, that both are inexcusable: With whose beauty, if they, being delighted, took them to be gods; fourthly, compared with other idolaters: But yet as to these they are less to be blamed. – In the first section a double ignorance is stated: and who by these good things that are seen, could not understand the one that is.

(Verse 1). Therefore, he says: However all people are vain etc. It is said in this way[163] that between the torments some acknowledged God but did not venerate God; however for but; all people are vain etc.; Ecclesiastes 1:2: ‘Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities and all is vanity’. ‘They have gone far from me and have walked after vanity, and are become vain’, as stated in Jeremiah 2:5;[164] I say they are vain with a vanity of thought; so Romans 1:21: ‘They became vain in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened’; also Psalm 93:11: ‘The Lord knows out thoughts, that they are vain’. Also, vanity in speech; so in Psalm 11:3: ‘They have spoken vain things everyone to a neighbour, with deceitful lips and with a double heart have they spoken’. Also, vanity in work; so Jeremiah 51:18: ‘They are vain works and worthy to be laughed at’. In whom there is not the knowledge of God, that is, knowledge about God through faith. Augustine[165]: ‘Not everything can be known by a person with human concerns in which there is much useless vanity and harmful curiosity, but I concede it to this knowledge, namely, to divine knowledge; but only that knowledge by which a most life giving faith is born, nourished, defended and strengthened, by which  knowledge they are not able’ etc. And who by these good things that are seen, namely, openly, could not understand, namely, an inability caused by and not preceding the will; so a Gloss[166]: ‘They could not understand the one that is, neither by attending to the works have acknowledged who was the artisan, hindered by the blindness of sin’, according to Wisdom 2:21: Their own malice blinded them; Psalm 35:4: ‘he would not understand that he might do well’; understand, that is, know in the mind; God cannot be known by the mind; 1 John 4:12: ‘No one has seen God at any time’; the one that is, that is, God whose being is substantial not accidental; so Hilary[167]: ‘To exist is not an accident for God, but God is subsistent truth’. Also, for God to exist is always present, never past or future. For God, according to Augustine,[168] always is; God was not nor will be, because God did not have an experience of past or future. Also, God’s being is pure because everything in God is God; Augustine[169]: ‘Everything in God is God’. Also, because God’s being is not from another, it is unchangeable; so Jerome[170] Ad Marcellam: ‘God, who alone has no beginning, claimed the title of a true essence, because in comparison with God, who truly is since God is unchangeable, things that are changeable are as if they are not’, as applies to all creatures, according to Psalm 101:27-28: ‘Like clothing you shall change them, and they shall be changed. But you are always the same and your years do not fail’; also Malachi 3:6: ‘I am’ God, or ‘the Lord and I change not’. For the above reasons God, in Exodus 3:14, said to Moses when he asked for God’s name: ‘I am who I am. He said: Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: He who is, has sent me to you’. Neither by attending to the works, which they did not make, have they acknowledged who was the artisan, namely, of these things that they could have easily acknowledged; Romans 1:20: ‘For the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made’.

(Verse 2). But either the fire, namely, Vulcan, like the Canaanites adoring fire; or the wind, that is, the upper atmosphere, the upper part of the air that some thought of as Jupiter shining; or the swift air, that is, the lower atmosphere that they called Juno; or the circle of the stars, that is, the starry sky, like those who adored the host of heaven of whom Deuteronomy 7:3 says: ‘So as to go and serve strange gods, and adore them, the sun and the moon, and all the host of heaven’; or the great water, that they call Neptune; or the sun, that they call Phoebus or Apollo whom the Babylonians adore; or[171] the moon, that they call Diana or ‘the queen of heaven’ to whom Jeremiah 44:18-19 refers.[172] They have imagined to be the gods that rule the world, based on some effects they necessarily have on the world.    

Note, one must not think of creatures as gods, firstly, because of their bodily nature, for God is spirit; John 4:24: ‘God is a spirit’. Also, because of their limits with regard to place and form; for the whole God is present everywhere; also, the Deity in itself has no shape.[173] Also, because of the boundary and limit of strength for certain tasks; for God is omnipotent; above in Wisdom 11:24: You have mercy upon all, because you can do all things. Also, because of the necessity and inevitability of natural effects; for God has free will. Also, because of local movement; because God is immovable being the principle of all movement; Boethius[174]: ‘Remaining steadfast you give movement to all things’. Also, because of a variety in eternity; for God is eternal, but for creatures eternity is lacking or does not exist.[175] 

In a spiritual sense, those who live extravagantly cultivate fire; the proud, wind; the angry and impetuous, swift air; those curious for knowledge, the circle of the stars; pleasure seekers, the great water; the greedy, the sun that brings forth lesser bodies; the lazy and slothful, the moon.

With whose beauty, if they, being delighted, took them to be gods, let them know how much the Lord of them is more beautiful than they; for the first author of beauty made all those things. Here is shown their culpability because they were able to know the Creator either from the beauty of creatures or from their power; this is shown in the text: Or if they admired their power and their effects, let them understand by them, that the one that made them, is mightier than they. Or by both together which is shown in the text: For by the greatness of the beauty, and of the creature, the creator of them may be seen, so as to be known thereby.

(Verse 3). It says, therefore: With whose beauty, if they, being delighted, that is, with the beauty; Daniel 13:56: ‘Beauty has deceived you, and lust has perverted your heart’; took them to be gods, by adding: them to be;[176] took, by a false and wrong judgment since there is only one God; Deuteronomy 6:4: ‘Your God is one’.[177] Let them know how much the Lord of them is more beautiful than they, namely, their Creator, ruler, conserver and owner, according to Judith 9:17: ‘O God of the heavens, creator of the waters, and king of your every creature’;[178] is more beautiful than they, namely, who made such beautiful creatures; more beautiful, I say, by an infinite difference because God is essentially beautiful while creatures share in it; above in Wisdom 7:29: More beautiful than the sun. For the first author of beauty, namely, of the beauty of creatures by making them, according to Boethius[179]: ‘God most beautiful, bearing in your mind a world of beauty, making all in a like image’.

Or: of uncreated beauty, that is, by the eternal generation of the Son. Made all those things, namely, the higher, the middle and the lower.

(Verse 4). Or if they admired their power, that is, the greatness of the power, and their effects, that is, the effects coming from the power, they admired, namely, in such a way that they thought them to be gods. Let them understand by them,[180] that is, from a reflection on them, according to Job 12:7: ‘Ask now the beasts and they shall teach you’; since the one that made them, namely God, is mightier than they, that is, more powerful; so Sirach 43:30-31: ‘The Almighty is above all his works and is exceeding great’;[181] also Job 9:19: ‘If strength is demanded God is most strong’.

(Verse 5). For by the greatness of the beauty, that is, of the attractiveness, and of the creature, that is, of the power of a creature, the Creator of them may be seen, not physically but with the eye of the mind; Augustine[182]: ‘All things proclaim: God made me’; for the whole world is like a book in which the Creator can be recognized from his power, wisdom, goodness that shine forth in creatures; so Sirach 24:32: ‘All these things are the book of life’;[183] Isidore[184]: ‘The Creator is praised by every creature, and just how much more excellent is the Creator, is evident from the nature of the work of the Creator’.

But yet as to these they are less to be blamed, for they perhaps err, seeking God, and desirous to find God. Here, it shows the fault of those who worship creatures when compared to other idolaters; and, firstly, they are shown to be in some way inexcusable when compared to others; secondly, it is shown that they are simply inexcusable: But then again they are not to be pardoned.

(Verse 6). But yet as to these, as if to say: they err in such a way; they are less to be blamed, namely, by erring in this way, less to be blamed, that is, less reason for blame than in those who adore sculptures because, as stated in Baruch 6:66: ‘nor shine as the sun, nor give light as the moon’, namely the sculptures.[185] For they, namely, who worship creatures, perhaps err;[186] perhaps here refers to free will, not to a doubt. Seeking God, namely by a certain curiosity, according to Acts 17:26-27: ‘God made of one all humankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation, that they should seek God, if happily they may feel after or find God’. And desirous to find God, namely, by an intention of affection; Song 3:2: ‘I will rise and go about the city’, that is, all creatures. According to Boethius in De consolatione[187]: ‘There is implanted in human minds a desire for what is true and good’.

But an objection says: because Luke 11:10 says: ‘Everyone that asks receives’: therefore, these find the true God.

It has to be said that this is understood of those who seek piously not out of curiosity.

(Verse 7). For being conversant among God’s works, namely, from discussing their meaning, according to Ecclesiastes 3:11: ‘God has delivered the world to their consideration’; and from using them, namely, in affection and in their effect, as in Matthew 5:45: ‘Your Father makes his sun to rise upon the good and the bad’. They search, namely, by reasoning, and they are persuaded, namely, by sentiment, that the things are good which are seen; Genesis 1:31: ‘God saw all the things that God had made and they were very good’. In this they are better or less evil than the Manicheans who say that all visible things are evil.

(Verses 8, 9). But then again they are not to be pardoned. Simple ignorance merits pardon; so 1 Timothy 1:13: ‘I obtained the mercy of God because I did it ignorantly in unbelief’; but crass and lethargic ignorance does not merit pardon; so 1 Corinthians 14:38: ‘Whoever does not know this shall not be known’. - For if they were able to know so much as to make a judgment of the world, that is, to know the natures of things of the world, how did they not more easily find out the Lord, namely, of the world,  thereof? This is equivalent to saying: they could have known God more easily.

But contra: Above in Wisdom 9:16: And hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth, but the things that are in heaven, who shall search out?

It has to be said that it does not intend to say that they had been able to know more easily and completely that God is the author of these things, but rather that God is God rather than the things they worshipped.

 

Their second error in two things

 

But unhappy are they, and their hope is among the dead, who have called gods the works of human hands, gold and silver, the inventions of art, and the resemblances of beasts, or an unprofitable stone the work of an ancient hand. Here, the error of those worshipping what they have made is stated, firstly, what they made from metal; secondly, from wood: Or if an artist, a carpenter.   

(Verse 10). I say, therefore: But unhappy are they, namely, by a loss of happiness in life, of which there was said above in Wisdom 3:11: Those who reject wisdom, and discipline, are unhappy. And their hope, that is, expectation, is among the dead, namely, in eternal death; hope is not used here with its proper meaning because hope properly is used only for what is good. Among the dead, I say, is their hope, from privation of eternal happiness, according to Psalm 87:6: ‘Like the slain sleeping in the sepulchres, whom you remember no more, and they are cast off from your hand’, from the hand of saving mercy, not from the hand of punishing justice.[188] Or the first refers to the punishment of loss in the future, the second to a punishment of the senses. Who, I say, have called gods the works of human hands. It says well have called for they are gods only in name not by their nature. The works of human hands, according to Psalm 113:4: ‘The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold, the works of human hands’; Isaiah 2:8: ‘They have adored the work of their own hands which their own fingers have made’; gold and silver, that is, the materials were from gold and silver, according to Hosea 2:8: ‘I multiplied silver and gold for them which they made a Baal’,[189] according to Isaiah 2:7-8: ‘Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end of their treasures, and their land also is full of idols’.[190] The inventions of art, that is, some figure made by art and this refers to its form. And the resemblances of beasts, not animals but an image or likeness of them; this is against what is said in Deuteronomy 4:16: ‘You shall not make a likeness of all the animals that are upon the earth’.[191] Or an unprofitable stone, namely, of any value that idolaters believe is in it, even though it may be useful in its natural use because[192] in the works of God who made creatures there is nothing superfluous; Deuteronomy 32:4: ‘The works of God are perfect’, neither superfluous nor incomplete. The work of an ancient hand, that is, the hand of an ancient worker because ‘in the ancient is wisdom’, Job 12:12.Against all these things, Acts 17:29 says: ‘Being therefore the offspring of God, we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, or a product of human thought’.[193]

Or if an artist, a carpenter, has cut down a tree proper for his use in the wood, and has skilfully taken off all the bark thereof, and with his art, diligently forms a vessel profitable for the common uses of life. Here the error of those worshipping what they have made from wood is treated; and, firstly, their error in making or shaping is treated; secondly, in showing reverence: And then makes prayer to it, inquiring concerning his substance. – In the first part, it treats, firstly, of the material and, secondly of the form: And by the skill of his art fashions it; thirdly, the place: And makes a convenient dwelling place for it; fourthly, its powerlessness: It is an image, and has need of help.

(Verse 11). Or if an artist, a carpenter; carpenter is here understood in a broad sense for a worker in any material, be it wood or something else, not only iron; has cut down a tree proper for his use; Isaiah 44:14: ‘He has cut down cedars, taken the holm and the oak that stood among the trees of the forest’. And has skilfully taken off all the bark thereof, namely, the exterior, and with his art, diligently forms a vessel profitable for the common uses of life; Gloss[194]: ‘Most useful’, for the common uses of life, namely, of human life; 2 Timothy 2:20: ‘In a great house there are wooden and earthen vessels’ etc.[195]

(Verse 12). The chips of his work,[196] that is, of the aforementioned wood, he takes advantage of to dress his meat, that is, uses, according to Isaiah 44:15: ‘He took thereof and warmed himself, and he kindled it and baked bread’.

(Verse 13). And taking what was left thereof, namely, of those things taken for human use, which are good for nothing,[197] namely, human use; taking, that is, being capable, I say, he carves diligently a crooked piece of wood, namely, crooked in itself, and full, on the outside, of knots, that is, knobs, and removes the knots, when he has nothing else to do, because as often as he works there, all his work is regarded as laziness since he works for no purpose. And by the skill of his art fashions it, namely, in its external shape and so gives it form; and makes it like the image of a human being, namely, in shaping the limbs. And note that it does not say he makes it like a human being but like the image of a human being, because it can represent a human person externally but not internally.

(Verses 14, 15. 16). Or makes the resemblance of some beast, that is, represents; Romans 1:23: ‘They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and of creeping things’; also in Psalm 105:20: ‘They changed their glory into the likeness of a calf that eats grass’. Laying it over, that is, on the outside, with vermilion, that is, dawn by a ruler or a thread with red colour, by which it becomes distinct. The Red earth and colour used is called vermilion, the ruler or thread used and the dye itself should always be made a secondary colour.[198] And painting it red, red[199] refers to an unnatural colour, almost not genuine. Note also that red is used for an animal similar to a bee[200] that does not produce honey but devours honey; also for a certain plant that dyes; also, for any counterfeit colour; also, for a lie or fraud and deceit according to Papias.[201] And covering with earth[202] every spot that is in it. - And makes a convenient dwelling place for it; so Baruch 6:16: ‘When they are placed in the house, their eyes are full of dust by the feet of them that go in’. And setting it in a wall, namely, so that it may be better seen, and fastening it with iron, that is, with iron nails. - Lest it should fall; Isaiah 41:7: ‘He strengthened it with nails that it should not be moved’; providing for it, that is, anticipating and taking care; knowing that it is unable to help itself, namely, of itself; so Psalm 113:7: ‘They have hands and feel not, they have feet and walk not, neither shall they cry out through their throat’. This is not surprising for it is an image, that is a likeness of something, not the thing itself; and has need of help, namely, human help; Baruch 6:26: ‘If they fall to the ground, they will not rise up[203] again of themselves’, as is clear of Dagon, 1 Samuel 5:2-5;[204] also Jeremiah 10:5: ‘They must be carried to be removed, because they cannot go’.

(Verse 17). And concerning his substance, that is, external possessions, and his children, that is, concerning the welfare of his children, or his marriage, namely, to be entered into, makes prayer, namely, to it, inquiring, from it so as to beg[205] for what is necessary for himself and his children, even though vows should be made only to God, according to Psalm 75:12: ‘Vow you, and pay to the Lord your God, all you that are round about him bring presents’; also Isaiah 19:21: ‘They shall make vows to the Lord and perform them’. And he is not ashamed to speak, namely he who has life, to that, namely, to a false god, which has no life; Baruch 6:40: ‘Who when they hear of one dumb that cannot speak, they present him[206] to Baal’; Psalm 113:5 (or 13): ‘They have mouths and speak not’.

(Verse 18). And for health, that is, his own or his children, to the weak, that is, to something totally powerless, indeed, that is, certainly, makes supplication, and for life prays to that which is dead, that is completely lifeless, so that[207] it is understood in a negative sense, not of a deprival, because if it were a deprival then it would be understood that it had life at one time but was later deprived of it; this would be false. And for help calls upon that which is unprofitable, that is, on something not able to help him or any other; so Baruch 6:14: ‘And it has in its hand a sword but cannot save itself from robbers’.[208]

(Verse 19). And for a good journey, that is, for a direction of a journey, he petitions him that cannot walk, according to Psalm 113:7 (or 15): ‘They have hands and feel not, they have feet and walk not, neither shall they cry out through their throat’; Baruch 6:25: ‘Having not the use of feet they are carried upon the shoulders’. And for getting, namely, by negotiation, and for working, namely, by mechanical skills, and for the event of all things he asks him that is unable to do any thing; Isaiah 44:10: ‘he formed a god, and made a graven thing that is profitable for nothing’.

But it seems the same thing can be objected to in Christians adoring images.

But it must be said that is not similar. Idolaters adore images as things, thinking there is some life in them; but Christians adore images only as signs and in so far as they lead to that of which they are signs.[209]      

CHAPTER XIV

 

Secondly, the renunciation of idols is discussed under four headings

 

Again, another designing to sail, and beginning to make his voyage through the raging waves, he calls upon a piece of wood more frail than the wood that carries him. After the description of the multiple errors of idolaters, here it treats of the renouncing of idols, and, firstly, from the uselessness of idols; secondly, from the offences to the Creator: But to God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful alike; thirdly, from their newness and the way in which they were found: For they were not[210] from the beginning, neither shall they be forever; fourthly, from the resulting human corruption: And it was not enough for them to err.

 

Firstly, an idol is to be despised because of its uselessness

 

In the first part he shows the uselessness of idols by using the example of sailors at sea who get no help when calling on idols for help. He shows that this lack of power is to be despised, firstly, from the fragility of a powerless idol; secondly, from the power of God who saves even without a boat: However, your providence, O Father, governs it, for you have made a way even in the sea, and a most sure path among the waves; thirdly, from the usefulness of a boat: But that the works of thy wisdom might not be idle, therefore men also trust their lives even to a little wood, and passing over the sea by ship are saved; fourthly, from the example of the ark of Noah saving the human race: And from the beginning also when the proud giants perished, the hope of the world fleeing to a vessel, which was governed by your hand, left to the world seed of generation.

(Verse 1). Therefore, he says: Again, another designing to sail etc., as if to say: not only do people ask idols in vain for help on earth, but again, on water, another, namely a human being, designing to sail, that is, intending to sail, through the raging dangerous waves; so Psalm 92:4: ‘Wonderful are the surges of the sea’; also Sirach 43:26: ‘Let them that sail on the sea, tell the dangers thereof’. Beginning to make his voyage, namely, by carrying out his intention, through the raging waves, he calls upon a piece of wood more frail than the wood that carries him; for help, he calls upon a piece of wood, namely, an idol, more frail than the wood that carries him, that is, than the ship.

(Verse 2). For this, namely, the wood of an idol, the desire of gain devised; so in Ephesians 5:5 it is called: ‘a serving of idols’. And the workman built it by his skill; he says: his, as if to say: not divine, but ‘earthly, sensual, devilish’; Isaiah 45:16: ‘The forgers of error are gone together into confusion’; and Job 13:4: ‘Having first shown that you are forgers of lies’; Gloss[211]: ‘When one who makes something is greater than what is made, it is folly to adore what was made’.

(Verse 3). However, O Father, as if to say: they call upon an idol for guidance on a journey; however for but; Father by your creation; Isaiah 64:8: ‘And now, O Lord, you are our father, and we are clay, and you are our maker, and we are all the works of your hands’; also by providing; so Matthew 6:9ff.: ‘Our Father who are in heaven … give us our bread’ etc. You govern, [212] all things, namely, by providence which, according to Damascene,[213] ‘is the care of God for everything’; Judith 9:5 says of this: ‘In your providence you have placed your judgments’.

