Commentaria in Isaiam
ON THE TOP OF MOUNTAINS.—The Church is on the top of mountains: First, because by its height, dignity and glory it surpasses the mountains of the Jews, namely Sion, on which was the citadel of David, and Moria, on which the temple was erected; and so Sion and Moria are beneath the Church, as beneath their summit and head, and are shadowed forth by it: as in a ground-plan the pattern of a house lies beneath the building and house which it outlines, shadows and represents. For so the shadow lies beneath its body, and the image beneath its pattern. So Sanchez. Second, because by the same it surpasses all the temples and sacred rites of the Jews and Gentiles. Third, because its doctrine, life and morals far surpass and excel all philosophy and wisdom, every genius, all the religion and worship of the ancients, and all places and mountains consecrated by any worship; as being cast down from heaven, supernatural and divine. So Cyril, Jerome, Basil and others. Fourth, from St. Augustine and Procopius, Leo Castrius: Mountains, he says, are called the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles and other illustrious Saints; because although in body they live on earth, in mind, conduct and virtues they transcend the stars: upon these mountains the Church is built, as the highest mountain; the lesser Saints are the hills.
AND ALL NATIONS SHALL FLOW UNTO IT.—Note the miracle; for rivers flow downward, but here they flow upward, ascending the highest mountain. This the grace of Christ does, which carries hearts upward. Again by “shall flow” is signified the affluence and, after the manner of a river, the rapid course of all nations to the Church. Third, “shall flow” signifies that this course will be spontaneous, as if to say: To the Church, as to a mountain of wisdom and virtues, against nature upward, by the force of heavenly grace, very many from all the nations of the world will gather themselves, with that eagerness of mind, strain and rush with which rivers are wont to flow down from mountains into the lowest valleys. This is what Christ says, John 4, that he will give water springing up, namely unto life everlasting; and John 12: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.” Indeed Euripides too in the Medea: “Upward,” he says, “run back all the fountains of the sacred rivers.” Now “shall flow,” not all at once, but successively: for first the Jews came to Christ, then the Samaritans, soon the Syrians, then the Greeks, Latins; now Indians, Japanese and Chinese.
TO THE HOUSE OF THE GOD OF JACOB.—It is a mimesis. He alludes to Bethel, where Jacob saw God leaning upon the ladder, Genesis 28, 17, and said: “This is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven”; and thence called the place Bethel. Hence the Church is called “heaven,” and God dwells in it as in his own. For, as St. Bernard says, sermon 27 on the Canticle: “The Church in its universality is a vast heaven, extended from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth,” Psalm 71. In this heaven the moon is faith, the evening star is hope, the sun is charity, the stars are the single virtues and the single Saints. For Bethel signifies the house of God, namely the Church. The sense, then, is, as if to say: The Apostles of Christ preach to us not some unknown God, but that very one whom our father Jacob worshipped. Again they invite us to that Church which Jacob in his Bethel prefigured. Therefore since God has now fulfilled this figure, and revealed Christ in the flesh, let us run to him and to his Church; which as Jacob formerly did in the type, so he now would do in fact, if he were living. The house of the God of Jacob is therefore now the Church of St. John, etc. So with Galatinus, book 5, chapter 5, it is to be answered to the Jews objecting that Christians do not say: Let us go up to the house of the God of Jacob; but, to the Church of St. Peter, of St. Paul, etc., namely that these are now one and the same.
AND HE WILL TEACH US HIS WAYS.—It is the voice of the Gentiles flocking to Christ and exclaiming, as if to say: Plato taught us, Socrates taught us, Aristotle, Diogenes, Pythagoras and others; they promised us true wisdom and the way to virtue and salvation, but falsely; for, as the Psalmist says, Psalm 118, 85: “The wicked have told me fables: but not as thy law.” And Baruch chapter 3, verse 22: “True wisdom hath not been heard of in the land of Chanaan, neither hath it been seen in Theman.” Again Abraham taught us, Jacob taught, Moses taught; but they could not perfect us, teach the Christian and full wisdom, open heaven, give grace and strength to perform what they taught: “For the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” John 1. These therefore like guides and leaders have sent us over to Christ. Come then, act, without hesitation, without delay come, glad and eager let us go up with Jacob our father to Bethel, to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of God, let us go up to our Messias, to Christ, the true teacher of the world: he will teach us in the Church the ways of God, the ways to heaven, the knowledge of the Saints; he will at the same time confer grace, that we may easily enter these ways, and so may run in them, not with steps of the body, but of the mind, namely by believing, hoping, repenting, loving, obeying, and living piously and chastely, and that we may invite others to perform the same: for this is what “let us go up” means. For it is the Christian’s part to care not only for his own, but also for others’ salvation; and to this the grace of Christ goes before and incites us.
Morally, it is for the Christian always to ascend to greater and better things. Whence St. Augustine on Psalm 45, on those words: “Come and see the works of the Lord”: What is it, he says, Come, let us go up? Come, that is, believe; let us go up, that is, let us make progress.
FOR OUT OF SION SHALL GO FORTH THE LAW (not the Jewish, but the Christian; namely the law of grace, the life-giving law, given both to Gentiles and to Jews), AND THE WORD OF THE LORD (the Gospel and the preaching of the Gospel) FROM JERUSALEM.—when namely the Apostles, having received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, shall go out of Jerusalem and Judea, and divide and scatter themselves through all regions of the world, to fulfil the precept of Christ, Matthew 28: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations.”
He alludes to the Church born in Sion, because thence will go forth the law of grace and salvation. Frivolous therefore is the cavil of Musculus: not, he says, from the Tarpeian rock, not from the Capitol and Rome, but from Sion shall go forth the law. For it is true that the first heralds of the Gospel, namely the Apostles, went out from Sion into the whole world, not from Rome: but when, Sion being left, they established the head of the Church at Rome, thenceforth the preachers went out from Rome, sent by the Roman Pontiff into all nations, as Baronius and the Annals of all nations teach. For the Christian Sion is Rome.
4. AND HE SHALL JUDGE THE GENTILES,—namely the God of Jacob (of whom verse 3) through Christ and his Apostles and other heralds.
The word “judge” can be taken here in four ways. First, as if to say: Christ will pronounce a just sentence for the poor against the calumniator the devil, and will acquit them by his just judgment. So Sasbout. For this sometimes signifies to judge, not only when joined with the dative, but also with the accusative; “Judge me, O God (that is, pronounce sentence for me), and distinguish my cause”; and “He shall judge the poor of the people, and he shall save the children of the poor.” Where by the way note, that in the psalms, which are as it were in rhythm, the second half-verse often explains the first, indeed says the same or almost the same as the first said, but in other words, as: “O God, come to my assistance,” is the same as what follows: “O Lord, make haste to help me.” “Create a clean heart in me, O God,” is the same as that which follows: “and renew a right spirit within my bowels. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation,” is almost the same as what follows, “and strengthen me with a perfect spirit.” For a joyful spirit strengthens the Saints, and animates them to constancy, and to every good, as on the contrary a sad spirit casts down the mind, so that it cannot endure in the work of God.
Second, “he shall judge,” that is, he shall deliver the Gentiles from the tyranny of the devil. So Gedeon, Samson, Jephte and others are called judges, that is, deliverers of Israel. So it is said, Psalm 34, 1: “Judge thou, O Lord, them that wrong me, overthrow them that fight against me.”