Commentaria in Isaiam
Note: The Septuagint, the Chaldees and more recent writers, for lo with aleph, that is, “not,” read lo with vau, that is, “to him.” Whence they render the contrary, thus: thou hast multiplied the nation, and hast magnified the joy; which reading and version also has a true sense, as if to say: Many of the Galileans will be converted, whence great will be the joy both of them and of Christ and the Apostles.
Joy. Joy here is taken first properly for gladness; secondly, by metalepsis, for the fruit of preaching, namely the conversion, piety and progress of the Galileans in faith and Christian life: for this is what is wont to gladden the Apostles and preachers, as the harvest gladdens the farmer. As if to say: The fruit of the sermons of Christ and the Apostles will not be so great as so great a matter deserved.
St. Bernard aptly applies this to the multitude of clerics, in the sermon On the conversion of clerics, 29: “Though, Lord, thou hast multiplied the nation, thou hast not increased the joy, since it appears that no less merit has departed than number has been added. Men run everywhere to the sacred Orders, and take up ministries to be revered even by angelic spirits, without reverence, without consideration. For they do not fear to seize the sign of the heavenly kingdom or to wear the crown of that empire, in whom avarice reigns, ambition commands, pride rules, and iniquity and luxury also hold sway,” etc. See the Council of Trent, session 26, On Reform, from chapter 7 to chapter 17.
St. Jerome applies this to the whole Church, in the Life of St. Malchus, near the beginning, when he says: “I have determined to write a history from the coming of the Saviour down to our own times, how and through whom the Church of Christ was born, and grew when adult through persecutions, was crowned with martyrdoms, and after it came to Christian princes became indeed greater in power and riches, but less in virtues.” Very many others, equally truly and fittingly, apply this here to the Religious Orders, especially to those established for the help of neighbors; for in these there is no surer plague than a multitude and crowd of men, as experience teaches us. For what are called, and are, the plagues of Religion, ambitions, avarices, pleasures, contentions, idleness, arise from multitude. And if anyone thinks that in a great crowd of men peace, concord, humility, mortification, discipline, zeal and spirit can be preserved for long, he thinks what has never been done to this day anywhere, nor will be. In so great a crowd many sensual, sluggish, melancholic, stiff-necked, troublesome, covetous persons, and others unfit on other grounds, must creep in. Few who were perfect, or who with their whole heart strove toward perfection, have been found in every age; many who did so for long, none. The world is now old, and men are not more changeable, I think. What is precious has always been rare, and the number of fools is infinite. Few, therefore, and those exactly tested, are to be admitted into Religion, says our Ribera on Osee 3, number 101. For these ought to be in the Church an example of holiness and like stars shining in heaven. How greatly, therefore, they err today who care for nothing else than to increase their Orders in number and spread them, to seek or build new houses, monasteries, residences, caring little for discipline and spirit. Hence scandals, hence the loosening of discipline, hence the violation of vows, hence the ruin of monasteries and Orders. Rightly, therefore, it has been said that the religious hold their order and rank not by number but by virtue. So the twelve Apostles, few in number but of great virtue, converted the whole world. Wherefore these same men admitted only a few and chosen into our Society, and prescribed to their successors to do the same: indeed for this reason they judged that harmful and unfit members should be dismissed from the Society, as in fact, to its own great good and the Church’s, the Society relieves itself of this burden and purges itself of such, as the human body expels bad humors and the body politic banishes and casts out pestilent citizens.
They shall rejoice before thee, as they that rejoice in the harvest. As if to say: Nevertheless the Galileans, as well as the Jews and Gentiles, converted by Christ and the Apostles, seeing so great a light, grace and salvation granted to them rather than to so many unbelieving and faithless, will rejoice as farmers rejoice in the harvest. Likewise Christ and the Apostles, who converted them, will rejoice with them, as victors rejoice when they bring back rich spoils from the enemy. You see here that Christ and the Apostles are swift plunderers, as he called them in chapter 7, verse 16, and chapter 8.
