The word of the holy prophets is always difficult to surmise. It is filled with hidden meanings and is pregnant with announcements of divine mysteries. The end of the law and prophets is Christ, as Scripture says.^[1] Those who want to expound these subtle matters must be diligent, I believe, to work in a logical way to thoroughly examine all of the symbols in the text to gain spiritual insight. First, the interpreter must determine the historical meaning and then interpret the spiritual meaning, in order for readers to derive benefit from every part of the text. The exposition must be clearly seen to be complete in every way.

It is our task to pay diligent attention to the mind, so that it becomes clear-sighted, becoming perfect through appropriate exercises, while it is God’s gift that the Spirit should illuminate us for the comprehension of his mysteries. The prophet puts vision first in his account and then introduces his report of the words, in order to show that he did not receive it through the faculty of hearing but is proclaiming the meaning of the word that has been impressed on his mind. For we need voice to indicate our thoughts, but God, affecting directly the very ruling aspect of the soul in those who are worthy, impresses on them the knowledge of his own will.

A vision, he says, not ordinary or perceptible with physical eyes, but a prophetic vision of things to come in far distant times; for just as one sees in a great tablet the invasion of enemies, ravagings of countryside, sieges of cities and enslavements of people, represented with the brilliance of color, the same way he seems to see a dream, but not a vision in sleep, when the divine spirit enlightens the soul.

[The heading] indicated the ages of the kings, since there was a different state of affairs among the Jews, and events were to transpire in the distant future which never entered the mind or suspicion of the people of that time. Furthermore, it needs to be noted that the whole book, which only seems to be a single composition, was actually spoken over long periods of time, since there was need of extensive and precise understanding to discern the future, to determine the meaning of the events of the time and to suit the prophecy for the events that occurred in each reign. For the age of these kings covered fifty years in all, during which the things contained in this whole book were spoken.

[Isaiah] should be called an evangelist rather than a prophet, because he describes all the mysteries of Christ and the church so clearly that one would think he is composing a history of what has already happened rather than prophesying what is to come.

It is also said in the old text that the people saw the voice of God.^[1] The nonsense of Montanus remains silent about this, who thinks that it said the prophets would be coming in ecstasy and insanity of heart, for they could not see what they did not know. I know some from the heavens who interpret Judah and Jerusalem and Isaiah as figures of the person of the Lord our Savior, because it predicts the captivity of this province in our land and his subsequent return and ascension of the holy mountain in the last days. Adjudging all of this to be opposed to the faith of Christians, we despise it, and thus we interpret the truth of history spiritually, so that whatever they dream about the heavenly Jerusalem, we refer to the church of Christ and to those who either left her on account of sin or returned to their first position out of repentance.

When Moses was going to bring Israel to the Promised Land, he had in full view all that they would do, that they were going to disregard those things he transmitted to them. Listen, O heaven, he says, and attend, O earth, to the words out of my mouth.^[1] I give you as witnesses to heaven and earth, says Moses, that when you enter the Promised Land and you abandon the Lord God, you will be scattered abroad to all nations. Isaiah came, and the threat was going to be realized. You could not invite the deceased Moses and all those who had formerly heard and had died; so Isaiah calls to mind instead the elements that Moses brought forth as witnesses.

All that exists was created by God, and there is nothing uncreated except the nature of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God, who is good by nature, wishing to have those whom he might benefit and who might enjoy the benefits received from him, made creatures worthy of himself, that is, who could receive him worthily.

Our Lord frequently proclaimed God as a Father to us. He even gave us an instruction that we call no one on earth father, but the Father whom we have in the heavens. So, in praying [Our Father] we are likewise obeying the precept. Those who recognize their Father are blessed! This is the reproach that is brought against Israel, to which the Spirit attests heaven and earth, saying, I have begotten children, and they have not recognized me.

The one who is [begotten] from another by nature is a true child, just as Isaac was to Abraham, and Joseph was to Jacob, and as the radiance is to the sun. But those who are called children only from virtue and grace are called so not by nature but because of what they have received by grace. They still are not of the same nature as the one who gave them [the gift]. They are the ones who received the Spirit by participation, about whom it is said, I produced and exalted children, but they rebelled against me. Of course, they were never really children by nature, and because of this and the fact that they reverted [to their former ways], the Spirit was taken away and they were disinherited. But when they again repent, God will receive them again and give them light. He will again call them children who at the beginning had been given grace.

And if they had examined with their understanding the things which were written, they would not have carefully fulfilled the prophecies which were against themselves, so as not to make their city now desolate, grace taken from them, and they themselves without the law, being no longer called children but strangers.

That manger was the one the prophet meant when he said, The ox knows his owner and the donkey his master’s manger. The ox is a clean animal, and the donkey an unclean one. . . . The people of Israel did not know the manger of their Lord, but the unclean Gentiles did. . . . We should strive to recognize the Lord and to be worthy of knowing him. We should strive to appropriate not only his birth and fleshly resurrection but also his anticipated second coming in majesty.

If the love of children for their parents is a natural endowment and if this love is noticeable in the behavior even of brute beasts, as well as in the affection of human beings in early infancy for their mothers, let us not appear to be less rational than infants or more savage than wild beasts by alienating ourselves from him who made us by being unloving toward him. . . . This gratitude is characteristic not only of humans, but it is also felt by almost all animals, so that they attach themselves to those who have conferred some good upon them.

