Commentary on Isaiah 5.2.11–5.2.18

dominion, that is, the opposing and wicked powers, or perhaps the very waves of monstrous and loathsome pleasure, which carry those who love sin to the bottom of Hades and into the very pit of destruction below. Worth seizing, then, are the prizes of righteousness, and very brilliant the crowns …, the possession of the spiritual gifts. And he adds something else: “Behold, proselytes will come to you through me, and will flee to you for refuge.” By proselytes he means either those who at each time come to the faith and are called from the nations, or perhaps those of Israel themselves, who have been placed behind the nations although they held the first rank; and they who used to receive as proselytes those turning to God from Greek error have themselves become proselytes … For this is what “through me” signifies. For through him comes the turning and calling of all, and the access to God … of the nations; but this too is through Christ … the access to the Father. “For no one comes,” he says, “to the Father except through me.” And again: “I am the way,” and “I am the door.”

“Behold, I create you, not as a smith blowing on coals and bringing out a vessel for work; but I have created you not for destruction, to corrupt. Every corruptible vessel against you I will not prosper, and every voice that rises against you for judgment, you will defeat them all; but those liable to you shall … the Lord, and you shall be righteous to me, says the Lord.”

We say that “to create” indicates here not, surely, the passage from non-being into being; for he speaks as to those already existing and subsisting. Rather it indicates the renewal through the Holy Spirit, which re-forms some into a holy and blameless conduct and life. For in this way Christ is said to have created the two peoples into one new man, making peace and reconciling both in one body to the Father. And the all-wise Paul exhorts us, writing thus: “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God, good and well-pleasing.” We have also been commanded to put off the old man and to put on the new, which is renewed according to the image of the one who created him. I create you, then, he says, not as a human coppersmith making vessels from matter

with tools and fire, but rather by an ineffable and spiritual re-formation and remolding and as it were a spiritual regeneration, which the Savior himself once explained to Nicodemus, saying: “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” For we have been born not of corruptible seed, but through the living and abiding Word of God. So Christ creates, reshaping to himself through sanctification those who believe and bringing them back to salvation. For he creates us not for destruction, that is, no longer for corruption and death, but for a life of long ages and a life without end. And that those who have once been raised to such brilliance and have received the renewal through Christ will be given by him an unrivalled grace of spiritual courage, and an understanding not easily withstood by the enemies of the truth, he shows by saying: “Every corruptible vessel against you I will not prosper, and every voice that rises against you for judgment, you will defeat them all.” One might say that the corruptible vessels are the servants of the devil's perversity, who are children of corruption and destruction. These attack the saints, and sometimes shoot at them, launching in many ways the arrows of their own perversity, bringing persecutions and afflictions, and … by Christ, so as to be able to corrupt the souls of the saints. And the inventors of the unholy heresies, uttering words of ill omen against the ineffable glory, all but go to law with the saints, who … of the pure orthodoxy of the church's doctrines. But they are defeated, Christ granting this too to the saints. For from him comes the power to overcome every uprising of enemies and every resistance of an unholy voice; for, as the psalmist says: “In God we shall do mightily, and he will bring to nothing those who afflict us.”

“But those liable to you,” he says, “shall be in it.” None of the other interpreters mentions the present verse, but I think it perhaps shows this: Those who have received the renewal through Christ will be stronger than enemies and than every voice; these are those reshaped to sanctification in the Spirit and leaping over the pits of sin. “But those liable to you,” he says, that is, whoever may be liable to sins even after the calling and the justification in Christ, “shall be in it.” In what? Surely in corruption. For this reason he added at once: “There is an inheritance for those who serve the Lord.” For the inheritance from God will be given not to those who are accustomed to grieve him by turning aside and looking toward unruliness, but to those who gladden him, that is, who serve, that is, who are his slaves. “You shall be righteous to me,” then, he says, that you may become partakers of the inheritance promised to those who serve, which will indeed be given in due time.

“You who thirst, go to the water; and you who have no money, go and buy, and drink without money and price wine and fat. Why do you pay out silver, and your labor not for satisfaction? Hear, and you will eat good things, and your soul will delight in good things. Give heed with your ears and follow my ways; hear me, and your soul will live in good things.”