It is clear from what has been said that in the world nothing happens by chance or luck, because, as Plato[214] says: ‘Everything which becomes must of necessity become owing to some cause; for without a cause it is impossible for anything to attain becoming’. In his Rhetorica, Tullius proves that the world is governed by providence as follows: ‘Things that come from providence are better governed than what come from chance; but the world is excellently governed: therefore’ etc.[215]

For you have made a way even in the sea, as if to say: it is clear that you govern all things by providence; for you have made, namely, for the children of Israel, a way even in the sea, by bringing them out of Egypt through the midst of the dry sea, as is clear in Exodus 14:21ff.; a most sure path among the waves, namely, of the river Jordan, as in Joshua 3:15ff. Of both, Psalm 76:20 says: ‘Your way is in the sea, and your paths in many waters’; Gloss[216]: ‘Divine power led the Israelites through the Red Sea on a dry path and divided the waters of the Jordan’.

(Verse 4). Showing, namely, by this, that you are able to restore[217] out of all things, namely, in dangers and emergencies, or better, according to another version, to save even without a raft, that is, a boat, yea though a man went to sea; Isaiah 43:2: ‘When you shall pass through the waters, I will be with you, and the rivers shall not cover you’; so ‘Jesus, lest Peter sink when walking upon the water, held him up’, as is clear in Matthew 14:28ff.; ‘he delivered Paul three times from drowning in the  sea, as is clear in 2 Corinthians 11:25.[218]

(Verse 5). But that the works of your wisdom might not be idle, rather necessary for human use, that is, devised by your wisdom; Psalm 103:24: ‘You have made all things in wisdom’. Therefore people also trust their lives,[219] that is, their bodily life, even to a little wood, namely to a small boat; and passing over the sea, in which indeed there are innumerable dangers, by ship are saved; Gloss[220]: ‘The Creator gave knowledge to creatures by which they might be mindful of  and serve their Creator’.

 In an allegorical sense the little wood can be said to be the cross of Christ because of his humiliation and abasement; 1 Corinthians 1:23: ‘We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness’. To this wood, people trust their lives, namely, by believing in Christ crucified and by adoring the One in whom they believe. And so passing over the sea, of this world, namely, by the power and imitation of the cross, they are delivered by a boat and reach the harbour of eternal salvation. So Damascene[221]: ‘The cross is the resurrection of those asleep, the staff of the weak, the rod of the shepherds, the help of those being converted, the perfection of the proficient, the health of soul and body, the turning away of all evils, the teacher of all that is good, the destruction of sin, the tree of resurrection, the wood of eternal life’. In these words: A little, is indicated, firstly, the humility of the cross, when he says: A little wood; secondly, its veneration and dignity when he says: People trust their lives, that is, rational beings who say with blessed Andrew[222]: ‘Take me from among people’; thirdly, its necessity when he says: And passing over the sea, namely, of this world, of which Psalm 103:25 says: ‘This great sea which stretches wide its arms’; fourthly, its power and value when he says: by ship are saved; 1 Corinthians 1:23 and 18: ‘We preach Christ crucified’ etc.; and: ‘The word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God’.

And from the beginning also when the proud giants perished, the hope of the world fleeing to a vessel, which was governed by your hand, left to the world seed of generation. Here, the value of the ark of Noah is shown first; secondly, it is praised in the words: For blessed is the wood, by which justice comes; thirdly, an idol and its maker are censured: But the idol that is made by hands, is cursed, as well it, as he that made it; he because he made it; and it because being frail it is called a god. 

(Verse 6). And from the beginning etc, as if to say: God delivers not only from danger at sea, but also from a flood, and this is what he says: And from the beginning, namely, in the beginning of the second age, that is, in the time of Noah, Genesis 6:13ff. When the proud giants perished, namely, in the flood, as related in Genesis 6:4; the hope of the world, namely, of the future; Gloss[223]: ‘The nursery of the human race’, namely, eight persons, of whom 1 Peter 3:20 says: ‘In which a few souls were saved by water’; fleeing to a vessel, ‘that is, the ark’ made to the pattern of a boat, because its length was longer than its width, Genesis 6:15;[224] left to the world, namely, the future world after the flood, seed of generation, both of people and beasts, as is clear in Genesis 6:19ff.[225] Which, namely, the ark, by your hand; Gloss[226]: ‘By power or by the Son’, according to Psalm 143:7: Put forth your hand from on high, take me out, and deliver me from many waters, from the hand of strange children’; was governed, because it had no director other than God or God’s Angel, when all those left outside were dead, and those still living were closed in.

(Verse 7). For blessed is the wood, namely, the ark of Noah, by which justice comes, namely, the deliverance of the just, and with evils drowned as was just. Of this wood  he says above in Wisdom 10:4: For whose cause, when water destroyed the earth, wisdom healed it again, directing the course of the just by contemptible wood.

This wood can be called, in an allegorical sense, the wood of the cross, of which is said in 1 Peter 2:24: ‘Who his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree’.[227] By this wood justice comes, because ‘there is given to everyone what is theirs’.[228] For sin was destroyed by this wood, according to the song of the Church[229]: ‘Death is then dead, when on the wood life was dead’; Hosea 13:14: ‘O death, I will be your death’ etc. Also, by it the devil was conquered, according to a text of Gregory[230]: ‘He who was overcome by the wood, would overcome by the wood’. Also people are reconciled by it; Colossians 2:14: ‘Blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us, fastening it to the cross’; also in  Colossians 1:20: ‘Making peace through the blood of his cross’. Also, hell is robbed; Colossians 2:15: ‘Despoiling the principalities and powers, he has exposed them confidently in open show, triumphing over them in himself’. Also, heaven is opened; so there was said to the thief: ‘This day you shall be with me in paradise’, Luke 23:43; Isaiah 22:22: ‘I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder’. Also, Christ is exalted; Philippians 2:9: ‘For which cause God also has exalted him, and has given him a name which is above other names’. This was the sceptre of Ahasuerus shown or stretched out as a sign of clemency, Esther 15:15.[231]

(Verse 8). And I have said well that blessed is the wood by which justice comes; for meaning but; an idol, made by hands, namely, of workers, is cursed, as well it, namely, the idol, as he that made it, namely, the worker.

Bu how can an idol, something lifeless, be cursed? It is because this curse is understood either because of sin which does not exist in an idol, or because of punishment, and so it has to be imposed because of sin.

It must be said that two things have to be kept in mind regarding idols, namely, the presiding[232] spirit and the figure of wood. The evil spirit is cursed with a curse of sin and punishment; but the wood, with a curse of abhorrence and disgrace, as a type of punishment, not because it is a subject of sin, for which reason it has to be inflicted with punishment, but because it is the material or occasion of sin. So a Gloss[233]: ‘For the devil has to be punished because it usurped for itself divine honour; and also the man who gives honour to a creature rather than to the Creator’.

He because he made it, namely, an idol, and so is rightly cursed; Isaiah 44:11: ‘Behold, all the partakers thereof shall be confounded’. And it, namely, an idol, because being frail, since it is made of frail material; is called a god, namely, only in name, not in truth; for this reason it is rightly cursed.

 

Secondly, an idol is to be detested because of an offence against the Creator

 

But to God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful alike. Here he touches on the second reason for detesting idols, coming from the offence against the Creator; and, firstly, he treats of the sign of the offence, namely, the idol, and the punishment of one who commits idolatry; secondly, that the punishment cannot be remitted: Therefore there shall be no respect had even to the idols of the Gentiles; thirdly, the reason concerning the idol: Because the creatures of God are turned to an abomination, and a temptation to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the unwise; fourthly, the reason from the point of view of one committing idolatry: For the beginning of fornication is the devising of idols and the invention of them is the corruption of life.

(Verse 9). I have said well that both are cursed etc.; however, for because; to God the wicked, namely, idolatry, because it denies the piety of divine worship, and his wickedness are hateful alike, that is, the material of his impiety, namely, the idol, that is a demon presiding[234] in an idol; Sirach 12:3: ‘The Most High hates sinners’. And note that the hatred of God does not represent or echo an affect in God but the effect in the one whom God hates.

(Verse 10). For that which is made, namely, an idol, together with him that made it, that is, with the worker of the idol, shall suffer torments.

This is clear concerning idolatry; but concerning an idol, how can it be true, namely, that it suffers torment, since it is inanimate?       

It has to be said that an idol is spoken of because of the evil spirit presiding in it, not because of the shape or material of the idol itself.

But contra: An idolater does not make an evil spirit preside.

It has to be said that while he does not make the spirit in itself, he is, however, the reason for a spirit presiding in an idol; just as we say that God is exalted and magnified, not in the Godhead itself, but in us; Psalm 33:4: ‘O magnify the Lord with me and let us extol his name together’. Therefore, both are to be punished; Sirach 14:20: ‘Every work that is corruptible shall fail in the end, and the worker thereof shall go with it’; and in Sirach 27:3: ‘Sin shall be destroyed with the sinner’.

(Verse 11). Therefore, namely, because they are hateful to God, and, that is, also, to the idols of the Gentiles, that is, to the spirits presiding in the idols of the Gentiles, of which Psalm 95:5 says: ‘For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils, but the Lord made the heavens’; there shall be no respect had, namely, of clemency; this is against Origen[235] who said Christ, at the end, would suffer for the demons in the atmosphere, and so they will be saved; this is against what is said in Sirach 39:33: ‘There are spirits that are created for vengeance, and in their fury they lay on grievous torments’. Because the creatures of God are turned to an abomination; and rightly, because the creatures of God, that is, made by God like gold and silver; so Hosea 2:8 says: ‘I multiplied her silver and gold which they have used in the service of Baal’; are turned to an abomination, namely, irascible, so that people hate God just like the demons of whom Psalm 73:23 says: ‘The pride of them that hate you ascend continually’. And a temptation to the soul[236] of men, that is, desirable, so that people would subject themselves willingly to any powers in accord with the will or suggestion of their gods. And a snare, that is, a deception of a rational person, and it is called a snare as an instrument for catching mice: to the feet, namely the interior feet which are the soul, not the exterior feet of the body; of the unwise, that is, of unbelievers; Job 18:10: ‘A snare is hidden for him in the earth’; also Jeremiah 5:26: ‘For among my people are found wicked men,[237] that lie in wait as fowlers, setting snares and traps to catch men’.

(Verse 12). For the beginning of fornication is the devising of idols and the invention of them is the corruption of life. I have  said well that the creatures of God are turned to an abomination; for the beginning of fornication, namely, spiritual fornication which is to draw away from God, is the devising of idols; Gloss[238]: The worst kind of fornication is that by which a soul draws away from God and fornicates with idols’; so Jeremiah 3:9: ‘She played the harlot with stones and with trees’. Such are lost or destroyed by God according to Psalm 72:27: ‘You have destroyed all them that are disloyal to you’. I say, the beginning of fornication is the devising of idols.

But contra: Sirach 10:15: ‘Pride is the beginning of all sin’.

I reply: It is not a question here of a fornication which is any withdrawing from God, as in any mortal sin, but a withdrawing that goes away from God with a total departure, namely, even to the subversion of faith which is the foundation of the whole spiritual edifice; Hebrews 11:1: ‘Faith  is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not’; also 1 Corinthians 3:11: ‘For other foundation no one can lay but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus’.

And the invention of them is the corruption of life, namely, in behaviour; Romans 1:24: ‘Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness’; Psalm 27:4: ‘Give them according to their works and according to the wickedness of their inventions’.

 

Thirdly, an idol is to be detested because of its novelty and how it is found

 

For they were not[239] from the beginning, neither shall they be forever. Here, the third reason for detesting those idols is treated, namely, from their newness and the way[240] in which they were found. Their finding[241] and care touches on many reasons: firstly, the diligent leisure of people; secondly, the affection of parents for dead children: For a father being afflicted with bitter grief; thirdly, the fear of tyrants: Then in process of time, wicked custom prevailing; fourthly, the reverence and honour given to rulers: And those whom men could not honour in presence; fifthly, the diligence and care of workers: And to worshipping of these, the singular diligence also of the artificer helped to set forward the ignorant; sixthly, he puts a summary of the main reasons: And this was the occasion of deceiving human life.  

(Verse 13). I have said well: The devising of idols and the invention of them etc.; they were not from the beginning, that is, idols, which is clear because they are not a Creator; so Jeremiah 10:11: ‘The gods that heaven and earth have not made, let them perish from the earth’; nor are they a creature, because every creature is from God, but idols are not from God as they are a human product; for this reason 1 Corinthians 8:4 says: ‘An idol is  nothing in the world’, namely, in relation to divine being, which idolaters believe is in it. Neither shall they be forever, rather they will be destroyed, as people convert to the worship of the one God; Isaiah 19:1: ‘Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift cloud, and will enter into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence’.

(Verse 14). For by the vanity, that is, the leisure, of men this[242] came; Sirach 33:29: ‘Idleness has taught much evil’, namely, the lazy who do not want to work in searching for the one true God so as to worship worthily; into the world, for no such error ever existed in heaven. And therefore, namely, because they were not always, they shall be found to come shortly to an end, namely, by the wise. They were quickly deserted by the children of Israel in the time of Moses and by Christian people in the time of Christ and of the new law; Jeremiah 10:14-15: ‘Every artist is confounded in his graven idol;[243] they are vain things and a ridiculous work; in the time of their visitation they shall perish’.

(Verse 15). For a father being afflicted with bitter grief, namely, at the death of a child, just as David mourned at the death of Absalom, 2 Samuel 18:33, or at the death of the child who was the first from Bathsheba, 2 Samuel 12:16ff., made to himself the image of his son who was quickly taken away, that is, taken away by the violence of death; Gloss[244]: ‘People have made for themselves images of dead friends and have had some comfort from reflecting on them’. And him who then, that is, recently, had died as a man, who by nature is mortal, according to 2 Samuel 14:14: ‘We all die and like waters that return no more, we flow down into the earth’; he began now, that is a little later, to worship as a god, something even less excusable; Gloss[245]: ‘And moving further away, they began out of love to worship the memory of the dead’. And appointed him rites, namely, incensations and praises, and sacrifices, namely, by immolating animals, among his servants, who obeyed him from fear not from reason. However, the first - as Isidore says on Luke 11:15: ‘He casts out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils’[246] – was  Ninus, king of the Assyrians, who made an image of Bel, his dead father, and he honoured it with such veneration as even to pardon the guilty who fled to it; for this reason ignorant people began to  worship the statue of Bel as a god and to make more images. Some called the idol Bel, some Baal, some Baalim, and some Beelzebub.

(Verse 16). Then in process of time, that is, a delay of time, wicked custom prevailing, which should rather be stamped out than upheld because the length of time does not diminish sin but rather increases it; this error, namely, of worshipping idols, was kept as a law, that is under a command; Jeremiah 10:3: ‘For the laws of the people are vain’; also Isaiah 10:1: ‘Woe to them that make wicked laws’! And by the commandment of tyrants, that is, of evil rulers, statues were worshipped; so Antiochus imposed the practices of the nations upon the Jews, 1 Maccabees 1:43ff.; and Nebuchadnezzar forced them to worship his statue, Daniel 3:4ff.

(Verse 17). Those[247] whom people could not honour in presence, that is, in their presence, because they dwelt far off, namely, in place, they brought their resemblance from afar, that is, in a painting, and made an express image, that is, a sculptured image, I say, of the king whom they had a mind to honour, that is, giving honour to humans. Cicero[248]: ‘The life and common practice of people undertook with gifts to extol to the heavens excellent citizens with fame and gratitude’. That by this their diligence, they might honour as present, him, that is, the king, that was absent, but still alive. Gloss[249]: ‘Because of the foolishness and perversity of people who live a rustic life without a guide, they have honoured this king and all people with the highest praises, so that they even called them gods either for their outstanding virtue, or for benefits or for adulation’. Those whom people could not honour etc. The text is to be understood as follows: People made a clear image, in a form adopted from afar, by which they wanted to honour those whom they were not able to honour publicly, that is, in their presence, add, because they were far away; they did this, I say, that by their diligence, they might honour as present, him that was absent.

(Verse 18). And to worshipping of these, namely, the idols, the singular, namely, the excellent, diligence also[250] of the artificer helped to set forward the ignorant, that is, ignorant and rough people; of the artificer, I say, who makes and adorns it carefully and devotedly, according to Jeremiah 10:4: ‘He has decked it with silver and gold’; also Isaiah 44:13: ‘He has made the image of a man as it were a beautiful man dwelling in a house’.

(Verse 19). For he, the artificer, being willing to please him that employed him, that is, engaged him to make the idol; this is an evil courtesy of which Psalm 52:6 says: ‘God has scattered the bones of them that please men’; also Galatians 1:10: ‘If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ’. Laboured with all his art to make the resemblance, that is, the image, in the best manner, that is, in the best way he could; Isaiah 44:12: ‘The smith has wrought with his file’; Baruch 6:8: ‘Their tongues are smoothed by the carpenter, and they themselves are overlaid with gold and silver’.[251]

(Verse 20). And the multitude of people, namely, the foolish; Ecclesiastes 1:15: ‘The number of fools is infinite’; carried away, namely, by truth, by the appearance of the work, that is, its beauty; Proverbs 31:30: ‘Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain’; Daniel 13:56: ‘Beauty has deceived you’; took him now for a god, honouring him with an honour of worship, that, add: a little, before, was but honoured as a man, namely, with an honour of reverence.

(Verse 21). And this was the occasion of deceiving human life, that is, the reason for the deception, which reason, I say is double, as if death has a double door, namely, love and fear, according to a Gloss[252] on Psalm 79:17: ‘Things set on fire and dug down shall perish at the rebuke of your countenance’. For people serving either their affection, namely, in a proper honouring of friends, or their kings, in veneration of the powerful; Gloss[253]: ‘In this way various sacred objects are taken by people and regions, namely, for the sake of honouring or from fear, ‘when people want to show gratitude to their rulers’; people, against 1 Corinthians 7:23: ‘Be not made[254] the bondslaves of people’, serving, that is serving with devotion. Gave the incommunicable name, Gloss[255]: ‘of God almighty’, because the form implied in the name God cannot be attributed to creatures, while it is attributed to the divine persons;  to stones and wood, against the precept of Exodus 20:7: ‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain’.

But contra: Exodus 7:1: ‘Behold, I have appointed you the god of Pharaoh’; also in Psalm 81:6: ‘I have said, you are gods and all of you the children of the Most High’; therefore, the name of god is attributed to creatures.

It has to be said that the name God can be taken in three ways: from nature, adoption, and a naming. In the first way it cannot be attributed to creatures; in the second and third ways it can be attributed to creatures.[256]

But contra: Because the divine name is attributed to Christ the man; so in Philippians 2:9: ‘gave[257] him a name which is above all names’.

But it must be said that the name is not attributed to one who did not have it previously, but is attributed in a different way than previously; this name applies to a person, not to a nature, namely, a human nature, but it is given to a person who has a human nature.

To the objection: ‘God has given him a name etc’; it has to be said that the giving here is taken to mean a proclamation. Or: has given it to him in his human nature when he already had it in the divine nature.[258]

 

Fourthly, an idol is to be detested from the double effect of human corruption

 

And it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God, but whereas they lived in a great war of ignorance, they call so many and so great evils peace. Here, he treats of the final reason for detesting idols, taken from the effect of human corruption; and, firstly, he treats of the blinding of the mind in idolaters; secondly, the corruption in what is done: For either they sacrifice their own children; thirdly, the reasonableness of the blinding and the corruption: And all things are mingled together; fourthly, the cause of both: For the worship of abominable idols is the cause, and the beginning and end of all evil.