Isaiah calls to you to know your owner, like the ox, and to know the manger of your Lord, like the donkey.

What is more evident than that it is said of the passion of the Lord: The ox knows his owner and the donkey his master’s crib. Let us, then, know the Lord’s crib where we are nourished, fed and refreshed.

[The righteous person] does not say, My portion consists of herds of oxen, donkeys or sheep, except, perhaps, he counts himself among those herds which know their owner and wishes to consort with that donkey which does not shun the crib of Christ . . . [For this person] that sheep is his portion which was led to the slaughter and the Lamb which was dumb before his shearer and did not open his mouth.^[1] In [Christ’s] humiliation, judgment has been exalted.

Before the cross not even the Jews knew him . . . while after the cross the whole world flocked to him.

His mother laid him in a manger. Joseph did not dare to touch him, for he knew he had not been begotten of him. In awe, he rejoiced at a son, but he did not dare to touch the Son. . . . Why in a manger? That the prophecy of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled.

Therefore Jesus found a donkey and sat upon it.^[1] . . . The donkey’s colt upon which no one had sat (for this fact is found in the other Evangelists) we understand as the people of the nations which had not received the Lord’s law. However, the donkey (because both beasts were led to the Lord) is his community which came from the people of Israel, clearly not unbroken, but which recognized the Master’s manger.

He who fills the world found no room in an inn. Placed in a manger, he became our food. Let the two animals, symbolic of two races, approach the manger, for the ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib. Do not be ashamed to be God’s beast of burden. Carrying Christ, you will not go astray; with him burdening you, you make your way through devious paths. May the Lord rest upon us; may he direct us where he wishes; may we be his beast of burden and thus may we come to Jerusalem. Though he presses upon us, we are not crushed but lifted up; when he leads us, we shall not go astray. Through the Lord may we come to the child so that we may rejoice forever with the child who was born today.

The Leader and Shepherd of shepherds is announced to shepherds, and the food of the faithful lies in the manger of dumb beasts. . . . For that reason he sat upon the colt of a donkey when he entered Jerusalem amid the praises of the multitude surging around him.^[1] Let us understand; let us draw near to the manger; let us eat of this food; let us bear the Lord, our Guide and Leader, so that under his direction we may come to the heavenly Jerusalem.

In the persons of the shepherds and the magi, the ox began to recognize his owner and the donkey his Master’s crib. From the Jews came the horned ox, since among them the horns of the cross were prepared for Christ; from the Gentiles came the long-eared donkey, since it was concerning them that the prophecy had been made: A people, which I knew not, has served me: at the hearing of the ear they have obeyed me.^[1] For the Owner of the ox and the Master of the donkey lay in a manger, yet he was furnishing common sustenance to both creatures.

The ox from the Jews, the donkey from the Gentiles; both came to the one manger and found the fodder of the Word.

Therefore those oxen magnified the Lord, not themselves. See the ox magnifying his Lord because the ox has acknowledged his owner; observe the ox fearing that the ox’s owner may be deserted and confidence be placed in the ox. How he is terrified of those who want to put hope in him!

I am often astonished at human conduct. Humans are endowed with wisdom and prudence, yet at whim they lightly reject the precepts of discipline. How different is the conduct which we see in the beasts! They avoid vices, carry out commands, submit to control and mold their spirits to perfect obedience. As a result, when need arises, they run against armed legions and charge head downward against the javelins of the foe. . . .

The person who is not aware of the obligation flowing from his condition of being a creature simply does not know God.

If you did not recognize him soon along with the angels, do acknowledge him now, even though very late, in company with the beasts. Otherwise, while you loiter, you may be deemed less than those very animals with whom you were previously compared. . . . Yet you argue and quibble with the Jews who turned away from their inns their Master whom the beasts welcomed in their cribs.

Why does the king of the Jews lie in a manger and not repose in the temple? Why is he not resplendent in purple rather than poorly clad rags? Why does he lie hidden in a cave and not on display in the sanctuary? The beasts have received in a manger him whom you have disdained to receive in his house. As it has been written. . . . But you, O Israel, have not sought out your Master.

If the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, we are his servants and farmers, and I do not know how we can fail to recognize him as the owner.

By the ox he designates the people of the Jews, who were accustomed to carry the yoke of the law and to ruminate upon its words; by the donkey he represents the people of the nations, who remained always unclean with the stains of idolatry. From both peoples a great many turned to the grace of the gospel and recognized the owner by whom they were created. [They] were seeking by means of his heavenly nourishing fare to grow toward perpetual salvation.

If even among the barbarians harmony is maintained through subjection to a single leader, what should we think of the disharmony among us and our failure to be subject to the Lord’s commands? We should realize that our good God gives us examples to teach us and lead us to conversion. On the great and awesome day of judgment he will use them as a demonstration of the shame and condemnation of those who have not heeded his instruction. He has already said, and he continues to say, The ox knows his owner and the donkey his master’s manger; but Israel has not known me, and my people have not understood.

But, in fact, there were even in that people those that understood, having the faith which was afterwards revealed, not pertaining to the letter of the law but the grace of the Spirit. For they cannot have been without the same faith, who were able to foresee and foretell the revelation that would be in Christ, inasmuch as even those old sacraments were signs of those that should be.