… illumined, he made melodies to God, saying of Christ, the Savior of us all: “How you have multiplied your mercy, O God! And the sons of men will hope in the shelter of your wings. They will be drunk with the fatness of your house, and you will give them drink from the torrent of your delight; for with you is the fountain of life”; and again elsewhere: “The rushings of the river gladden the city of God.” Indeed through the voice of prophets the Son himself, the fountain of every good, the life-giving stream poured forth from the essence of the Father, says somewhere: “Behold, I turn toward them like a river of peace, and like a torrent flooding the glory of the nations.” And the prophet Zechariah said: “A fountain will go out from the house of the Lord and will water the torrent of the reeds.” In very many places of the inspired Scripture we shall find the Word of God named fountain and river. Therefore he himself also … to the Jews, and called them to himself, saying: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from his belly.” And speaking to the woman in Samaria, he says again thus: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him, it will become in him a spring of water leaping up to …” … to Christ, and let him drink, receiving the abundant comfort through the Holy Spirit, and grace, and the purest initiation into the mysteries. And he will receive it not by buying with money, but rather by enjoying the most generous munificence of the one who calls. “Going,” he says, that is, “walking,” and leaping as it were from one place to another, that is, from deceit back to the knowledge of the truth, “buy and drink without money and price.” How, then, do they buy, and yet receive freely and without money? For we receive the grace from Christ in return for faith, paying nothing of temporary and perishing things (“For I said to the Lord,” it says, “You are my Lord,

for you have no need of my goods”), but offering in the place of payment the confession of faith in him. So the drink, and the most abundant gift of his gifts, is without money and price. And what do we buy, and what drink do we purchase? That of wine, he says, and besides this the food of fat and wheat. And admittedly, of the gifts from Christ … also becomes spiritual wine to the soul; and indeed fat, that is, food, for it strengthens the soul and makes it most vigorous. It is not unlikely, too, to say that the force of the verses before us hints at the mystery of Christ. For those who drink the living water, that is, who have been enriched with the grace through the Spirit by partaking of him, also buy both wine and fat, that is, the holy body and the blood of Christ.

Then he adds to these: “Why do you pay out silver, and your labor not for satisfaction?” For the picked men of the Greeks, following rather their own opinion, having received the spirit of the world and having their portion in Beelzebul, … composed expositions not of true things but rather of incoherent and false ones, speaking from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord, as it is written. But those in error, not having the knowledge of the truth, nor the divine and heavenly light, went to learn the ruinous doctrines, bringing very much money to those who promised to teach them. But these things, he says, why do you buy with silver? For what benefit is there in wanting to know falsehood, a destructive teaching in brilliant words, falsehood heaped up like mud in a golden vessel? For we have Christ, the treasure, in earthen vessels. Why, then, he says, do you buy these with silver, and your labor, the labor of those who toil to learn, will not be for satisfaction, that is, it does not suffice to nourish and give life to the soul. For the collecting of ruinous doctrines harms it rather than helps. Rightly, then, does the all-wise Paul also say: “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” And again: “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.” By the foolishness of the preaching he means the plainness of the diction of the inspired Scripture. So, giving up toiling in vain, gathering barrenness, and bearing to spend toil on useless things, rather “hear me, and you will eat good things,” those, clearly, of the gospel teachings, in which, he says, your soul will delight abundantly. There is the true knowledge of the God who is God by nature, the learning of every virtue and of the good order befitting saints, and understanding, which wonderfully discerns rightly each thing that is to be done and makes the mind a craftsman of good works; so that people love to devote themselves to everything good that is understood, and to depart from whatever is condemned and is a cause of wickedness, … held fast not a little. “Give heed, then, with your ears,” that is, with straightforwardness and ready obedience, “follow my ways.” For Christ also said: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Those who are his, therefore, must hasten to follow in his footsteps. And what will there be for those who wish to do this? “Your soul,” he says, “will live in good things.” Through this he seems to suggest to us the endless hope prepared for the saints.

For, as Paul says, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.”

“… of David, the faithful. Behold, a witness among the nations … Behold, nations who did not know you will call upon you, and peoples who did not know you will flee to you for refuge, for the sake of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.”

Having promised, “You will eat good things, and your soul will delight in good things,” he shows at once in what way what was promised will come to fulfilment for them. For he promises to give an eternal covenant, and he says it very well. “For the law did not have permanence and immovability, but was in force until the time of reformation,” as the all-wise Paul says; and when the ancient commandment had grown old, as not being faultless, a place was sought for a second, plainly the new one in Christ, which differs much from the first. For the one was in shadows, while the other flashes forth the beauty of the truth spiritually. At any rate the God of all said through one of the holy prophets: “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will accomplish for the house of Jacob and for the house of Israel a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; … I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: putting my laws into their mind, I will also write them on their hearts.” And the wise John also showed us the difference between the old and the new covenant, saying: “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” By grace and truth he means the instruction given through the gospel oracles, which has the power of the true worship in spirit. For it was fitting that Moses, being a servant, should be the minister of the shadow that does not remain, and that the herald of the perpetual and enduring worship should be the eternal one, I mean Christ. What, then, the eternal covenant is, which he will accomplish for those who come to him through faith, he makes plain by adding at once: “The holy things of David, the faithful.” For either he says that the covenant of Christ, the Savior of us all, will be given to those who turn from the nations; or he calls holy the sacred oracles of Christ, who is from the seed of David according to the flesh. And he calls them holy as making holy those in whom they come to be, just as he named the fear of God pure, as being purifying, and the gospel word life, as life-giving.

