EXPOSITIO IN ABDIAM

371CObadiah, fourth in the order of the prophets, simple in speech and manifold in sense; sparing in words, but copious in judgments. According to that saying of Solomon: A wise man is made known by few words (Eccle. XX), he directs his prophecy literally against Idumaea; allegorically against the world, tropologically against the flesh he sharpens his pen; bearing the type of the Savior, he subtly introduces his coming, through whom the world is destroyed, through whom the flesh is worn away, through whom liberty 372Cis restored. Hence that word: If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed (Joan. VIII). This is the Obadiah who under king Ahab fed a hundred prophets hidden in caves; and while he ministered bodily nourishment, he received spiritual nourishment from God. Now the aforesaid man prophesied at the same time as the other prophets also, namely Amos, Joel and Hosea. And he lies buried in Samaria with Elisha and John the Baptist.

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371D(ABDIAS I.) The vision of Obadiah. Obadiah is interpreted the Lord's servant, by whom the Savior is signified. Whence also in Isaiah, under the person of the Father speaking to the Son, it is read thus: Hear, O Jacob, my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen (Isa. XLI). Likewise to the same: Thou art my servant, Israel; I have given thee for a light of the nations, that thou mayest be my salvation 372Deven to the farthest part of the earth (Isa. XLIX). Hence the Savior himself, reproaching the human race, says thus: Thou hast made me, he says, to serve in thy sins (Isa. XLIII). But since there are four kinds of servitude — for one is necessary, another conditional, another for hire, another free — let us see under which kind of servitude 373Aliberty served, strength was weakened, blessedness humbled itself, Deity bowed itself down. For he did not serve under the first kind, who did nothing of necessity; nor under the second, who led captivity captive; nor under the third, who gave gifts to men; but under the fourth. Hence that word: Holocaust and sin offering thou didst not require: then said I, Behold I come (Psal. XXXIX). Likewise: In the head of the book it is written of me, that I should do thy will: O my God, I have willed it, and thy law in the midst of my heart (ibid.). Truly a free servitude, by which neither was nature corrupted, nor condition changed, nor a bargain struck, but an identity of will bowed to obedience. Hence that word: You were sold for nothing; and you shall be redeemed without money (Isa. LII). So much for the name. Now let us speak of the vision. It is the idiom of prophetic speech that 373Ba consolation to come is intimated there where a vision is set down. Whence Obadiah too set down, at the opening of his prophecy, as a vision the destruction of the adversary nation, that is, of Idumaea — a destruction which brought great consolation to the Jewish people — saying: The vision of Obadiah. For the guarding of humility, the prophet speaks of himself as of another; because he deserves to lose a privilege who abuses a gift granted him, or a power permitted. The vision of Obadiah is the incarnation of the Word. Of which vision it is said through the Psalmist: The Lord hath looked down from heaven; he hath beheld all the sons of men (Psal. XXXII). The eyes of the Word were judgment and mercy. With these eyes he saw the form of our redemption, when he set forth the incarnate truth of judgment and the mercy of reward; the judgment of discernment, and the mercy of remission. With these eyes 373Che looked upon Peter, when both by the truth of judgment he called him to weeping, and by his mercy blotted out his sin (Luc. XXII). By the first, in opening it, he washed away the fault; by the second, he restores grace. These are the eyes the bride praises, saying in the Canticles: Thy eyes are as doves upon the brooks of waters (Cant. V). The waters are the heavenly gifts of wisdom; the brooks are the varieties of the gifts; the dove is the grace of the giver. The eyes therefore are doves upon the brooks of waters; because both by the truth of judgment he freely enlightens, and by the kindness of mercy he freely adorns with gifts. The vision therefore of Obadiah is the incarnation of Wisdom, which looked upon the world with both eyes. According to that word in the Gospel of John: The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, 373Dand we saw his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (Joan. I). There follows:

Thus saith the Lord to Edom. That is, against Edom. What is it to say, but to bring forth a word? And what is it to bring forth a word, but to come forth from what is hidden? The Lord therefore says, that is, the Father brought forth the Word, when the Son came forth from the Father and came into the world. But because [he had come] to triumph over the devil, therefore the Lord; because to free the human race freely, therefore God; because he had come to tread down the world and its pomp, therefore he who speaks against Edom: the Lord who is to be feared, God who is to be loved, against Edom which is to be trodden down. To be feared by the devil, to be loved by his own people, the world to be trodden down by him. The Lord by reason of the kind of his victory, and God by reason of the gifts of grace, against 374AEdom by healing the languor of concupiscence. The Lord therefore, because he laid the enemy low manfully; God, because he freed the citizen mercifully; against Edom, because he stormed the world's concupiscence as a foe. Edom is Esau himself, who was also called Seir; the brother of the simple Jacob, who, for a craving after lentils, lost the glory of the birthright, and through envy of his brother lost the grace of his father's blessing. Hence, roused against his brother with grievous hatred, while he nursed the venom lurking in his cordo, corrupting the covenants of love, he embittered his inward parts to the murder of his brother, seeking a place and a time for the mischief. Whence he said: The days of mourning for my father will come: and then I will slay him (Gen. XXVII). By him therefore is designated the prudence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the world, the 374Bworst seed, wicked and criminal children, enemies of the grace of God. Edom, earthy; Esau, bloody; Seir, hairy. Bloody in sins, hairy in businesses, earthy in cares. Bloody, the world assuredly, in idolaters; hairy, in heretics; earthy, in carnal men and false Christians. But against Edom the Lord sent the Word, which both blotted out the handwriting of sin, and bestowed spiritual rest, and promised eternal happiness. Pardon destroyed the handwriting, grace the business, glory the care: the pardon of sinners, the grace of the devout, the glory of the eternal. Hence David: He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them out of their destructions (Psal. CXVI). This Word, I say, enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world (Joan. I). This catcheth the little foxes 374Cthat destroy the vines (Cant. II); this maketh poor and maketh rich; he humbleth and he lifteth up (I Reg. II). There follows:

We have heard a hearing from the Lord, and he hath sent an ambassador to the nations. LITERAL. What he had said obscurely before, he now sets forth more plainly: namely the coming of Christ for the destruction of sin, for the salvation of the world, for the knowledge of the true, for the love of the highest good. The ambassador is he of whom Haggai speaks: Behold there cometh, he says, the desired of all nations, and his glory filleth the whole earth (Agg. II). This ambassador, under the habit of poverty, brought us the riches of immortality. Whence the Apostle: Who, he says, for us became poor, that by his poverty we might be enriched (II Cor. VIII). This ambassador brought three things with him: light, ointment, 374Dbread. Light for the blind, ointment for the sick, bread for the hungry. He set forth the light on the mountain, the bread in the upper room, the ointment on the gibbet of the cross. The light in the prison, the bread in the desert, the ointment he laid in the theater: in the prison of ignorance, in the theater of carnal concupiscence, in the desert of human misery. For Christ enlightened the world, ignorance being driven out; he himself filled it, concupiscence being set in order; the same changed it for the better, misery being banished. Whence he himself in the Gospel: I am, he says, the way, the truth and the life (Joan. XIV). The way by enlightening, the truth by healing, the life by making blessed. First against ignorance, secondly against concupiscence, thirdly against misery. But it must be asked where, or from whom, the prophet had received anything about this embassy. 375ALet Moses leap forth into the midst, and disclose whatever he had received of it. A prophet, he says, will the Lord raise up of your brethren: him you shall hear as myself (Deut. XVIII). Isaiah too: From the ends of the earth, he says, we have heard praises, the glory of the Just One (Isa. XXIV). Consider, reader, the praises and the glory of the Just One. The glory in the future, the praises in the present. Manifold praise indeed he has earned; because he gave both health to the sick, and plenty to the needy, and liberty to captives. Let his praise therefore be in my mouth, who has both strengthened me with health, and enriched me with plenty, and endowed me with liberty. After this earnest, if I receive it purely and faithfully, I in no way doubt that I shall receive the glory of the Just One. For we have heard a hearing from the Lord, and he hath sent an ambassador to the nations. But in that he says we have heard a hearing, the expression 375Bis indeed less than Latin, but faithfully rendered from the Greek. The repeating of the word, however, sifignicat the intention of the utterance. Historically, moreover, the coming of the king of Babylon upon the Idumaeans is signified: for whom the Lord sent, when by a just judgment he permitted him to come. For this man was called the hammer of the whole earth, through whom the Lord deigned to execute the judgments of a most just vengeance, and through whom, by the just judgment of God, the pride of countless peoples was ground down. Whence it is read in another prophecy: Son, he says, of man, what shall be given to the king of Babylon for his labor, wherewith he served me at Tyre? Give, he says, him the kingdom of Egypt. Consider, reader, the form of divine providence and the order of vengeance and the rule of justice. The Babylonians, indeed, overcame the Assyrians, the Medes the Babylonians, 375Cthe Macedonians the Medes, the Romans the Macedonians, Christ the Romans; but the last victory was not wrought out of cruelty, but out of kindness and clemency. Upon the others, however, according to the quality of their deserts, the vengeance of punishments was worthily brought. These things we have said by way of digression, according to the history.

Now let us discuss them allegorically. Being sent, he says, as an ambassador from the vale of Hebrom he came into Sichem (Gen. XXXVII); because Christ, mighty in Deity, and increasing the kingdom of everlastingness by the orders of the heavenly hosts, came to the labor of the passion, but wandered in the field, and found in the world none free from sin. Whence, seeking his brethren, he went down into Dothain (ibid.), because, thirsting for our reconciliation, he humbled himself even to the failing of death. Hebrom is interpreted 375Dstrength or everlasting increase; Sichem, shoulders; Dothain, failing. We have heard therefore a hearing from the Lord, and he hath sent an ambassador to the nations; because in the incarnation of the Word we received sure tidings of our redemption. How promptly, how devotedly he fulfilled his embassy, and wrought our redemption, he himself will make plain.

Arise ye, he says, and let us rise up together against him in battle. LITERAL. Great was the dignity of our creation; but greater the reverence of our restoration. For man is read to have been created with divine counsel; but restored with the same, to which grace was added. For there it was said out of counsel that man should be made; but here it is both said in counsel, and secretly the Son is sent to redeem him. There was shown the dignity 376Aof man in the manner and form of the counsel; here the privilege of grace, and the excellence of nature, in the quality of the mystery and the greatness of the punishment. In both transactions we are stirred to love; but in the second we are kindled to a greater devotion. ALLEG. Hence the Son: Arise ye, he says, and let us rise up together against him in battle. Arise ye, he says, to the angels; let us rise up together, Father — I and the Paraclete: in saying this, I do not divide the unity of the essence of the Deity, but faithfully distinguish the property of the persons. Against him. Against the devil, that is; against the world, against sin, against the flesh. Arise ye, he says, to the angels. Hence Isaiah under the same person: Go, he says, ye swift angels, to a nation rent and torn in pieces, to a terrible people, after whom there is no other 376B(Isa. XVIII). Hence in the same prophet, concerning the Son: To a deceitful nation, he says, I will send him, and against the people of my wrath I will give him a charge, to take away the spoils, and to seize the prey, and to make it to be trodden down like the mire of the streets (Isa. X). Hence the Son to the Father through the Psalmist: My heart is ready, he says, my heart is ready (Psal. CVII). Hence, concerning the Spirit, the Father to the Son: Behold, he says, my servant, whom I have chosen; I have given my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the nations (Isa. XII). Likewise, the Father concerning the Son and the Paraclete Spirit: Cease ye, he says, from the man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for he is reputed high (Isa. II).