They who have long since put aside the worship of God cannot be called the people of God. Neither can that people be said to see God who have denied the Son of God.

Like other Hebrews, Israel does not know its owner, nor does this people understand the cradle of its Lord. Here is the clear meaning: I adopted them as sons and made them a people peculiar to myself, the portion of my inheritance, and I called them my firstborn, but they did not cooperate, because they became dumb beasts to be conquered by favors and to recognize their shepherd and guardian. It does not compare them to dogs because a dog is the most clever kind of animal, which defends the dwelling of its owner for a little food. But the mind of the ox or ass is slower, animals that turn hard clumps of soil while pulling a plow behind some carriages and alleviate the workload of men by bearing heavy loads behind other carriages. Hence they are called beasts of burden, because they assist men. Although this verse can be understood as referring to God the Father, it seems instead to refer to the Son inasmuch as the people of Israel did not recognize him, nor did they receive him whose day Abraham rejoiced to see and on whose advent all the hopes of the prophets hung.

When Isaiah calls them evil seed, he does not mean to insult the ancestors of those to whom he was speaking. Rather he was denouncing their own wickedness, just as John the Baptist called the Jewish leaders a brood of vipers^[1] and the Lord called them an evil and adulterous generation.^[2] They were called these things because they did not preserve the virtuous life of those who went before them.

The Jews who have the writings of the prophets did not understand this, and neither did they recognize Christ when he came. They even despise us who say that he has come, and, as it was prophesied, show that they crucified him. But in order that this may become clear to you, the following words were spoken through the aforementioned prophet Isaiah in the name of the Father: The ox knows his owner and the donkey his master’s crib; but Israel has not known me, and my people have not understood. Woe, sinful nation, people full of sins, evil seed, lawless children, you have forsaken the Lord.

When Isaiah, in the person of God, said, Israel has not known me, and the people have not understood me, he did not mean there is another God who is known but that the known God was also unknown because when the people sinned they believed the good God would not chastise them, because they were ignorant of the righteousness of the known God.

Correction is a public rebuke of sin. [God] uses it in a manner that is particularly necessary for our instruction because of the weak faith of so many. For example, he says through Isaiah, You have forsaken the Lord, you have provoked the holy one of Israel.

Excoriation is the most vigorous expression of disapproval. God employed excoriation as a remedy when he said through Isaiah, Ah, sinful nation, a people full of sins, an evil seed, lawless children.

It shows utter contempt when, even with retributions, [the Israelites] do not become better. But even this is a kind of benefit—to be chastised. For they would have to admit that God not only condemned and rewarded but was also forgiving sinners. And certainly he was coaxing them with rewards and also chastising them with fear of punishments.

Isaiah calls the kings and the leaders the heads and the priests and teachers the heart. For what the heart is to the body, the priests and teachers are for the people, and what the head is for the body, the kings and leaders are for their subjects.

And just as there are some wounds that are cured by emollients, others that are cured by oil and others that need a bandage, there are still other wounds about which it is said, It is not emollients or oil or bandages; but your land is desolate, your cities burned with fire. So there are some sins that pollute the soul, and for those sins one needs the lye of the Word, the soap of the Word. Yet some sins are not cured this way, because they do not pollute the soul.

Isaiah teaches that there are certain wounds of the soul. . . . Without doubt, he is speaking about the transgressions of the people, because there are some to whom the medicine of the poultice must still be applied. Others may be sinners in such a degree that no cure can be found for them.

Let your exhortations be full of meaning. . . . Speech is a bandage that ties up the wounds of souls, and if anyone rejects this, he shows his despair of his own salvation. Likewise, with those who are vexed by a serious sore, use the oil of speech that you may soften their hardness of heart; apply a poultice; put on a bandage of salutary advice, so that you may never allow those who are astray or who are wavering regarding the faith or the observance of discipline to perish through the loss of courage and a breakdown of activity.

They had nothing to pour. If they had had any oil, they would have poured it on their own wounds. Isaiah cries, They cannot apply ointment or oil or bandage. But the church has oil, with which it tends the wounds of its children, that the wound may not harden and spread deep. [The church] has oil which it has received secretly.

You see now how the rebuilding of Jerusalem takes place: the broken heart is mended. . . . You wound your heart, and the Lord binds your wounds. . . . It refers to those who are penitent, but of the unrepentant, Scripture says, their wounds are not drained or bandaged or eased with salve.

You know very well that Jerusalem was laid waste just as it was prophesied. That it would be destroyed, and no one allowed to live there, was promised through the prophet Isaiah in this way: Your land is desolate. . . . Indeed you are aware that it is guarded and no one is in it.^[1]

What therefore? Have these things not come to be? Have the things announced by you not come to fruition? Is not their land, Judah, desolate? Is the holy place not burned? Are their ways not thrown down? Are their cities not laid waste? Do strangers not devour their lands? Do the Romans not rule over their land?

Isaiah is not recalling events that have happened but is announcing events in the future. The prophets customarily use fear to demonstrate the truth of what they are saying.

Isaiah lived almost [two] thousand years ago and saw Zion in a hut. The city was still standing, beautiful with public squares and clothed in honor; yet he says, Zion shall be plowed like a field,^[1] foretelling what has been fulfilled in our day. Observe the exactness of the prophecy; for he said, Daughter Zion will be left like a hut in a vineyard, like a shed in a melon patch. Now the place is full of melon patches.