For Christ said somewhere: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life,” that is, spiritual and life-giving. Holy, then, are those words that work holiness and render those who receive them righteous and blameless; and faithful, because again they make faithful, and work in those who have received them steadfastness in faith and in the life of piety. For this is the power of the oracles given through Christ. So, having named David, meaning Christ, who is from the seed of David according to the flesh, he says at once concerning him: “Behold, I have given him as a witness to the nations, a ruler and commander to the nations.” Our Lord Jesus Christ as it were testifies to the flocks from the nations that they too have become acceptable, and that those who wish may, with no one hindering, be enriched with the light of the true knowledge of God. At any rate he said through the psalmist's lyre: “Hear this, all you nations; give ear, all who inhabit the world, both earthborn and sons of men, rich and poor together. My mouth shall speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart understanding.” For there was need, there was need of wisdom and understanding for those who had gone astray, who in their great stupidity worshipped the creation instead of the Creator and inscribed wood and stones as gods. But the Word became man, and for that reason he also beckoned to them, saying: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to heal the brokenhearted.” For these were the sicknesses of the nations, but they have been redeemed through him; for they have been enriched with the wisdom that comes from him, and have become understanding, and no longer have a weak and broken mind, but one healthy and strong and well fitted for receiving and achieving everything good and saving.

But see the precision of the word. For having said, “I have given him as a witness to the nations,” so that no one might … one of the holy prophets, … that he is distinguished by the glory of lordship (for being God he appeared to us), he says that he was given not only as a witness but also as ruler and commander to the nations. For the blessed prophets, and Moses still before them, having the measure of servants, always proclaimed to their hearers, “Thus says the Lord,” not as commanding, but rather as ministers of divine words; but our Lord Jesus Christ made his speeches in a manner most befitting God. At any rate he was marveled at even by the Jews themselves, because his word was with authority, and he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. For his word was not of the shadow of the law; but, being himself the lawgiver, he transferred the letter to truth and the types to spiritual manifestation; for he was ruler and had the authority to command. And that the word of the prophecy is woven concerning the nations one could learn very easily, since God the Father addresses his words as to his own Son: “For nations,” he says, “which did not know you will call upon you, and peoples who did not know you will flee to you.” For those who of old did not know Christ, because they lived in mist and darkness, called upon him, that is, inscribed Jesus as God, and fled to him, naming him hope, shelter, and the cause of salvation, and calling on him as God. And for what reason? “For the sake of the Lord your God,” he says, “the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.” For they come to the Son glorifying him as begotten by nature of God the Father and as having the glory of his begetter himself. For he who glorifies the Father glorifies the one who is from him, and he who glorifies the Son surely glorifies together with him the one from whom he has been begotten by nature. Or, if you wish, you may take what is said in another way: “For the Son, being in the form of God the Father, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in form as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and bestowed

on him the name above every name, that in the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.” For since, because of the measure of humanity, Christ was thought to be someone without glory, he goes back up again to the God-befitting and supreme preeminence and glory that is his, even with the flesh. And this, I think, is what is meant by saying that the name was given to the Son by the … to him: “Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.”

“Seek God, and when you find him, call upon him. When he draws near to you, let the ungodly forsake his way, and the lawless man his counsel, and let him turn to the Lord, and he will be shown mercy, for he will forgive your sins abundantly.”

