Commentaria in Isaiam
Hence it is plain that these last five are the literal senses, because they are chiefly and above all intended by the Prophet and the Holy Spirit; yet they allude at the same time to the first, and touch upon it as the most proper. So St. Cyril, Irenaeus and Athanasius, already cited, and Tertullian, book 3 Against Marcion, chapter 7, and in his book Against the Jews, chapter 9, who proves from the absurdity that all this is said of Christ in figure: “Surely an infant would summon to arms with his wailing, and give the signal of war not with a trumpet but with a rattle; and would point out the enemy not from a horse or a wall, but from the back or neck of his nurse and bearer, and so subdue Damascus and Samaria in place of the breast. It is otherwise if among you infants burst into battle, anointed, I suppose, before the sun, then armed with swaddling clothes and paid in butter, who would know how to wound before they knew how to tear.” Wherefore he himself understands by the strength of Damascus the gold, frankincense and myrrh which the Magi offered to Christ newly born. By Samaria he understands idolatry, which Christ destroyed in the Magi. The king of the Assyrians he interprets as the devil, or Herod the slayer of infants. So too Justin, Against Trypho: “Herod,” he says, “the prophetic word calls the king of the Assyrians.” So too St. Epiphanius in the Ancoratus, St. Jerome here, St. Ambrose, book 3 on Luke; Chrysostom, homily 2 on Matthew 2; Procopius here, who all understand by the king of the Assyrians Herod or the devil, a few Augustus Caesar; and by Samaria and Damascus and their power they understand the wise Magi, who, having left idolatry, devoted themselves wholly to the infant Christ and God. Hear also St. Augustine, sermon 4 On the Epiphany: “The child,” he says, “received the power of Damascus, of that city, namely, in which Damascus put its trust. In riches, indeed, that city, flourishing according to the world, had once presumed. In riches, moreover, the principality is carried off by the gold, which the Magi humbly offered to Christ. And the spoils of Samaria are those very persons who dwelt in it. For Samaria is put for idolatry.” Note: the kingdom of Damascus and Samaria aptly signifies the kingdom of sin and of the devil. First, because these kingdoms were impious and faithless, and full of crimes. Secondly, because they were hostile to the kingdom of Juda and of David, that is, to the people and temple of God. Thirdly, because they worshipped idols, and consequently the devil. He was therefore their king, indeed their God. Fourthly, because Damascus, or, as it is said in Hebrew, Dammesec, is the same as dam sac, that is, a sack of blood, as I said on Genesis 15:2; and such is the kingdom of the devil, who is a murderer and a man-slayer from the beginning, and goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. To call father. Christ called Joseph father, not only because the people thought him the father of Christ, but also because he truly was in a manner the father of Christ, in this sense, that Christ, born by a certain divine mode, though by miracle, in a lawful marriage of Joseph with the Mother of God, was given to him by God as a son. So Christ was truly the son of Joseph, and Joseph truly the father of Christ. For as the fruits born in my field, even though they were not sown by me, are nevertheless mine, so too Christ, lawfully born to Joseph in his wife, is his son, and is as it were the fruit of his field, that is, of his wife, as I shall say on Luke 2:48. Before the king of the Assyrians, that is, in the presence of, and by the force of, the king of the Assyrians; that is, by the king, or by the strength and forces of the king of the Assyrians. With a like Hebraism it is said: “The house is burnt from the face of the fire,” that is, by the force and action of the fire. For literally Theglatphalasar despoiled Syria and Samaria.
Again, when Christ was born, the king of the Assyrians, that is, Augustus Caesar, monarch of the world, took possession of the kingdom of Herod and Obodas, that is, Syria and Samaria, by recalling it to himself, as I said on chapter 7, verse 16. Moreover Augustus is called king of the Assyrians because he was a monarch, and so ruled over the Assyrians as well. For in the time of Isaias the monarchy was with the Assyrians, Assur, and it was the first and most renowned. Hence by catachresis any monarch of the world, whether Greek or Roman, is called a king of the Assyrians, just as from Augustus came the title Augusti, and from Pharao, Pharaos. So in Esdras, chapter 6, verse 22, and in book 3, chapter 7, verse 15, Darius, son of Hystaspes, emperor of the Persians, is called king of Assur. So Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, is called king of Assur, in 2 Esdras, and in book 10 of the Antiquities, chapter 11. So too Herodotus, in book 1 of the Histories, calls Baltassar, the son of the great Nabuchodonosor, Labynetus, and writes that he, king of Assyria, was conquered by Cyrus the Persian.