Christ ceased to be in them. The Word deserted them. . . . The Jews were left behind, and salvation passed to the Gentiles. God meant to spur on the Jews with envy. We contemplate God’s mysterious plan, how for our salvation he rejected Israel. We ought to be careful. The Jews were rejected for our sake; on our account they were abandoned. We would deserve even greater punishment if we did nothing worthy of our adoption by God and of his mercy. In his mercy God adopted us and made us his sons [children] in Christ Jesus, to whom is glory and power for ages of ages.

But since the fruits were removed in this manner, only the drying arbors of the bushes and the cottages remain, the custodian having departed because there is nothing left for him to preserve. Therefore God omnipotent also abandons the temple and causes the city to be deserted. There is no need to prove this with words, especially to us who see Zion deserted and Jerusalem overthrown and the temple leveled to the ground. But the fact that he calls Zion a daughter displays the most clement affection of a parent. Neither is it any wonder that Zion is called a daughter, since Babylon also is frequently referred to as a daughter. For we are all children of God by nature, though we have been alienated from him by our own sins. Analogically, our souls can be called God’s vineyard and a paradise of fruits, having God as its custodian provided that the mind, that is, the nous, presides. But if it is plundered by sin as though by wild beasts, then we are forsaken by God the custodian and rendered utterly alone.

Moreover, those teachers who believe that the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh will indeed share in the eternal kingdom, even if they are sinners without faith and disobedient to God, are deceiving themselves and you. These are speculations that the Scriptures demonstrate have absolutely no basis. If they did, Isaiah would not have said, And except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had become as Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Gentiles were utterly ignorant of the one true God and worshiped things they themselves made. The Jews and Samaritans, though, had been given the Word of God by the prophets and have always waited for the coming of Christ. However, they did not recognize him when he came, except for a few who were to be saved.

He here shows that even the few that were saved were not saved through their own resources. Even they would have perished and suffered like Sodom. That is, they would have been completely destroyed—for Sodom was destroyed root and branch, and not even the smallest seed remained. He means to say that they too would have been like those, except that God demonstrated his goodness to them and saved them by faith. This happened as well in their visible captivity in which most of them were taken captive and perished, in which only a few were saved.

Beware, O Christian, beware of pride. For though you are a follower of the saints, ascribe it always wholly to grace. That there should be any remnant in you, the grace of God has brought it to pass, not your own merits.

It was shown above what the prophetic word threatened against Jerusalem and Judah, not pertaining to the time of the Babylonian captivity but to the end of the Romans, when the remnant of the Jewish people were saved in the apostles, and three thousand believed in one day and five thousand on another, and the gospel was spread throughout the entire world. The Lord of hosts is our Latin translation, following Aquila, of the Hebrew Lord of the Sabbath, to which the Septuagint translators gave a double sense: either the Lord of powers or the Lord omnipotent. We also need to ask whether it was said about the Father or about the Son. But there is no doubt what we read in the twenty-third psalm: Lift up your heads, gates, and be lifted up, eternal doors, and the king of glory will enter! Who is the king of glory? Lord of the sabbath.^[1] The Lord of powers, he is the king of glory, referring to Christ, who ascended to heaven as victor after the triumph of the passion. And in another place it says about the Lord, the king of glory: If they had known him, they never would have crucified the Lord of glory.^[2] Not only according to the Apocalypse of John and the apostle Paul, therefore, but also in the Old Testament Christ is named as Lord of the sabbath, that is, Lord omnipotent. For if all things of the Father belong to the Son and, as he himself says in the Gospel, All power in heaven and on the earth has been given to me^[3] and All that is mine is yours, and I am glorified in them,^[4] why then does the title of omnipotence not also belong to Christ, so that just as he is God of God and Lord of Lord, he would also be the omnipotent Son of the omnipotent One?

By saying that he does not delight in the sacrifices of the people, God is saying this: I abound in my own [sacrifice], I do not seek yours, I do not desire whole burnt offerings of rams and the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and of goats. And do not come so into my sight.

How do you hope to find any redemption for your souls through sacrifices that are offered in quantity but with no repentance worth mentioning? For God is merciful not through the blood of animals or through slaughter on the altar but upon the contrite heart. For the sacrifice to God is a contrite heart.^[1]

It is fitting for the same to be said to those who are lavish in their expiations but do not repent through their deeds. . . . Scripture says, What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? So it dismisses the multitude and seeks after the single sacrifice.^[2]

Observe that God does not say that he does not wish for any blood, but for this particular blood from these particular animals. For he would not say that he does not wish for the blood that was poured out in the last times for the annulment of sins,^[1] which speaks more effectively than that of Abel,^[2] but he changes the sacrifices to the spiritual plane, since the change of priesthood^[3] is about to happen. For if he rejects the physical sacrifices, he manifestly rejects the high priest according to the law. . . . They of the stock of Aaron are cast out, therefore, so that he [Christ] according to the order of Melchizedek might enter instead.^[4] The continuous sacrifices^[5] are no more, no more the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement,^[6] no more the ashes of the heifer which purify those that partake.^[7] For the sacrifice is one, the Christ,^[8] and the mortification of the saints according to him;^[9] the sprinkling is one, the bath of regeneration;^[10] the absolution of sins is one—the blood poured out for the salvation of the world.^[11] Because of this God renounces the former things, so that he may establish the latter.