MORAL. Attend diligently how the angels, 376Chow promptly, are sent to the storming of the enemies; how the blessed and holy Trinity works redemption. I am most certain of the victory, where power joins battle, wisdom orders the business, kindness supplies patience and promises wages. Let us rise up together, says the Son: the Father by mightily thrusting out the adversary; I by wisely hiding the mystery — for if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (I Cor. II); the Spirit by kindly receiving and healing the wretched: For the spirit of wisdom is benevolent, and will not free the evil speaker from his lips (Sap. I). Let the Father arise, mightily laying the enemy low for the Son; I will arise, wisely teaching him that knows not. Let the Father's power shine forth in the storming of the enemies. Let the Father loose the chains of human captivity. 376DLet the Son illumine the darkness of human blindness. Let the Spirit supply the gifts and the desires of charity. Let the reader beware lest he confound the trinity of the persons, or divide the unity of the divine essence. For by these things which I distinguish, I show the property of the persons; I do not confound the emptiness of nature. Otherwise, as the Trinity is one in nature or essence, so also its operation is in every way one. For it is written: Whatsoever the Father doth, these same things the Son also doth in like manner (Joan. V); nor yet is the Spirit drawn aside from this, who is, and is called, and is believed to be, the same essence, the same power, the same wisdom, the same God, etc. There follows:

Behold I have made thee small among the nations. Thou art exceeding contemptible. The pride of thy heart hath lifted thee up, that dwellest in the clefts of the rocks, that exaltest thy throne, who sayest 377Ain thy heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? LITERAL. Historically the prophet, under the person of the Lord, argues and rebukes, threatens and commands against the Idumaean: that he rose up against his brother, namely the Jewish people; that he insulted him in the time of his calamity; that he taught, upheld and helped his enemies to storm him — showing what and of what sort he was by the debt of nature or the merit of his race, and what he has become by his own vice. These three things God shows him: namely the debt of nature, the vice of fault, the punishment of penalty. That he is, namely, both contemptible in nature, and filthy in his pursuits, and detestable in his punishment. The first he shows where he says: Behold I have made thee small among the nations, etc. The second there: If thou be exalted as an eagle, and the rest. The third there: They have sent thee out even to the border 377B. But in that he calls the Idumaean people dwellers in the clefts of the rocks, he touches a custom proper to that nation, which on account of the scarcity of timber and the burning of the sun dwells in the caverns of the crags and in caves of earth.

ALLEGORICAL. The Lord inveighs against the gentile people; who, spurning the Creator, and the comeliness of their own nature, and the honor of divine grace, and the gift of knowledge, and the worship of justice, turned to the filthiness of idolatry, to uncleanness of morals, to the dirges of errors and to vain philosophy — and whence they ought devoutly to have prostrated themselves before the Creator, thence, armed with a fat neck, they rather swelled up against him. He says therefore to him: Behold, little in understanding, gentile in worship, contemptible in act, I have given thee, 377Cthat is, by a just judgment I permitted thee to become so. Little, I say, in the understanding of truth; gentile in rite and in the ceremony of unbelief; contemptible in the action of iniquity. But to the heaping up of malice the wind of pride puffed thee up, and by its deserving thou didst fall into the darkness of unbelief and the gloom of errors. And not content with these alone, but by preaching errors, by asserting light to be darkness, and by declaring good evil and truth a lie, thou hast led others also to ruin. Hence that which follows: The pride of thy heart hath lifted thee up, that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that exaltest thy throne: who sayest in thy heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? Consider the order of misery, the course of falling, and the formless form of departing from God. The swelling of pride goes first, the darkness of ignorance follows, unbelief 377Dsucceeds to idolatry. This is followed by delight and consent to uncleanness, thereafter the preaching of malice, and at last contempt of virtue and hatred of justice. For in that he says: Pride hath lifted thee up, the swelling of pride is shown; by the rock, the unbelief of ignorance; by the clefts, the schisms of idolatry; by dwelling, consent to uncleanness; by the throne exulting, the preaching of malice. In that he says, in his heart: Who shall bring me down to the ground? he signifies contempt of virtue and hatred of justice. But the Lord God of vengeance, the God of vengeance, acts freely (Psal. XCIII); he is exalted in judging the earth, while he renders retribution to the proud. Hence it is that it is said:

If thou be exalted as an eagle; And if thou set thy nest among the stars: thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. 378ALITERAL. Their deities seemed to the gentile people to be as it were stars. ALLEG. But the sophists and philosophers are as the eagle. For in some respect philosophers and sophists have seemed eagles, while they lift the eyes of the heart to the sun of justice, while they fix the gaze of the mind irerverberate upon the very ray of truth. But the eagle is at once drawn back from thence; because after receiving the implanted knowledge of truth, the philosopher and the sophist, by the desert of their pride, return to the gloom of errors. Hence the Apostle: Who, when they had known God, he says, glorified him not as God, nor gave thanks; but became vain in their thoughts (Rom. I). The gentile people set its nest among the stars, when it placed the hope of its salvation either in angels or in men: whom it falsely believes to have shone with the light of wisdom and the brightness of justice. 378BThere follows:

If thieves had gone in to thee; if robbers by night, how wouldst thou have held thy peace? Would they not have stolen enough for themselves? If the grape-gatherers had come in to thee, would they not [nunquid] at least have left thee a cluster? LITERAL. The robbers were the mighty of the world; the thieves, the flamens and the other worshippers of idols; the philosophers and the sophists, the grape-gatherers. For these three chiefly flourished in idolatry: namely philosophy, empty superstition, infamous power. The worldly philosophers boasted that they possessed the understanding of truth; the worshippers of idols, the sanctity of religion; the mighty, the lordship of liberty. But of the first it is read: Their wine is the gall of dragons, and the venom of asps, which is incurable (Deut. XXXII). Of the second: Let them all be confounded 378Cthat adore graven things: and that glory in their idols (Psal. LXXVI). Of the third. The mighty shall be mightily tormented: and a stronger punishment presses upon the stronger (Sap. VI). As if the Lord were to say: See ye that I am alone, and that there is no other God besides me. I will kill and I will make to live; I will strike, and I will heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. If I destroy, no man buildeth; if I shut up, there is none that openeth (Deut. XXXII). There is none like me among the strong, none among the lawgivers; I am magnificent in holiness, terrible and praiseworthy, and doing wonders. What neither worldly power, nor pestilent superstition, nor empty philosophy could do, my power, my wisdom, my kindness has availed to do. My power 378Ddestroyed, my wisdom built, my kindness adorned. It destroyed the falsehood of errors; it built the truth of doctrines; it adorned by pouring in the bounty of graces. Of the first it is read: God, whose wrath no man can resist (Job IX). Of the second: Wisdom hath built herself a house (Prov. IX), and the rest. Of the third: His spirit hath adorned the heavens, and his obstetric hand brought forth the winding serpent (Job XXVI).

ALLEG. The power of the world and the superstition of the idol both seized enough for themselves. But philosophy left some of the clusters behind it; because neither could the first give or show liberty, nor the second security, nor the third truth, unto salvation. It had a shadow, not a body; it exhibited an image, not the thing. But the incarnate Word laid all things bare to clearness; 379Ait possesses all things entire; it searches out the hidden things of Esau: it leads each one to his own border, while by a just judgment it lays upon each singly his due end according to his desert. Hence the Psalmist: There is none, he says, that can hide himself from his heat (Psal. XVIII). The heat of God is read to be threefold. For one is of extreme damnation; another of merciful vengeance; another of pleasing love. Of the first it is read: A fire is kindled in my wrath, and shall burn even to the lowest depths of hell (Deut. XXXII). Of the second: Our God is a consuming fire (Hebr. XII). Of the third: The Lord liveth, whose fire is in Sion, and his furnace in Jerusalem (Isa. XXXI). None therefore shall be hidden from his heat; because the impenitent shall be tormented by the fire of damnation, and the penitent purged by the fire of vengeance, and the innocent 379Bgladdened by the fire of love. Hence the Savior of himself. Revenge to me, and I will repay (Rom. XII). Likewise the same: I live, saith the Lord, for every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to me (Rom. XIV). And this is what is added:

How have they searched Esau, they have sought out his hidden things; they have sent thee out even to the border. LITERAL. For Christ and his apostles and their successors have searched out the hidden things of Esau; because by life, by conduct, by doctrine, they confuted and condemned the pomp of the world, its concupiscence, its foolish wisdom, and its idolatry. The first Christ condemned in the manger; the second in the desert; the third on the mountain; the fourth in the Jordan, when the King of glory willed to be wrapped in swaddling clothes; when the Bread 379Cof life willed to be afflicted with hunger; when the Wisdom of God willed to be made foolish; when the Deity willed to be upheld by a servant. But how the apostles and their successors contended against the world and the error of the gentiles, both their words teach and the marks of the sufferings of Christ bear witness. Whence there follows: They have sent thee out even to the border.

ALLEG. The aforesaid men sent the world out even to the border; because when they broke the little pitchers of their bodies, when they sounded with the trumpets of their preachings - when they shone with the lamp of their miracles, the world was terrified, was overcome and sank down, and offered its neck to the bonds of faith. Hence the Psalmist: They themselves seeing, so wondered, they were troubled, they were moved; trembling took hold of them (Psal. XLVII). They wondered at the preaching of an unwonted newness; 379Dthey were troubled at the hearing, they who suffered from the fervor of charity; they were moved by the miracles of a brightness unseen till then: and therefore they sent Esau out even to the border; that is, they led the world down to the predestined article of faith. Whence there also follows:

All the men of thy covenant have mocked thee; the men of thy peace have made an inroad against thee. They that eat bread with thee shall lay snares under thee. LITERAL. These men had entered a covenant with the devil and the world through the worship of idolatry; they had made peace through the affection of concupiscence. They ate bread with him through the preaching of errors and the sprouting of malice. But the men of the covenant mocked him; because those who had served the world more curiously, who had shown the worship of idolatry more devoutly, 380Aafterwards raised against the world the sword of preaching, set against the worship of idolatry the shield of faith, against the whirlpool of carnal concupiscence the most secure harbor of religion.