(Verse 22). He said, therefore: And it was not enough for them to err; Gloss[259]: ‘With a false religion they submitted themselves to every vice’; to err, I say, namely, about the knowledge of God, that is, faith; above in Wisdom 13:1: But all people are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God. But whereas they lived in a great war of ignorance, that is, of infidelity, by which infidelity they wage war against God; so Job 24:13: ‘They have been rebellious to the light’. They call so many, in number, and so great, in intensity, or in the quality of their duration; evils, in deformity; so many, I say, and so great evils, in which they live, they call peace, according to Job 30:7: ‘They counted it delightful to be under the briers’; Jeremiah 6:14: ‘Saying: Peace, peace and  there was no peace’; Gloss[260]: ‘Subject to various vices under the reign of the devil they were not able to have true peace’.

For either they sacrifice their own children, or use hidden sacrifices, or keep watches full of madness. Here, he lists the evils by which they were corrupted in what they did: firstly, the evil committed directly against God; secondly, committed specifically against themselves and against their neighbour: So that now they neither keep life, nor marriage undefiled, but one kills another through envy, or grieves the other by adultery.

(Verse 23). He says, therefore: For either they sacrifice their own children, according to Psalm 105:37: ‘And they sacrificed their own sons and daughters to devils’; Ezekiel 16:20-21: ‘Is your fornication small? You have sacrificed and given my children to them, consecrating them by fire’, because, as a Gloss[261] says, ‘In the sacred rites of Saturn, out of hatred for Jupiter, they sacrificed their children without attention to duty’. Or use hidden sacrifices, hidden, that is, at night as was done, according to a Gloss,[262] ‘in the rites of the Egyptian Isis and of Ceres, which rites they used celebrate by the throwing of flaming pine-torches’.  Or keeping night-watches full of mad raving, for in the mystery rites of Bacchus and of Cybele, Mother of the gods, ‘they themselves used to sport wantonly, following the example of the gods, who, sated with feasting, would pass the whole night in dalliance’, as a Gloss[263] says. Psalm 39:5 says against this: ‘Blessed is the person whose trust is in the name of the Lord and who has no regard to vanities and lying follies’.

(Verse 24). So that now they neither keep life, namely, their own undefiled, because ‘God gave them up unto uncleanness’, Romans 1:24;[264] nor marriage undefiled, against Hebrews 13:4: ‘Marriage honourable[265] and the bed undefiled’; they neither keep; ‘because’, as a Gloss[266] says, ‘they think they please the gods by license and uncleanness’, and the more wicked it was, they thought it was that much more pleasing to their god. But and[267] one kills another through envy, namely, envy of the person, as Cain with Abel, Genesis 4:8, and the Jews with Christ, Matthew 27:23-25. Or grieves the other by adultery, namely, adultery against the person with whom one is united; he says grieves because a breaking of the marriage bed is a significant cause of sadness; so[268] permission is given in civil law to a man to kill an adulterous man or woman found in the very act of adultery.[269]

And all things, namely, vices, are mingled together; so Hosea 4:2: ‘Cursing and lying and killing and theft and adultery have overflowed’.

Blood. Here he treats, firstly, of some spiritual sins; secondly, of some carnal sins: Defiling of souls etc. – In the first part, he treats, firstly, of some evils deeds; secondly, of some evils of the heart: Corruption and unfaithfulness; thirdly, some evils of speech: And perjury. – He speaks of four evil deeds, namely, wounding when he says: Blood, killing when he says: Murder; theft when he says: Theft, fraud, when he says: and dissimulation.

(Verse 25). I have said well: And all things are mingled together, namely, blood, mutual wounding; so Isaiah 1:15: ‘Your hands are full of blood’; also Hosea 4:2: ‘Blood has touched blood’. Murder; so Micah 7:2: ‘Every one hunts his brother to death’. Theft, Isaiah 1:23: ‘Your princes are faithless, companions of thieves’; Psalm 49:18: ‘If you saw a thief, you ran with him’. And dissimulation, namely, deceit; ‘For deceit is when something is done but something else is alleged or pretended’.[270]

  Corruption. Here he treats of sins of the heart, namely, of the power of desire: Psalm 13:1: ‘They are corrupt and are become abominable in their ways; there is none that does good, no not one’. And unfaithfulness, namely, mental; so Jeremiah 7:28: ‘Faith is lost, and is taken away out of their mouth’. Tumult, namely, of the power for being angry; so Isaiah 57:21: ‘There is no peace to the wicked, says the Lord God’. These are the three evils of the heart.

Then he treats of three evils of speech saying: And perjury, namely, either assertive as in false declarations, or promising as in false promises against which Leviticus 19:12 says: ‘You shall not swear’.[271] Tumult, namely, in disputes and disagreements; so Isaiah 3:5: ‘The child shall make a tumult against the ancient’.

(Verse 26). And forgetfulness of the good things of God,[272] that is, ingratitude because they do not give praise for God’s gifts; so Luke 17:18: ‘There is no one found to return and give glory to God, but this stranger’; Psalm 30:13: ‘I am forgotten as one dead from the heart’. These are the three evils of speech: firstly, against God and a neighbour; secondly, against a neighbour; thirdly, against God, namely, by omission.

Defiling of souls, changing of nature, disorder in marriage, and the irregularity of adultery and uncleanness. Here he treats of carnal sins, firstly, sins of interior passion; secondly, of unnatural unions, as: Changing of nature; thirdly, bigamy: Disorder in marriage and the irregularity of adultery; fourthly, fornication: And uncleanness. – Therefore, he says: Defiling of souls, namely, by internal passion; so Matthew 5:28: ‘Has already committed adultery with her in his heart’; Jeremiah 4:14: ‘Wash your heart, O Jerusalem, that you may be saved’; Titus 1:15: ‘Both their mind and their conscience are defiled’. Changing of nature, that is, of nature or of a natural practice; Romans 1:26: ‘Women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature’. Disorder in marriage, namely, by accepting and changing wives as they wish when they should ‘be two in one flesh’, Genesis 2:24; also Matthew 19:6: ‘What therefore God has joined together, let no one put asunder’. And the irregularity of adultery, that is, adultery against the order of marriage, contrary to Exodus 20:14: ‘You shall not commit adultery’. And uncleanness, namely, fornication, against what Romans 13:13 says: ‘Not in chambering and impurities’.

 For the worship of abominable idols is the cause, and the beginning and end of all evil. Here is shown that idolatry is the cause of this corruption; and he shows, firstly, how idolatry is the cause of all evils in idolaters; secondly, why, since it comes from a hope of immunity: For whilst they trust in idols, which are without life, though they swear amiss, they look not to be hurt; thirdly, he shows that this in fact is a cause of punishment for them: But for two things they shall be justly punished, because they have thought not well of God, giving heed to idols, and have sworn unjustly, in guile despising justice; fourthly, he shows what that punishment is, namely, an occasion for falling into other sins: For it is not the power of them, by whom they swear, but the just vengeance of sinners always punishes the transgression of the unjust.

(Verse 27). For the worship of abominable idols etc. I have said this,[273] namely, that idolaters make so many and such great evils; for the worship of abominable, namely, heinous, named unworthy, according to Psalm 15:4: ‘Nor will I be mindful of their names by my lips’. I say, the worship of abominable idols is the cause of all evil, namely, by blinding the mind and subverting the will; and the beginning, namely, as the commencement of a work; and the end, by its completion just as faith and the worship of God are the cause of all good, as the Apostle proves in Hebrews 11:1 where he says: ‘Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for’.

But contra: Sirach 10:15: ‘Pride is the beginning of all sin’; also, 1 Timothy 6:10: ‘The desire of money is the root of all evils’:  therefore, it is not said correctly here that unfaithfulness is the beginning of all evils.

It has to be said that it is not out of order for many things to be beginnings of evils from different points of view – just as for one thing there are four causes, namely, efficient, material etc., and yet the thing is of one[274] kind – so the beginning of evil can be partially from rational unfaithfulness, partially from greedy desire, partly from irascible pride.[275]

(Verse 28). For either they are mad when they are merry; Gloss[276]: ‘In feasts and games’, and this regarding evil in affection; they are mad, he says, because irrational joy is madness, just like the laughter of the delirious;[277] Hosea 9:8: ‘Madness is in the house of God’. Or, certainly, they prophesy lies, namely, by prophesying falsehoods, and this concerning evil in thought; 1 Kings 22:22: ‘I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets’. Or they live unjustly, and this with regard to evil in speech; Ecclesiastes 7:16: ‘A wicked person lives a long time in wickedness’. Or forswear, or swear falsely,[278] and this with regard to a sin in speech: quickly, that is, easily, out of an evil habit; for this reason Sirach 23:9 says: ‘Let not your mouth be accustomed to swearing, for in it there are many falls’.

(Verse 29). For whilst they trust in idols, which are without life, with regard to life; though they swear amiss, concerning the thing by which they swear, because by an idol, and concerning the thing for which they swear,[279] because it is false, against Jeremiah 4:2: ‘You shall swear: the Lord lives in truth and in judgment and in justice’.[280] They look not to be hurt, that is, they are not afraid.

But how is it that they are not afraid when they believe them to be genuine gods?

It must be said that while they worship them as gods, they do not think there is omnipotence in them; or they do not believe that they punish the sins of humans. And indeed they cannot harm them because of what Jeremiah 10:5 says: ‘Therefore, fear them not’, namely, idols, ‘for they can neither do evil nor good’; but they will be punished by God for the sin of perjury.

(Verse 30). So he continues: But two things shall happen to them, namely, the evil of sin, because they were allowed to swear wrongly; and the evil of punishment, because they shall be punished for this; shall happen I say, justly, namely, as merited; Revelation 22:11: ‘He that is filthy, let him be filthy still’. Because they have thought not well of God, giving heed to idols, that is, by giving divine worship to idols, when they swear by an idol. And have sworn unjustly on an idol,[281] in guile despising justice, namely, by swearing to what is unlawful or false, and so they err or sin in a double way, namely, because they swear by what they should not swear, and because they swear what they should not swear; Exodus 23:13: ‘By the name of strange gods you shall not swear’.

(Verse 31). For it is not, as if to say: and they indeed sin by swearing in this way; for it is not the power of those who swear,[282] that is, a virtuous or meritorious work; but the punishment of sinners, that is, the sin itself, that also is a punishment of the preceding sins and the guilt in it. The transgression always progresses, namely, from bad to worse, of the unjust, that is, of unjust things, namely, of the commandments of God; Gregory[283]: ‘For sin that penitence does not wash soon, by its own weight, drifts towards another’; so Psalm 34:6: ‘Let their way become dark and slippery and let the angel of the Lord pursue them’.

CHAPTER XV

 

Thirdly, there is question of the commendation of the true God

 

However, you, our God, are gracious and true, patient, and ordering all things in mercy. After showing the error of idolaters and an abhorrence of idols, he puts here a commendation of the true God. He shows that the true God is commendable, firstly, from God’s goodness; secondly, from the reward for those who believe in God: For if we sin, we are yours, knowing your greatness; and if we sin not, we know that we are counted with you; thirdly, from the worthlessness of idols: The potter also tempering soft earth, with labour fashions every vessel for our service; fourthly, from the blaming of idols: But all the enemies of your people that hold them in subjection, are foolish, and unhappy, and proud beyond measure.

 

God is commended, firstly, for God’s goodness

 

(Verse 1).  However, you, our God etc., as if to say: such are idols; however for but; you, our God; God, I say, by creation,[284] according to Genesis 1:1: ‘In the beginning God created’; also by governing and conserving;[285] according to Damascene, [286] God is called theos apo tou theein, that is, to dispose or govern. The first effect comes from power, the second from wisdom, the third from goodness. Our, namely, by appropriation of worship because only ‘in Judea is God known’ as stated in Psalm 75:2. Gracious, namely, in affection, according to Psalm 33:9: ‘Taste and see that the Lord is sweet’; above in Wisdom 12:1: O how good and sweet is your spirit, O Lord, in us, gracious, I say; Gloss[287]: ‘Of incalculable charity’; Gregory[288]: ‘O inestimable love of charity that, to redeem a servant, you handed over the Son’. And you are true, namely, to a contemplating mind; Gloss[289]: ‘Because God does not deceive nor is God deceived’; also Romans 3:4: ‘God is true and everyone is a liar’;[290] the two qualities mentioned above refer to good people; patient, namely, by leaving unnoticed the evils of sin, namely, with evil people; so a Gloss[291]: ‘Patient, that is, bearing with sinners daily’; Joel 2:13: ‘God is ready to repent of the evil’; Psalm 7:12: ‘God is a just judge, strong and patient’. And ordering all things in mercy, for all people by remitting all the evils of punishment; Psalm 144:9: ‘The Lord’s tender mercies are over all the Lord’s works’; Matthew 5:45: ‘The Father makes his sun to rise upon the good and the bad’.

 

Secondly, God is commended for rewarding those who believe in God

 

For if we sin, we are yours, knowing your greatness; and if we sin not, we know that we are counted with you. Here is shown that God is commendable from rewarding believers; and he shows, firstly, that sinners are subject to God. Secondly, he shows that sinners are not accepted by God: and if we sin not etc. Thirdly, he shows the reason for this, namely, a knowledge and worship of God: For to know you. Fourthly, he shows who are worthy of this gift: For the invention of mischievous people has not deceived us. Fifthly, he shows who are unworthy: The lovers of evil things.

(Verse 2). For if we sin etc., as if to say: and you are truly so: for if we sin, namely, by mortal sin, and especially by a sin of unfaithfulness, which is called sin by antonomasia; so John 16:8: ‘He will convince the world of sin’, and he is speaking here in a special way of this. If we sin, I say, we are yours, that is, placed in our power and governance; Gloss[292]: ‘We cannot escape, because we are your creature’; so Psalm 138:8: ‘If I ascend into heaven, you are there, if I descend into hell, you are present’; also Deuteronomy 32:39: ‘There is no one that can deliver out of your hand’. Knowing your greatness, a greatness I say, not in size but in strength,[293] containing all things and able to destroy all things; so Psalm 146:5: ‘Great is our Lord and great is his power’. And if we sin not, namely, by mortal sin, which is simply sin and most especially a sin of unfaithfulness which is sin by antonomasia. We cannot be without venial sin, or if we can it is not for a lengthy time; so 1 John 1:8: ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’.[294] If we sin not, I say, we know that we are counted with you; Gloss[295]: ‘With whom the number of good works is known and recorded’; Psalm 138:18: ‘I will number them, and they shall be multiplied above the sand’. Not only numbered but the names are also written down; Luke 10:20: ‘Rejoice in this that your names are written in heaven’. The good are said to be counted with the beloved and chosen; and they can easily be counted because they are few, according to Matthew 20:16: ‘Many are called but few are chosen’. But the wicked are not counted by God just as no one counts counterfeit money; but they are counterfeit money, according to Jeremiah 6:30: ‘Call them reprobate silver for the Lord has rejected them’; also, because their number is infinite, according to Ecclesiastes 1:15: ‘The number of fools is infinite’. However, this is not due to a weakness in God who is counting, but more to their unworthiness. For a sinner is unworthy of the bread he or she eats, as Augustine[296] says; also below in Wisdom 15:10: His life more base than clay.

(Verse 3). For to know you is perfect justice, and to know your justice, and your power, is the root of immortality. I have said well: if we sin not, especially with a sin of unfaithfulness, we are counted with you; for to know you, namely, by a formed faith, is perfect justice, that is, the perfection of justice now; and this has to be understood as a cause so that the meaning is: to know you by faith is perfect justice, that is, the cause of perfect justice; for faith justifies, so Romans 5:1 says: ‘Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’; also Romans 4:3: ‘Abraham believed God and it was reputed to him unto justice’; and to know, by a formed faith, your justice, and your power, a justice of goodness, and power, of might; or, power, that is, Christ who is the power of God and the wisdom of God’, I Corinthians 1:24; is the root of immortality, that is, the beginning and cause of eternal happiness in the future; so John 17:3: ‘This is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent’.

The root, that is, of the spiritual tree, that is, of the life of a just person who is ‘like a tree that is planted near the running waters’ which shall bring forth fruit in due season; the root is faith as stated here. The foot is humility just as, on the contrary, the foot of the wicked is pride, according to Psalm 35:12: ‘Let not the foot of pride come to me’. The trunk, growing tall, is hope; Colossians 3:1: ‘Seek the things that are above’. The inner sap and vigour of this tree is the grace of inner devotion; Job 8:11: ‘Can the rush be green without moisture?’ The shaping warmth is the virtue of charity; Luke 12:49: ‘I am come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?’ The external watering is spiritual teaching; so Wisdom says in Sirach 24:42: ‘I will water the garden of my plants’.[297] The branches are the multiplication of good works; Ezekiel 36:8: ‘Mountains of Israel, spread your branches’.[298] The flowers are the manners of an upright way of life; so Song 2:12: ‘The flowers have appeared in our land’. The leaves are words of discriminating speech, according to Psalm 1:3: ‘The leaf shall not fall off’. The fruit is the reward of eternal retribution; above in Wisdom 3:15: The fruit of good labours is glorious.             

(Verse 4). For the invention of mischievous people has not deceived us, nor the shadow of a picture, a fruitless labour, a graven figure with divers colours. I have said well: For we are counted with you, and not the others, namely, idolaters; for the invention of mischievous people has not deceived us, namely, into idolatry which is the main error, like others of whom is said above in Wisdom 14:18: And to worshipping of these, the singular diligence also of the artificer helped to set forward the ignorant; of people, that is, of those making idols etc., the invention of mischievous people, that is, who entice to evil by the  gods represented by an idol. This art is good in itself but an evil abuse; for all knowledge is about a variety of good things, namely, what is in them since they come from God; Sirach 1:1: ‘All wisdom is from the Lord God’.[299] And it must be kept in mind that he is dealing here with two things, namely, what entices to or provokes to idolatry, namely, the diligence of the artificer, when he says: the execution of an evil art and the beauty of the idol, when he adds: nor the shadow of a picture, that is, not a painting covering the wooden figure; Sirach 38:28: ‘The diligence varies the figure’;[300] a fruitless, without fruit, labour, namely, of the artificer; above in  Wisdom 3:11: Their hope is vain, and their labours without fruit; a figure, that is, an image, graven with divers colours, distinguishing the parts  of the sculpture; above in Wisdom 13:14: Laying it over with vermilion, and painting it red.  

(Verse 5). The sight whereof entices the fool, that is, one sho is unfaithful, to lust after it, namely, being an occasion to entice one to evil; Sirach 34:1: ‘The hopes of one who is void of understanding are vain and deceitful’. And he loves the lifeless figure of a dead image; he loves, I say, the figure, that is, the image, so that by worshipping the figure as God, of a dead image, that is, lacking genuine life, and this is a lack of a negation, not a privation; [301] lifeless, that  is, the power of making alive. ‘The soul is the act of a physical, organic body having life by power’, as found in Book II, De Anima.[302]

(Verse 6). The lovers of evil things deserve to have no better things to trust in, both they that make them, and they that love them, and they that worship them, and rightly, he has introduced them because the lovers of evil things, namely, of idols and of sins coming from idols, are worthy of death,[303] namely, eternal and temporal; Romans 1:32: ‘They who do such things are worthy of death’. Deserve to have[304] no better things to trust in, namely in idols by calling on them for help; Isaiah 42:17: ‘They are turned back, let them be greatly confused that trust in a graven thing’; both they that make them, namely, by making gods of this kind; Psalm 113:8: ‘Let them that make them become like unto them’; and they that love them, namely, in affection by showing devotion to idols; above in verse 5: He loves the lifeless figure of a dead image; and they that worship them, in the action of external adoration; Psalm 96:7: ‘Let them be confounded that adore graven things’; Deuteronomy 5:7-9: ‘You shall not adore strange gods nor serve them’.[305]

 

Thirdly, God is commended in two ways from the worthlessness of idols

 

The potter. Here is shown that the true God is commendable from the worthlessness of idols; he shows this worthlessness, firstly, from the worthlessness of the material; secondly, from the worthlessness of the artificer: with labour. – Here he shows it, namely, the worthlessness of the artificer, firstly, from the fragility of the work; secondly, from the vanity of the intention of the worker: But his care is; thirdly, from not knowing the Creator: Yea and they have counted our life a pastime; fifthly, from a comparison of the sin: For that man knows that he offends above all others.