It is obvious that sacrifices were established as an instruction to inspire right living in the people and were not given as an end in themselves. When the people refused to do those works that were necessary in order to busy themselves with only sacrifices, God said that he would no longer accept the sacrifices.

The entire book of Leviticus offers laws that are very strict regarding sacrifices. Moreover, there are numerous laws concerning sacrifices scattered throughout the book of Deuteronomy, as well as other books. How then can God ask, Who has required these things from your hands? This is to teach us that God’s will was not to make laws in this way but that the people suffered from slothfulness in not abiding by this command.

As for the burdensome sacrifices and the troublesome scrupulousness of their ceremonies and oblations, no one should blame the Jews, as if God specially required them for himself. . . . But he should see in those sacrifices a careful provision on God’s part, which showed his wish to bind to his own religion a people who were prone to idolatry and transgression by that kind of services wherein consisted the superstition of that period. He did this in order to call them away from idolatry, while requesting sacrifices to be performed to himself, as if he desired that no sin should be committed in making idols.

Now this is the spiritual victim which has set aside the earlier sacrifice. . . . The gospel teaches what God demands. The hour is coming, he says, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.^[1] . . . We are the true worshipers and true priests who, offering our prayer in the spirit, offer sacrifice in the spirit—that is, prayer—as a victim that is appropriate and acceptable to God; this is what he has demanded and what he has foreordained for himself.

God seeks us, not what’s ours. Anyway, the Christian’s sacrifice is alms, or kindness to the poor. That is what makes God lenient toward sins.

You see what he means: It is not the present sabbaths that I find acceptable but the one which I have made. After I have given rest to all things, I will make the beginning of the eighth day, which is the beginning of another world. It is for this reason that we celebrate on the eighth day, the day on which Jesus also rose from the dead, appeared and ascended into heaven.

Tell me, you who come to church only on festal days, are the other days not festal days? Are they not the Lord’s days? It belongs to the Jews to observe religious ceremonies on fixed and infrequent days. . . . God hates, therefore, those who think that the festal day of the Lord is on one day.

For actions not done lawfully and piously are not of advantage, though they may be reputed to be so, but they rather argue hypocrisy in those who venture upon them. Therefore, although such persons feign to offer sacrifices, yet they hear from the Father, Your whole burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices do not please me;^[1] and although you bring fine flour, it is vanity; incense also is an abomination to me.

Listen to the words of the inspired writer: Incense is an abomination to me—as if to suggest the bad intention of the one offering the sacrifice. You see, just as in the present case the good person’s virtue transformed the smoke and stench into an odor of fragrance, so in their case the malice of the one making the offering caused the fragrant incense to smell like an abomination. Consequently, let us earnestly take every opportunity, I beseech you, to demonstrate a sound attitude. This, after all, proves responsible for all our good things. You see, the good Lord is accustomed to heed not so much what is done from our own resources as the intention within, on which we depend for our first move in doing these things, and he looks to that in either approving what is done by us or disapproving it. So whether we pray, or fast, or practice almsgiving (these, after all, being our spiritual sacrifices) or perform any other spiritual work, let us begin with a pure intention in performing it so that we may procure a reward worthy of our efforts.

How, tell me, can festivals that God hates be intended for continual and uninterrupted observance? Are we to say that God changed his mind, and that ordinances God originally said to be good, when he established them through Moses, are ridiculed by the prophets, so that we must conclude he who enjoined them made a mistake, and that he is subject to the same infirmities that afflict us? . . . He was in favor of the good for the ancients, but he wished, rather, that by passing from symbols and shadows into the beauty of the truth, they should commend the worship most well pleasing to him, and it is clear that such worship is intellectual and in spirit.

When, from the teaching of ancient doctrine, dearly beloved, we undertake the fast of September to purify our souls and bodies, we are not subjecting ourselves to legal burdens. We are embracing the good use of self-restraint that serves the gospel of Christ. In this too, Christian virtue can exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees,^[1] not by making void the law but by rejecting worldly wisdom.

The aids of our faith are fear and patience. Allies to us are endurance and self-control. Where these things remain in purity in matters relating to the Lord, there wisdom, understanding, insight and knowledge are rejoicing with them. He has made it obvious to us through all the prophets that he does not require sacrifices, burnt offerings or oblations. . . . Therefore he has annulled these things, in order that the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is free from the yoke of compulsion, might have an offering not made by humans.

Through this arises the question for us, what sabbath God willed us to keep? For the Scriptures point to an eternal sabbath and a temporal sabbath. For Isaiah the prophet says, My soul hates your sabbaths, and in another place he says, My sabbath you have profaned.^[1] From which we discern that the temporal sabbath is human and the eternal sabbath is accounted divine.

God has here expressed an aversion to certain sabbaths. By calling them your sabbaths he means that the sabbaths he rejects are humanity’s, and not his. He rejects them because they were celebrated without the fear of God by a people full of sins who love God with the lip, not the heart.^[1]

Let those who do nothing right in life and think they are justified by the length of their prayer listen to these words. For the words of the prayer are not useful by themselves but only when they are offered up with earnest intent. Now the Pharisee also seemed to multiply his supplication. But what does the Scripture say? The Pharisee stood and prayed thus to himself,^[1] not to God, for he turned back toward himself, since at all events he was in the sin of arrogance.

