CHAPTER 15

From the same.

That the Heating about the Descent of the Lord from Heaven is Terrible, and His Works Wonderful, and at His Coming the Whole Earth shall be filed with His Praise, when the Word of His New Covenant shall pervade all Men.

[Passage quoted, Hab. iii. 2-5.]

(d) LISTENING to himself, or rather to the divine prophetic spirit within him, which said of the subject of the prophecy, "He that cometh will come, and will not tarry, and the just shall live by my faith," and believing as a just man in the oracle, the holy prophet says in the passage before us, "O Lord, I have heard thy report, and I was afraid," and the words that follow in which he clearly announces that God will come to men.

And who could this be who was known of old, and was to be known afterwards when the time drew near, and (279) was to be shewn forth at the date predicted, but that same Being before shewn to be the second Lord of the Universe, who agreeably to the prophecy at the end of the ages has - 21 - been proclaimed for all to hear? It was surely His works that are written in the Holy Gospels, and it was clearly His Birth from the Virgin Tabernacle whence he sprang, and how "being in the form of God, he thought it not a thing to be grasped at to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave," and it was the miracles He performed among men, and the insults offered to Him by the Jewish race that the prophet anticipated with the eyes of his soul; and learning of the Holy Spirit his Teacher what would accrue to minds purified from sin, he confessed that he was astonished and afraid at what he heard, and said, "Lord, I have heard thy report, and I was afraid, I understood thy works, and was astonished."

Our Lord and Saviour, too, the Word of God Himself, "was known between two lives." The word zww~n is plural and accented with circumflex on the last syllable as the plural of the singular noun zwh& (life). It is not zw&wn accented acute on the penultimate from zw~on (a living creature), but with circumflex on the last syllable (zww~n) from nominative plural zwai/ (lives). He says, therefore, He was known between two lives. One life is that according to God, the other that according to man; the one mortal, the other eternal. And the Lord having experienced both, is rightly said to have been made known between two lives in the LXX translation. Aquila translates differently: "In the nearing of the years, cause it to live." What does "it" mean here but "thy work"? And Theodotion says: "In the midst of the years, cause him to live," and Symmachus renders: "Within the years, revive him." They all by the use of zw&wson (cause to live) shew clearly that the word in the original does not refer to irrational or rational animals. And so following the rendering of the Septuagint, "He was made known between two lives," and not the commentators who have preceded me, I understand that the two lives of the Subject of the prophecy are referred to, the Divine and the Human. - 22 - 

To this the prophet adds: "When my soul is troubled thou wilt in wrath remember mercy," teaching that when he foresaw the time of the Passion of the Subject of the prophecy he was troubled in spirit. Yet at that very time, he says, in which I was troubled in spirit, though at no other time such anger ever threatened men for the impiety dared against their Lord, the Lord of Love Himself in place of wrath remembered mercy, as the Son of the good Father. For His Passion became to all the world the ground of God's salvation and mercy.

To this is added: "God will come from Thaeman." And Thaeman translated into Greek is "consummation," so that it means simply, "God will come at the consummation." For at the consummation of the age and in these last days the kindness of the God of the Universe has been made evident to us through our Saviour.

But perhaps he foretells also His Second Coming in glory, in which case a fresh beginning is made at' "God will come from Thaeman," as shewing that at the consummation of the age He will come from the southern part of the heaven. For Thaeman is translated "south." Wherefore Theodotion translates thus: "God will come from the south." And you will understand the sentence that follows if you compare with it these words in Zechariah:

"8. I saw the night, and behold a man sitting on a bay horse, and he stood in the midst of the shady mountains."

I believe this rider on the bay horse who stands in the midst of the shady mountains to be the same person mentioned in the prophecy before us, which says that the Holy One will come from a thick and shady mountain. - 23 - 

In each passage shady mountains are mentioned, and I believe they refer to the Paradise of God, which He planted eastward in Eden, or perhaps to the Heavenly Jerusalem. For "there are mountains around it, and the Lord is in the midst of his people." And these mountains are said to be shady, because they are full of divine powers and holy spirits, as of trees planted there and far-spreading. But in Zechariah clearly the vision was of a man riding on a bay horse, by which the Incarnation of our Saviour was meant, and the flesh in which He rode: while here "God a Holy One" is named. For to mark that it was from God that He made His approach to men, and that He arrived from diviner regions, it is said, "God came from Thaeman, and the Holy One from a thick and shady mountain." And then it adds: "His glory covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise, and his ray shall be as light." In which both the glory of His Heavenly Kingdom is shewn, and also the increase of the praise of the teaching about Him that will be spread through all the earth. And the expression, "horns in his hands," shews the symbols of His rule, wherewith He drives away the invisible and opposing powers by pushing and butting them. And agreeing with this he adds: "He made the love of his power strong": and the greatest sign of His strong affection and love to men was "that his Word should go before his face," meaning the Gospel of Salvation, which should come forth and scour the plains, so that soon all the world should be filled with the salvation offered by Him to all men according to the prophecy which said, "Before his face shall his Word go forth, and shall go out into the plains." His Word will bring a further and more exact fulfilment to this prophecy and its context at His Second Coming, which it is not now the place to expound.