ALLEG. His friends therefore mocked him, by bringing his foolish wisdom to nothing; they prevailed, by destroying idolatry; they laid snares, by bringing carnal concupiscence to nothing. First by teaching the truth of faith; secondly by showing the brightness of miracles; thirdly by enduring bodily suffering. Hence the Lord to Job concerning the devil: Wilt thou bind him for thy handmaids? (Job. XIV.) In menservants, though the condition be despised, yet manliness is vigorous; but in handmaids, together with the condition the sex lies low. Now the Lord asserts that he binds the devil, or the world, for his handmaids; because coming for our 380Bredemption, and sending his own preachers against the world, he left the wise and chose the unwise, left the stronger and chose the weak, left the rich and chose the poor. By his handmaids therefore the Lord cast down strength and the pomp of the world; because, as Paul bears witness: God hath chosen the weak things of the world, that he may confound the strong (I Cor. I). Whence it is well said through Solomon, among other things, in the building of the house of wisdom: She sent her handmaids to call us to the tower and to the walls of the city (Prov. IX). In that he took care to have preachers weak and abject, who should gather the faithful peoples to the heavenly buildings of the spiritual fatherland. Whence the Lord in the Gospel praises Nathanael, and yet does not number him in the lot of the preachers (Joan. I); because such men ought to come to preach as 380Chad nothing of their own light, so that what they did might be known to be of the truth alone in so far as it was openly discerned that of themselves they had not been fit for the doing of it. Therefore, that a wondrous power might shine forth in tongues through preaching, it was first more wondrously brought about that the merit of the preachers themselves should be nothing. But since he has intimated whom the Lord sends against the devil or the world, he now adds also what they themselves do who are sent. There follows in the same Job: His friends shall cut him in pieces, merchants shall divide him (Job. XL). Those whom the Lord through Job calls handmaids, friends, merchants, these Obadiah names men of the covenant, men of peace, guests at table. Then he names the same men invaseres, mockers, layers of snares. For the holy 380Dpreachers were first handmaids through fear, then were made friends through faith; then merchants through the work of preaching: first, I say, in covenant with the world or the devil through the unbelief of idolatry, they were made men of peace with the foulest concupiscence, guests at table through the teaching of malice. Afterwards mockers through the grace of faith, invaders through obedience, layers of snares through the doctrine of truth. Hence through Solomon it is said of the holy woman: She made fine linen and sold it, and delivered a girdle to the Chanaanite (Prov. XXXI). In the cloth of fine linen is designated of the subtlety of preaching. This fine linen the Church made and sold; because the faith which she had woven by believing she gave by speaking, and received in the faithful the life of right conversation. And she delivered a girdle to the Chanaanite; because by 381Athe vigor of justice displayed she bound fast the loose works of the gentile world, so that what is commanded should be held by living it. The Lord therefore finds his preachers as handmaids by seeking them, makes them friends by exchanging them, renders them merchants by enriching them, and, once enriched with virtues, leads them on to the carrying out of the business of faith, so that they may cut into the members of the devil and the sons of this world by rebuking and by persuading with a severity as much greater as, being made friends, they more truly join themselves in the love of truth; and may snatch away from him the souls of sinners the more swiftly, the sooner they, being made fit merchants, display in themselves the most ample storehouses of the virtues. Obadiah therefore says under the person of the Lord: They that eat bread with thee shall lay snares under thee; because, namely, those who before had lived loosely, had made the soul a handmaid to the flesh, 381Band had shared in the table of demons through consent to vices, these discern the cunning of demons, the cares of the world, the enticements of the flesh more subtly, detect them more swiftly, judge them more sagaciously, condemn them more manfully. For first he gathered the unlearned, and afterwards the philosophers; and he did not teach fishermen by orators, but instructed orators by fishermen. There follows:

There is no prudence in him. ALLEG. Prudence is the foresight of salvation, which was neither in the devil, nor in the world, nor in the flesh; because the devil fell through elation, and the world is corrupted through vanity, and the flesh is weakened through pleasure. The devil through pride, the world through wantonness, the flesh through concupiscence. 381CBut what we have interpreted concerning the devil or the world, we may refer to heretics or to the flesh. Heretics, spiritual plunderers, invading the holy land and perverting the canonical Scriptures, have brought them in; they have whetted their tongues, they have bent their bow, a bitter thing, to shoot in secret at the undefiled (Psal. LXIII). Against whom Obadiah, under the person of the Son, aims the prophetic utterance, saying:

Arise ye, he says, and let us rise up together against him, that is, against the conventicle of heretics, in battle. MORAL. Because heretical perfidy brings forth many things contrary to the soundness of faith, brings forth many things to the injury of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Therefore the Son, with the gravity of counsel and the weight of help, determined to storm 381Dtheir madness. Arise ye and let us rise up together, etc. Arius asserts the Son less than the Father; Macedonius the Paraclete less than both; Sabellius the Father himself to be the Son; Manichaeus denies the Word to have been made flesh: and the one perversely divides what is one, while the other most emptily confounds what is divided. Against whose madness, which is to be destroyed, the Son, seeing the Father's power to be needful, and his own wisdom also, and the kindness of the Holy Spirit, says: Arise ye, and let us rise up together. The Father through power, destroying the falsehood of the heretics; I by teaching the truth of faith; the Holy Spirit by pouring in charity: so that, since we are one in deity, in essence, in will, by a single onset we may either bring back to unity those who may be joined, or drive the reprobate to everlasting calamity. There follows:

382ABehold I have made thee small among the nations; thou art exceeding contemptible. MORAL. Small was the assembly of heretics among the nations, contemptible by desert. Small in understanding, contemptible in act. Small in the acknowledgment of truth, contemptible in the action of iniquity. To whom the Lord gave this, when with such a one he permitted it to come to pass by judgment, etc. There follows:

Pride driveth thee out, that dwellest in the clefts of the rock; who sayest in thy heart: Who shall lead me down to the ground? MORAL. For pride went before in the heretics, upon which heretical error most justly followed; because if they were humbly wise concerning God, and humbly minded concerning themselves, they would in no wise forsake the way of those who walk in humility. Hence Truth itself: Upon whom, he says, shall my Spirit rest, but upon the humble, and the quiet, and him that trembleth 382Bat my words? (Isa. LXVI.) In a mind of humility, therefore, dwells the Spirit of truth; because he who despises humility, willing or not, forsakes truth. For it is written: There have they fallen that work iniquity (Psal. XXXV). The rock is the catholic faith, or authentic Scripture. The clefts are the varieties of heresies, and opinions contrary to the truth of faith. The throne is heretical doctrine. The exaltation of the throne is the spreading abroad of perverse doctrine. There follows:

Who shall bring me down to the ground? To say this is blind and arrogant presumption, etc. There follows:

If thou be exalted as an eagle, and if thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down. The heretic is as an eagle, when his understanding is irradiated with subtle 382Cintelligence: he sets his nest among the stars, when he compares himself to the merits of the saints, with false innocence and feigned justice. But the Lord brings him down to the ground, when by a just judgment ignorance blinds his subtle intelligence, and open malice uncovers his faithless justice. Hence the Psalmist: Contempt is poured forth upon princes: and he hath caused them to err in a trackless place, and not in the way (Psal. CVI), etc. There follows:

If thieves had gone in to thee, if robbers by night, how wouldst thou have held thy peace? Would they not have stolen enough for themselves? If the grape-gatherers had come in to thee, would they not at least have left thee clusters? As if the Lord were to say to the heretics: If anyone, secretly as a thief, or openly as a plunderer, undertakes to assail the madness, or the opinions by which you strive to prop up your errors and 382Dto bring them back into wine as though by vintaging, and to press out the wine of sound understanding to your confusion — at once there is a rising against him, scale is joined to scale; because those whom a like guilt joins together in a concordant obstinacy, a perverse defense also packs close, so that concerning their crimes they may guard one another by turns with a mutual defense, they who were grieved by a mutual injury. Further, if the heretics are thus prompt to a proud defense of falsehood, I shall be promptier to the avenging of truth and to the assailing of errors. There follows:

How have they searched Esau, they have sought out his hidden things? They have sent thee out even to the border, all the men of thy covenant; they have mocked thee, they have prevailed against thee, all the men of thy peace. They that eat bread with thee shall lay snares under thee. Secretly 383Athe prophetic Spirit brings in the doctrine of the apostles and the victory of the orthodox Fathers over the heretics, as they search out their hidden sophisms, wipe away their poisoned meanings, and by compelling reason lead them out to the border of truth. Of whose number were Augustine, Cyprian, Ambrose, Hilary, Jerome and others of this kind: some of whom entered into covenant with them, peace they sometimes held, to eat bread also with them. Of these was Augustine, who among the Manichaeans was a Manichaean: whose sect, coming to his senses, he utterly destroyed. The Fathers therefore mocked the heretics by reasoning: they prevailed by bringing testimonies together: they laid snares by recalling their conventicles.

There is therefore no prudence in him. In the assembly, namely, 383Bof heretics, where both reason convicts falsehood, and the divine word establishes truth, and the grace of conversion discloses perfidy. But these things may be referred tropologically to the flesh. For the flesh is not undeservedly signified by Esau; because it is hairy with concupiscences, and bloody with vices, and earthy with hurtful works — with the concupiscences of vanity, the vices of curiosity, the works of iniquity. Whence the Apostle: I know, he says, that there dwelleth not in me (that is, in my flesh) that which is good (Rom. VII). Likewise the same: They who are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. VIII). But it is to be known that when the divine discourse inveighs against the flesh, it is not nature but fault that is arraigned; not the condition of nature, but the defect of justice; not the joining of the elements, but the motion of vices. For as in man there are two 383Cnatures, namely spirit and flesh, so there are two motions by which each of them is moved: one toward the affection of justice, the other departing from the affection of grace. Thence are born virtue and vice: so that if it be a motion of the spirit, it is virtue; but a motion of the flesh is nothing else than a motion of the mind not obeying the spirit. That one, being spiritual, makes men spiritual. This one, being carnal, makes men carnal. That one is called spirit; this is designated by the name of flesh. Further, since occasion has offered itself concerning the origin of virtue and of vice, it is well to take it up a little more deeply, and to discuss more subtly all the general motions of the mind. The general motion of the mind, then, is divided fivefold. For sometimes the heart of man is moved only by the devil, sometimes by man alone, sometimes by God alone, sometimes by man and the devil, sometimes by man and God. The first is 383Dthrough the suggestion of fault; the second through a simple consideration of nature; the third through a momentary inspiration of grace; the fourth through unlawful delight; the fifth through the affections of the virtues and the contemplation of the Bridegroom. The first and the second are harmless to man; the third glorious; the fourth penal; the fifth rewarding. The fourth is vicious and to be condemned. The fifth is virtuous and to be crowned. The third is to be received eagerly. The second is indifferent along with the first. The fourth is referred to the flesh, the fifth to the spirit; the third to God; the first and the second to neither. But the general motion of the flesh is sevenfold. For sometimes it is against God, sometimes against the neighbor, sometimes against itself, often against the world, 384Amany times against business. Sometimes upon the neighbor, sometimes upon itself. Against God, pride; against the neighbor, envy; against itself, anger; against the world, avarice; against business, sloth. Upon the neighbor, lust; upon itself, gastrimargia, or gluttony. These seven vices are that household which the Lord left in the midst of his people, that in it he might train Israel; whence also from the allotment of their names their property may be designated. And these are the names. The first is called the Pherezite; the second the Hethite; the third the Hevite; the fourth the Amorrhite; the fifth the Gergesite; the sixth the Jebusite; the seventh the Chanaanite. The first is interpreted surpassing; the second, wasting away or enduring a voyage; the third, gathering stones; the fourth, embittered or embittering; the fifth, driving out the 384Bsettler; the sixth, trodden down or treading down; the seventh, changed or changing. By the first is designated pride; by the second envy; by the third anger; by the fourth sloth; by the fifth avarice; by the sixth lust; by the seventh is designated gluttony. But we, since we purpose to pass on to what follows, leave the fitting of each one to the easy exercise of the reader. It is to be known, however, that that motion is called carnal specially which serves the flesh alone and is administered through the flesh, which here is designated by Esau. He prepares snares for his brother Jacob; because he assails virtue in three ways: namely through the incontinence of lust, through the immoderation of gluttony, and through the wantonness of the senses. By the first the flower of chastity is stormed; by the second the honor of sobriety; by the third 384Cthe comeliness of decency. Whence Esau too was allotted a threefold name, by which the aforesaid mischief is signified. For earthy is gluttony. Bloody, lust. Hairy, wantonness. Hairy through the superfluity of curiosity. Bloody through the vicious flux of lust. Earthy through both; burdensome through the appetite of surfeit and drunkenness. Obadiah therefore, under the person of the Lord, inveighs against the flesh; nay rather, the Lord undertakes to storm it through his friends, saying to them