One asks, What if I have been overcome? Then cleanse yourself. How, in what manner? Weep, groan, give alms, apologize to the one who is offended, reconcile him to yourself in so doing, wash clean your tongue so that you will not offend God more grievously. If someone were to fill his or her hands with dung and embrace your feet asking something of you, you would push that person away with your foot rather than listen. Then why do you draw near to God in such a manner, because in reality the tongue is the hand of the one who prays, and by it we embrace the legs of God.

O foolish and wretched person, what are you doing? Why do you burden yourself with the weight of greater sins? Why do you inflict injury on God in addition to your contempt? Why, in order to provoke his wrath more quickly in manifestation of your punishment, do you extend to God your crime-stained hands when he who has commanded that only holy and unspotted hands be lifted up to him refuses to look at yours? Why do you beseech God with that mouth by which not long ago you spoke evil? Its prayers, however they be multiplied, are an abomination to him.

Whenever [those who are lazy] pray to Him, He does not quickly hearken to them, but waits until they grow weary and have learned in no uncertain manner that these things befell them because of their slothfulness and negligence. . . . Even if this was said of others also, nonetheless it is written especially about those who have abandoned the way of the Lord.

Beloved, see how the prophet predicted the washing of baptism. For the person who comes to the washing of regeneration with faith, renounces the devil, joins himself to Christ, denies the enemy, confesses that Christ is God, puts off the bondage and puts on the adoption is the one who emerges from the baptism as bright as the sun, shining with beams of righteousness and, most importantly, returns a child of God and a joint heir with Christ.

Let us become as clean as is possible. Let us wash away our sins. And the prophet teaches us how to wash them away, saying, Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away from my eyes the evil of your souls. . . . See that we must first cleanse ourselves, and then God cleanses us. He first said, Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, and then said, I will make you white. . . . The power of repentance is then tremendous as it makes us white as snow and wool, even though sin had stained our souls.

I say this, for in the prophet’s words he does not mean bathing by water—the Jewish method of purification—but the purifying of the conscience. Let us also, then, be clean.

Let us accept the medicine that obliterates our failures. Repentance is not what is spoken in words but what is confirmed by deeds, the repentance that obliterates the filth of impiety from the heart. . . . Why before my eyes? Because the eyes of people see differently, and the eye of God sees differently. . . . Do not adulterate repentance with pretense, he says, but, before my eyes, which examine what is secret, reveal the fruits of repentance.

He [the one who is fasting] will wash his face,^[1] that is, cleanse his heart, with which he will see God, no veil being interposed on account of the infirmity contracted from squalor; but being firm and steadfast, inasmuch as he is pure and guileless. . . . From the squalor, therefore, by which the eye of God is offended, our face is to be washed.

So present yourself to such a head as a body worthy of him, to such a bridegroom as a worthy bride. . . . This is the bride of Christ, without stain or wrinkle. Do you wish to have no stain? Do what is written. . . . Do you wish to have no wrinkle? Stretch yourself on the cross. You see, you do not only need to be washed but also to be stretched, in order to be without stain or wrinkle; because by the washing sins are removed, while by the stretching a desire is created for the future life, which is what Christ was crucified for.

He who does not keep innocence of life after weeping, neglects to be clean after washing; and those are not clean after washing who, though not ceasing to weep for their sins, yet commit again what has to be wept for.

Now they ask wrongly who persevere in sins and ill-advisedly entreat the Lord to forgive them the sins they do not at all forgive [others]. He condemns such as these through [the mouth of] Isaiah. . . . Still, having regard for such as these, Isaiah shows in what way they can obtain what they plead for when he goes on.

You are being washed; be clean. Instead of the sacrifices named above and holocausts and the abundance of fat and the blood of bulls and goats, instead of incense and new moons, the sabbath feast day and fastings, festivals and other solemnities, the religion of the gospel is what pleases me, that you would be baptized in my blood through the washing of regeneration, which alone is able to remove sins.^[1] For no one will enter the kingdom of heaven who has not been reborn from water and the spirit. And the Lord himself, ascending to the Father, said, Go and teach all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.^{[2] [1]}

God offers a brief summary through the prophet Isaiah of the honor that widows enjoy in the sight of God. . . . The Father defends these two types of people [widows and orphans] through divine mercy in proportion to their being destitute of human aid. Look how the widow’s benefactor is put on a level with the widow herself, whose champion shall reason with the Lord.

Do you see the great importance God places on mercy and of standing up for those who have been treated unjustly? We should pursue these good works, and by the grace of God will we receive the blessings to come.

If you must visit someone, prefer to pay honor to orphans, widows and those in want rather than those who enjoy reputation and fame.

If you have pity on the widow, your sins are washed away.

It was said through the prophet Isaiah how those who have sinned but repent will be freed from their sins.

In the scarlet color he indicates the blood of the prophets; in the crimson, that of the Lord, as the brighter.

The great physician of souls is ready to cure your suffering; he is the ready liberator, not of you alone, but of all those enslaved by sin.