4. For the yoke of his burden (St. Thomas, Lyranus and Adam take all this of the host of Sennacherib struck down by the Angel. But we persist in our explanation concerning Christ; it is therefore the yoke of Galilee of the Gentiles, not of the devil. The sense then is, as if to say: The yoke of servitude, by which Galilee of the Gentiles itself was pressed as by a most heavy burden under sin and the devil), and the rod of his shoulder (the scourge lying on the shoulders and back of the same, making them bleed and afflicting them); and the sceptre of the oppressor (that is, the dominion of the demon, who daily like a harsh exactor imposes and exacts from his sinners the most unjust and heavy tributes of sins, to which he urges and almost compels them) thou hast overcome (O Emmanuel! O Christ! So St. Cyril, who aptly notes that the rod with which the demon scourges sinners is their own affections and passions: for with these he restrains and scourges them; the dominion of concupiscence is therefore the sovereignty of Satan). As in the day of Madian: as Gedeon broke the Madianites in that famous victory and day, which is celebrated by all; so it is commonly said “the day of Pavia,” the day and victory which Charles V won over the French at Ticino, their king Francis being taken. So the “Sicilian Vespers,” in which the French, and the “morning of St. Bartholomew,” in which the Huguenots at Paris, were slaughtered. (Judges 7–8) The day therefore by metonymy signifies the victory and the slaughter accomplished on that day.
He aptly compares the victory of Christ with the victory of Gedeon, by which he delivered Israel, Judges 7, by slaying the Madianites; because, as Origen teaches, homilies 8 and 9 on the book of Judges, St. Augustine, sermon 108 On the Seasons, Theodoret, questions 14 and 15 on the book of Judges, Gedeon, deliverer and victor, was a type of Christ the Redeemer and triumpher. First, Gedeon in Hebrew means one who strikes, breaks or cuts off iniquity; and as he destroyed the altar of Baal, cut down the grove, and built an altar to the Lord, so Christ the Lord overthrew the Synagogue, destroyed idols, and built the Church and the true altar, according to the saying of Jeremias:
“That thou mayest root up, and pull down, and waste, and destroy, etc., and build, and plant.” Secondly, Gedeon was cleansing wheat in the winepress: in Christ’s hand is the fan to purge his floor, and he does it in the winepress of afflictions and of the cross, as he himself trod it alone.
Thirdly, Gedeon offered a sacrifice of the flesh of a kid and of meal: Christ offered himself, the spotless kid, by himself on the cross, and under the species of bread and wine in the Eucharist.
Fourthly, the Madianites oppressed the people of God with servitude: the devil and his adverse powers oppressed the human race. Again, Madian in Hebrew means contending or quarrelsome; with whom have we strife and wrestling, if not with these spiritual wickednesses and rulers of darkness? Did not Christ also meet adversaries who were quarrelers, of whom Psalm 2: “Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things, etc., against the Lord and against his Christ?”
Fifthly, Gedeon summoned to his aid the house of Abiezer, that is, my father’s help; Christ was accustomed to call upon and pray to the eternal Father, and to rely on his help in all things.
Sixthly, Gedeon gathered forces from Aser, Nephthali and Zabulon, who also came to meet him: did not the first soldiers and captains of Christ, namely the Apostles, come to him from the same tribes?
Seventhly, Gedeon put a fleece on the threshing floor to receive the dew: the dew, as St. Augustine shows, is faith and the word of God; these were at first with the Jews alone, who are that fleece. Gedeon put the fleece on the floor, because there wheat is threshed: this floor is the Church, in which the harvest is great and the laborers few, and in it Christ wishes sound doctrine to be threshed out. Gedeon wrung out the dew into a bowl; Christ at the last supper, about to wash away the filth of the Apostles, poured water into a basin, and daily does so, wringing out the dew in the font of baptism.
Eighthly, afterwards, the fleece being dry, the dew passed to the whole floor: so the word of God and faith passed to the people of the Gentiles.
Ninthly, Gedeon dismissed many from the army, namely first all the fearful and timid: so Christ rejects as cowardly soldiers and unworthy disciples those who do not take up their cross, who do not hate their parents and their own life, who do not renounce all things; secondly, those who had drunk on bended knee: so Christ rejects those who with slack mind yield to temptation; thirdly, Gedeon kept the few who had only lapped the water like dogs: are not many called by Christ, and few chosen? Only those, namely, who deserve to be compared to dogs; an animal most watchful, wonderfully swift, most grateful and most faithful to its master; and who, drawing water in the hand, lapped with the tongue; who neither prostrate nor bowed down gave way to vices out of thirst for sin; but, not knowing how to bend to earthly desires, and girded with trust in the Lord, standing, boldly proclaim: “If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear. If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” So, standing, they draw water with the hand and lap with the tongue, when they fight with word and deed, when they themselves do what God commands, and teach others to do the same.