Arise ye, and let us rise up together against him in battle. MORAL. For they that are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences; but you are not in the flesh, but the Holy Spirit dwelleth in you (Gal. V). That which is born of the flesh, is flesh: and that which is born of the spirit, is spirit (Joan. III). 384DFor he that soweth in the flesh, shall reap corruption; but he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting (Gal. VI). The spirit indeed is ready: but the flesh is weak (Marc. XIV). It is read in the Psalm: In a desert land, and where there is no way and no water: so in the sanctuary have I appeared to thee (Psal. XIV). And through Solomon: I thought, he says, to withdraw my flesh from wine, that I might carry it over to wisdom (Eccle. II). And the Bridegroom in the Canticles: I will go, he says, to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense (Cant. II). And through Job: The deep, he says, saith: It is not in me: and the sea speaketh: It is not with me: neither is it found in the land of them that live pleasantly (Job. XXVIII). And in Jeremiah: They that fed delicately have perished in the ways: and they that were brought up in scarlet have embraced 385Athe dung. Arise therefore, my friends, to the avenging of the enemy, to the mortification of the flesh. And as much as she hath been made ready and hath been in delights, so much give ye to her of torment and of mourning (Thren. IV). Concerning the outcome of the business, therefore, you have nothing whatever to fear: concerning the hope of triumph you must not in the least distrust. For he who helps you cannot be conquered, because he is omnipotence; he who teaches you cannot be deceived, because he is wisdom; he who promises cannot be corrupted, because he is justice; he cannot be withstood, because he is eternal; he cannot be avoided, because he is everywhere. Arise, I say, friends, because the enemy is weak, the place fitting, the helper unconquered, the victory certain, the merits many, the rewards worthy. The enemy, the weak flesh: the place, the present life: the helper, the highest Deity: the reward, the vision of the Trinity. Arise from the sleep of torpor, 385Bfrom the bed of grief, from the languor of desolation. First through the vigilance of discretion, secondly through the mortification of the flesh, thirdly through the joy of spiritual consolation. Let us rise up together against him in battle: because the enemy is contemptible. Whence, turning to the enemy, he says: Behold I have made thee small among the nations, thou art exceeding contemptible. For the motion of the flesh, among those vices which we have named above, is small, because momentary; corruptible, because dishonorable: small, because where it has poured out pleasant honey, it flees, and strikes the smitten heart with too tenacious a bite. It is contemptible, because pleasure bought with grief does harm. It is small, because it neglects good things. It is contemptible, because it accomplishes evil things. It is small because it seeks transitory things. Contemptible, because 385Cit despises eternal things. Small in affection, contemptible in act. Small in work, contemptible in desert. There follows:

The pride of thy heart hath lifted thee up, that dwellest in the clefts of the rock: who sayest in thy heart: Who shall bring me down to the ground? The rock is here understood as the soul, which is called whole when no carnal passion has mastery over it. It is cleft when it is broken up by the assault of vices. Therefore the clefts are carnal concupiscences. For he exalts his throne who preaches the works of the flesh to the contempt of God. But to say in the heart: Who shall bring me down to the ground? is, God being despised, to place the hope of salvation and of eternity in the pleasure of the world and of oneself. In which three vices are noted: hatred of good, love of evil, forgetfulness of God. Attend diligently 385Dhow the unhappy soul falls swiftly, suddenly fails from the state of justice, in a moment sinks into the depth of malice. For first it inwardly conceives a pestilent pleasure, then places its glorying in it. In this it fixes consent, and afterwards applies deliberation: thereupon it displays operation, afterwards contempt of God, then the preaching of sin, thereafter hatred of good, afterwards love of evil, at last forgetfulness of God. This is the decalogue of disobedience, which the Lord gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, which is interpreted humility. This decalogue he had fulfilled who said: I know not the Lord; and I will not let Israel go (Exod. V). And others too, saying: Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? (Job XXI.) And: What doth it profit us if we pray to him? (Ibid.) Others 386Aalso: Let us crown ourselves, they say, with roses, before they wither. Let us leave everywhere the tokens of our laetitio. Let us eat and drink: for tomorrow we shall die. For this is our lot, and our inheritance (Sap. II; Isa. XXII). There follows:

If thou be exalted as an eagle, and if thou set thy nest among the stars: thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. The eagle was, by condition, the apostate angel: but through pride he was made Leviathan. The stars are the kinds of men shining in the world above others by the lamp of nobility, the brightness of knowledge, the splendor of riches. The nest is the pomp of dishonorable pleasure. The Lord therefore says to Esau, that is, to the flesh: If thou be exalted as an eagle, etc. As if he were to say: If the dowry of Egypt fall to thee, if the flower of the world smile upon thee, if pomp answer thee 386Bto thy wish: if thou hast fittingly tended thy skin, if thou hast feasted splendidly, if thou art fattened with riches, made sleek with delights, spread wide with attendance, yet under thee shall the moth be strewn, and thy covering shall be worms (Isa. XIV). Whence the Apostle: Meat for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both this and these (I Cor. VI). Hence the Lord through John in the Apocalypse: Because thou sayest, he says, I sit a queen, and am not a widow, and I see no mourning: therefore in one day shall thy plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and fire shall burn thee (Apoc. XVIII): for strong is the Lord who judgeth her. Likewise in the same place: Render to her as she also hath rendered to us: and double ye the double: according to her works, in the cup wherein she hath mingled, mingle ye to her double (ibid.).

386CIf thieves had gone in to thee, and robbers, how wouldst thou have held thy peace? Would they not have stolen enough for themselves? If the grape-gatherers had come in to thee, would they not at least have left thee clusters? The thieves are the dissemblers and the crafty, who provoke the wrath of God. The robbers are passions and diseases. Further, the demons are the grape-gatherers. The first waste the flesh under a pretense. The second torment it most grievously. The third disfigure and humble it: but all seize enough for themselves; because neither demon, nor disease, nor hypocrite does anything except what the divine dispensation permits by its ordering. Hence the Lord through Job: I encompassed, he says, the sea with my bounds, and I set a bar and doors, and I said: Hitherto thou shalt come, and shalt go no further, 386Dand here thou shalt break thy swelling waves (Job XXXVIII). Now the Lord encompasses the sea when he moderates the assaults of those that afflict the flesh by the dispensation of his judgments: so that the swollen wave of a mad fervor may be broken secretly upon a level shore. The Lord says therefore: If thieves had gone in to thee, etc. As if he were to say: If those who can do nothing without my judgment afflict thee so far in straitness and against thy advantage, what shall my friends do, who by afflicting thee shall please me, providing for thy profit? Whence there also follows:

How have they searched Esau: they have sought out his hidden things? The friends of Christ, the disciples of truth, search out the hidden things of Esau, that is, of the flesh: because they are eager to cut away not only the manifest works of the flesh, but even the superfluities of carnal thoughts Whence 387AJob: Why do I tear my flesh with my teeth, and carry my soul in my hands? (Job XIII.) Likewise: I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin (Job XXXI). There follows:

They have sent thee out even to the border. By the border he means the going out of the door: for Esau, that is, the flesh, has a bedchamber, a house, a courtyard, a little bed. For the bed is iniquity: the bedchamber, superfluity: the house, curiosity: the courtyard is pleasure. Pleasure moves the affection, curiosity the sense, superfluity the consent, iniquity the act of works. Holy men therefore send Esau out even to the border: because they lead away iniquity from the act, superfluity from consent, curiosity from sense, pleasure from anxious affection. They send the flesh out, I say, even to the border, when they draw it back to 387Bjust and due necessity. This he had done who said: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long: we are counted as sheep for the slaughter (Psal. XLIII). This the Apostle, saying: We brought nothing into this world, and there is no doubt that neither can we carry anything out. But having food and wherewith to be covered, with these let us be content (I Tim. VI), etc. There follows:

All the men of thy covenant have mocked thee: the men of thy peace have prevailed against thee. They that eat bread with thee shall lay snares under thee. Thy knowledge is become wonderful, O Lord, from me (Psal. CXXXVIII). Wonderful, I say, art thou in thy saints: who givest strength and might to thy people; who bringest out them that were bound in strength; who turnest the sea into dry land, so that they pass over influmine with dry foot; who hast willed that the sons of the world, 387Cthe friends of the flesh, the slaves of vices, the guests of demons, should become despisers of the world, treaders-down of the flesh, persecutors of vices, mockers of demons; who from execration and lying hast announced the consummation. Whence it is written: In the field of Jezrahel the dogs shall lick the blood of Jezabel (III Reg. XXI). In the dog, according to the sinister signification, three things are considered: according to the good likewise three. According to the bad: rage, lust, clamor. According to the good: faith, zeal, teaching. The faith of guarding. The zeal of vengeance. The barking of teaching. Jezrahel is interpreted the seed of God. Jezabel, a vain flux. By Jezrahel is signified the fear of God. By the field, exercise and labor. By Jezabel, the care and love of the flesh. In the field of Jezrahel therefore the dogs lick the blood of Jezabel: because holy and God-fearing men, through 387Dexercise and the love of the divine fear, utterly banish the care and love of the flesh. Hence that word of the Psalmist: Pierce thou my flesh with thy fear: for I have been afraid of thy judgments (Psal. CXVIII). And this is what Obadiah says: All the men of thy covenant, etc. Note these three: covenant, peace, banquet. They had entered a covenant with the flesh through affection, peace through consent, banquet through act. Through the affection of concupiscence, through the consent of wantonness, through the act of malice. Against these three, three others are set. Against concupiscence, mockery; against wantonness, assault; against malice, snares. The snares of fastings, the assault of spiritual exercises, the mockery of the virtues. For fasting thins the strength of the flesh, that 388Ais, its malice: and spiritual exercise banishes the wantonness of the senses: the choir of the virtues cuts away disordered concupiscence. There follows:

There is no prudence in him. Because in Esau, namely in the flesh, no traces of its prudence appear, unless the banners of the aforesaid three have shone forth. For the first shuts out the malice of the flesh: the second lulls its wantonness: the third casts out its concupiscence, etc. There follows:

Shall not I in that day, saith the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Idumaea, and prudence out of the mount of Esau? And thy valiant men shall fear from the south, that man may perish out of the house of Esau. According to the history, the Lord threatens destruction to the people of Idumaea. According to the allegory, to the heretics, or to the gentile people. According to the tropology, to the flesh. That day 388Bof which the Lord speaks signifies, historically, the coming of the Babylonians to the destruction of Idumaea. Allegorically, the coming of Christ in the flesh to the calling of the nations. Tropologically, his coming into the mind to the conversion of religion. Day here signifies the prosperity, or the gladness, conferred upon the neighboring nations over the destruction of Idumaea. The same for those called to faith, from their conversion. The same for those changed to religion, from their sanctification. Wisdom in this place signifies the affection of malice. Prudence, the craft of worldly cunning. Strength, the horn of secular power. The mountain, the elation of pride. The south, the fervor of unclean concupiscence, etc. There follows

For the slaughter, and for the iniquity against 388Cthy brother Jacob, confusion shall cover thee: and thou shalt perish for ever. Historically the Lord shows the cause of the overthrow of Idumaea, in that it dealt wickedly against the people of Israel, denying counsel, withdrawing help, and slew many of them in the time of the siege and the calamity. Allegorically the Lord declares that the heretics perished for this reason, that they dealt wickedly in many ways against the Church, because they were eager to corrupt her faith, to rend the tunic of the Bridegroom, to eat down the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth: persecuting, banishing, beleaguering churchmen; corrupting many also by force, or by fraud and price. Tropologically, however, it indicates the destruction of the flesh, in that in the time of temptation it rose up wickedly against the lordship of the mind: and wickedly laid waste 388Devery precious thing of virtue. There follows:

