The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. Luke
Ver. 75. — In holiness and righteousness. This is the oath, or blessing of God sworn to Abraham, viz. the salvation and grace of Christ and of His Gospel, the excellence and perfection of which He beautifully describes in these words. For the first part of which it consists is liberty, that is deliverance from the slavery of sin and the devil. The second is service, that is the worship of the true and most high God. The third is love, not slavish fear ; for the Jews served God through fear of punishment, but Christians serve Him like sons with a free love, Rom. viii. 15. The fourth part is inward and true holiness and righteousness, not outward and placed in washings, sacrifices, and other ceremonies like the righteousness which the Jews had. The fifth part is expressed in the words before God, so that we, considering that we are always before the eyes of God, Who beholds the hearts of every one, may strive to show forth before Him a pure and holy heart, and to perform all our works out of such, knowing that God looks into us and beholds the very bottom of our heart, and according to it will judge our works. The sixth part is, that we should perform these things, not on one day, month, or year, but all our days by persevering in them even unto death.
Holiness has respect to God, and consists in the holy worship of God. Righteousness has respect to our neighbour, and consequently to oneself. Holiness, therefore, gives to God what is His due, Righteousness to men what is their due, so that each should give to each what is owing to him either from justice or charity, and consequently that a man should give to himself temperance, modesty and humility, by which he may conform himself aright to the rule of the law and of virtue, for this is what he ought to render to himself. By holiness and righteousness, therefore, every observance of virtue is signified that is prescribed in the decalogue ; for holiness has respect to the precepts of the first table which pertain to God, righteousness to those of the second, which concern our neighbour and our self.
These therefore are the duties of the evangelical life to which Christ calls us. This, therefore, is the vocation of the faithful, namely, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly , righteously , and godly in this present life , looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, Tit. ii. 12, 13, so that we should imitate the holiness of God and of Christ, and Christ should seem to live, act, and speak in us ; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people , zealous of good works , Tit. ii. 14, according to that saying of S. Paul, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, Gal. ii. 20. Let each, therefore, contemplate the life and character of Christ, and in them let him behold as in a mirror his own, and he will see whether he is a true Christian or only a false painted one.
Ver. 76. — And thou , child. And thou John, though thou art only now eight days old, yet when thou art twenty-nine years old, thou wilt be a Prophet announcing and pointing out the Christ. This is the second part of the song in which Zacharias passes from Christ to his son, and foretells that he will be the Prophet and Forerunner of Christ. S. Ambrose, Origen, Theophylact, and Titus say that the infant, inasmuch as he had been gifted with the use of reason in the womb of his mother, understood these words in which his father addressed him. Ambrose says, “ He could hear the voice of his father who before he was born heard the salutation of Mary. He surely knew that there were certain organs of hearing in a prophet, which were unclosed by the Spirit of God, not by the growth of the body.” Bede adds, “ Unless perhaps Zacharias is to be supposed to have wished, as soon as he was able to speak, to declare rather for their instruction who were present, the future gifts of his son, which he had learnt long before from the angel.”
For thou shalt go before. As for kings when approaching, the roads are wont to be prepared, levelled and advanced, by removing stones, filth, and other impediments or eyesores, so thou, my son, wilt prepare a way for Christ the King, by removing whatever might be an offence to Him in the minds of the Jews, by exhorting them, by word and example, to repent and to receive Jesus as the true Messiah sent by God, and to believe and obey Him, and so obtain from Him salvation and forgiveness of sins and the grace of God.
Ver. 77. — To give knowledge of salvation, &c. That the Jews may know that they ought to hope and seek for salvation from Christ the Saviour in, i.e. for, the remission of sins, so that they may obtain it from Christ through faith in Him and baptism, for in this consists the salvation of Christ; for sins are not remitted except through the salvation and grace of Christ. Whence Bede says, “As if desiring to explain the name of Jesus, he frequently makes mention of salvation ; but lest you should think it was a temporal and carnal salvation which was promised, he says, for the forgiveness of their sins.”
Ver. 78. — Through the tender mercy , &c. Vulg., Viscera misericordice ; bowels of mercy : this expression signifies the most inward and greatest mercy of God.