(Verse 7).  The potter also; I have said already that the lovers of evil things are worthy of death, namely, those who worship or who make idols; the potter also, that is the artificer of fragile vases, add: is one of their number; I say, the potter tempering soft earth with labour; Sirach 38:32: ‘The potter sitting at his work, turning the wheel about with his feet’, who is always anxious on account of his work. Fashions every vessel for our service; ‘In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth’, 2 Timothy 2:20. And of the same clay he makes both vessels that are for clean uses, honourable and clean; and likewise such as serve to the contrary, as those vessels set aside for unclean uses; so 2 Timothy 2:20: ‘some indeed unto honour, but some unto dishonour’; Romans 9:21: ‘Or has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?’ But what is the use of these vessels, namely, clean or unclean, the potter, not the vase itself, is the judge, as their superior and maker; Romans 9:20: ‘Can the clay say to the potter: Why have you made me thus?’[306]

(Verse 8). And by a vain labour, that is, fruitless; Jeremiah 51:18: ‘They are vain works by them[307] and worthy to be laughed at’; of the same clay he makes a god; something similar is stated in Isaiah 44:15ff. of idols made from wood, part of which is burnt for human uses, and part is worshipped as a god. He, namely, the potter, who a little before was made of earth himself, by his earthly birth; Genesis 2:7: ‘The Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth’; and a little after, namely, in time; Job 14:5 and 1: ‘The days of people are short’, and, ‘living for a short time’; returns, because of his sins, namely, into death; above in Wisdom 1:16: The wicked with works and words have called it to them, after death and through death; out of which he was taken, that is, into the earth from which his body was taken, according to Genesis 3:19: ‘till you return to the earth out of which you were taken’; Ecclesiastes 3:20: ‘All things were made from earth and into earth they return together’. When his life, that is, his soul, which was lent him, as something borrowed to be returned with interest; not given, like that rich man of whom is said in Luke 12:20: ‘Thou fool, this night do they require your soul of you’; Matthew 18:28: ‘Laying hold of him, he throttled him, saying: Pay what you owe’, namely, the loan of a soul.

(Verse 9). But his care is, even though the labour is vain, not that he shall labour, and vainly, for which reason one should have greater care, and he shall labour, wickedly, according to Jeremiah 9:5: ‘They have  laboured to commit iniquity’. Nor that his life is short, when then there should be greater care so that he might use it more profitably; James 4:15: ‘What is your life? It is a vapour that appears for a little while’. But he strives with the goldsmiths and silversmiths, trying to copy the beauty and subtlety of their work; and he endeavours to do like the workers in brass. Note that he calls goldsmiths the artificers who make gods from gold; silversmiths those who make gods from silver; workers in brass those who make gods from brass; Isaiah 46:6: ‘You contribute silver from the bag and weigh out gold in the scales, and hire a goldsmith to make a god’.[308] And counts it a glory, add: vain in view of his work and the shortness of life. “Glory is frequent fame with praise’;[309] glory, that is, from glorifying himself over this; something in which he is not to be gloried. To make vain things, that is, worthless things, idols which he makes from the material, clay; Hosea 4:7: ‘I will change their glory into shame’; also Philippians 3:19: ‘Glory is in their shame who mind earthly things’.

(Verse 10). For his heart is ashes, as if to say: he boasts in such a way; for, meaning but; or, as follows: he glories when he should not; for, meaning because; ashes, that is, something worthless, such as, his heart is ashes, that is, his thinking because he places his heart in the ashes and dust from which he makes his god; Sirach 10:9: ‘Why is earth and ashes proud?’ And vain earth, that is, useless, is his hope, that is, his desire and affection because he puts it in an earthen idol; above in Wisdom 3:11: Their hope is vain; for such an idol is empty ground and nothing, of which Jeremiah 4:23 says: ‘I beheld the earth, and lo it was void and nothing’. And the life of that person,[310] that is, conduct, is baser than clay, because he spends his life in making and worshipping an idol of clay; Psalm 17:43: ‘I shall bring them to naught like the dirt in the streets’. So a Gloss[311]: ‘The life of that person is dirtier than mud’; 2 Peter 2:22: ‘The sow that was washed to her wallowing, lowing in the mire’.

(Verse 11). Forasmuch as he knew not, namely, ignorance of which 1 Corinthians 14:38 says: ‘Anyone who knows not, shall not be known’; his maker, that is, God who made his body from the clay of the earth; Psalm 102:14: ‘God knows our frame’; and him that inspired into him the soul, according to Genesis 2:7: ‘And God breathed into his face the breath of life’; and he who makes the idols loves,[312] them more than God. And that breathed into him a living spirit, it is necessary to repeat: knew not, and he is speaking of a bodily spirit when he says: a living spirit; Isaiah 57:16: ‘The spirit shall go forth and from my face, and breathings I will make’; Psalm 145:4: ‘His spirit shall go forth and he shall return into his earth’.

(Verse 12). Yea and they have counted; I have said already that they did not know God, but they esteemed more, namely, the makers of idols, our life, our natural life, as a pastime of pleasure, just like those of whom Exodus 32:6 says: ‘And the people sat down to eat and drink’; Job 21:12: ‘They take the timbrel and the harp’. A pastime, he says this because to make and worship idols seems to be like a children’s game, and so it is for those who make and adore images of clay. And the business of life, namely, moral business, to be gain, that is, planned for gain, for greed and not only for gain, but unlawful gain, so he adds: And that we must be getting every way, even out of evil, that is, from the work or illicit business; this is contrary to Sirach 5:10: ‘Be not anxious for goods unjustly gotten, for they shall not profit you in the day of calamity’, or vengeance, ‘and revenge’. These are ‘riches kept to the hurt of their owner’.[313]

(Verse 13). For every man knows that he offends above all others, who of earthly matter make brittle vessels and graven gods, as if to say: and truly the gain is from the evil of making idols; he knows that he offends above all others, namely, other artificers of idols; he, I say, of earthly matter, which is more worthless, makes brittle vessels, from part of the material, and graven gods, that is, idols from another part of the material. Hence, one understands or can understand the worthlessness of idols better from a comparison of these points.

But how can he know this, namely, that he offends or sins above all others when he is ignorant of God, as has been said.[314]

It has to be said that he knows this or can know this from a trace of the natural law written in his heart. But he actually knows this, namely, because he does not want this to be investigated when it could be; or if it cannot be fully or easily investigated, that is, because he is blinded by his unfaithfulness.[315]

 

Fourthly, God is commended from the foolishness of idolaters

 

But all the enemies of your people that hold them in subjection, are foolish, and unhappy, and proud beyond measure. Here, the true God is shown to be commendable from the foolishness of idolaters, and, firstly, from the foolishness of idolaters worshipping inanimate objects, namely, statues; secondly, from worshipping animate objects: Moreover they worship also the vilest creatures.  

In the first part, he shows, firstly, that they are foolish and he reprehends them because idols are a cause of many evils to their worshippers; secondly, because of themselves they are useless to people: For they have esteemed all the idols of the heathens for gods; thirdly, because they are made by humans: For humans made them; fourthly, because they are less than humans: For mortals are better than they whom they worship.

(Verse 14). But all the enemies of your people etc. I have said well that one who makes an idol from clay, knows that he offends above all other craftsmen; for all are foolish; Gloss[316]: ‘Who think that idols are gods’; this is great stupidity; Jeremiah 4:22: ‘They are foolish and senseless children’. Foolish, I say, from a lack of wisdom or faith in their thinking, and unhappy, in affection; and this due to a lack of grace that makes one happy; above in Wisdom 13:10: Unhappy are they who have called gods the works of human hands. Beyond the measure of their soul, that is, of their nature, are proud, namely, against God, and this by thinking to themselves that idols are like gods; Isaiah 16:6: ‘We have heard of the pride of Moab, he is exceeding proud, his pride and his arrogance, and his indignation is more than his strength’.[317] Or: Unhappy beyond measure, because with infinite unhappiness, because ‘Their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched’, Isaiah 66:24. The enemies of your people, enemies because they pursue those who believe in God; enemies, I say, in affection, and pursuing in deeds; Esther 14:8-9: ‘And now they are not content[318] to oppress us with most hard bondage, but  attributing the strength of their hands to the power of their gods, they design to change your promises’; and hold them,[319] namely by words; Psalm 68:10: ‘The reproaches[320] of them that reproached you are fallen upon me’; just as some from Ephraim and Manasseh ridiculed the messengers of Hezekiah who wanted to call them back to the worship of God as is clear in 2 Chronicles 30:6-10.  

(Verse 15). For they have esteemed all the idols of the nations for gods, as if to say: I have said well that all the enemies of your people that hold them in subjection, are foolish, and unhappy, and proud beyond measure;[321] for all the idols of the nations, that is, of the Gentiles who are not reborn by faith but remain in the sin of their birth,[322] they have esteemed for gods; The Romans did this by bringing[323] and adoring and guarding all the idols of the  peoples they conquered; which, namely, the idols, neither have eyesight for seeing,[324] according to Psalm 113:5-7: ‘They have eyes and see not’; nor ears to hear, according to the same Psalm: ‘They have ears and hear not’. Nor noses to draw breath; Psalm: ‘They have noses and smell not’. Nor fingers of hands to handle, for touching something; so the Psalm: ‘They have hands and feel not’. And as for their feet, they are slow, that is, immovable, to walk, the Psalm: ‘They have feet and walk not’. Baruch 6:67 says: ‘Beasts are better than they which can fly under a shelter and help themselves’.

(Verse 16). For humans, who have no part in giving feeling and movement, made them, not as born from human substance but shaped from external matter; and he or she that borrows his or her own breath, namely, from God, to whom it must be given back when God so wishes; Ecclesiastes 12:7: ‘And the spirit return to God who gave it’. Humans fashioned them, that is, made them from clay. For no one etc., as if to say: and truly they are thus without feeling and movement; for no one can make a god like to oneself, like, namely, with a likeness of equality by which one human being is similar to another, even though there is a  likeness of some external copying.

(Verse 17). For being mortal, having a mortal life, a dead thing, that is lacking life, forms with wicked hands; Psalm 25:10: ‘In whose hands are iniquities’. However, it is better to be mortal than dead, according to Ecclesiastes 9:4: ‘A living dog is better than a dead lion’. And I have said well that no one can make a god like to oneself; for mortals are better than what they worship. But God has to be the best for humans since, according to Augustine,[325] God is their beatitude. Because they indeed have lived, at some time, namely, human beings, though they were mortal; but false gods have never lived. By law, according to Augustine,[326] what is living is put before what is not living, and what has sensation before what is without sensation.

But there is an objection: Because above in verse 10 there is said: His life is more base than clay.    

It has to be said that above he is speaking of mortal life but here of natural life.

Moreover they worship also the vilest creatures, but things without sense compared to these, are worse than they. Here is shown the censure on those who worship animals; and, firstly, they are shown to be vile; secondly, in view of the preceding they are somewhat excusable: things without sense compared to these, are worse than they; thirdly, they are simply inexcusable: Yea, neither by sight can anyone see good of these beasts. – And here they are shown to be inexcusable, firstly, because they worship irrational animals; secondly, because they have fled from the true God: But they have fled from the praise of God, and from his blessing.

(Verse 18). Moreover the vilest worship also creatures; Gloss[327]: ‘Not only a human likeness’, but the image of animals, as the Egyptians Isis in the likeness  of a  bull, the Babylonians a dragon, as is clear in Daniel 14:22;[328] the vilest[329] worship; Proverbs 14:34: ‘Sin makes nations miserable’. All the wicked and sinners are indeed miserable, but more miserable are all who are unfaithful, while the most miserable are those who worship idols. For this reason I have said well: Moreover they worship also the vilest creatures; Psalm 105:20: ‘They changed their glory into the likeness of a calf that eats grass’. For things without sense; for meaning but; without sense, that is, statues, compared to these, namely, to the animals, are worse than they, because, according to Augustine,[330] to be living is better than not living, and to feel than not feeling; so a Gloss[331]: ‘In truth, living things are better than dead things, and sensible  than  insensible, and  rational than irrational. But it was fitting that those who did not know the Creator would not know this distinction among creatures’.

(Verse 19). Yea, neither by sight can one see anything good in these beasts. But they have fled from the praise of God, and from God’s blessing. It has been said that idols neither hear nor see anything nor know anything; not only do idols see nothing, yea, neither by sight can one see anything good in these beasts. Neither by sight, as if to say: not only by imagination when they are absent, but neither in the present by feeling; anything in these animals, which they worship, can one see anything good, that is, to know good things from seeing; this has to be understood of genuine good, things that are simply good just as are virtues and such like; not of good that is useful or pleasant, which things are good under certain conditions.[332] However, they have fled from the praise of God, as if to say: in this way the vilest worship creatures; however, meaning but, they have fled etc. Or: however, certainly by worshipping creatures, they have fled from God and God’s blessing, as if to say: they neither praised nor blessed God; praise for God’s goodness in itself, and blessing for God’s gifts to us. This is against Psalm 105:1 in two ways: Give glory to the Lord, for God is good, namely, in being God, ‘for God’s mercy endures forever’, that is, since the gifts of God’s mercy reach to all; and he says they fled, not only internally in the heart by not praising and not blessing, but neither by confessing in speech, against Romans 10:10: ‘For, with the heart, we believe unto justice; but, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation’.

CHAPTER XVI

 

Secondly, the torment of the punishment on the guilty is specified

 

For these things, and by the like things to these, they were worthily punished, and were destroyed by a multitude of beasts. After dealing from chapter thirteen with the consequence of sin regarding the more serious punishments laid down for the condemnation of the wicked, here he deals with the torment of the punishment, and, firstly, of punishments preceding death, namely, in this chapter and in chapter seventeen; secondly, with the punishments brought on by death, namely, in chapters eighteen and nineteen.

 

Firstly, he deals with the two punishments preceding death

 

In the first part, he deals, firstly, with punishment on the senses, namely, from the sending of the plagues, namely, in this chapter; secondly, on the punishment of the loss, from the withdrawing of light, in chapter seventeen.

 

On the punishment of the senses in two ways

 

In the first place he deals, firstly, with the punishment inflicted by inanimate objects: For the wicked that denied to know you, were scourged by the strength of your arm, being persecuted by strange waters, and hail, and rain, and consumed by fire.

 

The first punishment of the senses inflicted by living objects

 

In the first part he treats of the punishment of the Egyptians by vile and harmful animals; secondly, contrary to this, the consolation of the Hebrews from delightful animals: Instead of which punishment, dealing well with your people, you gave them their desire of delicious food, of a new taste, preparing for them quails for their meat; thirdly, their deliverance from the harmful animals: For when the fierce rage of beasts came upon these, they were destroyed with the bites of crooked serpents; fourthly, the reason for the aforementioned punishment and deliverance: And in this you showed to our enemies, that you are the one who delivers from all evil.

(Verse 1). For these things, namely, because the most miserable people worshipped idols,[333] or because of sins of idolatry, and by the like things to these,[334] that is, for other sins of idolatry like the preceding, they were worthily punished; Ephesians 5:6: ‘Because of these things the anger of God comes upon the children of unbelief’; Deuteronomy 25:2: ‘According to the measure of the sin shall the measure also of the stripes be’. The shame of guilt should not be without the beauty of justice or punishment, according to Augustine.[335] And by a multitude of beasts, namely, the earth of those devastators such as flies, locusts, and frogs and suchlike; they were destroyed, that is gravely afflicted, and perhaps some of them were killed; above in Wisdom 12:23: You have greatly tormented them by the same things which they worshipped; Deuteronomy 32:24: ‘I will send the teeth of beasts upon them’.

Instead of which punishment, dealing well with your people, you gave them their desire of delicious food, of a new taste, preparing for them quails for their meat. Here, he treats of the consolation of the Israelites, and, firstly, he considers the method of the consolation; secondly, its cause: To the end that; thirdly, its swiftness: But these, after suffering want for a short time, tasted a new meat; fourthly, the opportunity to hasten: For it was requisite that inevitable destruction should come upon them that exercised tyranny.

(Verse 2). Instead of which punishment, that is, in place of their torments, as if in contrast to; dealing well with your people, namely, the Israelite people, who were ‘his peculiar people’, as stated in Deuteronomy 7:6. You gave them, that is, to which people, their desire of delicious food that is, the longed for delight; ‘the desire that is accomplished, delights the soul’, as stated in Proverbs 13:19. Of a new taste, in a food with a new flavour preparing for them quails for their meat, referring to the bird, namely the quail, the quail mother, said to come from the land of Ortygia[336] in which it was first sighted and brought from there;[337] or preparing for them meats; and then according to some the plural is used here for the singular when he says: preparing for them ortygometram, that is, quail, according to Psalm 104:40: ‘They asked and the quail came and he filled them with the bread  from heaven’; Exodus 16:13: ‘So it came to pass in the evening that quails coming up covered the camp’; also Numbers 11:31: ‘And a wind of the Lord[338] going up, taking quails up beyond the sea, brought them and cast them into the camp’. But one should not use a plural for the singular because it can be explained as: meats, that is, in place of the meats.

(Verse 3). To the end that they indeed, namely, the children of Israel, desiring food, namely of the meats of Egypt, Exodus 16:3, by means of those things, namely, the quail, that were shown, to be desired, and sent among them, to be eaten, might loathe, so that they would no longer desire the meats of Egypt and a return  to Egypt, even that which was necessary to satisfy their desire, that is, urgently needed, Psalm 105:14: ‘They coveted their desire in the desert; also Numbers 11:4: ‘The people burned with desire for meats’,[339] in spite of what Sirach 18:30 says: ‘Go not after your lusts but turn away from your own will’. But these, namely, the children of Israel, after suffering want for a short time, that is in a little time because their need lasted for a brief time; for God came quickly, according to Isaiah 65:24: ‘Before they call, I will hear’; want, that is, a need for food; tasted a new meat, that is, unfamiliar or of unfamiliar birds.

(Verse 4). For it was requisite etc., as if to say: and this happened  rightly; for it was requisite, that is, it was opportune, that upon them, namely, the Egyptians, inevitable destruction should come, namely of guilt for which they were being punished; Romans 1:20: ‘So that they were inexcusable’; also Romans 2:1: ‘Wherefore you are inexcusable, whoever you are’; destruction should come, namely, the distress of a supreme judge’s destructive punishment for their oppression; Job 18:14: ‘Let his confidence be rooted out of his tabernacle, and let destruction tread upon him like a king’; also Proverbs 29:1: ‘Whoever with a stiff neck have despised[340] the one that reproves him or her, shall suddenly be destroyed’. Upon them, I refer to the Egyptians, that exercised tyranny, that is, a cruel empire over the children of Israel, by oppressing them with hard labour, as is clear in Exodus 1:10-14 and 5:6, and by drowning their children in the river, as is clear in Exodus 1:22. But to these, namely, to the Israelites, it is to shown only, add: it should be, how their enemies were destroyed, so that, seeing their punishment, they might be corrected, according to Proverbs 19:25: ‘The wicked being scourged, the fool shall be wiser’; also Proverbs 21:11: ‘When a pestilent person is punished, the little one will be wiser’.

For when the fierce rage of beasts came upon these, they were destroyed with the bites of crooked serpents. Here is shown, firstly, the seriousness of the danger, secondly, the speed of the deliverance: But your wrath endures not forever; thirdly, the strength or power of the one who delivers: For the one that turned to it, was not healed by that which was seen, but by you the Saviour of all.