In the day when thou stoodest against him, when strangers took his army captive, and foreigners entered into his gates; and cast lots upon Jerusalem: thou also wast as one of them. And thou shalt not look down in the day of thy brother, in the day of his sojourning. And thou shalt not rejoice over the children of Juda in the day of their destruction. And thou shalt not display thy mouth in the day of distress. Neither shalt thou enter into the gates of my people in the day of their ruin. Neither shalt thou also look down upon his evils in the day of his devastation. And thou shalt not be sent out against his army in the day of his devastation: neither shalt thou stand in the outlets, to slay them that shall flee. And thou shalt not shut up the remnant of them in tribulation; for the day of the Lord is at hand upon all 389Anations. As thou hast done, so shall it be done to thee; he shall turn thy reward upon thy own head. Historically it shows the in humanitatem of the Idumaeans, and their cruelty against the people of Israel, who not only failed him with help in the time of his distress, but even joined themselves to the fellowship of his enemies to assail him. And this is what he says: In the day when thou stoodest, etc., as far as and thou shalt not look down. Allegorically it shows the savagery of the heretics against the Christians, who in the time of the primitive Church, when the idolaters persecuted, afflicted and butchered them, not only offered no defense; but were even to them especially a stumbling block, and a snare, and a ruin, and a taking. Jerusalem is the Church; the prelates, her gates; the army, the Christian people. Tropologically it shows 389Bthe wantonness of the flesh rising up in the time of temptation against the soul: which not only did not, by restraining its senses and chastising its members, present them to serve justice and God unto sanctification, but even, appointing them weapons of iniquity for sin, made them serve uncleanness and iniquity unto the destruction of the soul. Jerusalem is contemplation; her gates, the eminence of purity, the hope of immortality, the perfection of charity. After it has shown the savagery of the aforesaid, it thereupon declares their most worthy retribution, and their will, powerless by the just judgment of God, for the destruction of the aforesaid people, saying: Thou shalt not look down, etc. As if he were to say: Thou shalt not look down, because thou shalt drink of the same cup. Historically, the day of sojourning 389Cis the harshness of captivity; allegorically, the course of the present life; tropologically, the fervor of manifest temptation. The children of Juda are the children of the Church. The day of destruction and of distress is the evident lapse into heresy, or the sudden fall into carnal temptation. The gate of the people is the soundness of faith or the confession of sin. The outlets of the ways are the manifold doubtfulness of opinions or the manifold occasion of carnal temptations. The shutting up: unbelief and despair. The day of the Lord: the coming of Christ, or the prosperity of vengeance, or the illumination of grace. Upon all nations, because God makes some vessels of mercy through grace, and leaves others through justice vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction and dishonor, etc. There follows:

As thou hast done, so shall it be done to thee; I will turn thy reward upon thy own head. Because no punishment is juster 389Dthan that by which like is received for like. For he who prepares a pit, it is just that he fall into it.

How thou hast drunk upon my holy mountain: all the nations shall drink continually; and they shall drink, and shall be swallowed up, and they shall be as though they were not. Historically the prophetic word is directed to the Idumaeans; allegorically against idolaters and heretics; tropologically against the flesh and its animal senses, against concupiscence and its carnal onsets. The mountain, historically, is Jerusalem, that earthly city; allegorically, Christ and the Church; tropologically, holy contemplation. Now to drink upon the mountain is to take delight and to rejoice at the overthrow of the aforesaid city, or at the contempt of Christ, or at the casting down of the Church, or at the fall of a soul adorned with virtues and raised up to the contemplation of the Bridegroom. Let us read 390AHerodotus and the Greek and barbarian histories, and we shall see how under the Assyrians and Babylonians was fulfilled what is said: The day of the Lord is near upon all the nations (Psal. CXXXVI). But as to what follows — As thou hast done, so shall it be done to thee; he shall render thy recompense upon thy own head — this is the sense which we read in the psalm: Be mindful, O Lord, of the children of Edom, in the day of Jerusalem: who say, empty it out, Empty it out even to the foundation therein (ibid.). For as thou hast drunk upon my holy mountain with the Babylonians and hast rejoiced, so all the nations which thou hadst with thee in the garrison of Babylon, turned against thee, shall drink and rejoice; and not only shall they drink, but they shall also swallow thee up, so that the Idumaeans shall be as though they were not. Or certainly those same nations, when they have swallowed thee up, shall themselves be swallowed up by the Medes. And this 390Bvengeance shall go forward for this end: that thou [consume] Jerusalem, that the Babylonian consume thee, and the Mede and the Persian the Babylonian. Let us follow the order of interpretation. The day of the Lord is near, O heretic, upon all the nations: the time of judgment is at hand, in which all nations are to be judged; as thou hast done against churchmen, so shall it be done to thee; for as thou, rejoicing at their slaughter, didst keep festival, and upon my holy mountain, that is, in the Church, didst drink not my cup but the devil's — of which it is said in Habakkuk: Woe to him that giveth drink to his friend, and maketh him drunk, mingling his gall, that he may look upon his nakedness (Habac. II) — so all the nations, or the opposing powers assigned to punishments, or the adversary virtues, shall drink and swallow up thy blood; and at the last, when the torment comes upon all, 390Cthey too shall be as though they were not. For he who perishes to him who is — and who says to Moses: He who is hath sent me to you (Exod. III) — is, according to the rule of the Scriptures, said not to be. Whence also in Esther we read: Deliver not, O Lord, thy kingdom to them that are not (Esth. XIV). Likewise through Isaiah: As though they were not, so are they before him; and they are reckoned by him as nothing and emptiness (Isa. XL). We can interpret this passage otherwise. Because you have rejoiced in the ruin of my servants, the same persecution shall come against you also; and as you rejoiced together with the rest of the nations against my people, so all the nations shall come against you also, and shall devour, and drink, and grind you down with a like blow. Tropologically, against the flesh, which had said: I sit, and I shall not see mourning 390D(Apoc. XVIII). Hence to her: As much as she hath been prepared and hath been in delights, so much prepare for her torments and mourning (ibid.). Hence the Psalmist: O wretched daughter of Babylon: blessed is he that shall repay thee thy recompense (Psal. CXXXVI), etc. Hence through Nahum, saying to the spirit: Go in under the clay and tread it; working it, take hold of the brick (Nahum III) — calling the flesh a brick. There follows:

LITERAL. And in mount Sion shall be salvation; and it shall be holy. And the house of Jacob shall possess those who had possessed them. And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble. And they shall be kindled among them, and shall devour them; and there shall be no remnants of the house of Esau, for the Lord hath spoken. Idumaea being overthrown, and devoured by the hostile nations with which it had before entered into a covenant against Jacob, upon mount Sion there shall be remnants, 391Aand there shall be salvation, and it shall be holy — that is, either the Lord himself will return to the temple which he had abandoned because of the people's sin, or say "holy" absolutely, that is, the Holy of holies. And the house of Jacob, under Zorobabel, Esdras and Nehemiah, shall possess those who had possessed them by inheritance; and the house of Jacob, that is, the house of Judah, shall be a fire. And the house of Joseph, of the ten tribes, a flame. But the house of Esau, that is, of the Idumaeans, who had shown themselves so savage and cruel against their own brother, shall be turned into stubble. And as fire and flame consume stubble, so the two kingdoms, leagued together in the bond of a single rod for themselves, according to Ezechiel, shall lay Idumaea waste and devour it. And there shall be none left over of the people who might announce the overthrow to the neighboring nations. All the things we have said and are 391Babout to say, he promises will be seen by him in the time to come, when in place of Christ they shall receive Antichrist, the Saviour's prophecy being fulfilled: I came in the name of my Father, and you accipistis me not; if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive (Joan. V). Whatever we have interpreted against Idumaea, they dream against the Roman kingdom.

MORAL. What we have said was accomplished according to history under Zorobabel, we assert to be done daily in the Church according to prophecy and the mystical understandings, and to be accomplished in every man in the kingdom of the soul against the flesh. Mount Sion, allegorically, is the Church; tropologically, the soul set in the watchtower of heavenly things, lifted up by the joy of contemplation. Therefore, when Christ enters into Egypt upon a light cloud and goes down into Dothain, 391Cwhile by the washing of saving water through the word the Saviour sanctifies the Church — he who is in very truth her sanctification — that he may present her to himself without spot and without wrinkle, mount Sion is said to be sanctified; because the Saviour, who is, as I have said, her sanctification, is joined to her by grace and by mystery. Hence the Son himself to the Father: Father, he says, sanctify them in truth (Joan. XVII). Thy word is truth. Likewise he himself: I, he says, sanctify myself for them (ibid.). See, reader, a new and wondrous kind of sanctification in the manner of our redemption: of what dignity the making of man was, and of how much greater moment his restoration was. For the Father sanctifies, the Word sanctifies, the Spirit sanctifies. For what is it to sanctify, if not to make holy? What is it to make holy, if not to set free from earthly 391Dappetite, from earthly affection, from earthly understanding, from earthly contagion? For agios in Greek, that is, "holy," is in Latin called "without earth." Now in each single man there are by nature three things which, pressed down by earthly contagions, defiled with the filth of vices, were brought under the proud tyranny of demons, These however are: to be able, to will, to know. For man's power had been weakened, his will wounded, his knowledge troubled. The Apostle had felt his power weakened, who said: I am delighted with the law of God according to the inward man; I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind, and leading me captive in the law of sin, which is in my members (Rom. VII). He had known his will wounded, when he said: For the good which I will, 392Athat I do not; but the evil which I hate, that I do (ibid.). He had seen his knowledge troubled too, saying: For we know in part, and we prophesy in part (I Cor. XIII). This also the Psalmist briefly intimates, saying. My heart is troubled (Psal. XXXVII) — behold the will wounded; And my strength hath forsaken me (ibid.) — behold the power weakened; The light of my eyes, and even that is not with me (ibid.) — behold the knowledge darkened. Furthermore, in mount Sion, that is, in the loftiness of the watchtower, in the perfection of the Church, there shall be salvation: through the power of the Most High, through the incarnation of the Word, through the coming of the Paraclete. And that mountain shall be holy — namely the Church, in act, in sense and in affection wholly lifted up from earthly things, receiving power in the sacraments, wisdom in the precepts, fruitfulness in the gifts: from the Father power, 392Bfrom the Son wisdom, from the Spirit fruitfulness, the charity poured into us by him. In saying these things I do not divide the unity of the divine essence, nor confound the properties of the persons; but in the divine operation I show, soundly and faithfully, the distinction of the persons and the unity of the essence. Mount Sion, then, is holy at the coming of the Saviour; because the Church, at the coming of her Bridegroom, received from him the holiness of the sacraments, the sanctity of the precepts, the sanctification of the gifts; by him, I say, she is sanctified, that is, she is lifted up from earthly things by the faith of the sacraments; by him she is lifted up by the hope of the precepts; by him she is raised on high by the charity of the heavenly gifts. Sanctified, therefore, she sanctifies and heals; illumined, she illumines; what she has received, she bestows, that all may be of one, both he who is sanctified and he who sanctifies. 392CThere follows.

