Commentaria in Isaiam
Christ on the day of judgment will overturn everything in which they now trust. It is an enallage of person: for it passes from the third to the second.
Morally, Saint Augustine, or whoever is the author of the book On the Spirit and the Soul, in the third volume of Augustine’s works (certainly not unlearned, and containing much worthy of note; Trithemius thinks it to be by Hugh of Saint Victor, but that it is not Augustine’s is plain from chapter 36, where he cites Boethius, who was later than Augustine), vividly depicts the glory and joys of the blessed in heaven, which Isaias here touches upon, and sets them out in this order.
First, the mutual charity of all, and from it mutual joy. “Let us contemplate,” he says in chapter 53, “what that society of the blessed spirits is, what the majesty of the vision of God, and how God refreshes his saints with the sweetness of his eternal vision. For no one in this life can worthily weigh how great that happiness is, to see God face to face; how great the sweetness, to hear that angelic melody; how great the joy, to have the company of all the saints: for each will rejoice as much in the happiness of another as in his own ineffable joy; and as many companions as he shall have, so many joys he shall have. In that glory I find nothing more delightful to contemplate than the affection of inmost love, by which each will love another as much as himself, and God more than himself, and God them more than they themselves; and this with unending joy.”
Second, the abundance and plenty of all goods: “Whatever is expedient,” he says, “and whatever delights, is there: all riches, namely, and delights, all rest and all solace. For what can be wanting there where God is, to whom nothing is wanting? All who are there are gods: all know God without error, see him without end, praise him without weariness, love him without loathing.”
Third, the delight which the blessed receive from the vision of God: “They always see, and always desire to see; so desirable is he to behold: they always love, and always desire to love; so sweet is he to love. In this delight they rest, full of God; cleaving always to blessedness, they are blessed; contemplating eternity always, they are eternal; joined to the light, they are made light. O blessed vision! to see the King of angels in his beauty, to see the Holy of holies, through whom all things were made. Rejoice and be glad, you just, for you see him whom you have loved; you have him whom you have long desired; you hold him whom you feared to lose: he himself is salvation, life, peace and all good things.”
Fourth, the fullest peace and sweetness: “How great is the peace there, where nothing resists you, either from another, or from yourselves; but the Lord himself rules you, and nothing shall be wanting to you. Therefore taste and see that the Lord is sweet; he is sweet to taste. You who have tried the greatness of such sweetness cannot convey it to us who have never tasted anything like it, as if one wished to explain the sweetness of honey to a man who has never tasted anything sweet.”
Fifth, the possession of an immense good, which is God himself: “Arouse thyself, my soul,” he says in chapter 64, “and raise up all thy understanding, and think as far as thou canst what and how great is the good of God. For if single goods are delightful, think attentively how delightful is that good which contains the pleasantness of all goods, and not such as we have experienced in created things, but differing from them as the Creator differs from the creature. For if created life is good, how good is the life that creates! If created salvation is so pleasing, how pleasing is the salvation that makes all salvation! Lovable is wisdom in the thought of created things; how lovable is the wisdom that created all things from nothing! Finally, if there are many and great delights in delightful things, what and how great is the delight in him who made those delightful things! Oh, he who shall enjoy this good, what will he be, and what will he not have! Surely whatever he wishes will be, and whatever he does not wish will not be.”
Sixth, the possession of beauty, health, wisdom, melody, honour, riches and all the goods which we can here taste or conceive: “In heaven,” he says, “is whatever you love, whatever you desire. If beauty delights, the just shall shine like the sun; if swiftness, or strength, or freedom of body, which nothing can resist, they shall be like the angels: for a natural body is sown, and a spiritual body shall rise, in power at least, not in nature; if a long and healthful life delights, there is healthy eternity and eternal health, for they shall live for ever, and the salvation of the just is from the Lord; if fullness, they shall be filled when the glory of the Lord shall appear; they shall be inebriated with the plenty of the house of God; if melody, there the angels sing to God without end; if any pure pleasure, the Lord will make them drink of the torrent of the pleasure of his Godhead; if wisdom, all shall be taught of God; if concord, their food shall be the one will of God; if power, they shall enter into the power of the Lord, and shall be omnipotent by his will, like God himself. For as God can do what he wills by himself, so they shall be able to do what they will through him; if honour and riches, God will set his good and faithful servants over many things, heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ; if true security, they shall be as certain that that good will never fail them, as they shall be certain that they will not lose it of their own accord, nor that God, who loves it, will take it unwillingly from those who love him.”
Seventh, that each will rejoice not in his own beatitude alone but in that of every other, and will be blessed not once but a hundred thousand times: “Moreover, in that perfect charity of innumerable blessed angels and men, where none will love another less than himself, the joy will be innumerable. If, then, a man’s heart can scarcely contain its joy at so great a good of its own, how will it be able to contain so many and so great joys in that perfect felicity? Where, as each will love God incomparably more than himself, and all others with himself, so he will rejoice beyond estimation more in the felicity of God than in his own and that of all others with him.”
Eighth, the enjoyment of God, and from it such joy that the human heart cannot naturally contain it, but by this joy it would be rent and burst asunder, unless God strengthened and preserved it above nature in so great a joy: “So will they love God with the whole heart, the whole mind, the whole soul, that the whole heart will not suffice for love; and so will they rejoice with the whole heart that the whole heart will not suffice for the fullness of joy: so great is the joy. In that eternal and perfect beatitude we shall enjoy God in three ways, seeing him in all creatures, and him in ourselves, and, what will be ineffably more joyful and blessed than all these, knowing and contemplating the Trinity itself in itself. For in this is eternal and perfect life, that we see God as he is in himself. The peace of God is in that beatitude which surpasses all sense and understanding, and much more all our speech: what therefore has been granted to none to experience, let none attempt to utter. A good measure, says the Lord, he will give into your bosom, pressed down in the inner man, shaken together in the outer, running over in God himself: there is the heap of felicity, there surpassing glory, there overflowing beatitude.”
Ninth, the gifts of the glorified body; speaking of these gifts he says: “Our earth shall have immortality, that it may not fear to be reduced again to dust: for our body, rising again, now dies no more; it shall have also impassibility, that it be not subject to miseries; and there shall be in it such agility that the blessed, if they wish, will be able without any delay or difficulty to follow even the swiftness of our thoughts to all places. Beauty is yet wanting: this most beautiful we shall have. For we look for the Savior, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory, performing what he promised: The just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father; and so all the earth shall be filled with the majesty of the Lord. God will be the end of our desires, whom we shall see without end, love without loathing, praise without weariness.”
The same author earlier, chapter 36: “Love,” he says, “is a sense: for as the outward man is affected about these temporal things by a fivefold sense, that is, by sight, hearing, taste and the rest, so the inward man in the blessed life will be affected with ineffable love about the five ineffable things of God. For when he loves his God, he will love a certain light, a certain voice, a certain fragrance, a certain food, and a certain inward embrace: for there shines what place cannot contain; there sounds what time does not carry off; there is fragrance which no wind scatters; there is savor which eating does not lessen; there clings what satiety does not tear away. There God is seen without interruption, known without error, loved without offense, praised without weariness.”
From all this Saint Gregory rightly infers, in Homily 37 on the Gospel: “To great rewards one cannot come except through great labors: whence Paul too, the excellent preacher, said: He is not crowned, unless he strive lawfully. Let the greatness of the rewards, then, delight the mind, but let not the struggle of the labors frighten it.”