(Verse 5). He says, therefore: For, equivalent to, I have said well: but to these it should only be shown how their enemies were destroyed; for, meaning because; upon these, namely, the children of Israel, when the fierce rage of beasts came, namely, from offences against the heavenly judge, whom they offended by murmuring against him, as is clear in Numbers 21:6: ‘The Lord sent among the people fiery serpents’. They were destroyed, namely, some of them, with the bites of crooked serpents, because they were capable of causing harm; so 1 Corinthians 10:9-10: ‘You murmur as some of them murmured and perished by the serpents’.[341]

(Verse 6). But not forever, that is, without end in such a way that eternal punishment follows on from temporal punishment, as in Herod in Acts 12:23.[342] Your wrath, that is, the effect of your anger, not a movement of your soul, according to Jeremiah 3:12: ‘I am the Lord and I am not angry’;[343] endures, namely, in the children of Israel; Habakkuk 3:2: ‘When you are angry, you will remember mercy’. But they were troubled, that is, afflicted, namely, externally and then troubled internally; for a short time, that is, for a brief moment, for their correction, not for condemnation, Isaiah 54:7-8: ‘For a small moment have I forsaken you, but with great mercies will I gather you. In a moment of indignation have I hid my face a little while from you, but with everlasting kindness have I had mercy on you, said the Lord your Redeemer’; Jeremiah 30:11: ‘I will not utterly consume you, but I will chastise you in judgment that you may not seem to yourself innocent’. Having a sign of salvation; Gloss[344]: ‘A bronze serpent placed for a sign and they were healed by looking at it’, as is clear in Numbers 21:9. To put them in remembrance of the commandment of your law, namely, to be observed, according to Psalm 102:18: ‘And are mindful of the commandments to do them’, just as a forgetful child is given the strap so that the child might repeat and be resolute in the lesson.

(Verse 7). And I have said well: having a sign, not a reason; for the one that turned to it, namely, either internally to God by penitence, or externally by looking at the bronze serpent; was not healed, that is, not by the bronze serpent, by that which was seen,[345] namely, by a bodily eye; but by you the Saviour of all, represented by the aforementioned serpent; John 3:14: ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be  lifted up’; just as the dead child could not be roused by the staff of Elisha, to which it was not obedient in this,[346] but by him, as stated in 2 Kings 4:31ff.

And in this you showed to our enemies, that you are the one who delivers from all evil. Here is added the reason for the aforementioned punishment and deliverance, namely, a display of divine justice and mercy, and, firstly, with regard to the punished Egyptians a display of divine justice; secondly, with regard to the freed Hebrews a display of divine mercy and certain other reasons: But not even the teeth of venomous serpents overcame your children: for your mercy came and healed them.

(Verse 8). And in this, namely, in the affliction of the Egyptians and in the easy deliverance of the Israelites, you showed, that is, you wanted to show even though they would not see; according to Augustine;[347] to our enemies, namely, the Egyptians; the enemies of the just are evil, namely, actively, not passively, because they hate the just, even though the just love them; you showed, I say, that you, alone, are the one who delivers from all evil; Psalm 33:20: ‘Many are the tribulations of the just, but out of them all will the Lord deliver them’.

Contra: Why are many not delivered from sin?

It has to be said that it must be understood in this way: God delivers all who are to be delivered, as John 1:9 says: ‘Enlightens every person who comes into this world’, namely, who are to be enlightened.

(Verse 9). For the bites of locusts, and of flies killed them, namely, the Egyptians who did not worship you; locusts, Exodus 10:13ff.; and flies, Exodus 8:17; killed, literally some of them even though this is not stated there explicitly. And there was found no remedy for their life, namely, of the Egyptians, unlike the children of Israel from the serpents; Psalm 37:4: ‘There is no health in my flesh, because of your wrath; there is no peace for my bones because of my sins’; Jeremiah 30:12: ‘your bruise is incurable, your wound is very grievous’. Because they were worthy, namely, in accord with their merits, to be destroyed by such things, namely, by vile animals; so Augustine on John[348]: ‘God could have humbled Pharaoh's proud people by bears, by lions, by serpents, but he sent flies and the meanest creatures that their pride might be subdued’. For the same reason people are tormented by fleas; so Augustine[349]: ‘Why are you inflated with human pride? Drive off the fleas that you may sleep’.

 But not even the teeth of venomous serpents overcame your children. Here is shown the varied reason for the deliverance of the Hebrews; but so as to proceed in an orderly manner, he treats, firstly, of their deliverance; secondly, of the varied reason for their deliverance: for your mercy came and healed them.

(Verse 10). But your children, namely, the Israelites; Exodus 4:22: ‘My firstborn, Israel’,[350] your children, I say, through faith, according to John 1:12: ‘He gave them power to be made the children of God, to them that believe in his name’; but not even the teeth of venomous serpents overcame, that is, of the fiery serpents; Deuteronomy 8:15: ‘And was your leader in the great and terrible wilderness wherein there was the serpent burning with its breath, and the scorpion and the dipsas’. He is speaking of good people who are children of God, not of evil people.

For your mercy; here he shows the varied reason for the deliverance of the Israelites, of which the first was the mercy of God; the second, the danger of despair: For they were examined for the remembrance of your words, and were quickly healed, lest falling into deep forgetfulness, they might not be able to use your help; the third, the power of a divine word: For it was neither herb, nor mollifying plaster that healed them, but your word, O Lord, which heals all things; the fourth, a display of divine  mercy: For it is you, O Lord, that has power of life and death; the fifth, human weakness: One indeed kills through malice.

I have said well: But not even the teeth of venomous serpents, that is, the bite of the fiery serpents, overcame your children, that is, the Israelites; for your mercy, that is, the effect of your mercy, came and healed them; Psalm 93:19: ‘My foot is moved, your mercy, O Lord, assisted me’; Jeremiah 33:6: ‘I will close your wound and give you health’;[351] ‘For[352] God wounds and cures’, Job 5:18.

(Verse 11). For they were examined, namely, some of them, for the remembrance of your words, that is, by a recompense of your commandments, and were quickly healed, or were saved,[353] namely, other penitents after seeing the death or punishment of others;  according to Psalm 77:34: ‘When God slew them’, that is, some of them, ‘they sought God’, that is other  penitents.[354] Or: they were examined, that is, were severely punished, and quickly healed, lest falling, that is, falling internally, into deep, that is, profound, forgetfulness, of despair because of a delay in the help and cure; they might not be able to use your help, that is, the help of your delivering grace, they, I say, because of their despair became unworthy of your mercy; Proverbs 18:3: ‘When a wicked person  comes into the depth of sins, contempt follows’; Psalm 105:21: ‘They forgot God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt’.

(Verse 12). And I have said well: for the remembrance of your words; for, meaning because, it was neither herb, that is, a drink  made form herbs, which is absorbed internally by drinking; nor mollifying plaster, that is, a plaster put over the source of the  pain; that healed them, namely, from the bites of the serpents. But your word, O Lord, that is, the command to make and look at the bronze serpent, Numbers 21:8-9; which, namely, the word, heals all things, namely, that are to be healed; so this is a limited application;[355] Psalm 106:20: ‘God sent the word and healed them’. Or: The Word, uncreated, that is, the Son of whom John 1:1 says: ‘In the beginning was the Word’; this Word, according to a Gloss,[356] ‘cures bodies and heals souls from spiritual beasts’; Matthew 4:23: ‘healing all manner of sickness and every infirmity’.

(Verse 13). For it is you, O Lord. I have said well that your  word heals all; for it is you, O Lord, namely, the Creator of  all things, that has power of life and death, that is, of giving life and ending life, according to 1 Samuel 2:6: ‘The Lord kills and makes alive’; also Sirach 11:14: ‘Life  and death are from God’.

But contra: Because it was said above in Wisdom 1:13: ‘God made not death’.[357]

I reply: It has to be said that while God is neither the meritorious nor efficient cause of death, God has power over death to prevent it, just as while God is not the cause of evil, God has power over evil because God knows and is able to draw good out of evil.

It has to be said about the objection that death is not from God, that in death there is a loss of life, which is nothing and so does not have an efficient cause, but rather a ineffective cause; also, it is a punishing torment which is something and is from God who inflicts it justly on sinners because of their sins.

And leads down to the gates of death, that is, to the final moment of life, and brings back again, as is clear in Hezekiah, Isaiah 38:1ff.

(Verse 14). A man however kills indeed through malice, as if to say: you can kill and make alive in this way; however, meaning but; a man can kill himself but not bring himself to life, and this is what he says: a man, namely, a sinner, called a man from ground;[358] kills indeed his soul,[359] that is, certainly, through malice, of guilt, for which reason Psalm 10:6 says: ‘Whoever loves iniquity hates his or her own soul’; this is to kill oneself; for the sinner is a two edged sword for the sinner kills both body and soul; Sirach 21:4: ‘All iniquity is like a two edged sword’. And when the spirit is gone forth, namely, from the body by death, it shall not return, namely, into the body in this life; Job 10:21: ‘Before I go and return no more to a land that is dark and covered with the mist of death’; also 2 Samuel 14:14: ‘We all die, and like waters that return no more, we fall down into the earth’;

But contra: Because it is said in Psalm 145:4: ‘The spirit shall go forth and the person shall return into the earth’.

It has to be said that this[360] is understood of a return into the earth as its natural dwelling place and of the body by its nature; but the words of the Psalm about the return to the earth[361] apply to the justice of retribution and this by divine power.

Neither shall the one, namely, a human person, call back, the soul, separated from the body, that is received, in its place, namely, in glory or in punishment; Sirach 11:3: ‘Wherever a tree falls, whether to the south or to the north, there shall it be’.[362]

(Verse 15). But it is impossible to escape your hand, namely, your power both now or in the future, and in life or death; Job 10:7: ‘There is[363] no one that can deliver out of your hand’; so Psalm 138:7 says: ‘Whither shall I go from your spirit or whither shall I flee from your face?’ ‘The hand of the Lord is not shortened’,[364] in fact it is extremely long and holds everything, according to Psalm 94:4: ‘In your hand, O Lord, are all the ends of the earth’.[365] 

 

The second punishment of the senses inflicted by inanimate objects

 

For the wicked that denied to know you, were scourged by the strength of your arm, being persecuted by strange waters, and hail, and rain, and consumed by fire. Here he treats of the punishments inflicted on the Egyptians by inanimate objects; and, firstly, the punishment of the Egyptians is considered; secondly, in contrast the consolation of the Israelites: Instead of which things you fed your people with the food of angels; thirdly, the reason  for the  punishment of the Egyptians: But snow and ice endured the force of fire, and melted not, that they might know that fire burning in the hail and flashing in the rain destroyed the fruits of the enemies; fourthly, the reason for the consolation of the Israelites: Therefore even then it was transformed into all things, and was obedient to your grace that nourishes all, according to the will of them that desired it of you.

In the first part he states the cause of what the Egyptians merited; secondly, the method and form: And which was wonderful, in water, which extinguishes all things, the fire had more force: for the world fights for the just; thirdly, the difference from the point of view of more and less: For at one time, the fire was mitigated, that the beasts which were sent against the wicked might not be burned, but that they might see and perceive that they were persecuted by the judgment of God.

(Verse 16). For the wicked that denied to know you, were scourged by the strength of your arm, and being persecuted by strange waters, and hail, and rain, and consumed by fire. I have said well: It is impossible to escape your hand; for the wicked that denied to know you, namely, the Egyptians, especially Pharaoh and his servants; denied, I say, in word, so Exodus 5:2: ‘I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go’; and in actions of which Titus 1:16 says: ‘They profess that they know God but in their works they deny God’. By the strength of your arm, that is, by your strong power; Exodus 15:11: ‘Who is like you among the strong, O Lord, who is like to you, glorious in holiness, terrible and praiseworthy, doing wonders?’ Being persecuted; Exodus 6:6: ‘I will bring you out from the work prison of the Egyptians with a high arm’; Exodus 15:6: ‘Your right hand has slain the enemy’;[366] and, meaning, that is, being persecuted by strange waters, and hail, hail is like frozen water, and rain, like running water; Exodus 9:34: ‘Pharaoh, seeing that the rain and the hail had ceased’; and consumed by fire, fire which came down at the same time; Exodus 9:24: ‘The hail and the fire mixed with it drove on together’; also Psalm 104:32: ‘God gave them hail for rain, a burning fire in the land’.

(Verse 17). I have said well: by fire with hail; which was wonderful; namely, for one opposite to be destroyed by another, when there is written in Sirach 3:33: ‘Water quenches a flaming fire’; so he continues: in water, which extinguishes all things, namely, things on fire, the fire had more force, that is, acts more strongly with water. For the world fights, that is, as an instrument of punishment; fights, I say, for the world of the just, namely, defending the just; so above in Wisdom 5:21: The whole world shall fight with him against the unwise. It is implied in the preceding text that the punishment of the Egyptians did not happen according to an order of nature, but according to an order of divine justice defending the Israelites against the Egyptians who oppressed them, Exodus 1:12ff; Gloss[367]: ‘It is not surprising that hail and fire came mixed together, because all things obey the will of the Creator’.

(Verse 18). For at one time, as if to say: it did not always happen in the same way; for, meaning but; at one time, the fire was mitigated, namely, until the animals of all who feared the words of Moses could be recalled or brought back from the fields; Exodus 9:19: ‘Send and gather together your cattle, and all that you have in the fields’,[368] or field; and then in verse 20: ‘He that feared the word of the Lord among Pharaoh’s servants, made his servants and his cattle flee into houses’. Was mitigated, I say, that the animals which were sent against the wicked, that is, the beasts were sent by a divine action. Not only for this reason, but also, that they might see, the aforementioned variation, and perceive, namely, by this, that they were persecuted by the judgment of God, not by a natural phenomenon. Also, according to a Gloss[369]: ‘that they might know that every creature has to be ready to suffer the severity of the Creator’; Psalm 9:17: The Lord shall be known when executing judgments’, who, as Bernard[370] says, the one causing injuries is not known. And note that the Lord punished Sodom by fire, Genesis 19:24, without clemency because there were no good people among them; but God punished the Egyptians with clemency because the children of Israel were in Egypt and they were good.

(Verse 19). And at another time, namely, when the animals were recalled, the fire, above its own power, namely, its natural power because by a miracle, burned in the midst of water, namely, throughout the whole land of Egypt, to destroy a wicked[371] nation of the earth, that is, the Egyptians who were an earthly, not heavenly, nation; against what 1 Corinthians 15:49 says: ‘As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear the image of the heavenly’.

Instead of which things you fed your people with the food of angels, and gave them bread from heaven prepared without labour, having in it all that is delicious, and the sweetness of every taste. Here, dealing with the consolation of the Israelites, he treats, firstly, of the showing of the gift; secondly, the reason for showing it: For your sustenance showed your sweetness to your children, and serving everyone's will, it was turned to what everyone liked.

(Verse 20). Instead of which things, namely, bad things, that is, in place of and in contrast to the bad things, the food of angels, that is, manna prepared by Angels; you fed your people etc.; so Psalm 77:25: ‘People ate the bread of angels’; or because it prefigured the food of angels, namely, ‘the living bread that came down from heaven’, John 6:41.[372] You fed, I say, your people, the children of Israel; this quickly nourished them ‘until they were to reach the borders of the promised land’, as stated in Exodus 16:35.[373] And bread prepared, that is, refreshment, from heaven, namely, coming down from heaven, according to Psalm 77:24: ‘Rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the bread of heaven’;[374] prepared without labour.

Contra: Because it is said in Numbers 11:8: ‘The people went about, and gathering it, ground it in a mill, or beat it in a mortar, and boiled it in a pot, and made cakes thereof of the taste of bread tempered in oil’.

I reply: They got it without the labour of agriculture, but not without the labour of preparing it. But we have labour in producing and preparing it; Genesis 3:19: ‘In the sweat of your face’.

Having in it all that is delicious, that is, the effect of every delicious food by producing a similar delight in the one eating; and the sweetness of every taste, that is, every sweet flavour; for it tasted to each one as he or she so desired, as Gregory says in Book VI of his Moralia in Job.[375]

But contra: Numbers 11:8 says that it tasted like ‘bread tempered with oil’.

It must be said that in its nature was a definite most sweet taste, namely, as a taste ‘like to [flour] with honey’;[376] but by divine grace it had various flavours, namely, according to the various desires, as a Gloss[377] on 1 Corinthians 10:3 says: ‘All ate the same spiritual food’.

But contra: That while it had the flavour each person desired, they would not have longed for the meats of Egypt, nor have been sickened over such light food as the manna, but this is against what is read in Numbers 21:5.

It has to be said according to a Gloss[378]: Good people found in it an excellent flavour, but evil people disliked it. Or it must be said that in food they looked for not only a delightful flavour in its taste, but also colour in its appearance and odour in how it smelt. Jerome[379]: Among the rich birds are steamed, for them to be refreshed by their appearance and arrangement, as people sensitive to wine, even when there is said in Proverbs 23:31: ‘Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the colour thereof shines in the glass; it goes in pleasantly, but in the end it will bite like a snake’.

(Verse 21). For you showed your sustenance, that is, your power to sustain, and your sweetness,[380] that is, your power to delight, to your children, namely, by sustaining them by the substance of food and by delighting them with the taste of this food; Psalm 67:11: ‘In your sweetness, O Lord, you have provided for the poor’; you showed, I say, by giving them sustaining and delightful food. And serving, namely, the aforementioned food or bread, everyone's will, namely, of those eating, it was turned to what everyone liked, that is, to whatever taste; for it had, as already stated,[381] one clear taste by nature, but several by divine grace.

In a mystical sense Christ in the Sacrament of the altar is fittingly prefigured by the manna, firstly, because he is the bread of angels, namely, of priests, according to Malachi 2:7: ‘Because he [a priest] is the angel of the Lord of hosts’. – Secondly, because it is prepared in heaven, that is, because it is made by heavenly power; John 6:41: ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven’;[382] Psalm 64:10: ‘You have prepared their food, for so is its preparation’.[383] – Thirdly, because those who eat it out of desire, that is, devotion, are refreshed, according to Psalm 20:3: ‘You have given the king his heart’s desire’; also in Psalm 77:29-30: ‘God gave them their desire and they were not  defrauded of that which they craved’. – Fourthly, because with it there came down and is given the dew of grace, just as dew come down with the manna, as seen in Number 11:9.[384] And so this bread is called the Eucharist; Eucharist means good grace. – Fifthly, because just as the manna looked ‘like coriander seed white,’[385] so Christ is received under a white cloud; Revelation 14:14: ‘Behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sitting like to the Son of man’. – Sixthly, because it was collected[386] on six days and not on the Sabbath, so Christ is received now under the Sacrament, but in the future Sabbath he will be seen clearly and Isaiah 66:23 says of this: ‘There will be Sabbath after Sabbath’; 1 Corinthians 13:12: ‘But then face to face’; also 1 John 3:2: ‘We shall see him as he is’. – Seventhly, because just as they were fed by this food in the desert until they entered the promised land,[387] so the faithful of the Church are nourished in the desert of this world until the end of the world, according to Matthew 28:20: ‘Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world’.

But snow and ice endured the force of fire, and melted not, that they might know that fire burning in the hail and flashing in the rain destroyed the fruits of the enemies. Here the reason for the affliction of the Egyptians is given: firstly, from the point of view of the ones punished; secondly, from the point of view of the things by which they were punished: But this[388] same again, that the just might be nourished, did even forget its own strength; thirdly, from the point of view of God punishing: For the creature serving you the Creator, is made fierce against the unjust for their punishment; and abates its strength for the benefit of them that trust in you.

(Verse 22). Therefore, he says: But snow and ice etc. It has been said,[389] that in water the fire had more force; but snow and ice, that is, hail, endured the force of fire, that is, the heat which is its property of active power. And melted not, that is, did not turn to liquid; so Exodus 9:23-24: ‘The Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt and the hail and the fire mixed with it drove on together’; that they might know, namely, the Israelites, that fire burning, namely, by heat, destroyed the fruits of the enemies, that is, of the Egyptians. Burning in the hail and flashing in the rain, namely, in brightness. ‘The flax and the barley were hurt,[390] because the barley was green and the flax was now in bud’, Exodus 9:31.