And the house of Jacob shall possess, etc. The house of Jacob the supplanter is the Church, the bride of the Saviour, of which the Apostle says: And Moses indeed was as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be said; but Christ as a son in his house: which house are we, if yet we hold the beginning of hope right up to that which is firm (Hebr. III). This Jacob, that is, the wrestler, is the Saviour of the human race. Historically we find that Jacob wrestled four times. Three times with his brother, once with an angel. First in the womb; second over the dish of lentils; third over the oracle of the father's blessing. With his brother, as he returned from Mesopotamia, as has been said above. Allegorically, our wrestler, who coming upon him as the stronger entered the strong man's house and bound the strong man. With the angel, 392Din the fourth place, he plundered his vessels — he to whom the Father gave a hard contest that he might conquer, so that all might know that wisdom is mightier than all things. Our Jacob, I say, is said to have wrestled three times already; and it is believed for certain that he will wrestle a fourth time. First in the womb, second on the gibbet, third in the tomb, fourth at the last judgment against servants and a most wicked seed. In the womb, by freedom from sin; on the gibbet, by the acquisition of glory and the honor of the kingdom; in the tomb, by the immortality of life and the glory of triumph; at the judgment, by the right of victory and the rigor of justice. First, then, he supplanted the devil in the womb; for he watched, and became like a solitary sparrow upon the housetop (Psal. CI). Second, upon the cross: When I shall have been lifted up, he says, from the earth, I will draw all things to myself (Joan. XII). 393AThird, the Jew, according to that word of the Psalmist: In the multitude of thy strength thy enemies shall lie to thee (Psal. LXV); and in Genesis: Judah is a lion's whelp: to the prey, my son, thou art gone up; resting, thou hast couched as a lion, and as a lioness — who shall rouse him? The sceptre shall not be taken away from Judah, nor a ruler from his thigh, until he come that is to be sent: and he shall be the expectation of the nations (Gen. XLIX). Fourth also he shall supplant the throng of goats, saying: Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire (Matth. XXV). Thou seest then, poor little man; thou seest — dust, worm, earth, ashes; thou seest, I say, what the Sun of justice endured for thee, what the Lord of hosts did for thee, what the King of glory suffered through thee. Hence he himself through Isaiah: Thou hast made me to labour, he says, in thy sins, to serve in thy iniquities (Isai. XLIII). Likewise 393Bthe same through the same: I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the nations there is no man with me. I looked about, and there was no helper; I sought, and there was none who would give aid; but my own arm shall save for me, and my indignation itself hath helped me (Isai. LXIII). Consider how his indignation helped him. For his indignation is his own incarnation, by which he destroyed death, and stormed him who held the empire of death, and sin, and subjected the world to himself. First he wrestled for thee, that thou mightest conquer the devil's arrogance and his kingdoms; second, that thou mightest overcome the world's excess and glory; third, that thou mightest drive out the concupiscence of the flesh and the wantonness of the senses; but the last wrestling he will make, that, all the foregoing being despised, thou mayest as victor possess the crown of glory. These are the four watches, of which it is read 393Cin the Gospel: And if he shall come, he says, in the second watch, and if he shall come in the third (Matth. XIV), etc. Blessed are those servants. And of the fourth, in the same place: In the fourth, he says, watch I come to them upon the sea (Ibid.). The first watch shakes the mind out of the sleep of iniquity; the second out of the languor of curiosity; the third out of the torpor of unlawful pleasure; the fourth out of the negligence of vanity. The first triumphs over sin, the second over the world, the third over the flesh, the fourth over death and its sting. The form of this life, the rule of this discipline, this fourfold wrestling, he left behind to his bride. Whence also he says to his apostles: I dispose to you, as my Father hath disposed to me, a kingdom (Luc. XXII), etc. The Church's first wrestling was with idolaters; the second with heretics; 393Dthe third with carnal men; the fourth with false Christians. First she supplanted by the confession of one God; second by the rule of holy faith; third by the bond of ordered love; fourth by the thirst, the zeal, the ardor, the joy of blessed contemplation. Of the first it is said to the bride: Who is she that cometh up like the rising dawn, fair as the moon, choice as the sun, terrible as an army set in array? (Cant. VI.) Of the second also: Beautiful are thy steps in sandals, O prince's daughter (Cant. VII). Of the third: Who is she that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved? (Cant. VIII.) Of the fourth: Who is she that goeth up through the desert like a slender column of smoke from the spices of myrrh and frankincense? (Cant. III.) Hence it is that Obadiah says: And the house 394Aof Jacob shall possess those who had possessed them; because, namely, the Church knows how to triumph gloriously over the aforesaid enemies by the aforesaid kind of wrestlings — either by subjecting them to herself with authority, or by converting them religiously to her own faith and discipline. There follows:

And the house of Jacob shall be a fire; and the house of Joseph a flame; and the house of Esau stubble: and they shall be kindled among them, and shall devour them; and there shall be no remnants of the house of Esau, for the Lord hath spoken. ALLEGORICAL. By the house of Jacob and of Joseph is signified one Church, possessing a twofold state from a twofold gift of grace, and having, according to a double degree of discipline, a double adornment of religion. For the house of Jacob is the active household; the house of Joseph, the excellence of contemplatives. For Jacob is interpreted wrestler, Joseph 394Bincrease or increasing. The house of Jacob labors in the conflict of vices, sweats in the exercise of virtues, burns in the wrestling-school of discipline, is in anguish in the works of penance. But the house of Joseph rejoices in the increase of counsels, is glad at the disclosing of hidden things, exults in the variety of dishes, dances for the sweetness of kisses. The house of Jacob, therefore, toils in the field of action; the house of Joseph, upon the couch of contemplation. Jacob flees into Mesopotamia, rising up by night; Joseph feasts with his brethren and rejoices in the burning noonday. The one flees vices, with penance for his guide; the other keeps banquets for his brethren, receiving, that is, the converse of the spirits that enter in. The fire is the ardor of manly penance; the flame, the splendor of divine contemplation. 394CThe fire is the compunction of the soul; the flame, the fiery contemplation of the Bridegroom. In the fire, two things; but in the flame, three are considered. In the fire, warmth and burning; in the flame, warmth, burning and splendor. Fire consumes and kindles; flame devours, kindles, and illumines. The fire of penance consumes guilt, kindles nature; consumes vices, kindles merits; consumes iniquity, kindles unto virtue. But the flame of contemplation consumes vanity, kindles unto perfect charity, illumines unto the brightness of the Bridegroom. It consumes whatever is formless, kindles unto the supercelestial, illumines unto the invisible.

By these things, and by things like them, the house of Esau becomes stubble; because by the works of penance iniquity is blotted out, and by the works of justice perverse curiosity is driven out, 394Dand by the works of grace the unlawful pleasure of the flesh, and by the works of glory the vanity of the whole world is expelled. Esau is interpreted bloody; he is Seir, that is, hairy; he is the same as Edom, that is, earthly: bloody by iniquity, hairy by curiosity, earthly by pleasure. Bloody in act, hairy in sense, earthly in affection. This is the house of Esau: a troop of demons and ostriches, a herd of swine, a phalanx of goats, a servitude of wickedness, a cohort of uncleanness, an assembly of gluttony. Of these, indeed, the fire of the house of Jacob kindles one part — namely the ardor of penance and the heat of compunction; another part the flame of the house of Joseph devours — namely the warmth of divine love and the splendor of heavenly contemplation. Then they are kindled among them, and devour them: 395AEsau, that is; because they drive out as enemies the rebellious and unyielding sons, to be devoured by avenging flames and the burnings of Gehenna, or else by the grace of converse and the force of love they mercifully incorporate them into themselves and faithfully turn them to themselves.

We can interpret tropologically the things that were said allegorically above. For when the Bridegroom deigns to visit his bride, straightway the bride's chamber is adorned: adorned, I say, with the gold of faith and the silver of wisdom, with the gems of the virtues, the veils of holiness, the roses of modesty, the lilies of chastity, the violets of shamefastness. The bed is compassed about with the purple of mortification, the linen of devotion, the coverlet of love; round about are strewn the sweet-smelling grasses of heavenly affections. About the bride's neck the balsams of holy fame breathe out their scent; in her hands the most precious of ointments 395Bgive off their fragrance. My hands, she says, have dropped with myrrh: and my fingers are full of the choicest myrrh (Cant. V). And Helios [id est sol], beholding this from on high, straightway leaps upon the mountains, passing over the hills and running through the garden; passing the storeroom, he hastens to the bridal chamber, and rushing into the bride's embrace, he lays her upon the couch of contemplative glory, saying: Thou art all fair, my love, and there is no spot in thee (Cant. IV). And thus in mount Sion, in the loftiness of perfection, in the watchtower of contemplation, salvation comes to be. Then the aforesaid mountain becomes holy — nay rather, sanctification itself. For if what is read in the Apostle is true — nay, because it is true: He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with him (I Cor., VI) — then a spirit cleaving to truth becomes truth, and cleaving to holiness becomes 395Choliness. And then the house of Jacob shall possess those who had possessed them. The house of the wrestler is the conscience of the Saviour's bride. This conscience has afflicted and supplanted Esau by a fourfold wrestling: for before anyone escapes to persecution, before he passes over to the citadel of contemplation, in the wrestling-school and the course of this fourfold struggle he is in anguish and sweats. First, while he lies hidden in the womb, that is, while he tarries in the world, by pressing on toward the birthright, that is, by hastening to the exercises of religion; second, by buying up the right of the firstborn at the price of a dish of lentils, that is, by abstinence from food; third, by wresting away the grace of the father's blessing by a kind of guile; fourth, by wrestling spiritually with the angel. First he supplanted by confession, second by the submission of profession, third by the 395Dconfession of love, fourth by the contemplation of heavenly brightness. First he supplanted by penance, second by obedience, third by innocence, fourth by spiritual sympathy. In the first wrestling iniquity is overcome; in the second, abominable curiosity; in the third, unlawful pleasure; in the fourth, alluring vanity. The iniquity of the devil, curiosity about one's neighbor, one's own pleasure, the vanity of the world. The house of Jacob becomes a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau a brothel of utter confusion. In the house of Jacob burns the fire of manly penance, and in the house of Joseph shines the flame of wisdom. In the house of Esau the stubble of all malice abounds; in Esau there is in very truth a brothel, deceit, fraud and pretense, because he is hairy; the concupiscence of the flesh and 396Athe concupiscence of the eyes, because he is bloody; lying, cruelty, devastation, because he is earthly. Now in the supplanting conscience — devouring the stubble of vices, burning up the hay of offenses, reducing to ashes the wood of sins — there burns the fire of saving penance, which drives out Esau's iniquity and sinks his pestilent curiosity. Furthermore, in the mind the flame of divine love, kindled, lit up by the Sun of justice, turned toward him by the zeal of unceasing love, fixing continually the spiritual eyes of a most pure heart upon his beauty — in the advance of virtues, in the contest of heavenly affections, in the desire of the heavenly embrace, in the hope of the divine touch, in the fragrance of kisses, in the thirst for supercelestial desires — that flame, thoroughly kindled, shines as the flame of heavenly wisdom: whence come forth 396Bthe fruits of innocence, the gems of grace are born, the flowers and the works of glory spring up, by which Esau's disordered pleasure is burned away and alluring vanity is utterly worn down. For the flame of heavenly wisdom consumes sins, kindles merits, illumines rewards.

