Commentaria in Isaiam
The Rabbis, whom Richard of St. Victor, book 1 On Emmanuel, chapter 8, St. Thomas, St. Chrysostom, Sixtus of Siena, Vatablus, Isidore Clarius, Forerius and Montanus follow, understand this prophetess to be the wife of Isaias, whom Isaias approached by knowing her, and who thereupon conceived and bore a son, a sign of the plundering of Syria and Samaria, as Isaias foretold in the preceding chapter, verse 16. Whence he adds of him: “For before the child know to call his father and his mother, the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away,” as if to say: Before this boy is three or four years old, so as to be able to speak and call father and mother, the Assyrians will despoil Syria and Samaria. That this so happened they prove from the fact that this prophecy seems to have been delivered at the beginning of the reign of Achaz, who began to reign in the seventeenth year of Phacee, king of Israel; but Phacee reigned only twenty years, and at the end of Phacee’s reign Theglathphalasar, king of the Assyrians, laid waste many cities of Samaria and carried their inhabitants over into Assyria, 4 Kings 15:29. Therefore Samaria began to be laid waste when this son of Isaias had not yet completed his third year. For Achaz reigned with Phacee only three years. Further, they assert that this son of Isaias was a type of Christ our Emmanuel, who quickly despoiled the kingdom of the devil; and that the mother of this son is called a Prophetess, both because she was the wife of the Prophet Isaias, as of old the wife of a bishop was called a bishopess, of a priest a priestess, of a deacon a deaconess, that is, one who had been his wife before ordination (for after ordination bishops, priests and deacons were to abstain from their wives and live celibate according to the Canons); and because this wife was pious and given to prayer, and perhaps was taken from the company of virgins who served God in the temple, as Joseph from the same received his spouse, the Blessed Mary; and because perhaps she truly had the spirit of prophecy; and finally because she was a type of the Blessed Virgin, who was truly a prophetess. In favour of this exposition is what Isaias says in verse 18: “Behold I and my children, whom the Lord hath given me for a sign and for a wonder in Israel”; for both Sear Jasub and this other son of Isaias, by his name “Hasten to take away the spoils,” was a wonder, and prophesied the destruction of Israel.
But St. Jerome, Cyril, Basil and the Chaldee here, R. Haccados in Galatinus, book 7, chapter 16, Procopius, Rupert, St. Augustine, City of God, book 17, last chapter, Epiphanius, heresy 78, Eusebius, Demonstration, book 7, chapter 2, Ambrose, both ancient and recent writers, reject this sense as crass and Jewish, indeed filthy and obscene, as also that of the Calvinists, and explain this place of the conception of the Virgin and the birth of Emmanuel. First, because as he began in the preceding chapter to treat of the Virgin and Emmanuel, so he continues to do in this chapter and the following.
Secondly, because in verse 8 he calls this boy Emmanuel; for he says: “And the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Emmanuel!” These words cannot suit the son of Isaias.
Thirdly, this boy is the same as the boy of the preceding chapter, “For before the child know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land which thou detestest shall be forsaken of the face of her two kings;” here he says of the same boy in almost the same words, verse 4: “For before the child know to call his father and his mother, the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of the Assyrians.” But that boy of whom the preceding chapter speaks cannot be understood of the son of Isaias (who was not yet born then; indeed Isaias had not yet made any mention of him, for in this chapter he is said to be about to be conceived), but of Emmanuel, or Christ, as is clear from what immediately precedes: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel”; therefore in this chapter also no other boy can be understood than Emmanuel.
Fourthly, because the Septuagint, in verse 4, say that this boy shall despoil Samaria. For where we have “the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away,” they render it, “he shall take the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria,” which can fit properly only Christ, and the son of Isaias only improperly, in this way: he shall take, that is, he shall portend that they will be taken.
