Blow the trumpet at the new moon, on our festival day of good omen. Because it is a command for Israel, a judgment of the God of Jacob. God ordered the priests to use the trumpets. They reminded the people of the trumpets used on the mountain: when the God of all spoke on Mount Sinai, [Scripture] says, there was a loud noise of the trumpet.^[1] So when the priests used the trumpets, they reminded the people of that appearance. Consequently, they were right to command those who had been granted return and had enjoyed the divine assistance to make use of the trumpets along with the other instruments.

Sound the trumpet at the beginning of the month, on the day of your notable solemnity. We must also consider that we are commanded through the instruments of the musical discipline both to play the lyre for the Lord and to observe the day of solemnity, so that every action of ours may be directed to the Lord and offered to his ears in most pleasant music, just as musical instruments are directed towards a sweet-sounding melody and coalesce smoothly into one harmony. For there is great power and delightful knowledge in that discipline, which the teachers of secular literature (as God graciously granted them to know, since he bestows everything that is useful) made able to be discerned through their theoretical writings, namely those things which in the nature of matter were previously held in secret.^[1] Therefore, the first division of this discipline is harmony, rhythm and meter. The second is a division of instruments into percussion, stringed instruments and blown instruments. The third is divided into six harmonies. The fourth is divided into fifteen tones. Thus, the power of all that most beautiful discipline is explained by such distinctions of ancient teachers; we read in the secular books that many miracles have occurred through these means.^[2] But—to omit the legendary tales of secular literature—we read that David drove a demon from Saul by his melodious harp^[3] and the divine Scripture attests that the walls of Jericho fell straightaway by the sounding of the horns,^[4] so that there can be no doubt that musical sounds often accomplish great and powerful deeds, at least if the Lord orders and permits them.

Who, then, is this one cast down from his divine preeminence and removed from the limitations of creation?^[1] The matter is completely inconceivable, and there is no discernible place or manner of speaking of someone in between creator and creation. Although they dislodged him from the throne of divinity, they have arrived at a point in their teaching that they call him the Son and God and think that he is to be adored although the law openly proclaims, The Lord your God shall you worship and him only shall you serve,^[2] and although God said to the Israelites through the voice of David, There shall be no new god among you, nor shall you adore a foreign god.

That it is none other than God the Word, who exists in the form of God the Father, the impress of his very being,^[1] who is equal in all things to the one who begot him, who has emptied himself out. And what is this emptying out? It is his life in the form of a slave, in the flesh that he assumes, it is the likeness to us of one who is not as we are in his own nature, since he is above all creation. In this way he humbled himself, economically submitting himself to the limitations of humanity. But even so he was God, for he did not have as a gift what pertained to him by nature. This was why he also said to God the Father who is in heaven, Father, glorify me with that glory I had with you before the world was.^[2] I do not think that they would say that it was David’s descendant, born in the last times of this age, who was reclaiming as his own a glory that predated the world, at least if he is a different son and distinct from the true and natural Son? No, surely this is a saying that befits the Godhead? It was necessary, yes necessary, that he should be conformed to us in the limitations of humanity while at the same time he authentically enjoyed transcendent divine status within his own essential being; just as it is with the Father. How can the saying be true: You must not introduce another god among you, if according to them^[3] a man is deified by a conjunction with the Word and is said to be enthroned with God so as to share the Father’s dignity?

If my people listened to me, if Israel traveled in my ways, I would have reduced their foes to nothing and laid my hand on those afflicting them. If they had adhered to my advice and followed my commandments, I would easily have destroyed their foes. To nothing suggests the facility—in other words, easily and without trouble I would have been able to bring about their ruin in an instant. The Lord’s foes were false to him.^[1] Aquila . . . put it this way: in their hatred they will deny the Lord. By denying Christ the Lord, they brought hatred on themselves, and by being false to him and to the existing covenants they made themselves enemies of the Lord. After the giving of the law, [Scripture] says that the people replied, All that the Lord God has said we will do and listen to.^[2] While their promises were of this kind, their words were the direct opposite—they crucified their own Lord when he appeared and received a penalty for their impiety, namely, eternal ruin. This was true not only of them but also of Arius, Eunomius, Nestorius^[3] and the devotees of their teachings.

And he fed them with the fat of wheat.^[1] He led them into the land of promise. He fed them, not with manna as in the desert, but the wheat that had fallen, that had risen again. And he fed them with the fat of wheat. Be sure you penetrate the mystery in the scriptural words: With the finest of wheat. Does wheat have fat? Does it also have intestines? The prophet wanted to show the abundance and richness of spiritual grace, and hence he called it fat. And with honey from the rock he would fill them. He is the wheat; he also is the rock^[2] who quenches the thirst of the Israelites in the desert. He satisfied their thirst spiritually with honey, and not with water, so that they who believe and receive the food taste honey in their mouth. How sweet to my palate are your promises, sweeter than honey to my mouth!^[3] Lastly, that is why our Lord ate honeycomb after the resurrection and was satisfied with honey from the rock. I am going to tell you something new. The Rock himself ate honey in order to give us honey and sweetness, so that they who in the law had drunk myrrh, or bitterness, might afterwards eat the honey of the Gospel.^[4]