The Father will be seated, having his garment white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool.^[1] This is spoken anthropomorphically. And the spiritual sense? That he is the King of such as are not defiled with sins. For God says, Your sins shall be as white as snow, and shall be as wool. Wool is the emblem of forgiveness of sins, as also of innocence.

[One] who is baptized is seen to be purified both according to the law and according to the gospel. According to the law, because Moses sprinkled the blood of the lamb with a bunch of hyssop;^[1] according to the gospel, because Christ’s garments were white as snow, when in the gospel he manifested the glory of his resurrection, [one] then whose guilt is remitted is made whiter than snow.

What shall I say of human judgments, since in the judgments of God the Jews are set forth as having offended the Lord in nothing more than violating what was due to widows and the rights of minors? This is proclaimed by the voices of the prophets as the cause that brought upon the Jews the penalty of rejection. This is mentioned as the only cause that will mitigate the wrath of God against their sin, if they honor the widow and execute true judgment for minors. Here also the likeness of the church is foreshadowed. You see, then, holy widows, that that office which is honored by the assistance of divine grace must not be degraded by impure desire.

Should you have gone all lengths in wickedness, yet say to yourself, God is loving to humanity and desires our salvation. . . . Let us not therefore give up in despair; for to fall is not so grievous as to lie where we have fallen; nor to be wounded so dreadful as after wounds to refuse healing. . . . These things I say not to make you more negligent but to prevent your despairing.

Why do you deck out your body while you neglect your soul, enslaved as it is by impurity? Why do you not give as much thought to your soul as to your body? You ought, rather, to give it more care. Beloved, you ought at least to give it an equal amount of thought. Tell me, please, if someone should ask you which you would prefer: for your body to be glowing in health and to excel in beauty but to be clad in mean clothing, or for your body to be crippled and full of disease but adorned with gold and lavishly decked out—would you not choose by far to possess beauty as part of the very nature of your body rather than merely in the outward covering of your clothes? If so, will you make this choice with regard to your body but just the opposite one in the case of your soul? If it is foul and noxious and black, what fruit do you think you will enjoy from your golden ornaments? But what insanity is this? Apply this adornment within yourself and place these necklaces around your soul. For the ornaments placed about the body do not contribute either to its health or its beauty, since they do not make what is white, black—or what is discreditable, beautiful or good-looking. If you place ornaments about your soul, on the contrary, they quickly make it white instead of black, beautiful and comely instead of foul and deformed.

What is surprising about white garments symbolizing the church?

Humankind has need of God’s grace not only to be made just when they are wicked, when they are changed, that is, from wicked to just, and when they are given good in return for evil, but grace must accompany them, and they must lean on it in order not to fall. This is why it is written of the church in the Song of Songs: Who is this that comes up clad in white, leaning upon her kinsman?^[1] For she who could not do this of herself has been made white. And who has made her white but him who says by the prophet, If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow? She was not gaining any good merit then at the time she was made white. But now that she has been made white, she walks aright, provided only that she continues to lean upon him who made her white. Accordingly, Jesus himself, upon whom the church leans, now that she has been made white, said to his disciples, Without me you can do nothing.^[2]

Such therefore being the promises made by God to them that turn to him, don’t delay . . . but draw near to Christ, our loving God, and be enlightened, and your face shall not be ashamed. For as soon as you go down into the bath of holy baptism, all the defilement of the old nature and all the burden of your many sins are buried in the water and pass into nothingness. And you come up from there a new person, pure from all pollution, with no spot or wrinkle of sin upon you.

This passage means the blessings that await the flesh when in the kingdom of God it shall be renewed, and made like the angels, and waiting to obtain the things which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man.^[1]

Scripture promised these good things to the faithful when it said, You shall eat the good things of the land. That we may obtain the good things, let us be like that good, the good that is without iniquity and without deceit and without severity but is with grace and holiness and purity and benevolence and love and justice. Thus goodness, like a prolific mother, embraces all the virtues.

Do you perceive that there is need only of the will? Of the will—not merely that faculty which is the common possession of all people—but good will. To be sure, I know that all people even now wish to fly up to heaven, but it is necessary to bring that desire to fruition by one’s works.

Perhaps one will say, I am willing (and no one is so void of understanding as not to be willing) but to will is not sufficient for me. No, it is sufficient, if you be duly willing and do the deeds of one that is willing. But as it is, you are not greatly willing. . . .

[One] that wills a thing as he ought puts also his hand to the means which lead to the object of his desire.

Who understands clearly how the sum of salvation is attributed to our will? . . .

What does this all mean except that in each of these cases both the grace of God and our freedom of will are affirmed, since even by his own activity a person can occasionally be brought to a desire for virtue, but he always needs to be helped by the Lord.

There is also the Pelagians’ second wickedness, for they so attribute free will to their human powers that they believe that they can devise or enact some good of their own accord without God’s grace. . . . You interpret these and similar passages most perversely, believing that people take the first step of their good intentions of their own accord and subsequently obtain the help of the Godhead, so that (to express the matter sacrilegiously) we are the cause of his kindness and he is not the cause of his own.

The phrase the sword shall devour you does not mean that sinners will be killed by swords but that God’s sword is the fire which is fueled by those who by their own volition do evil. . . . For were he to be speaking of a sword that cuts and immediately kills, he would not have said, will devour.