Fifthly, because the preceding explanation does not cohere well enough with the words of the Prophet and with history. For the kingdom of Samaria was overthrown in the sixth year of Ezechias, when this son of Isaias had long known how to call father and mother, for he was then easily sixteen years old; the contrary of which Isaias here asserts. Some answer that the kingdom of Samaria was indeed overthrown then, but that the Assyrians began long before to plunder it, which is all that Isaias here foretells. But against this, Isaias foretells not only the plundering but the destruction of the kingdom; for in chapter 7, verse 8, he says expressly: “Within threescore and five years Ephraim shall cease to be a people.”
I say therefore with the Fathers and Doctors already cited that this prophetess is the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, who was a prophetess not only because she was most holy and most devout, wholly given to the praises of God, and brought up in the temple among virgins consecrated to God; but also properly, because she foretold things to come, as in her hymn the Magnificat she foretold: “All generations shall call me blessed,” which we see fulfilled everywhere even today. Secondly, she was a prophetess because she bore the greatest Prophet of the world, namely Christ. Thirdly, because in her was accomplished that great sacrament of piety, namely that a virgin should conceive and bear to us Emmanuel, as I said in the preceding chapter; for to that he alludes. For to prophesy in Scripture signifies to work miracles, as I said in the Preface. But the greatest miracle and portent was the Word made flesh in the Virgin. The Blessed Virgin therefore prophesied when she conceived and bore to us God, and clothed him with her flesh and embodied him. The sense therefore is: In vision the prophetess, the august Virgin Mary, was shown to me, and it was indicated to me that I should approach her; for she would explain to me what that was which I had heard in verse 1: “Write, Make speed to take away the spoils, make haste to take the prey.” Reverently, then, I went to her and saluted her, and I saw her conceive by the Holy Spirit and bear Emmanuel, to whom I was commanded to give that name which I had heard in verse 1: “Make speed to take away the spoils, make haste to take the prey”; and in him I saw and understood my vision fulfilled and explained.
Let it not therefore seem hard to anyone if I say that here, according to the history, the wife of Isaias is called a prophetess, and the son, Hasten the plunder. According to this most wise manner of interpreting, we judge that nearly the whole prophecy contained in this chapter has two literal senses (see the note on Canon 35), unless you prefer to say one literal and the other allegorical.
That all this may be better connected and understood, note that all this did not happen in reality, but was set before Isaias by imagination and vision.
So, as in chapter 6 Isaias by mental vision saw God on a throne, and the Seraphim crying out to him “Holy,” and one of them touching his lips with a burning coal, so here too he saw not bodily but mentally a great book, in which he seemed to be told to write with a man’s pen, “Make speed to take away the spoils,” and mentally he called Urias and Zacharias as witnesses of his writing; and since Isaias did not understand what this writing meant, God signified to him that he should go to a certain venerable matron and prophetess, whom he set before his imagination. Isaias therefore seemed to himself to approach her, and to see that she conceived and bore a son, to whom he himself is commanded to give that name which he had been commanded to write in the book, namely: “Hasten to take away the spoils: make haste to take the prey.” Presently he learns the cause and the mystery hidden in this name, when he hears: “For before the child know,” and so on. Symbolically, St. Jerome and Origen take the prophetess to be the Holy Spirit; for ruach, that is, spirit, is in Hebrew of the feminine gender. For by the Holy Spirit Christ was conceived and born. She is called Prophetess because from him the Prophets drew and conceived their prophecies. This sense is rather harsh; for the Holy Spirit did not conceive and bear Christ, which Isaias here asserts of the prophetess. More plainly Eusebius, Demonstration of the Gospel, book 7, chapter 3, thinks these words can be attributed to the Holy Spirit, as if to say: I, the Holy Spirit, will come to the virgin and will overshadow her, and make fruitful, that she may bear the Messias. To this comes Epiphanius, heresy 30, which is that of the Ebionites, who takes this of the coming and entrance of the Archangel to the Virgin, to announce to her the conception and birth of the Messias by the Holy Spirit.