The Dayspring. Observe — 1. That this Dayspring (Vulg., oriens) is in the Greek ἀνατολή, i.e. rising, as of the sun, or shooting up as of a plant. The word is used especially of Christ; whence the Chaldean version renders it in Zechariah iii. 8 and vi. 12 by Messiah, i.e. Christ.
2. That Zechariah here alludes (1.) to the passage Mai. iv. 2, To you that fear my name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise (orietur) with healing in His wings ; and to Wisd. v. 6, and to Isaiah lx. 1, and Num. xxiv. 17, There shall arise a star out of Jacob and a sceptre (Vulg., virga, a rod) shall spring forth out of Israel, viz. Christ, Who as a star or a sun will illuminate us, and will make us glad with all grace, and as a leader and sun will go before us on the way to heaven. (2.) Zacharias refers to Zech. iii. 8, Behold I will send forth my servant the Branch : Vulg., orientem, Greek ἀνατολήν ; and to Zech. vi. 12, Behold the man whose name is the Branch; and to Isaiah iv. 2, In that day the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious: where the Septuag. translates, In that day God shall shine forth in counsel with glory ; and Jerem. xxiii. 5, I will raise unto David a righteous Branch . In Zech. iii. and vi., the Septuag. renders Branch (oriens) by ἀνατολή, and S. Luke has taken the word (which is not found anywhere else) from those passages.
Observe, 3. That in Zech. iii. and vi., for ἀνατολή the Hebrew is nDX, which properly signifies a shoot, as S. Jerome teaches : whence the Sept elsewhere renders it by ftk<kerw<i ; but the word is used to signify many other things by metaphor. This is clear from Ezek. xxix. 21, &c. ; and also from the Septuag., which renders the word in Zech. iii. and vi. (as I have said before) by ἀνατολή, which, although it may be used generally of any springing up, even of herbs (according to Suidas), yet is properly used of the rising of the sun, moon, and stars.
I say therefore that Christ is called a Branch, but a Branch from the sun, i.e. a heavenly and divine Branch. This is clear (1.) because the word ἀνατολή properly has this meaning. (2.) Because of what follows, the Branch (or Day Spring) from on high , i.e. from God and heaven : and shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death ; all which expressions clearly refer, not to the shooting forth of an earthly , but of the sun or a star. So Theophilus, Euthymius, &c.
Observe, that Christ is called both a heavenly and an earthly Branch: for Christ has two generations; a divine, by virtue of which He is the offspring of the Father; and a human, by virtue of which He is the offspring of His mother and of David. Thus He is spoken of by Isaiah, Zechariah, and others as a Branch, (1.) because He will shoot forth as a new Branch from the root of Jesse or David which seemed to have dried up ; a Branch I say, at first, shooting forth in heaven, and then transplanted on to the earth. (2.) By the word Branch is signified the littleness and lowliness of Christ at His birth, which afterwards increased to so great a size that the whole world was embraced by its shadow, according to the parable of the grain of mustard seed. (3.) Christ is signified (by the same expression Branch or Dayspring) as a second
Melchisedec, without father as man ; i.e. as a shoot springing up from the earth alone, signifying that He was born of a virgin mother : but as God, without mother, because he was generated from the Father, like a beam from the sun.
Observe also, that to Christ are rightly attributed three qualities which belong both to the sun, and to a branch, because (1.) He arose in heaven with splendour and glory, and then shooting forth from heaven He sprang up on earth. For Christ is the Tree of Life transplanted to earth from the celestial paradise by the Incarnation, and thence again ascending to heaven and paradise, by the vision and fruition of Himself He bestows upon His Saints an eternity of the highest glory. S. Jerome on Zech. vi. 12, explaining the passage mystically, says, “ He who is called Jesus because He saved the world, is also called the Dayspring (oriens) because in His day righteousness arose: and He is celebrated in the words of the Psalm, Truth shall flourish out of the earth, because being sprung from the womb of a virgin in the consummation of the ages, He said I am the Truth.” And again, “ He who is crowned with our virtues will arise and will be called the Dayspring ; to Whom the Father said, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee; according to that saying of Isaiah (xi 1), Then shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a blossom shall grow up from his root.”