Commentaria in Isaiam
Secondly, blinding properly pertains to the intellect; hardening to the will; each is both a sin, and a punishment of sin, and a cause of sin. “Blindness,” says St. Augustine, Against Julian, book 5, chap. 3, “which God the Illuminator alone removes, is both a sin, by which one does not believe in God, and a punishment of sin, by which the proud heart is punished with daily chastisement; and a cause of sin, when something evil is committed through the error of a blind heart. So the concupiscence of the flesh is both a sin, because in it is disobedience against the dominion of the mind; and a punishment of sin, because it has been rendered for the merits of the disobedient; and is a cause of sin, by the defection of the consenting or the contagion of the one born.” So the Jews, out of the error and hardness of a blind heart harassed and killed Christ.
Thirdly, two things are required for blinding; first, a perverse affection, by which one does not wish to receive the light, or even sets obstacles (as one who shuts the window shuts out the rays of the sun from himself) to the divine illumination, by which God, himself or through the Prophets or Apostles, sufficiently sets forth, explains and confirms the things necessary for salvation. Secondly, there follows from this the lack, or privation, of divine light, and thence a moral inability to see the truth. So the Jews, seeing Christ do so many signs, by which they could and were bound to believe that he was the Messias, rejected this light, and so were blinded, and that on account of their avarice, ambition, envy, etc., which they saw censured by Christ. So also hardening is, first, wickedness, or the malice of one who wills to sin and refuses to do the duty owed; secondly, it is obstinacy and firm adherence to it, namely to some pleasure or illicit good, so that he lets himself be torn from it neither by warnings, nor counsels, nor threats, nor promises, nor rewards, nor scourges, nor the ordinary inspirations and graces of God. Hear a wonderful hardness of one blinded and hardened. To the pious Empress Irene succeeded Nicephorus, patron of the Iconoclasts and Manichees: while he oppressed the Church with heavy exactions, he stirred up the complaints and laments of all ranks. Being warned about this, he said: “God has hardened my heart like Pharaoh’s. What good will there be for those who are under my hand from Nicephorus? Theodosius, expect nothing beyond what you have seen.” He therefore surpassed almost all Emperors in ambitions, luxuries and barbaric cruelties. Wherefore he felt God an avenger; for Crumus, prince of the Sclavini, hung his severed head for several days from a high pole, and afterwards stripping it of its skin and covering it outside with silver, boasting, taught the princes of the Sclavini by his example to drink from it. So Zonaras, vol. 3, and elsewhere.
Fourthly, St. Jerome, St. Thomas, Hugo, Haymo and the Gloss think these are the words of Isaias, as if he himself were praying and said: Blind, O Lord, the Jews, that so the Apostles may go to the Gentiles and enlighten them. But St. Cyril, Lyranus, Forerius, Adam and recent writers generally hold more truly that these are the words of God to Isaias: for the thread and connexion of the discourse demands this. For God began to speak, and continues. These, without doubt, are the words of God.