(Verse 23). But this same again, that the just might be nourished, did even forget its own strength. Note that the word: this,[391] could be in the ablative case, and explained as: this, for this; or in the nominative case, meaning: But this same again, add: was done, that the just might be nourished, namely, the children of Israel. Fire[392] did even forget its own strength, namely, by not destroying the fruits of the land of the just, as is clear in Exodus 9:26, where it reads ‘only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, the hail fell not’.[393] And in this way fire forgot the force of its power when the three just men were not harmed in the furnace, as is clear in Daniel 3:49ff.      

(Verse 24). For your[394] creature, namely, any whatever, serving you the Creator, that is, your will, by which you made everything, according to Psalm 113:3 (or 11): ‘God has done all things whatsoever God would’; grows hot,[395] that is, is strongly moved and roused, for their punishment, of torment, against the unjust, that is, your enemies. And abates its strength, that is, becomes harmless or innocuous, for the benefit of them that trust in you, that is, for the just; for creatures obey those who obey God – as is clear in Joshua 10:13, where we read that the sun stood still at the command of Joshua – and rebel against those who rebel against God; so above in Wisdom 5:21: The whole world shall fight with him against the unwise.

Therefore even then it was transformed into all things, and they were devoted to your grace that nourishes all, according to the will of them that desired it of you. Here he touches on the reason for the consolation of the Israelites, firstly, the acknowledgment of the divine gift; secondly, the display of divine worship: For that which could not be destroyed by fire, being warmed with a little sunbeam presently melted away; thirdly, the avoiding of ingratitude: For the hope of the unthankful shall melt away as the winter's ice, and shall run off as unprofitable water.

(Verse 25). Therefore, because the creature was devoted to the Creator, even then, namely, when the children of Israel were fed with manna in the desert, into all things, that is, into the taste of everything that was desired, was transformed, namely, the creature itself, the manna; to your grace that nourishes all, that is, to the generosity of your good will, so that this is understood of uncreated grace; Baruch 4:8: ‘You have grieved Jerusalem  that nursed you’; they were devoted to,[396] that  is, they were obedient; Gloss[397]: ‘Sinners are perplexed by this, because while creatures are devoted to their Creator, they refuse. And so the harmony of all creatures is abused’. I say, they were devoted to the will, needing to be obeyed, of them that desired it of you, namely, loved with a special love like the children of  Israel; Deuteronomy 7:6: ‘The Lord your God has chosen you, to be God’s peculiar people of all peoples that are upon the earth’.

(Verse 26). That your children, might know, namely, the Israelites according to Exodus 4:22: ‘Israel is my firstborn’;[398] Isaiah 1:2: ‘I have brought up children’; O Lord, whom you love, namely, with an eternal and temporal love; Malachi 1:2: ‘I have loved you, says the Lord’. I say, might know that it is not the growing of fruits, that is, not natural fruits, grown in the ground, according to Genesis 1:11: ‘Let the earth bring forth’ etc.; that nourishes us, namely as human beings, that is, in so far as we are different from the beasts, namely, according to the rational power or part of the soul. But your word, that is, created word, namely, your commandment; Matthew 4:4: ‘Not in bread alone do we live, but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’. Or: Word, uncreated, namely, the Son of whom John 17:17 says: ‘Your word is truth’; and John 14:6: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’; preserves them that have believed[399] in you; Deuteronomy 8:3: ‘God gave you manna for your food, which neither you nor your fathers knew, to show that not in bread alone do we live,[400] but in every word that proceeds[401] from the mouth of God’.

(Verse 27). For that which could not be destroyed by fire, namely, the manna, because it became hardened in fire, so that it could be made into cakes, as is clear in Numbers 11:8;[402] being warmed with a little sunbeam presently melted away, that is, became liquid, as is clear in Exodus 16:21.[403] So it was necessary to collect it in the morning.

(Verse 28). That it might be known to all, namely, by this sign, that we ought to prevent the sun, that is, the rising of the sun, to bless you, add: to gain your blessing by receiving and collecting the manna lest with the rising of the sun it liquefies from the heat of the sun; so to gain the blessing of grace it is necessary to prevent the sun by watching early, according to Proverbs 8:17: ‘They that in the morning may have watched for me, shall find me’;[404] Psalm 5:5: ‘In the morning I will stand before you, and will see, because you are not a God that wills iniquity’. And adore you, namely, to receive the manna, at the dawning of the light, that is, immediately the sun rises, or towards the east where the sun rises; I say, towards the east because, as Damascene[405] says, every thing that is better is to be attributed to God; so because the east is the better part of the heavens, so God is to be adored towards the east, according to Psalm 67:33-34: ‘Sing to God, sing  to the Lord, who mounts above the heaven of heavens to the east’.[406]

Note, however, that as the manna melted at the rising of the sun, it prefigured, according to a Gloss,[407] that the old sacrament ceased with the rising of Christ because ‘the end of the law is Christ’, Romans 10:4.

(Verse 29). For the hope of the unthankful shall melt away as the winter's ice, and shall run off as unprofitable water. I have said that it melts in the heat of the sun, and that this is a sign that the hope of the unthankful shall melt away. Or: I have said well that one should adore at the dawning of the light, for receiving this gift, and this should be done to avoid ingratitude something extremely harmful. For the hope of the unthankful, namely, of any wicked person, or especially ‘of the Jewish people’ according to a Gloss,[408] as the winter's ice; Gloss[409]: ‘Held together by the cold of infidelity’, according to Sirach 43:22: ‘The cold north wind blows and the water is congealed into crystal’; melts, that is, liquefies, that is, dissolves by the heat of the sun of justice on the day of judgment either particular or general; Psalm 67:3: ‘As wax melts before  the  fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God’. I say, melts, referring to the punishment of loss, namely, by losing all goods whether owned or hoped for, namely, the goods of grace and glory; and shall run off, that is, torment will be felt in body and soul, and this refers to the punishment of the senses. I say, shall run off as unprofitable water, that is, as useless water that is poured out or thrown out onto the ground; in this way the unthankful is thrown into hell as  something useless, according to Matthew 25:30: ‘The unprofitable servant throw you out into the exterior darkness’. Therefore, the hope of the unthankful shall melt away as the winter's ice, and shall run off as unprofitable water; so above in Wisdom 5:15: For the hope of the wicked is as dust, which is blown away with the wind; also Bernard[410]: ‘Ingratitude is a burning wind, drying up the fount of piety, the dew of mercy, the flowing of grace’.

CHAPTER XVII

 

Secondly, on the punishment of loss

 

For your judgments, O Lord, are great, and your words cannot be expressed; therefore undisciplined souls have erred. After treating of the punishment of the senses, here he deals with the punishment of loss, that is, the withdrawing of light; firstly, he treats of the equity of the punishment of the Egyptians, because they were punished as they deserved; secondly, that it is beyond cure, namely, because it cannot be  altered: For neither did the den that held them, keep them from fear; thirdly, its generality because it applied to all: But they that during that night, in which nothing could be done, and which came upon them from the lowest and deepest hell, slept the same sleep; fourthly, its singularity, because it applied only to the Egyptians: For the whole world was enlightened with a clear light, and none were hindered in their labours.    

The equity is shown from the meritorious cause of their sins, firstly, of a sin against God; secondly, against a neighbour: For while the wicked thought to be able to have dominion over the holy nation; thirdly, against themselves: And while they thought to lie hid in their obscure sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfulness.

(Verse 1). For your judgments, O Lord, are great, and your words cannot be expressed; therefore undisciplined souls have erred. I have said well that the Egyptians were punished, but the Israelites were comforted; for your judgments, O Lord, are great; Gloss[411]: ‘Applied to every creature of the king’; Psalm 35:7: ‘Your judgments are a great deep’. And your words cannot be expressed, namely, by which you teach rational creatures; cannot be expressed, I say, fully; Romans 11:33: ‘O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God’. Therefore; Gloss[412]: ‘Because they did not want to believe in and understand their Creator’, undisciplined souls, that is, incorrigible in their sins; Sirach 20:9: ‘And success in evil things for a person without discipline’;[413] also Jeremiah 5:3: ‘You have struck them and they have not grieved, and they have refused to accept correction’; Psalm 49:17: ‘You, however, have hated discipline’; have erred, from the path of truth; above in Wisdom 5:6: We have erred from the way of truth, of which John 14:6 says: ‘I am the way and the  truth and the life’: way by example, truth in promise, life in reward.

(Verse 2). For while the wicked thought to be able to have dominion over the holy nation, they themselves being fettered with the bonds of darkness, and a long night, shut up in their houses, lay there exiled from the eternal providence. I have said well that they have erred; for while the wicked, namely, the Egyptians, called wicked for their wicked oppression of the Israelites and the drowning of their infants, Exodus 1:14ff.; thought, that is, believed, to be able to have dominion over the holy nation, that is, the children of Israel, who are called the holy nation, because they were the children of Saints, according to Tobit 2:18: ‘We are the children of saints; also, because sanctified by circumcision, and this sanctification is spoken of in Genesis 17:10ff.; thirdly, because by a way of life for those to be  sanctified, according to Leviticus 11:44: ‘Be holy for I  am holy’. With the bonds of darkness, namely, that could be touched as in Egypt, Exodus 10:21; and a long night, that is, a dark time as if it were night; this time was long because for three days no one could see a neighbour, as is clear in the same passage; shut up, namely, by a similar effect because they were not able to go out as if they were shut up; so Exodus 10:22-23: ‘For three days people could not move from the place where they were’;[414] shut up under their roofs, namely, of their homes not daring to go  outside; lay there exiled from the eternal providence, namely, as applied to themselves because they thought to block the deliverance promised by God to the Israelites. Or: exiled etc., that is, wanting to escape the providence of God; something they could not do because it was said above in Wisdom 16:15: It is impossible to escape your hand. They were hidden,[415] that is, they thought to hide, according to Proverbs 14:19: ‘The evil shall fall down before the good’; or they were pleased,[416] namely, in the punishment who had been displeased in sin because by punishment there is a correction of those who became disordered in sin.  

(Verse 3). And while they thought to lie hid, namely, from God punishing them, even though ‘All things are naked and open to God’s eyes’, Hebrews 4:13. I say, to lie hid in their obscure sins, that is, unusual sins that are done especially in obscurity; Ephesians 5:12: ‘For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of’, because, ‘every one that does evil hates the light’, John 3:20; for this reason sins are called ‘works of darkness, Romans 13:12. Under a dark veil of forgetfulness, that is, with the obscurity of darkness covering them and claiming forgetfulness of others, when they were not able to help themselves; they were scattered, namely, one from another, being horribly afraid, that is, with a horrible fear, namely, because of the darkness. And troubled with exceeding great astonishment, namely, because of the unaccustomed novelty of the situation; above in Wisdom 5:2: These seeing it, shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the suddenness of their unexpected salvation; Job 18:20: ‘They that come after him shall be astonished at his day, and horror shall fall upon them that went before’.

For neither did the den that held them, keep them from fear, for noises coming down troubled them, and sad visions appearing to them, affrighted them. Here is shown that the punishment is irreversible, firstly from the place; secondly, from its contrary: And no power of fire could give them light; thirdly, by a craftsman: And the delusions of their magic art were put down, and their boasting of wisdom was reproachfully rebuked.

(Verse 4). For neither did the den that held them etc. I have said well: being horribly afraid etc.; neither did the den that held them, namely, those who fled there on account of the hail and rain and fire. And note, that a singular is used for a plural when he says den, because they did not flee only to one den but to many, and they thought to hide in diverse places; keep them from fear; Gloss[417]: ‘Because horror always accompanies darkness; and the less one sees of what is round about, the more one fears’. For noises coming down, namely, into that pit, noises, I say, either of heavenly thunder or diabolical illusions; troubled, that is, thoroughly troubled them; Job 15:21: ‘The sound of dread is always in their ears’. And sad visions appearing to them.

But how could they be seen in such darkness?      

It can be said that they were not visible to the senses but to the imagination.

Affrighted them, because a Gloss[418] says: ‘It was possible that demons could put some terrible images in them that would frighten them and increase the punishment’, according to Job 7:14: ‘You will frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions’.

And no power of fire could give them light, neither could the bright flames of the stars enlighten that horrible night. Here is shown that the punishment is irreversible, and this from the opposite part, namely, of fire, firstly, because it could not provide help; secondly, because rather it provided harm: But there appeared to them a sudden fire, very dreadful, and being struck with the fear of that face, which was not seen, they thought the things which they saw to be worse.

(Verse 5). He says therefore: And no power of fire could give them light; Hence, they were without lighting from an inferior source; and he says: no power, because there are three kinds of fire, according to the Philosopher,[419] namely, light, flame and coal. Neither could the bright flames, that is, of a given ray, of the constellations, that is, of the stars, enlighten that horrible night; so it is clear that they were without light from a higher source, even though the stars were placed above to brighten the night, Genesis 1:15ff. And it was right that they were without light, because they were rebels against spiritual light; Job 24:13[420]: ‘They have been rebellious to the light’, and so the sun of justice did not rise over them; so above in Wisdom 5:6: The sun of understanding has not risen upon us.

(Verse 6). But there appeared to them, namely, to the Egyptians, a sudden fire, namely, of heavenly flashes, very dreadful, namely, because of the sight of evil objects, namely, lightning; ‘because the more severe the pain, so much the more are horrors feared’.[421] And being struck with the fear,[422] because of the sight of the evils imagined, of that face, which was not seen, that is, of images not seen externally,[423] that the devil sent to increase fear; they thought the things which they saw to be worse, add: than they would be in reality; Job 18:11: ‘Fears shall terrify him on every side, and shall entangle his feet’.

And the delusions of their magic art were put down, and their boasting of wisdom was reproachfully rebuked. Here is shown that it is irreversible by the craftsman, namely, of magical art; and, firstly, the confusion of the magicians is shown; secondly, the substance of the confusion, namely, fear: For they who promised to drive away fears and troubles from a sick soul, were sick themselves of a fear worthy to be laughed at; thirdly, the cause inciting fear externally: For though no terrible thing disturbed them, yet being scared with the passing by of beasts, and hissing of serpents, they died for fear: and denying that they saw the air, which could by no means be avoided; fourthly, the disposition increasing fear internally: For frequently the worst things hold one’s attention, notwithstanding conscience.[424] In that text three things that increase fear are treated, of which the first is remorse of conscience; the second, the unease that follows remorse: a troubled conscience always forecasts grievous things; the third is the distrust of help caused by both: For fear is nothing else but a yielding up of the succours from thought.

(Verse 7). And of their magic art, that is, of the magicians themselves, were put down, namely, the evils mentioned above, the delusions, namely, in  this that they tried to get rid of these evils but could not; so they were extremely afraid; Exodus 8:19: ‘This is the finger of God’. And their boasting of wisdom,[425] that is, the boasting of the magicians over their wisdom, reproachfully rebuked, add: was, that is, the reason for their reproachful rebuke; Proverbs 11:2: ‘Where pride is, there also shall be reproach’; Jeremiah 9:23: ‘Let not the wise glory in their wisdom’.

 (Verse 8). And I have said well that they were rebuked with reproach; for they, namely, the magicians, who promised to drive away, namely, by their magical skills, fears, namely, interior, and troubles, namely, external, from a sick soul, namely, sick from fear and trouble; were sick themselves of a fear, in themselves, worthy to be laughed at, by others. So the words of Luke 4:23 can be applied to each of them: ‘Doctor, cure yourself’; Proverbs 25:14: ‘Like clouds and wind without rain is one who boasts of a gift never given’.

(Verse 9). For though no terrible thing, that is, with images appearing or the miracles of Moses, disturbed them, namely, because they were accustomed to terrible things, just as Balaam was not afraid when the ass spoke, as is clear in Numbers 22:29. With the passing by, however, of beasts, namely, sudden and violent, namely, of bears and lions and suchlike, and hissing of serpents,[426] which they could not see, being scared, namely, internally; for fear, namely, externally, they died, namely, languishing away because of the aforesaid; Deuteronomy 28:65-66: ‘The Lord will give you a fearful heart, and languishing eyes, and a soul consumed with pensiveness, and you shall fear night and day’.[427] And, that is, also, denying that they saw, because of the darkness that could be touched, the air, which could by no means be avoided, namely, because of the need to breathe in and breathe out.

(Verse 10). For frequently the worst things hold one’s attention,[428] by thinking and waiting before an event, the worst things, namely, punishments imposed for sins; he says the worst things, because they are evils in life, worse in death, and worst after death; or: innate evils, worse those inflicted by another person, but the worst are inflicted by God; for this reason Hebrews 10:31 says: ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God’. Notwithstanding conscience, according to Jeremiah 2:19: ‘Your own malice shall reprove you’. For whereas wickedness is fearful, that is, it is associated with fear, so that evil always follows sin or evil accompanies punishment;[429] so just as ‘perfect charity excludes fear’, as stated in 1 John 4:18;[430] so wickedness causes or induces it; Psalm 13:5: ‘There have they trembled for fear, where there is no fear’; also Leviticus 26:36: ‘The sound of a flying leaf shall terrify them’; it bears witness of its condemnation, namely, against the one responsible; so  Romans 2:15: ‘Their conscience bearing witness’, namely, of the one responsible, that is, testifies that such a one is worthy of condemnation; so above in Wisdom 5:4: We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honour; also  Genesis 42:1: ‘We deserve to suffer these things because we have sinned against our brother’. Others[431] have: witness is given in condemnation of all. For a troubled conscience, troubled by sin or with remorse for sin, always forecasts, that is, suspects before they happen, grievous things, that is, annoying things yet to happen; so Cain says, Genesis 4:14: ‘Everyone, therefore, that finds me, shall kill me’.

(Verse 11). For fear is nothing else but a yielding up of the helps from thought. Note that this is a causal statement, not a statement of an essence; for fear is not a presumption but is caused by a presumption, that is, a presumed suspicion of future evil.[432] So here he describes fear in two ways: firstly, by its cause which is a presumption of a future evil; secondly, by its effect which is a yielding up or manifestation of a thought of diminishing help. For fear is nothing else but a yielding up of help,[433] that is, a presumption or suspicion of future evil or of what is to happen and that promotes fear, and a yielding up of the thought of help, namely, of those weakening, that is, a thought proclaiming a lack of help both to the one who is fearful and to others, namely, those who notice the person’s fear and are unable to help. So this fear makes one call out asking for help, as is clear in Peter who, when he began to sink, called out and said: ‘Lord, save me’, Matthew 14:30.

(Verse 12). And while there is less expectation, that is, hope or confidence, from within, namely in the mind, because justice is absent and justice makes the just confident and secure, according to Proverbs 28:1: ‘The just, bold as a lion, shall be without dread’. The greater does it regard the power,[434] that is, they ponder its greater power to harm, of that cause, namely, frightful, which brings the torment, that is, is close to one because a lack of greater hope and confidence increases a fear that makes one suspicious an evil is more imminent than it is.

According to a Gloss,[435] there is another interpretation of the text: for a troubled conscience always forecasts grievous things; as if to say: rightly does wickedness bear witness of its condemnation: that is, it is lifted up to cause grievous things for others; a troubled conscience, that is, an angry conscience, not tranquil; for meaning but. For fear is nothing else but a yielding up of the helps from thought, that is, a medicine by repressing the impulse of this presumption, and a yielding up, that is, a manifestation, of the helps of thought, that is, of a weak thought that lifts itself up by presuming beforehand that it does not need help. And while there is less expectation from within, that is, a lesser power of a harmful nature is hoped for[436] by which one is being punished, namely, externally; the greater does it regard the power, that is, the power to harm oneself than is actually the case.