And they that are toward the south shall inherit the mount of Esau, and they that are in the plains the Philistines: and they shall possess the country of Ephraim, and the country of Samaria: and Benjamin shall possess Galaad. LITERAL. Judah having returned into his own kingdom — he who dwelt in the south and possessed the whole region according to the division of Jesus the son of Nave, which slopes toward the scorpion, that is, the whole Achartumnam. These, who before were hemmed in by narrow bounds, shall possess the mount of Esau, that is, the mountains 396Cof Seir and the highlands which Edom had formerly possessed. But those who dwell in Sichela, that is, in the plains of Lidan and Emmaus — meaning Diospolis and Nicopolis — shall possess the Palestinians, that is, the five cities of the Philistines: Gaza, Ascalon, Azotus, Acharon, Geth, or that whole region which, according to the Acts of the Apostles, is called Salonas. The border of the sons of Judah shall also be extended as far as Ephraim, where Neapolis now is; and as far as the country of Samaria, where Sebaste was founded. But Benjamin, whose borders are extended from Jerusalem toward the north, shall possess the whole of Arabia, which was formerly called Galaad and is now named Gerasii, according to the Seventy Interpreters; and the mount of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria, and Benjamin, and Galaad, those who 396Dwere in the south shall possess. Whether this has come to pass, let God see to it. For it can in part have been fulfilled through the five hundred years down to the coming of Christ; and after the coming of Christ, more truly to have been fulfilled through the spreading of the faith — which I know most certainly, because it is fulfilled daily in us and is confirmed in the kingdom of the Church. There follows:

And the removal of this host of the children of Israel shall possess all the places of the Chanaanites as far as Sarepta; and the removal of Jerusalem, which is in the Bosphorus, shall possess the cities of the south. And saviours shall go up into mount Sion, to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. Those who, according to the volume of Esdras and Nehemiah, shall have returned from Babylon into Judaea shall rightly 397Abe called the removal. That whole host of the children of Israel, toward the south as well as toward the west and toward the north, shall possess the Idumaeans, and the Palestinians, and mount Ephraim and Samaria. Benjamin, because he borders upon the wilderness, shall in particular obtain Galaad. But toward the east they shall rule over all who are in the land of the Chanaanites, as far as Sarepta of the Sidonians, where once the widow fed Elias. Furthermore, those who shall have been carried over from Jerusalem herself, the mother city, to the Bosphorus, shall possess the cities of the south, which are in the tribe of Judah. For having returned into their own city, they shall obtain the places that are near the city. And when these things had been fulfilled, as it is written in the book of Judges, the Lord used to send saviours who should save the people from captivity. So they shall approach and shall come into 397Bmount Sion, that they may judge and discern the mount of Esau — that is, the Idumaeans — as subject to them and serving them; and when all have been subjugated, the kingdom shall be the Lord's. Jerome: We, he says, have learned from the Hebrew who instructed us in the Scriptures. According to the Hebrew verity, Sapharat in the present passage is so called, that is, Bophorum [Bosphorum], and not Ephrata, as it pleased the Septuagint. And it is, he says, as it were "seeing" — the region to which Hadrian carried over the captives. When therefore our Christ shall have come, then that captivity too shall return into Judaea. But we can understand any place whatever of the kingdom of Babylon, which I judge to be something else. For it is the custom of the prophets, when they speak against Babylon, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Philistines and the other nations, to make free use of many of their words 397Cand to keep the idioms of the provinces. Since therefore in the tongue of the Assyrians a border, which in Hebrew is called Jebul, is called sapharat, I conjecture the sense to be this: The removal of Jerusalem, which has been divided among all the borders and regions, shall receive the cities of the south, that is, of its own tribe. Thus Jerome from the Hebrew; nay rather, the Hebrew from Jerome. But since we have interpreted according to history, as best we could, and have steered our little boat among the confragrosos rocks, let us spread the sails of spiritual understanding, so that, with the Lord breathing upon us and unlocking his mysteries, we may come joyfully to harbor.

ALLEGORICAL. Behold, Obadiah in the present passage describes the land historically and divides it spiritually. We read of many divisions in the divine utterance: the divisions, namely, of the Red 397DSea, whence comes that word: Who divided the Red Sea into divisions (Psal. CXXXV). And in the Apostle: Now there are divisions of graces, but the same Spirit. And there are divisions of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are divisions of operations, but the same God, who worketh all things in all (I Cor. XII). But we read that there have also been four divisions of the land. The first was made by Josue; the second by Ezechiel; the third here in Obadiah. And the fourth by the Saviour. The first is the sacrament of the second, the second of the third, the third of the fourth. Whence the first, by the same number, so stands historically as the second does spiritually according to that law; the third to the fourth. Consider, reader, the form of the order and the splendor of the proportion. For as the first 398Ais to the second, so the third stands to the fourth. And as the first to the third, so the second to the fourth, so the second to the third. As to the judgment of proportions, I commit the reader to arithmetic for his instruction. But our purpose is to search out the hiding-places of allegorical obscurity, and to bring its darkness out into the light of explanation. The first division of the land, then, is made when the storming of the enemies has gone before, or their subjugation; the second without hostile surrender or civil upheaval; the third with a voluntary subjugation of the enemies; the fourth without condition or sinew of subjection, but with the glory and joy of mutual love. The first division is made with punishment and misery; the second with punishment without misery; the third without punishment and misery, though the shame of it is retained; the fourth without punishment and misery, every weakness being removed. The battle is to be unwilling 398Bto consent to sin; the misery is that the unwilling man be harassed by an unlawful incitement; the shame of the misery is to be titillated by it; the removal of the weakness is the shutting out of temptation. There are four liberties: liberty of choice, liberty of exercise, liberty of counsel, liberty of joy. The first division was made with liberty of choice, but not with liberty of exercise. For the will, moved by its own choice, stormed whom it could, but did not subjugate all whom it wished. Whence it had liberty in the faculty and motion of judgment, but did not have it in the business of exercise; for if it had truly had it, it would have subjected all men to itself at a nod. The second had the first liberty and the second, but lacked the third; for moving itself by its own will, it uses the wished-for faculty of exercise; but liberty of counsel is wanting to it, because it did not know how to reach the bounds of knowledge and of order, 398Cof the outcome, of the beginning. The third had all these three but lacked the fourth; because it obtained both will in motion, and faculty in act, and brightness in understanding, but did not have security in affection. But the fourth possesses all things; for it possesses both free will in choosing, and swift faculty in acting, and sincere brightness in intention, and secure perpetuity in enjoyment. The first liberty, then, is common to all; the second is general to the converted, but special to the imperfect; the third is general to the perfect, and special to those who soldier for God in this world; the fourth is singular to those who contemplate the Bridegroom and rejoice with him. The first belongs properly to servants; the second belongs properly 398Dto hirelings; the third properly to friends; the fourth properly to sons. The first division is made through the grace of compunction; the second through the discipline and purpose of conversion; the third through the ecstasy of mind and the eminence of contemplation; the fourth through the taking up of glory and honor, and of immortality, straightway unto the vision of God. The first comes to pass when we withdraw from the darkness and servitude of sin; the second, when we follow the fleeing Bridegroom to the mountain of myrrh and to the hills of Lebanon; the third, when we go up through the desert like an army set in array; the fourth, when we enter the courts of the heavenly city with hymns. There are four things which have been given to the elect for their profit and salvation and happiness: namely exercises, joys, merits, rewards — the exercises of religion, the joys of contemplation, the merits 399Aof perfection, the rewards of the most blessed vision; the exercises, I say, of discipline, the joys of spiritual union and of the heavenly bond, and the merits of justice, the rewards of glory. The first division, then, pertains to the exercises, the second to the joys, the third to the merits, the fourth to the rewards. Whence also in the first division it is said by Josue to the children of Israel: These are the nations which the Lord thy God left in the midst of thee, that in them he might instruct Israel (Judic. III). Hence again it is written: But the sons of Judah could not destroy the Jebusite, the inhabitant of Jerusalem (Judic. I). Likewise in the same place: The sons of Manasses could not overthrow these cities, but the Chanaanite began to dwell in his own land. But after the children of Israel grew strong, they subjected the Chanaanites and made them their tributaries, and did not slay them (Ibid.).

399BOf the second division it is thus read in Ezechiel: This is the land which you shall cast by lot to the tribes of Israel, and these are their portions, saith the Lord (Ezech. XLVIII). Toward the northern quarter, three gates of three tribes. On the southern side, as many of another three; on the eastern side, as many of another three; on the western side, as many of another three; from each quarter thou shalt measure five hundred cubits and four thousand. What are these four quarters, if not the four principal kinds of compunction, through which the holy mind enters and walks toward the temple of holy contemplation? And these are: fear of punishment, grief at the present exile, hope of the heavenly reward, love of the spiritual marriage. Fear is the western quarter; grief, the northern; hope, the eastern; love, 399Cthe southern. And what are the three gates set at each of them, if not the occasions of the aforesaid compunction, dedicated to the Trinity, consecrated to faith, hope, charity. For he who rightly fears punishments flees vices by faith, presses toward merits by hope, runs to rewards by charity. But he to whom the misery of the present exile is a grief presses by faith toward obedience, hastens by hope toward justice, and flies on the wings of charity to glory. Furthermore, he who thirsts for the unfading reward flees by faith the shipwreck of vices, enters by hope the racecourse of the spiritual contest, and, at the urging of love's zeal, hastens to the reward. And he who longs for the bond of the one Heavenly One removes from himself by faith the stain of all iniquity, follows everywhere and always by hope the rule of innocence, burns with the ardent desire of charity for the heavenly marriage, and with vehement 399Dzeal hastens to the spiritual nuptials. In all these, the vision of the Trinity is sought, the eternity of glory, the possession of happiness. But that from the gate up to the temple he reckons five hundred cubits and four thousand — this is because the hundred and the thousand both signify perfection. The hundred multiplied five times signifies the honorable and perfect continence of the senses. The thousand multiplied four times, according to the faith and rule of the Gospel, signifies purity of conscience, perfection of life, innocence of manners. By the four thousand, then, is designated integrity of life; by the five hundred cubits, soundness of reputation. From the gate, therefore, up to the temple these things are reckoned; because from the entrance of compunction up to the joy of holy contemplation there is need 400Aof honorableness of the senses, integrity of life, purity of conscience. There is need, I say, of continence of the senses, justice of acts, innocence of affections. Thus one goes from the gate to the temple; because through the guarding of and care for the aforesaid one arrives at the bond of the spiritual marriage and at the sweetness of the Bridegroom. Whence there is added next: And the name of the city from that day, The Lord is there (Ibid.). From that day, that brightness, that bond, that union, the city's name is, The Lord is there; because he guards the going out of his bride to action, and her entrance to contemplation. He guards the gates of profession, watches over the streets of religion, venerates the temple of sanctification, fortifies the citadel of perfection, protects the people of spiritual exercises, and guards the choir of heavenly manners. 400BIn her too the Lord is the bread of life, the wine of heavenly justice, the garment of justice, the law of clemency, the light of spiritual understanding, the water of spiritual doctrine. What more. From the time when the city's name is, The Lord is there (Rom. I), in her God becomes all things to all. These things we have said briefly of the first division and the second.