You will say: Does God, then, command Isaias to deceive and blind the Jews? I answer, by no means. But there is a twofold sense. The first, “blind,” that is, set forth thy words to the Jews so obscurely, by riddles and parables, that they themselves do not understand but are clouded and blinded: for St. John teaches, chap. 12, verse 40, where he cites this passage of Isaias, that Christ did so. The latter and truer sense is, “blind,” that is, preach that they are to be blinded; for often real words are to be expounded by mental ones, as I showed on Canon 29, as if to say: The Jews, utterly deserted by me because of their sins, will be blinded, will be blinded and hardened more: and so it will come about that you preach to them in vain, both you, O Isaias, and you, O Christ; for neither will they change their inveterate ways, nor attain justice and salvation; yet so, O Isaias, preach that they are to be blinded, that they may know these things were foreseen and foretold by me, so that Christ can charge them with it; hence the Septuagint render: The heart of this people is made gross: but St. John, chap. 12, renders and reads: “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart.” This came about because to the same Hebrew word other and other points have been given. For if the points are hasmen, it will be make fat, blind; if husman, it will be it is blinded; if hismin, he will blind; all of which come to the same sense, on which note:
Fifthly, man properly hardens and blinds himself; for this is what the Wise Man says, chap. 2, “For their own malice blinded them;”
The positive cause of blinding, therefore, is the blinded man’s own malice. God, however, blinds and hardens indirectly, because he withdraws from the wicked the light of truth and the sense of grace, and permits occasions of error and blinding to be set before them, to punish their sins, as I said more fully on Canon 27, as if to say: Preach, O Isaias, that the Jews will directly blind and harden themselves by their perverse affections, so that they do not hear thy preaching and that of Christ, but I shall indirectly blind them for their sins, in the way I have said. The Jews, therefore, go blinded, first, by themselves; secondly, by God; thirdly, by Isaias: by themselves directly and positively, by God indirectly and permissively; and Isaias blinded them, that is, foretold their blinding. Wherefore the blasphemy of Calvin is to be execrated, who says that God properly and directly blinded and hardened the Jews, Pharaoh and other wicked men, against whom is the commentary of Vatablus here, depraved by heretics, who explains “make heavy his ears” thus: As though stopping them with some mass, filling them with filth or some other thing, that they cannot hear; and of others who render, anoint, smear, stop up with fat ointment; likewise, make obstinate the heart of this people. For these are said too harshly, and signify that God actively, directly and positively hardens the wicked.
Finally, St. Clement, Apostolic Constitutions, book 3, chap. 6, rightly applies these words of Isaias to those who hear the word of God carelessly and drowsily, and to its teachers and heralds.
LEST PERHAPS HE SEE WITH HIS EYES.—Again these things are to be expounded prophetically by the future, as if: From this blinding of the Jews it will altogether come about that they do not see, do not understand, and consequently are not converted and healed. For, as an ancient teacher beautifully says: “God does not here deny health to those who wish it: for he who so understands acquits the man, condemns the author (God); but declares that those who contradict do not wish to be healed: for in vain is the goodness of the physician promised to bring a remedy, if the intemperance of the sick man contradicts;” namely if the sick man does not wish to follow the counsels and the diet prescribed by the physician, as the Jews would not follow the faith and law of Christ.
11. HOW LONG, O LORD?—First, how long will the Jews, my countrymen, be punished with this penalty of blinding? Secondly, and more aptly, as if to say: To what will this blindness and hardness of the Jews come, and thy desertion, O Lord, and fury against them? For to this question the following answer of the Lord aptly fits.
UNTIL THE CITIES BE LAID WASTE WITHOUT INHABITANT.—For until the Hebrew is ad, that is, until the desolation of the cities of all Juda, as if to say: Their blindness and hardness, which inflames my wrath, will come to this, that the whole nation will be laid desolate, nor will it cease before all their cities are laid waste by Titus and Vespasian, by whom the Jews will either be slain, or dispersed through the whole world by flight or captivity, yet so that throughout the whole world they do not perish, but spring up and multiply by propagation, as follows. So St. Jerome, Basil, Cyril, Haymo and Rupert, who teach that Isaias speaks of the destruction of the Jews by the Romans, not by the Assyrians, as St. Chrysostom would have it, nor by the Chaldeans, as Vatablus would have it.
12. AND THE LORD SHALL REMOVE MEN FAR AWAY.—He speaks of himself in the third person, as if to say: I the Lord will banish the Jews from their country, and make them exiles, that they may wander through the whole world.
AND SHALL BE MULTIPLIED.—The Jewish nation, though almost cut off, yet because it is by nature fruitful, and because it has many wives, will multiply again. The Septuagint render, and the left behind shall be multiplied upon the earth; the Chaldean and Vatablus render otherwise thus, and there shall be great desolation in the land.