But they that during that night, in which nothing could be done, and which came upon them from the lowest and the deepest, slept the same sleep. Here is shown the generality of the punishment, firstly, from the point of view of time; secondly, from the point of view of the persons afflicted: Moreover if any of them had fallen down, he was kept shut up in prison without irons; thirdly, from the point of view of the causes: Whether it were a whistling wind, or the melodious voice of birds, among the spreading branches of trees, or a fall of water running down with violence.

(Verses 13 and 14). As if to say: the magicians were terrified in this way; but they, namely, the Egyptians, during that night, in which nothing could be done, that is, strong night because it was very dark, long and there was no escape into light; from the lowest, namely, from the rising of the vapours and of the heavier fumes obscuring the atmosphere; and the deepest,[437] from a lack of brightness in the heavenly bodies, which came, that is, coming over them, slept, because just as one slept, so did another, and not better, the same sleep, that is, common. - Were sometimes molested with the fear of monsters, that is, of monstrous images appearing to them in sleep; Job 7:14: ‘You will frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions’. Sometimes fainted away, their soul failing them, that is, as if they were soon to leave their bodies, and this by watching as if they were already awakened; because, as a Gloss[438] says, ‘neither watching nor sleeping could  they find rest because they were surrounded by horrible monsters and visions and extreme terror’. For a sudden, that is, unexpected, and unlooked for, that is, unforeseen because quickly and unexpectedly, fear was come upon them, that is, from above by divine judgment; Isaiah 47:11: ‘Misery shall come upon you suddenly which you shall not know’.

(Verse 15). Moreover, namely, apart from the aforementioned evils, if any of them, namely, the Egyptians, had fallen down, namely into a pit or some such place, he was kept shut up in prison, that is, being unable to go out of there, without irons, because all were constrained by the bond of darkness, as is clear above on verse 2.

(Verse 6). For if anyone was a husbandman, that is, a worker of the land, or a shepherd, of animals, or a labourer in the field, such as a reaper or vintager, and was suddenly overtaken, namely, outside his houses by that darkness, he endured a necessity from which he could not fly, namely, for need and affliction, because for three days no one moved from the place where he was, as is clear in Exodus 10:23.[439]

(Verses 17 and 18). For they were all bound together, that is, bound at the one time, with one, that is, a common, chain of darkness, namely, exterior darkness. But not only a chain of exterior darkness but interior, namely, of infidelity and sins; so Proverbs 5:22: One ‘is bound fast with the ropes of one’s own sins’; also Psalm 118:61: ‘The cords of the wicked have encompassed me’. For whether it were a whistling wind, or the melodious voice of birds, among the spreading branches of trees, or a fall of water running down with violence. I have said well that they bore necessity, for whether it were a wind whispering to itself, that is ‘a whistling of a gentle air’, 1 Kings 19:12; or the melodious voice of birds, among the spreading branches of trees, that is, a song, melodious, melodious, in so far as it was suitable in itself to delight rather than to terrify; or a fall of water running down with violence, that is running strongly just as the waters of torrents run. - Or the mighty noise of stones tumbling down,[440] that is, falling unforeseen from high places, or the running that could not be seen of beasts playing together, namely, because of the thickness of the darkness, of animals, namely, of gentle animals such as beasts of burden; or the roaring voice of wild beasts, that is, of untamed animals, bears, lions or suchlike; or a rebounding echo from the highest mountains, that is, a repetition of the voice of animals caused by being echoed back by the mountains or rocks; these things made them to swoon for fear, namely, evrything stated above; so a Gloss[441]: ‘The unfortunate people were tormented on every side; for whatever they perceived by their ears, or eyes, or by any of the senses, they feared it as something dangerous’.

Note, however, that the aforementioned chain, speaking in a moral sense, represents the progress and connection of sins, of which Isaiah 58:9 says: ‘If you will take away the chain out of the midst of you’. A whistling wind represents a secret suggestion of the devil; Revelation 16:13: ‘And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs go out[442] from the mouth of the dragon and from the mouth of the beast and from the mouth of the false prophet’. The melodious voice of birds represents a pleasure in thoughts; Zephaniah 2:14: ‘The voice of the singing bird in the window’. A fall of water running down represents consent to commit a sin, against which Sirach 25:34 [25] says: ‘Give no outlet to your water, no, not a little’. The mighty noise of stones tumbling down represents the external action of a sin; Job 14:18: ‘A mountain falling comes to nought and a rock is removed out of its place’. The running that could not be seen of beasts playing together represents a depraved custom; Job 40:15: ‘There all the beasts of the earth shall play’.[443] The roaring voice of wild beasts represents an open glorying in a sin committed against what Psalm 51:3 says: ‘Why do you glory in malice?’ A rebounding echo represents a remembering of a pleasurable sin; Numbers 11:5: ‘We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt’.

For the whole world was made bright with a bright light, and none were hindered in their labours. Here the singularity of punishment is treated; and because ‘when opposites are placed together they become clearer’,[444] he treats, firstly, the illumination of others; secondly, the darkness of the Egyptians: But over them only was spread a heavy night; thirdly, that the darkness was deserved: But they were more grievous darkness.

(Verse 19). I have said well that the Egyptians and not others were bound by the bonds of darkness; for the whole world, namely, except for the land of Egypt, was made bright[445] with a bright, ‘that is, clear’,[446] light, namely, of the sun and of the heavenly lights although elsewhere there were many sinners in the world; Matthew 5:45: ‘The Father makes the sun to rise upon the good and bad’. And none were hindered, that is, held back, in their labours, a light through the thickness of the dark; or in another way: none were hindered, none except the Egyptians from a lack of light since elsewhere there was a brightness of light[447] necessary for work; so John 9:4: ‘Work while it is day, the night comes when no one can work’.[448]

(Verse 20). But over them only, namely, the Egyptians, was spread, namely, by God, a heavy night, because it was darker and longer than usual; Job 37:19: ‘For we are wrapped in darkness’. Night, I say, being, an image, that is, an exact copy, of that darkness, namely, of eternal darkness, which, namely, the image of darkness, that is, of the imagined darkness, was to come upon them, namely, in hell; so Matthew 25:30: ‘The unprofitable  servant cast you into the exterior darkness’; also Job 10:22: ‘A land of misery and darkness where the shadow of death and no order but everlasting horror dwells’. And because they, not unjustly, suffered such deep darkness, they were more grievous darkness,[449] that is, because of more grievous darkness, add:  which they suffered, that is, the darkness to come over them in hell; so Job 34:25: ‘He knows their works and therefore he shall bring night on them and they shall be destroyed’. Or: they were more grievous darkness, that is, more dangerous from blindness of heart’; their own malice blinded them, above in Wisdom 2:21; Ephesians 5:8: ‘You were darkness before’; some texts have: more grievous than darkness, namely, exterior darkness from remorse of conscience.

 

CHAPTER XVIII

 

Secondly, on punishments inflicting death

 

However your saints. After dealing with the punishments preceding death, here he treats of the punishments bringing on death; and, firstly, on the killing of their firstborn in Egypt, namely, in this chapter; secondly, on their drowning in the Red Sea, namely, in the last chapter.

 

On the killing of the f irstborn in Egypt

 

In the first part he treats, firstly, of a commendation of the Hebrews who were oppressed; secondly, how their deliverance was a just punishment on the Egyptians who oppressed them: The others indeed were worthy to be deprived of light, and imprisoned in darkness, who kept your children shut up, by whom the pure light of the law was to be given to the world; thirdly, the grave temptation of the Hebrews in the desert after their deliverance: But the just also were afterwards touched by an assault of death, and there was a disturbance of the multitude in the wilderness, but your wrath did not long continue.

 

Firstly, a commendation of the Hebrews

 

In the commendation four things are considered: firstly, the display of the divine gift; secondly, thanksgiving for the display of the divine gift: And because they also did not suffer the same things, they glorified you; thirdly,[450] a prayer for the continuation of the gift: and asked this gift, that there might be a difference; fourthly, that their prayer is heard: Therefore they received a burning pillar of fire for a guide of the way which they knew not, and you gave them a harmless sun of a good entertainment.

(Verse 1). However your saints had a very great light, and they heard their voice indeed, but did not see their shape. And because they also did not suffer the same things, they glorified you. The Egyptians were in darkness in this way: however, for but; your saints; namely, the Israelites, according to Leviticus 11:44: ‘Be holy’; a very great light, because the light was exterior and physical; so Exodus 10:23: ‘Wheresoever the children of Israel dwelt there was light’;[451] also an interior, spiritual light; so a Gloss[452]: ‘Your saints, that is, the Israelites who were illumined by faith and purity of conscience’; 1 Thessalonians 5:5: ‘All you are the children of light’; also a higher heavenly light; John 1:9: ‘That was the true light that enlightens everyone who comes into this world’; also Malachi 4:2: ‘Unto you that fear my name, the sun of justice shall arise’. And they, namely, the saints, the enemy heard their voice, namely, of human conversation or divine praise, indeed, but did not see their shape, namely, because of the impeding darkness.

But contra: Because one who is in darkness can see one who is in light, but not the contrary.

It has to be said that this is true provided there be no impediment in their eye, or in the medium itself. But there was an impediment in the eye of those looking, because they were afflicted with blindness, and they were in the middle of darkness that was thick and could be touched.[453]

And, that is, also, because they, namely the saints, also did not suffer from the same things,[454] that is, the same plagues, according to a Gloss;[455] they glorified you, namely, by giving praise; Luke 1:46: ‘My soul does glorify the Lord’; Sirach 43:35: ‘Who shall magnify the Lord as the Lord is from the beginning?’

(Verse 2). And they that before had been wronged, namely, by Pharaoh oppressing and whipping them, as is clear in Exodus 1:10ff.[456] Gave thanks to you,[457] because they were not hurt now, namely, by the plagues inflicted by God; Isaiah 51:3: ‘Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of praise’. And that there might be a difference, namely, between them and the Egyptians, they entreated you, O God,[458] or: prayed to you, O God, according to Psalm 42:1: ‘Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy’, just as Abraham entreated lest the just be treated like the unjust, Genesis 18:23.[459] Or: a difference, namely, diversity; this was given to the Israelites when ‘the angel[460] stood behind, between the Egyptian’s camp and the camp of Israel’, as is clear in Exodus 14:19-20.

(Verse 3). Therefore, because they were grateful for the gift received, they prayed together; they received a burning pillar of fire, namely, at night, as is clear in Exodus 13:21-22; for a guide of the way which they knew not, namely, through the desert, and a harmless sun, along the way; a sun, I say, of a good entertainment, add: a guide at the end of the way; you gave;[461] a harmless sun, I say, by day, and this with the column of cloud tempering the heat of the sun, as is clear in Exodus 10:21-22 and above in Wisdom 10:17: She was to them for a covering by day, and for the light of stars by night, so that they came to the place in which they could be suitably welcomed and pitch their tents; Isaiah 4:5: ‘The Lord will create upon every place of mount Zion, and where the Lord is called upon, a cloud by day’; and further on in verse 6: ‘there shall be a tabernacle for a shade in the daytime from the heat’.

 

Secondly, the just punishment of the Egyptians

 

The others indeed were worthy to be deprived of light. Here the just punishment of the Egyptians oppressing the Israelites is shown; and, firstly, the punishment common to all is treated as if by summing up; secondly, especially of those killed: And whereas they thought to kill the babes of the just; thirdly, especially of those living and watching: But on the other side there sounded an ill according cry of the enemies; fourthly, of the living who were asleep: For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course.

(Verse 4). The others indeed were worthy, namely, the Egyptians were, add: to be deprived of light, as a privation of the senses, and imprisoned in darkness, as a privation of movement; who kept your holy children shut up, by whom the pure light of the law was to be given to the world, by not allowing them to leave the land of Egypt; Exodus 5:2: ‘I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go’. Your holy children,[462] namely, the Israelites who believed in you; John 1:12: ‘He gave them power to be made the children of God, to them that believe in his name’; by whom, namely, by the preparation of that people to receive the Law because it was not yet given; the pure light of the law was to be given to the world. Note that the Law is sometimes called light because it enlightens the mind; Proverbs 6:23: ‘The command-ment is a law, and the law a light’; pure because it purifies or guards the affections from corruption, according to Psalm 11:7: ‘The word of the Lord is as silver tried by the fire, purged by the earth, refined seven times’.

And whereas they thought to kill the babes of the just, one child being cast forth, and saved, to reprove them, you took away a multitude of their children, and destroyed them all together in a mighty water. Here is treated, firstly, the striking of the firstborn of Egypt; secondly, the foreknowledge of the striking: For that night was known before by our fathers; thirdly, the escape of the Hebrews: So your people received the salvation of the just, and destruction of the unjust; fourthly, the reason for the escape: For the just children of good men were offering sacrifice secretly, and they unanimously ordered a law of justice, that the just should receive both good and evil alike, singing now the praises of the fathers.

(Verse 5). Whereas they thought, namely, the Egyptians, to kill the babes, not only as a simple plan, but also as a work to be put in progress, of the just, that is, of the Hebrews, as is clear in Exodus 1:15ff. One child, namely, Moses, being cast forth, namely, by the mother, and saved, namely, by the daughter of Pharaoh, as is clear in Exodus 2:2ff. To reprove them, that is, the punishment of the Egyptians, or: to reprove them, that is, the Hebrews so as to lead them freed by Moses from Egypt. You took away a multitude of their children,[463] that is, all the firstborn, Exodus 12:29. And destroyed them, namely, their Egyptian parents, all together, that is, at the one time, in a mighty water, namely, by drowning them in the Red Sea, Exodus 14:28: ‘Neither did there so much as one of them remain’, and Exodus 15:10: ‘They sank as lead in the mighty waters’.

(Verse 6). For; for used for but; that night, namely, when the first born were slain, was known before by our fathers, namely, to Abraham and others; so Genesis 15:13: ‘Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years’; or: to the Israelites themselves in Egypt, with Moses prophesying to them, as is clear in Exodus 2:21ff. That assuredly, that is, with certitude, knowing what oaths they had trusted to, that is, what firm promises of God; Genesis 22:16: ‘By my own self have I sworn, says the Lord’; also Hebrews 6:18: ‘That by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have the strongest comfort’; they might be of better courage, namely, while waiting for the carrying out of the oath.

(Verse 7). So your people received, namely, on that night, or, according to a Gloss[464]: ‘The Law of the Passover’, on that night, as if for a great gift, your people, namely, the Israelite people, as is clear in Exodus 12:28 where it is said: ‘All the children of Israel did as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron’;[465] the salvation of the just, for by it the Israelites were saved from the destroying Angel; as is clear in Exodus 12:23; and destruction, that is, death by the destroying Angel, of the unjust, namely, of the  Egyptians, Exodus 12:29.

(Verse 8).  For as you punished our[466] adversaries, namely, for their sin of killing, so you also encouraged, add: to better things, namely, of faith and acceptance of the Law; Deuteronomy 32:11: ‘As an eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them, the Lord spread his wings, and has taken him and carried him on his shoulders’; and glorified us, namely, by wonderfully delivering us from that destruction.

(Verse 9). For secretly, namely, out of fear of the Egyptians, according to a Gloss;[467] were offering sacrifice, namely, by sacrificing the Pasch, as is clear in Exodus 12:3ff.[468] The just children[469] of good people, namely, of the Israelites, with their parents, for which reason they merited to be delivered and the firstborn of the Egyptians slain. And they unanimously ordered a law of justice, namely, given with the sacrifice of the Pasch, and it was just because it represented the justification to be effected by the death of Christ; also it was called[470] a law because its observance was binding for that time. They unanimously ordered, that is, undertook together and intended to fulfil[471] and implement; so in Psalm 49:5: ‘Gather to me my faithful ones who made a covenant with me by sacrifice’.[472] That the just, namely, themselves, should receive both, that is, equally, good[473] and evil alike, that is, things fair and adverse; say again: ordered, whatever God might want to happen; Job 2:10: ‘If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?’ Also Luke 16:25: ‘You received good things in your lifetime, and Lazarus likewise evil things’. Singing,[474] that is, devoutly singing, now the paternal[475] praises, that is, instituted and celebrated by the fathers, praising God by giving praise for evil things, such as punishments, and for good things such as grace, or fortune, or nature; Psalm 33:2: ‘The Lord’s praise shall always be in my mouth’; always, that is, not only in prosperity but also in adversity.

But on the other side there sounded an ill according cry of the enemies, and a lamentable mourning was heard for the children that were bewailed. Here the punishment of the Egyptians who were living and watching is treated, namely, distress over the death of their firstborn; and, firstly, the topic of distress is treated; secondly, the value of mourning: And the servant suffered the same punishment as the master, and a common person suffered in like manner as the king; thirdly, the cause of its universality: So all alike had innumerable dead, with one kind of death; fourthly, the ensuing effect: For whereas they would not believe anything before by reason of the enchantments, then first upon the destruction of the firstborn, they acknowledged the people to be of God.

(Verse 10). I have said that paternal praises were sung; But on the other side there sounded, namely, strongly through the whole land of Egypt, an ill according cry of the enemies, that is, the voice of the Egyptians horrible to hear; Exodus 12:30: ‘There arose a great cry in Egypt’; and a lamentable mourning was heard, that is, weeping with beating; there was a cry of the voice and weeping of the eyes and a banging of hands; I say, a lamentable mourning for the children, that is, by the infants or for the infants, for whom they lamented, according to Jeremiah 6:26: ‘Make mourning for an only son, a bitter lamentation’.

(Verse 11). However, the servant suffered the same punishment, in the one house, as the master, that is the loss of the firstborn; and a common person suffered in like manner as the king, namely, throughout the whole land of Egypt, Exodus 12:29: ‘Struck[476] every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive woman that was in the prison’; Isaiah 24:30: ‘It shall be as with the people, so with the priest, and as with the servant, so with his  master’.

(Verse 12). So all alike, that is the greater, the lower and the ordinary people, namely, king Pharaoh and all his lords and their servants; had innumerable dead, all the firstborn, dead, I say, with one kind of death, namely one type because by a divine plague. And I have said well: all, because ‘there was not[477] a house wherein there lay not one dead’, as in Exodus 12:30. Neither were the living sufficient to bury them; for in one moment the noblest offspring of them was destroyed. And I have said well: innumerable; neither were the living sufficient to bury them, namely, the dead; Jeremiah 16:6: ‘The great and the little shall die and shall not be buried’ etc.[478] For in one moment, namely, in one hour of the night, the noblest offspring of them, that is, all the firstborn who are superior to the other children, were destroyed, that is, killed by the destroying Angel, as is clear in Exodus 12:29.

(Verse 13). For whereas they, as if to say: and so the firstborn were rightly put to death; for whereas they, that is, for all the plagues previously inflicted, would not believe, namely, the Egyptians, anything before by reason of the gifts,[479] namely, given to them by stopping all the plagues, as is clear in Exodus, chapters seven, eight, nine, ten and twelve. Then[480] first upon the destruction of the firstborn, namely, in the last plague, they acknowledged the people to be of God,[481] that is, they promised that they would observe God’s command which was to release the children of Israel; for then they released them as is clear in Exodus 12:31. Or: they acknowledged etc., that is, they promised that if they were freed they would believe in the God of the Hebrews; Isaiah 26:16: ‘Lord, they have sought after you in distress’; Psalm 77:34: ‘When God slew them then they sought God’.

For while all things were enclosed[482] in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course. After dealing with the affliction of those waiting for the death of the firstborn, here he treats of the affliction of those who were sleeping; and he treats, firstly, of the cause of the affliction; secondly, of the punishment: Then suddenly visions of evil dreams troubled them, and fears unlooked for came upon them.