Wherefore Eusebius, book 6 of the Demonstratio Evangelica, chapter 1: “By the name of the Assyrians,” he says, “I think is signified whatever kingdom has been set over the nations in each age, because Assyrians in Hebrew means those who govern.” For the root sara signifies to rule; whence Sara, that is, lady, was the name of Abraham’s wife. Hence also sar, which the Syrians and Arabs, and thence the French, pronounce Sir, is prince and lord.
Secondly, and rather, he pointedly says not by but before the king of the Assyrians, because by the king of the Assyrians, as a tyrant, he understands the devil, before whom, groaning and gnashing his teeth, Christ snatched the spoils of Damascus and Samaria, that is, of the Gentiles, when he subjected the idolatrous nations to himself and to his faith. For in a type not everything can or ought to correspond and agree with the antitype. A likeness in all things is not a likeness, but only in that in which the likeness is placed. So here the likeness is not set between Christ and the king of the Assyrians, but between the despoiling of Syria and Samaria, which the king of the Assyrians accomplished, and the despoiling of the Gentiles, which Christ accomplished.
If, however, you wish it to be alike in all things, say and grant that Christ is likened to the king of the Assyrians: for that king, as a minister of God and as the executor of God’s just vengeance, aptly represents Christ, God’s ambassador and just avenger; yet insofar as he was proud of himself, and strove not so much to carry out God’s vengeance as to subject the Syrians and Samaritans to his own ambition, he was a type of the devil. So then this child took away the spoils of Damascus and Samaria before the king of the Assyrians, that is, before himself, by his coming and presence, by his own strength and might, who is the typical king of the Assyrians, that is, of sinners. In like manner Christ is called a lion for his strength, and the devil is called a lion for his cruelty. So St. Paul, persecuting the Church, was a ravening wolf of the devil; afterwards, persecuting Judaism and Gentilism, he was a wolf of God.
Tropologically, the infant Christ at his very birth began to overcome Damascus and Samaria, that is, the strength, wisdom and glory of the world, and he subdued the world in the manger as much as on the cross, not with iron but with wood; not by striking but by suffering. For what else was the birth of our new king and his coming into the world, without arms, without forces, without servants, and without any warlike or royal equipment, but the overthrow of the empty strength and show of the world, which glories in these things? He conquered, then, these strengths of the world by despising them, and taught that true and Christian strength and victory consist not in them, but in the pure religion and obedience of God, in strong patience, in the loftiness and constancy of a mind that transcends all human things: for this is unconquerable and subdues all things. What else was it for Christ to be born among straw and hay, and to be wrapped in swaddling clothes by the Blessed Virgin in a manger, because there was no room for him in the inn, but the clearest condemnation of human pomp, vanity and worldly wisdom? What else was it to be born abroad on a journey and in a stable but to teach that this life is a road and an inn, not a permanent dwelling? What else was that deep humiliation of the Son of God but the evident refutation of the pride and vaunting of the world? What else was his utmost poverty but the scorn of the gold and silver which the world so admires and loves, of fleeting, inconstant and ill-gotten wealth, and the mockery of a lofty mind that dwells in heaven? In that abasement and want he who made all things, the ruler of the heavens and the unconquered emperor of the whole universe, who by immense power restrains, holds, rules and governs all nature, chose to lie hidden, that he might show in fact that the foundation of Christian philosophy, of true religion and of unconquered fortitude lies in contempt of earthly things, so that from these vain and perishing goods we may pass with desire of the heavenly country to those that are solid and ever abiding; that, as citizens enrolled in heaven and candidates for eternity, we may rise above all temporal things, glad and sad alike, as passing and momentary exiles, and tread them under foot, and live not for this brief and slender time but for eternity. This is what St. Paul says, 1 Corinthians 1:20: “God hath made foolish the wisdom of this world”; and verse 27: “The foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and things that are not, that he might bring to nought things that are.” Then Christ by his poverty overthrew the wealth and pomp of the world, by his humility the world’s pride, by his austerity the world’s softness and delights, by his hiddenness and obscurity the world’s empty glory, by his infancy the world’s boasting, by his patience all the world’s power; and he brought it about that, by the example of their leader, so many thousands of Martyrs, Virgins, Religious and Hermits overcame and supplanted the same pomp, wealth and strength of the world with the same weapons; indeed he led and compelled all the kings and princes of the world, through the Apostles and their successors, to venerate and adore his cradle, his infancy and his poverty. As God therefore reigned from the wood, so also the little Emmanuel reigned from the cradle.