Making plain the way of faith in him, our Lord Jesus Christ said somewhere to the Jews: “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” And the person of the Father himself is introduced, saying thus to the Son: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” For those who once went astray, who were enemies, worshipping the elements of the world and held inescapably in the nooses of sin, the Father subjected to the Son. And surely no one would say that he assigns this to him as to one who is unable; for he works all things, and he himself is the all-powerful and most valiant right hand of the one who begot him. But since the measure of humanity also called him, by way of the economy, to the need of receiving, for this reason the Father is said to subject all things to the Son, as to his own power and wisdom; for through him he empowers what was weak and makes wise what was without understanding. And no one with sense would ever think that the Son was unable to subject anyone to himself; he will rather reason that God the Father works all things through him, as I said just now. What, then, does the word of the prophecy intend now also? It introduces the person of the Father, calling out and saying to the flocks of the nations: “Seek God,” the one of whom he said just now that he was given as a witness to the nations, and their ruler and commander. This one he at once calls God, and has commanded that he be sought. And the seeking is not local; for the divine is incorporeal and is not conceived as in a place. For it fills all things and is absent from nothing that exists; but it is sought as by the eagerness of a soul thirsting for kinship with him through zeal for piety and through the true knowledge of God. For it would befit … from him, since sin, plainly, and the ignorance working in them had come between; when these are out of the way, they will be near God. For so the all-wise Paul writes to those from the nations, saying: “But now you who once were far off have become near.” So the God of all is sought by you. “But when you find him, call upon him,” he says. And “call upon” would signify nothing else than “praise him as God, and seek from him power and eagerness sufficient for your conversion.” Ask from him the redemption and the ability to escape the bonds of sin and the hand of him who had the upper hand, that is, of Satan. For it is written: “Praising, I will call upon the Lord, and I shall be saved from my enemies.” And when you find him, and he comes near, “let the ungodly forsake his way, and the lawless man his counsel, and let him turn to the Lord, and he will be shown mercy.” For those who have been deemed worthy at all of calling and conversion, and of the … from him, ought … their ancient practices, the way toward wickedness, the inclination to sin, and fleshly love of pleasure. For he who makes his conversion so, from a true heart, will be shown mercy, “for he will forgive your sins abundantly.” “Abundantly,” he says, instead of “completely and altogether”; “For where

… written. For none of the charges against you is hard to wash off when God wishes to scour them away. For it is written of Jesus Christ, the Savior of us all: “Behold, he comes in like a refiner's fire and like the fullers' herb; and he will sit refining and cleansing as silver and gold.” For he baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and fire. We say that the fire is the scouring power, as it were, of the Holy Spirit, which melts away like fire the filth of the offenses in us.

“For my counsels are not like yours, nor are your ways like my ways; but as the heaven is far from the earth, so is my way far from your ways, and your thoughts from my mind.”

He does not allow those who are called by the grace of Christ to conversion, redemption, and cleansing from sin to disbelieve. Those of Israel's blood experienced this: for when God called them to conversion and repentance, being stung by the reproofs of conscience, and reckoning the filth of their own wickedness very hard to wash off, they said: “Our errors are in us, and in them we waste away; and how shall we live?” And what does God say to this? “Turn by turning from your way, O house of Israel, and they will not be to you for the punishment of unrighteousness.” When, then, he says, you too disbelieve, while I, who am able to do all things, affirm and say, “I will free you from every stain and make you free of your former stumbles,” then consider by yourselves who I am and who you are, and that my ways stand apart from your ways, and your thoughts from my mind, as far as the natures differ. For you are men, and I am God. So the interval is immeasurable, and the things of God wholly incomparable. For he excels in strength, glory, and gentleness, and there is nothing at all among things begotten that reaches to the excellences that are in him, or is seen near them even a little. For men are not free from anger, but freedom from anger belongs to the nature that is above all, for it is not overcome by wrath. Man is bitter and great in wickedness, but God is good by nature, or rather … the stumbles of ignorance, and wiping away the filth that comes from going astray.

You may apply yourself to the contemplation of the passage before us in another way too. For of old the multitude of the nations was without understanding, easily carried off to anything monstrous whatever, and swept away as with full sails into wanting to do things not lawful to mention. But since through faith they sought God, called upon him, and forsook their former ways and lawless counsels, they have been shown mercy by him, and have been re-formed as it were into another life. They have become wise, as partakers of wisdom and knowers of every good thing; they have shaken off the yoke of the ancient deceit and conquered sin, no longer having a mind easily led astray, but rather one firm and strong, looking intently to fulfilling whatever would please God. But when I promise these things, he says, do not disbelieve, nor suppose that the change of their mind will remain unaccomplished; for my counsels are not like your counsels, nor are your ways like my ways. For to you, who are men by nature, very many things are hard to reach and impossible to accomplish; for not everything that you choose to do will run altogether and in every way to its end. But for me, who am God, all is smooth and easy going, and nothing at all is uphill. For my ways stand as far from your ways as the distance between earth and heaven could be conceived; and this is wholly incomprehensible, beyond measure, and not to be grasped by human minds. At any rate the divine prophet Isaiah also said: “Who measured the water in his hand, and heaven with a span, and all the earth with a handful? Who set the mountains in a balance and the valleys on a scale? Or who knew the mind …