(Verses 14 and 15). I have said well: Then first upon the destruction of the firstborn; for meaning because; while all things were enclosed in quiet silence; the silence, namely, of night which was given for rest just as the day is for working; so 1 Thessalonians 5:7: ‘They that sleep, sleep in the night’. And the night was in the midst of her course, that is, when it was midnight; so Exodus 12:29: ‘And it came to pass at midnight’; and this was so as to be unexpected. - Your almighty word, O Lord,[483] that is, or decision and command; so Hebrews 4:12: ‘The word of God is living and effectual’, namely, because of the impossibility of resistance, leapt down from heaven, he says leapt down from the speed, from heaven, that is, in the destroying Angel, from the royal throne, namely, your royal throne, that is, from the company of the Angels among whom you reign and sit; Psalm 79:2: ‘You who are enthroned upon the Cherubim’. Or: leapt down from heaven, namely, sent by you who live in heaven: ‘All ministering spirits sent to minister to them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation’, Hebrews 1:14; came as a fierce, that is, an implacable, conqueror, namely, of the Egyptians because of their stubbornness; leapt down, suddenly, into the midst of the land of destruction, that is, into the land of Egypt to put the firstborn to death’.

(Verse 16). A sharp sword, that is, of a sharp sword to carry out the duty of killing the firstborn; Hebrews 4:12: ‘The word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two-edged sword’; also Ephesians 6:17: ‘The sword of the Spirit which is the word of God’. Therefore, a sharp sword, in its ready ability to harm, carrying your unfeigned commandment, that is, not false, but your true command and power, because ‘there is no power but from God’, Romans 13:1. Therefore, it is called an unfeigned commandment because of the divine authority, and he stood, because the sentence was immoveable. Filled all things with death, that is, the whole land of Egypt with the dead firstborn. ‘There was not a house wherein there lay not one dead’, as is clear in Exodus 12:30. Therefore, he says: Filled all things with death, because of the universality of this plague.

But there is the objection that Exodus 12:12 says: ‘I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt’ etc., and, therefore, he was not standing: so it is wrong to say: he stood etc.

But it has to be said that this standing, of which he speaks here, is the opposite of going away from the land of Egypt, not of movement through the land. So he means to say that the Angel carrying out the word or command given to kill the firstborn stood in the land of Egypt so that no one was killed outside Egypt; but he does not mean to say without moving through Egypt from house to house.

And standing on the earth reached even to heaven, namely, seemed to reach because of what was inevitable, namely, lest anyone escape; Psalm 138:8: ‘If I ascend into heaven, you are there’. Or: even to heaven, he says this because the Angel was contemplating in heaven, serving on earth, according to Bede[484]: ‘They run within God wherever they are sent’; Matthew 18:10: ‘Their angels’, namely, their assistants, ‘in heaven always see’, by contemplation, ‘the face of my Father who is in heaven’.

In an allegorical sense, the coming of Christ into flesh is described here for he is called the almighty word of God by eternal generation, according to John 1:1: ‘In the beginning was the Word’; but he came from heaven from your royal throne by a temporal assuming of flesh; Psalm 18:7: ‘His going out is from the end of heaven’; in the middle silence of the night, because of the suitability of the time; Galatians 4:4: ‘But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent the Son, made of a woman’. The first silence was under the law of nature due to an ignorance of weakness; the second, under the law of Moses due to the hopelessness of health; the third, under the law of grace due to the adoption of salvation.[485] As a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction, namely, because of the storming of the demons; Luke 11:21-22: ‘When a strong man armed keeps his court, those things are in peace which he possesses. But if a stronger than he come upon him and overcomes him, he will take away all his armour wherein he trusted, and will distribute his spoils’. Into the midst of the land of destruction, that is, in the middle of the world because of the place on the earth in which he was born; Psalm 73:12: ‘He has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth’. Carrying the commandment of God with him, because he shares the all powerful Deity with the Father; John 1:1 and 14: ‘And the Word was God’, namely, he of whom he adds: ‘And the Word was made flesh’; also Matthew 28:18: ‘All power is given to me in heaven and in earth’. To have filled all things with death, on account of the completion of all things in his death, according to John 19:30: ‘It is consummated’. Standing on the earth to have reached heaven, because while in the condition of a pilgrim he had a continuous enjoyment of God; John 3:13: ‘No one has ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven’.

(Verse 17). Then suddenly, namely, at the very hour of the killing, visions of evil dreams, that is, terrible dreams, troubled them, namely, those sleeping; Gloss[486]: ‘Rest was given neither to  those watching nor to those sleeping’. And fears unlooked for, that is, unexpected, came upon, namely, upon them; Job 7:14: ‘You will frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions’; Job 4:13-14: ‘In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to hold people, fear seized upon me’.

(Verse 18). And one thrown here, namely, than another, half dead, that is, at the end of life; and so showed the cause of death, namely, by pointing out to others, as he or she was able, that is, that it came from the hardness of a heart rebelling against the God of the Hebrews and against Moses, God’s servant; Romans 2:5: ‘According to your hardness and impenitent heart’.

(Verse 19). For the visions, namely, in the dreams, that troubled them foreshowed these things, namely, the cause of heir death. Lest they should perish and not know why they suffered these evils, and so because of ignorance they could be excused for their impenitence; Isaiah 28:19: ‘Vexation will make you understand what you hear’; Gregory: ‘Punishment opens the eyes that sin closes’.[487]  

 

Thirdly, the grave temptation of the Hebrews

 

However, the just also were then touched by an assault of death, and there was a disturbance of the multitude in the wilderness, but your wrath did not long continue. Here the grave temptation of the Hebrews in the desert after their deliverance is added; and he shows, firstly, the danger on the part of those being tempted; secondly, how they were delivered from Pharaoh: For a blameless man made haste to pray for the people etc.; thirdly, the cause or power delivering from the point of view of the priestly robe: For in the priestly robe which he wore, was the whole world; fourthly, the effect achieved by the destroying Angel: And to these the destroyer gave place, and was afraid of them, for the proof only of wrath was enough. 

(Verse 20). However, the just also etc. In this way the Egyptians were punished but not only them; however for but; were then touched; then, is used in a broad sense so that the meaning is: Then, namely, at that time, when they left Egypt and set out through the desert, the just also were touched, namely, the children of Israel. He says touched, because the assault of death, that is, leading to death, did not remain a long time nor was it in all. And there was a disturbance of the multitude in the wilderness, namely, against Moses and Aaron, so that they fled to the tabernacle of the Lord, as is clear in Numbers 16:41-43. But your wrath did not long continue: Habakkuk 3:2: ‘When you are angry, you will remember mercy’.

For a blameless man made haste to pray for the people, bringing forth the shield of his ministry, prayer, and by incense making supplication, withstood the wrath, and put an end to the calamity, showing that he was your servant. Here he treats of the triple way in which they were delivered, namely, by praying devoutly; secondly, by remembering the promises to the fathers: And he overcame the disturbance, not by strength of body nor with force of arms, but with a word he subdued him that punished them, alleging the oaths and covenant made with the fathers; thirdly, by personally putting himself between them: For when they were now fallen down dead by heaps one upon another, he stood between and stayed the assault, and cut off the way to the living.

(Verse 21). He says, therefore: For a blameless man etc. I have said well that your wrath did not long continue; for a blameless man made haste, namely, Aaron; so Numbers 16:47: ‘When Aaron had heard[488] this, and had run to the midst of the multitude which the burning fire was now destroying, he offered the incense, and standing between the dead and the living, he prayed for the people and the plague ceased’; made haste, indicating by this the fervour of his heart, blameless, his holy way of life, to pray for the people etc. God listens to such a person, not to sinners; so John 9:31: ‘God does not hear sinners’; Gregory[489]: ‘When one who is displeasing is sent to intercede, the spirit of an angry person is provoked to worse things’; to pray for the people; intercession properly aims to remove evil, but prayer aims to gain good things, or commonly one is used for the other.[490] Bringing forth the shield of his ministry, prayer, and by incense making supplication, withstood the wrath, and put an end to the calamity, showing that he was your servant. Prayer is called a shield because it protects; Ezekiel 22:30: ‘I sought among them for a man that might set up a hedge and stand in the gap before me’. It is said of his ministry because he was bound to this service by his priestly office; so Hebrews 5:1: ‘Every high priest taken from among men, is ordained for people’; and later in 1:3 he adds: ‘Therefore, he ought, as for the people, so also for himself to offer for sins’.

Note that in a spiritual sense the shield can be called faith; so Ephesians 6:16: ‘In all things taking the shield of faith’; it can also be called the word of God; so Proverbs 30:5: ‘Every word’ of the Lord, or ‘of God, is a shield to them that hope in God’. Also, prayer; so here: bringing forth prayer the shield of his ministry. Also, equity; so above in Wisdom 5:20: He will take equity for an invincible shield. Also, alms; so Sirach 29:16-18: ‘Better than the shield of the mighty, and better than the spear, it shall fight for you against your enemy’. Also, patience; 2 Samuel 1:21: ‘There was cast away the shield of the valiant and the sword of Saul did not return empty’. Also, obedience, of which 1 Maccabees 14:24 says: ‘This is the golden shield of Simon of a thousand pounds’.[491]

 And by incense, that, by offering incense, making supplication, that is, hastening by being commissioned; Numbers 16:47-48: ‘He offered the incense and standing between the dead and the living, he prayed for the people’.[492] Note that prayer is used for remission of sin, intercession for the removal of punishment, incense for reconciliation with an offended judge. I say, a blameless man hastening withstood the wrath, that is, the divine strike. And put an end to the calamity, that is, to the inevitable human affliction. Showing, namely, by action, not only by word, that he was your servant, according to John 10:11: ‘The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep’; Sirach 45:20: ‘He chose him out of all men living to offer sacrifice to God, incense, and a good savour, for a memorial to make reconciliation for his people’. On the contrary, the Lord complained of bad prelates in Ezekiel 13:5: ‘You have not gone up to face the enemy, nor have you set up a wall for the house of Israel’.

(Verse 22). However, he overcame the disturbance, that is, the people disturbed by dividing and penetrating, not by armour of strength,[493] as Samson over the Philistines, Judges 15:15ff.; nor with force of arms, namely, the armour of a powerful and strong person, like David with Goliath, 1 Samuel 17:49ff.; 1 Maccabees 3:19: ‘The success of war is not in strength of arms’. But with a word, namely, of devout prayer, he subdued him that punished them, namely, the Angel killing the people which he regarded as his vexation, according to the text: ‘Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is scandalized and I am not on fire?, according to 2 Corinthians 11:29. The oaths of the Fathers and the covenant,[494] that is, the promise made to the Fathers to give them the promised land in perpetuity; Genesis 12:7: ‘To your seed I will give this land’; alleging, namely, in his prayer.

(Verse 23). For when etc., as if to say: I have said well that he overcame the disturbance; for when they were now fallen down dead by heaps one upon another, that is, when the dead lay one upon another in heaps; he stood between, that is, he stood between the living and the dead; so Numbers 16:48: ‘He stood between the living and the dead’.[495] And stayed the assault, namely, of the fire consuming them; Hebrews 11:34: ‘Quenched the violence of fire’; and cut off the way to the living, namely, by placing himself in the fire in the middle of the way lest the fire cross from the dead to the living.

For in the priestly robe which he wore, was the whole world: and in the four rows of the stones the glory of the fathers was graven, and your majesty was written upon the diadem of his head. Here he treats of the causes of the deliverance and, firstly, from the point of view of the priest; secondly, from the point of view of the exterminating Angel: And to these the destroyer gave place, and was afraid of them, for the proof only of wrath was enough.

(Verse 24). For in the priestly robe etc, as if to say: and so he was able to do what has been said; for in the priestly robe, that is, in a hyacinth-coloured tunic reaching to the ankles, ‘at the extremity of which were little bells and pomegranates’, Exodus 28:33-34.[496] Or according to Josephus, both the inside and outside of all the clothing of the high priest - priestly, is a linen vesture reaching down to the feet, and so it is named from the Greek word podos which means in Latin of the foot, and so a priestly robe clings as it were to the feet – in the priestly robe is understood what is seen more accurately in what follows.[497] In the priestly robe, I say, which he wore, namely Aaron, was the whole world, namely, depicted as in a sign, as a Gloss[498] says: ‘The Hebrews think of cotton as belonging to the earth because it comes from the earth; purple as belonging to the sea because its colour is tinted by its shells; hyacinth as belonging to the atmosphere because of their similarity in colour; the scarlet colour belonging to fire and the upper world, namely, that the priest might pray for the whole world; if indeed the word is made up of earth, water, fire and air’.

But according to the explanation of the hyacinth-coloured tunic it is asked: how was the whole world depicted on it? For if it was completely of hyacinth-colour, it does not seem that anything was depicted on it other than air.

It has to be said that although the body of the tunic was of a hyacinth-colour, in its extremities some parts were cotton, hyacinth and scarlet just like pomegranates and similar things.[499] –The belt represented the ocean because it encircles the whole earth. The vestment and the two stones which hung down and touched each shoulder represented the two hemispheres, or the sun and the moon. The pomegranates and little bells depicted below represented lightning and thunder; the twelve stones on the breastplate, represent the twelve months or the twelve parts of the zodiac. The breastplate represents divine providence and direction. The mitre with the hyacinth-coloured fillet represents the sky. The plate on the forehead of the high priest and the name of God written there represent all the things that in the judgment of God are to be carried out.

 And in the four rows of the stones the glory of the fathers, that is, the names of great authority, was graven; for on the breastplate were the four rows of precious stones; on each of which were written the individual names of the twelve Patriarchs, as is clear in Exodus 28:21, just as the names of the twelve Apostles are said to be inscribed in the foundation stones of Jerusalem, Revelation 21:14. And your majesty was written upon the diadem of his head, that is, the magnificent Tetragrammaton name of God, that is, from the four letters which are: Yodh, He, Waw, He,[500] which represent the beginning of the time of the passion of Christ.

(Verse 25). To these, however, to the sacred ornaments, the destroyer gave place, namely, the Angel or the fire, ceasing not because of those ornaments but because of what they represented, namely, because of a future ornament, that is, the sacrifice of the highest Priest, namely, Christ, according to what a Gloss[501] says. And was afraid of them, that is, acted as if afraid, namely, by going away; and I have said well: And to these the destroyer gave place, and was afraid of them, for the proof only of wrath, that is, a beginning not a carrying out, was enough; namely, for the correction of the people, namely, with the intercession of the High Priest.

CHAPTER XIX

 

On the punishment of the Egyptians by their own death

 

However, as to the wicked, even to the end. After he had dealt with the punishment of the Egyptians in the death of their firstborn, he explains their punishment by their own death, namely, when they drowned in the Red Sea. Firstly, he treats of the drowning of the Egyptians; secondly, the deliverance of the Hebrews: For every creature according to its kind was fashioned again as from the beginning, obeying your commandments, that your children might be kept without hurt; thirdly, the thanksgiving for both: For while the elements are changed in themselves, as in an instrument the sound of the quality is changed, yet all keep their sound: which may clearly be perceived by the very sight. 

 

Firstly, the drowning of the Egyptians

 

In the first part he deals, firstly, with the gravity of the punishment; secondly, the reason for it from the point of view of the one punishing: And he knew before what they would do; thirdly, the merit from the point of view of those punishing: For whilst they were yet mourning, and lamenting at the graves of the dead, they took up another foolish device, and pursued them as fugitives whom they had pressed to be gone; fourthly, that the punishment was fitting: For a necessity, of which they were worthy, brought them to this end.

(Verse 1). However, as to the wicked, as if to say: in this way the Israelites were delivered from fire; however for but; to the wicked, namely, to the Egyptians who lacked the piety of religion for God and compassion for their neighbour, because they treated God with disdain and oppressed God’s people; even to the end, that is, to the very end; Proverbs 5:4: ‘Her end is bitter as wormwood’; there came upon them wrath without mercy.[502] Without mercy, namely, not relaxing but freeing without mercy and this because the wicked were without mercy; James 2:13: ‘Judgment without mercy to one who has not done mercy. Wrath, that is, the punishment of sin which is a sign of wrath; it came upon them, that is, it came from the heavenly judgment of God for their oppression; Job 21:17: ‘How often shall the lamp of the wicked be put out and a deluge come upon them’; Proverbs 1:27: ‘When tribulation and distress shall come upon you’. And it came upon them quite rightly; for he knew before, namely, God, and, that is, also, what they would do, namely, their sins before they happened; Hebrews 4:13: ‘All things are naked and open to God’s eyes’; also Psalm 138:3: ‘You have understood my thoughts afar off’; also Sirach 23:29: ‘All things were known to the Lord God before they were created’.

(Verse 2). For when they, namely, the Egyptians, had turned back,[503] namely, to their heart, according to the warning of Isaiah 46:8: ‘Return, you transgressors, to the heart’. I say, they turned back to their heart because from fear they were outside their heart; Psalm 39:13: ‘My heart has forsaken me’. And they had given them leave, namely, beforehand, that they might take themselves out, that is, that the children of Israel might take themselves out of their land; so Exodus 11:8: ‘Go forth, you and all the people that are under you’. And had sent them away, namely, by forcing them to go, with great care, that is, urgently; so Exodus 12:33: ‘The Egyptians pressed the people to go forth out of the land speedily’. Pursued after them, namely, the Egyptians who, when they had done this, repented, that is, were sorrowful over their departure, I say sorrowful in heart and spoken by the mouth and both of these were shown in what they did; Exodus 14:5: ‘The heart of Pharaoh and his servants was changed with regard to the people, and they said: What meant we to do that we let Israel go from serving us?’

(Verse 3). I have said well that they repented and pursued after them. For whilst they were yet mourning, that is, over the reason for the mourning, namely, the dead firstborn, or: mourning, that is, signs of mourning; and lamenting, that is weeping bitterly, or weeping from the heart, or: lamenting, that  is, weeping over the death of the firstborn. He continues well: At the graves of the dead, namely, of the firstborn, they took up another foolish device, and pursued them as fugitives whom they had pressed to be gone. He says well: they took up another foolish device, because evil thinking comes from humans, while good thinking is from God; 2 Corinthians 3:5: ‘Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God’. I say a foolish device, that is, of stupidity. For every evil person errs;[504] Proverbs 14:22: ‘They err that work evil’. The first thought by which they thought to hold them back by force was foolish; the other by which they thought to call or bring them back by force was foolish. And those whom they had pressed to be gone, namely, by compelling the children of Israel to go, as is clear in Exodus 12:33; as fugitives, that is, as if they had left without permission which was false; they pursued them, as is clear in Exodus 14:9ff.

(Verse 4). For a necessity, of which they were worthy, brought them to this end, and they lost the remembrance of those things which had happened, that their punishment might fill up what was wanting to their torments. This is equivalent to saying: and fittingly; brought them to this end, namely, of obstinacy and drowning, a worthy necessity neither of fortune nor fate but of divine justice.

But contra: Because they did this freely not from necessity.

It has to be said that it was not a necessity of compulsion but from not being able to change.[505]

But contra: Because they were able to do penance and so avoid that punishment.

It must be said that they were able but were unwilling. So that necessity was a consequence of their decision, it did not precede it.[506] Or: they were not able to do this completely on their own nor did they want to ask for the help of God.

And of those things which had happened, namely, the many plagues inflicted on them for holding back the children of Israel, Exodus, chapters seven, eight, nine, ten and eleven, they lost the remembrance, that is, they lost not from any habit but from an action; or by a deed though not from the heart; Hosea 13:6: ‘They lifted up their heart and have forgotten me’. What was wanting to their torments, namely, the first punishments for they were not yet sufficiently punished; that their punishment might fill up, namely, the subsequent punishment and ly[507] that is used as a consequence not as a cause.

(Verse 5). And that your people, namely, the Israelite people, might wonderfully pass through, namely, through the Red Sea with dry feet; so Exodus 15:19: ‘The children of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst thereof’. But they, namely, the Egyptians, might find a new death, namely, a new way of dying, namely, by a miraculous drowning; Exodus 15:22 and 27: ‘The horse of Pharaoh went in’ that is, the cavalry, ‘with the chariots and horsemen in the sea, and the Lord returned the waters of the Sea over them’.