Moreover, we know that even holy people have been given over bodily to Satan or to great sufferings on account of some slight sins. For the divine clemency does not permit the least blemish or stain to be found in them on the day of judgment. According to the words of the prophet, which are in fact God’s, he purges away all the dross of their uncleanness in the present so that he may bring them to eternity like fire-tried gold or silver, in need of no penal cleansing.

He who forgives sins is proclaimed to be just and merciful; we know with the greatest of ease that the forgiveness of sins is granted only to the converted, and the punishment of eternal damnation is inflicted only on those who remain in sin. . . .

In Isaiah is found a similar declaration from the divine Word against the recalcitrant who scorn the divine clemency. In this declaration it is made known that one obeys the divine commands not without reason and that one does not remain in evil without punishment. . . .

Who, I ask, is so hard and altogether inert that, in these words of the highest admonition, if he is not called to conversion out of the pleasure of what is promised, he is not at least compelled by the fear of punishment? Salvation will not accept the one who scorns the divine words, but the sword will devour him.

Someone who looks at what is done divinely by the Word and denies the body, or looks at what is proper to the body and denies the Word’s presence in the flesh or from what is human, entertains low thoughts concerning the Word . . . as a Jewish vintner, mixing water with the wine, shall account the cross an offense, or as a Gentile, will deem the preaching folly.

And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as the many, able to corrupt the word of truth and mix the wine, which makes glad the heart of man,^[1] with water. [We do not] mix, that is, our doctrine with what is common and cheap, and debased, and stale, and tasteless, in order to turn the adulteration to our profit and accommodate ourselves to those who meet us, and curry favor with everyone. [We do not] become ventrilo-quists^[2] and chatterers, who serve their own pleasures by words uttered from the earth, and sink into the earth, and, to gain the special good will of the multitude, injure in the highest degree, no, ruin ourselves, and shed the innocent blood of simpler souls, which will be required at our hands.^[3]

For we will not mimic the false prophets who say that most things have been done by them. This is the meaning of to corrupt, when someone dilutes the wine, or when someone sells something which ought to be given away freely. He seems to me to be both taunting them regarding money and hinting at the fact that they have mingled the things of God with their own things, as I have said. This is the accusation of Isaiah, who says, Your wine merchants mingle wine with water. Even if this statement were about wine, one would not sin to say it of doctrine as well. He says, We do not do this, but we offer to you what we have been given, pouring out the undiluted word.

This occurs for the sake of cleansing, however, when he humbles his righteous ones for their small and as it were insignificant sins or because of their proud purity, giving them over to various trials in order to purge away now all the unclean thoughts . . . which he sees have collected in their inmost being, and in order to submit them like pure gold to the judgment to come, permitting nothing to remain in them that the searching fire of judgment might afterwards find to purge with penal torment.

[This concerns] the faithful city of Zion, which later became a harlot. In place of the righteous, or righteousness, murderers dwelled within her. The Lord, therefore, turned his hand and purged her of impurities and removed all her alloy and restored her judges as at the beginning, and her counselors as of old. The prior judges were Moses and Joshua the son of Nun, and others from whom a book of sacred Scripture received its name. Later, David and other righteous kings were added. He will restore, therefore, a judge like them, or after the Babylonian captivity, as the Jews desire, Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah and other leaders who presided over the people until Hyrcanus, whom Herod succeeded as king. In any event, the apostles and those who believed through the apostles were established as more trustworthy and upright leaders of the church, in keeping with what we said at the beginning of this vision, namely, that both the threat and the promise pertain to the time of the Lord’s passion and to the faith that formed the church after his passion. Afterward you will be called the city of the righteous, a faithful city. This prophetic word clearly embraces the church, composed of both the Jews and the Gentiles who would come to believe in the Lord. It is also the city of the righteous, that is, of the Lord our Savior, for she herself is called righteous about whom it was said, A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.^[1] Thus, calling her faithful, or metropolim according to the Septuagint, it shows that those who will believe in the Lord must also be known by these titles.

Moreover, who can agree with the thesis that you [the Pelagians] set down as your next heading: In the day of judgment, no leniency shall be shown to the ungodly and to sinners, but they shall be consumed in eternal fires, for you prevent God from showing mercy, and you pass judgment on the sentence of the judge before judgment day, so that if he wanted to spare the unjust and the sinner, he could not, in view of your prescription? For, you say, it is written in Psalm 103, Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and the unjust, so that they be no more.^[1] And in Isaiah: The unjust and the sinners shall burn together, and they who abandon God shall be consumed. And do you not know that a threat on the part of God at times hints at clemency? For he does not say that they shall be consumed in everlasting fires, but rather that they shall be consumed out of the earth and shall cease to be unjust. For it is one thing for them to avoid sin and injustice and quite another matter for them to perish forever and be consumed in eternal fires. Moreover, Isaiah, from whom you quote your testimony, says, The unjust and the sinners shall burn together (without adding the phrase forever), and those who abandon God shall be consumed. This judgment refers, specifically, to heretics who have abandoned the right way of faith and will be consumed, if they are unwilling to return to God whom they have abandoned.

In the beginning of his whole book, the prophet saw the vision against Judah and against Jerusalem.^[1] After listing all the many transgressions of the Jewish people and warning them about the complete destruction of Jerusalem, he brought to an end the spiritual sayings concerning them.^[2]