Commentaria in Isaiam
See Hebrews 12:19; see what was said there.
BEHOLD YOUR GOD WILL BRING THE REVENGE OF RECOMPENSE, namely, Christ, God, to whom the Father has given all judgment, John chapter 5, will drive out the devil, the tyrant who has hitherto oppressed you, and will claim you into the liberty of the children of God. He says “of recompense,” because God repays the devil like for like: for as he ruled tyrannically over the Gentiles, so now Christ and Christians rule over him severely and strictly. Similar is Psalm 71:4. So St. Jerome and others to be cited presently.
GOD HIMSELF WILL COME AND WILL SAVE YOU. Hence it is plain that God truly came into the world and into our flesh, and consequently that Christ is truly God. For what follows suits Christ: “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened,” and so on, as is plain from Matthew 11:5 and Matthew 15:30. So teach St. Jerome, Cyril here, Irenaeus, book 3, chapter 22; Cyprian, book 2 Against the Jews, chapter 7; Eusebius, book 6 of the Demonstration, chapter 21; Athanasius, in his book On the Humanity of the Word, past the middle; Augustine, in his book On the Five Heresies, chapter 6. A similar passage is found below.
Note: for God the Hebrew has Elohim, that is, God who governs, provides for, rules, and judges the world. Christ therefore came into the world to govern it as Elohim, to care for it and save it, to protect those oppressed by the devil and to claim them into liberty. Again, for “will save us” the Hebrew has iosaachem (that is, he will save you); whence the name Jesus, that is, Savior, as if to say: Elohim will come into flesh, that he may be Jesus to us. If you read with other points tissachem, it will mean he will delight, he will gladden you. For Jesus is the joy and exultation of our heart.
5. THEN THE EYES OF THE BLIND SHALL BE OPENED, that is, the Gentiles, formerly blind in the eyes of the mind and dwelling in the darkness of unbelief, shall be enlightened by the light and splendor of the Gospel. The same are said to have been deaf, as to receiving the words and law of God, but now they hear it and obey it. As a symbol of this, Christ bodily enlightened and cured many blind, deaf, lame, and so on, and at the same time restored to them the spiritual light of the mind, hearing, and a right step, and, having cleansed them of sins, endowed them with his grace, as St. Augustine teaches. Hence St. Hilary and others, as I said at verse 1, think that Christ alluded to this passage, Matthew 11, when he says: “The blind see, the lame walk,” and so on; of which again chapter 61, 4.
6. THEN SHALL THE LAME MAN LEAP AS A HART. That is, the Gentiles who were limping, that is, wandering from the way of virtue with doubtful and wavering step, through Christ strengthened and directed, they will walk straight, nay, will leap through it into heaven.
AND THE TONGUE OF THE DUMB SHALL BE OPENED. The same, who were eloquent in earthly and worldly matters but tongue-tied and dumb in divine things, shall become fluent, and shall discourse with great wisdom and spirit of grace, of virtue, of Christ, of God and the Holy Trinity, of beatitude, of eternity, and so on.
FOR WATERS ARE BROKEN OUT IN THE WILDERNESS. The particle “for” gives the cause of what precedes, and shows that these things are to be taken not bodily but spiritually, as if to say: Therefore the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and so on, “because in the wilderness,” that is, in heathendom, “waters are broken out,” that is, will break forth, that is, will burst out abundantly and spread themselves, that is, spiritual gifts; “and that which was dry” (the same barren heathendom) shall become “fountains of water,” that is, shall have fountains of water (that is, of graces) springing up to life eternal. So St. Cyril and Theodoret.
Secondly and more fittingly, Sanchez judges that the particle here does not give a cause but joins the extremes, and is the same as “and,” as if to say: The lame shall leap, the dumb shall speak, and waters shall break out in the wilderness; for it is not fitting that a cause be given here, or that it be said: “The lame shall leap, because waters are broken out”: for what have waters to do with leaping?
7. IN THE HOLES WHERE DRAGONS DWELT BEFORE, SHALL SPRING UP THE VERDURE OF THE REED AND THE RUSH. In the preceding chapter he said that in devastated and desert Edom there would dwell onocentaurs, hairy ones and lamias, that is, dragons; here conversely he says that in desert heathendom, where dragons dwelt (for these, being dry, love arid places), reed and rush will spring up, which grow only in a moist place, and therefore no longer a desert but a fertile one; as if to say: In the cities and souls of the Gentiles, which were the lairs, that is, the proper dwellings, of dragons, that is, of demons and vices, the verdure of grace and virtues shall spring up, that they may themselves become temples of the Holy Spirit. It was the opinion of the Chaldeans that beasts dwell in the heart of a wicked man. For unbridled appetites, which reason does not restrain from ranging far and wide to their own ruin and others’, are called beasts. Hence came their saying: “The vessel of the wicked is the dwelling of the beasts of the earth.” Wherefore the Egyptians, by a stag drawing serpents out of their caves, signified a judge punishing the wicked. This is what Pythagoras meant when he said that the souls of the wicked pass into brutes, that is, are made brutish by their brutish ways. Hence arose the fable of Circe, who changed men into various beasts. Whence Theocritus: “Those, he says, whom virtue and wisdom have regarded will not be able to be harmed by the cups of Circe.”
Was not St. Magdalene, on whose feast I write this, a lair of dragons, when she was possessed and bereft of body and mind by seven demons? But when these had been cast out by Christ, what waters of penitence and tears came forth from this desert! What verdure of charity, of prayer, of contemplation, a mirror of religion and of all the virtues? “I found him,” she says, “whom my soul loveth: I held him, and I will not let him go. Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples: because I languish with love. Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell: the lamps thereof are fire and flames.” Surely, kindled by this divine fire, she clung to Christ unceasingly, and sitting at his feet attended continually to his words; she followed and accompanied Christ teaching and preaching everywhere, through Scribes and Pharisees, even to the cross and death; she stood fearlessly by the cross, she embalmed the dead Christ with spices, she could not be torn from his sepulchre; wherefore she also first merited to see him rising again. Then, sent into exile by the Jews, by the will of God she landed in Gaul, and there spread the faith of Christ; and at last, drunk with love of her beloved, she withdrew to a mountain near Marseilles, and set herself as an example of penance for all ages. For there for thirty years, without food and drink, in the sweet tears of love and in the continual meditation and contemplation of her beloved, she lived a life not human but angelic; whence she was carried up to heaven by Angels seven times a day. O blessed one!
Worthy wast thou, from thy bodily prison, to hear the angelic choirs singing alternate songs.
8. AND IT SHALL BE CALLED THE PATH AND THE WAY. Namely, the narrow, straight, and holy way that leads to heaven; as if to say: This desert of old, namely the Church, shall not be pathless nor inaccessible, as solitudes are wont to be, and marshes also, in which reeds and rushes spring up; but it will be a narrow and straight way and path, namely of faith and penance, which will lead those who will to it, and it will be called holy: because it will lead to the Church, which is holy, and thence to heaven and the company of the Saints who are in it. The Septuagint translate: the unclean shall not pass over it. This right way is the doctrine of the Gospel; whoever enters and follows it must needs repent, change his life for the better, and live holily. For this doctrine requires, and as far as in it lies produces, minds that love integrity and soundness, and that tend toward it and advance in it; but it turns away and repels those who wallow and remain in their vices. In the same manner as the way to the Church, the Church herself also is called holy, because she has been called to holiness, supplies all helps to holiness, and demands holy persons and makes them of those who obey her. So St. Cyril and Jerome, and it is plain from what follows.