It remains that we say something of the third and the fourth. And as the first pertains to the exercises, the second to the joys, so the third looks to the merits, the fourth to the rewards. And as those two are distinguished by the number ten because of the perfection of action, so these are divided by the number seven because of spiritual perfection and the joy of heavenly contemplation. Therefore Ab dias says:

400CAnd they that are toward the south shall inherit the mount of Esau, etc. Under this sevenfold number there are set against the seven principal vices seven divisions of the land, seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, seven virtues contrary to those vices, and last of all seven beatitudes. In the first place are set the seven vices, against which are set the antidotes of all the foregoing. The first of the vices is pride, the second envy, the third anger, the fourth accidie or sadness, the fifth avarice, the sixth gluttony, the seventh lust. Against these, in the second place, are established the seven petitions which are contained in the Lord's Prayer. The first, in which it is said to God: Hallowed be thy name; the second, in which it is said: Thy kingdom come; the third, in which it is said: Thy will be done, as 400Din heaven and on earth; the fourth, in which it is said: Give us this day our daily bread; the fifth, in which it is said: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; the sixth, in which it is said: And lead us not into temptation, the seventh, in which it is said: But deliver us from evil. Afterward, in the third place, there follow the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. The first, the spirit of the fear of the Lord; the second, the spirit of piety; the third, the spirit of knowledge; the fourth, the spirit of fortitude; the fifth, the spirit of counsel; the sixth, the spirit of understanding; the seventh, the spirit of wisdom. Then in the fourth place there follow four virtues. The first, poverty of spirit, that is, humility; the second, meekness, or kindness; the third, compunction, or grief; 401Athe fourth, hunger for justice, or good desire; the fifth, mercy; the sixth, cleanness of heart; the seventh, peace. But in the very last place are arranged the seven beatitudes. The first, the kingdom of heaven; the second, the possession of the land of the living; the third, consolation; the fourth, the fullness of justice; the fifth, mercy; the sixth, the vision of God; the seventh, the sonship of God.

Pride is the love of one's own excellence. Envy is hatred of another's happiness. Anger is unjust rage, or the unlawful madness of a mind stirred up. Accidie, or sadness, is the disordered bitterness of the soul, or a perverse weariness of mind joined with sorrow. Avarice, which is the immoderate appetite for having, is signified by the mount of Esau. By the Philistines, which is interpreted falling by the cup, envy: for it falls as though by a foreign 401Bdraught, because it envies another's happiness. Distinguish these thus in the first place, that thou mayest understand the vices themselves as certain sicknesses of the soul, or wounds of the inner man; but the man himself as one sick, God as the physician, the gifts of the Holy Spirit as the antidote, the virtues as health, the beatitudes as the joy of happiness. There are, then, seven capital or principal vices, and from these all evils arise. These are the springs of the dark abyss, from which the rivers of Babylon go forth and, drawn out into every land, pour abroad the droppings of iniquity. Of which rivers the Prophet, in the person of the faithful people, sang, saying: Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered thee, O Sion (Psal. CXXXVI). Of these seven vices — layers waste, corrupting the whole integrity of nature, 401Cand at the same time bringing forth the seeds of all evils — let us speak so far as we think sufficient for the present task of explanation. There are seven, then: of these, three strip the man; the fourth scourges him when stripped; the fifth casts out the scourged; the sixth seduces the cast out; the seventh subjects the seduced to servitude. For pride takes God away from a man. Envy takes his neighbor from him. Anger takes himself from him. Sadness scourges him when stripped. Avarice casts out the scourged. Gluttony seduces the cast out. Lust subjects the seduced to servitude. Now, returning, let us explain each in order. For pride is the love of one's own excellence, when the mind loves the good which it has singly — that is, apart from him from whom it received the good. 401DO pestilent pride, what art thou doing? Why dost thou persuade the streamlet to divide itself from the spring? Why dost thou persuade the ray to take itself away from the sun? Why? Save that the one, when it ceases to be poured into, may dry up; and the other, when it turns away from the one that illumines it, may become dark? And that each, while it ceases to receive what it does not yet have, may straightway lose also that which it has? And so it comes about that it cannot profitably have even what it has, while it does not love that good in him from whom it has it. For as every good is truly from God, so no good can profitably be had outside God; nay rather, by this very thing is what is had lost, that it is not loved with him and in him from whom it is had. For whoever knows only this, to love the good in himself which he has, must needs, when he has looked upon in another a good which he does not have, 402Abe tormented by his own imperfection all the more bitterly, the less he loves him in whom every good consists. And therefore envy always follows pride: because he who does not fix his love there where every good is, the more perversely he is exalted over what is his own, the more grievously is he tormented at another's good. Most justly, then, has a punishment of its own been assigned to elation, namely the envy which it begets out of itself: which, because it would not love the whole and common good, now rightly wastes away with spite at another's good. Assuredly the success of another's happiness would not burn it, if it possessed by love him in whom every good is. Now, therefore, as much as it lifts itself up by elation against the Creator, so much does it fall by spite beneath its neighbor; and as much as it is deceitfully raised up there, so much is it truly cast down here. But neither can hisistere 402Ba corruption once begun. For as soon as envy has been born of pride, the wretched mind itself brings forth anger out of itself. For it is angry with itself over its own imperfection for this reason, that it does not rejoice through charity at another's good. And therefore even that which it has begins to displease it, since it recognizes in another that which it cannot have. Therefore what it could have had only in God through charity, because it tried also through elation to have outside God, it loses its neighbor through envy, and itself through anger. Since therefore, all things being lost, there is nothing whence the unhappy conscience may rejoice, it is dashed against itself through sadness; and she who would not devoutly rejoice at another's good is justly tormented by her own evil. After pride, then, and envy, and anger, which strip the man, 402Cthere straightway follows sadness, which scourges him when stripped bare. Then avarice succeeds it, which casts out the scourged, because, the inward joy being lost, it compels him to seek consolation outside. Afterward gluttony comes on, which seduces the cast out; because this vice, tempting first of all as it were from close at hand a soul that gapes after outward things, entices it through natural appetite itself into excess. Last of all lust comes upon him, which violently subjects the seduced to servitude; because after the flesh has been puffed up by surfeiting, the soul, grown soft and nervelessly dissolved, cannot conquer the burning of lust that comes upon it. For the mind, shamefully subdued, serves a most savage domination; and unless the Saviour's mercy, entreated, comes to its aid, there will now be no source from which the lost liberty may be restored 402Dto the captive in his servitude.

And so there follow seven petitions against the seven vices, by which he is entreated to come to our aid who both taught us to pray and promised that he would give to those who pray the good that would serve to heal our wounds and to loose the yoke of our captivity. But before we come to the explanation of these, we wish first to show by yet another likeness how great a corruption the aforesaid vices beget in us, so that the more dangerous the sickness is shown to be, the more necessary the medicine may be proved. Through pride, then, the heart is puffed up; through envy it withers; through anger it bursts; through sadness it is ground down and, as it were, reduced to dust; through avarice it is scattered; through gluttony it is tainted and, as it were, made sodden; through lust it is 403Atrampled underfoot and reduced to mud, so that the wretch may now say: I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no sure standing. I am come into the depth of the sea, and a tempest hath overwhelmed me (Psal. LXVIII). And when the soul has been stuck fast in this mire of the deep, and wrapped about in the mud of defilement and uncleanness, and can by no means be plucked out, let it cry to him and beg his help of whom the Psalmist speaks, saying: With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and he was attentive to me, and he heard my prayers, and he brought me out of the pit of misery and out of the mire of dregs (Psal. XXXIX). For this reason, then, he himself taught us to pray, that we might understand our whole good to be from God. The first petition, therefore, is against pride, in which we say to God: Hallowed be thy name. For here we ask that he grant us to fear and venerate his name, 403Bso that we may be subject to him through humility, because through pride we have shown ourselves rebellious and stubborn. To this petition is given the spirit of the fear of the Lord, that he, coming to the heart, may create in it the virtue of humility, which may heal the disease of pride, so that a humble man may be able to attain to the kingdom of heaven, which the proud angel lost through elation.

The second petition is against envy, in which it is said: Thy kingdom come. For the kingdom of God is the salvation of men: because God is then said to reign in men when men themselves are made subject to him, both now by cleaving to him through faith, and afterward by inhering in him through sight. He therefore who asks that the kingdom of God may come assuredly seeks the salvation of all; and in that he petitions for the common salvation of all, 403Che shows that he reproves the vice of spite. To this petition is given the spirit of piety, that he, coming to the heart, may kindle it to kindness, so that a man may himself attain to that same possession of the eternal inheritance to which he desires others to attain.

The third petition is against anger, in which it is said: Thy will be done, as in heaven and on earth. By this he declares that whatever the will of God dispenses, whether in himself or in others, according to the judgment of his own good pleasure, is pleasing to him. To this petition, then, is given the spirit of knowledge, that he, coming to the heart, may instruct it and wholesomely prick it, so that a man may know that the evil which he suffers comes from his own fault, but that whatever good he has proceeds from the mercy of God; and that by this he may learn, whether in the evils which he endures or in the goods which he does not have, 403Dnot to grow angry against the Creator, but in all things to show patience. Most excellently, then, is the anger and indignation of the soul mitigated by compunction of heart, which is born of humility, the spirit of knowledge working inwardly; because, on the contrary, anger kills the foolish man, when, driven and blinded by the vice of impatience, he does not recognize either that he has deserved the evil which he suffers, or that he has received through grace the good which he has. And this virtue — that is, compunction or grief — the reward of consolation follows, so that he who here of his own accord afflicts himself before God with lamentations may there deserve to find true joy and gladness.

The fourth petition is against sadness, or accidie, in which it is said: Give us 404Athis day our daily bread. For sadness is a weariness of mind joined with sorrow: when the mind, in a manner wasted away and embittered by its own vice, does not desire inward goods, and, all vigor being dead, grows glad at no desire of spiritual refreshment. Therefore, to heal this vice, we must entreat the mercy of the Lord, that he with his wonted kindness may set the food of inward refreshment before the soul languishing in its weariness; so that what she, being absent from it, knows not how to desire, she may, admonished by the taste of it when present, begin to love. To this petition, then, is given the spirit of fortitude, to raise up the fainting soul, so that she, having received back the strength of her former vigor, may grow strong out of the disposition of her weariness into the desire of the inward savor. The Spirit, therefore, creates in the heart a hunger for justice, so that while here it is strongly kindled by the desire of piety, there 404Bit may obtain for its reward the full satiety of blessedness.

The fifth petition is against avarice, in which it is said: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. For it is just that he should not have to be anxious in paying his debt who has been unwilling to be grasping in exacting it. And therefore, when the vice of avarice is taken from us by God's grace, it is granted us — the condition of salvation being set forth — how we ought to be absolved from our own debt. To this petition, then, is given the spirit of counsel, which may teach us in this world willingly to bestow mercy upon him who sins against us, so that in the world to come, when we are to render an account for our sins, we may deserve to find mercy.

The sixth petition is against gluttony, in which it is said: And lead 404Cus not into temptation — that is, do not permit us to be led into temptation. This is the temptation which by the allurement of the flesh often strives to draw us through natural appetite into excess, and secretly slips pleasure beneath us while openly it flatters us with talk of necessity. Into which temptation we are assuredly in no way led, if we so strive to furnish nature its support according to the measure of necessity that we nevertheless always remember to restrain the appetite from the allurement of pleasure. And that we may be able to fulfill this, the spirit of understanding is given to us when we ask, that the inward refreshment of the word of God may check the outward appetite, and the mind be strengthened by spiritual food, so that neither bodily want may be able to break it, nor the pleasure of the flesh to overcome it. For this reason too the Lord himself, 404Dwhen his tempter was practising deceit upon him in his hunger by the suggestion of outward bread, answered, saying: Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God (Matth. IV); that he might plainly show that when the mind is refreshed inwardly by that bread, it does not greatly care if outwardly it suffers for a time the hunger of the flesh. There is given, therefore, against gluttony the spirit of understanding: and he, coming to the heart, cleanses and purifies it.

The seventh petition is against lust, in which it is said: Deliver us from evil. For although, as we have said elsewhere, evil is manifold — as the evil of the body and the evil of the soul; the evil which is fault, the evil which is punishment; the evil of this world, and the evil of the world to come — nevertheless 405Alust can in a manner be reckoned the chief evil, which reduces to 406Aservitude the man it has caught with its allurements. Whence through the gift of wisdom we ask to be delivered, saying: Deliver us from evil. Amen.