Commentaria in Isaiam
6. For a child is born to us. Behold here the victor and plunderer, the cause of the victory just spoken of, of whom in chapter 8, verse 4, and chapter 7, verse 16, he said that from childhood and from the womb he would begin to plunder, namely the little Emmanuel, who is yet at the same time Wonderful, God, the Mighty, etc. This is our Gedeon, who destroyed the spiritual Madianites. In Hebrew there is a fine paronomasia, yeled yullad lanu, as if to say: A child is born to us; a child, I say, in age and stature, in simplicity and innocence, but a man, indeed a very great giant in his virtue and strength. Hence the faithful and saints are called children; for, as St. Ambrose says on Psalm 36: “Christ taught us that childhood is a virtue, saying: Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” See what is said in the preceding chapter, verse 18.
Note: “a child is born to us” is as it were the same as what he adds, and out of elegance and the delight of love repeats: “and a son is given to us.” Eusebius of Emesa (or rather Eucherius, for these sermons savor of his style), homily 4, distinguishes these: “He was born to us,” he says, “who was his own; he was given, then, from his divinity, born from the virgin. Born, that he might feel decline; given, that he might know no beginning. Born, that he might be younger even than his mother; given, than whom not even the Father is older. Born, that he might die; given, from whom life might be born. And so he who was, is given; he who was not, is born. There he rules, here he is humbled; he reigns for himself, and fights for me.” Similar things are in Isidore, book 1 On the Faith, chapter 6. Again St. Ambrose, book 3 On the Holy Spirit, chapter 11: He is given to us, he says, by the Holy Spirit. Away then with the impious saying of Nestorius: “I shall never call God two months old or three months old,” never a little child, never a man born.
St. Augustine says beautifully, sermon 27 On the Seasons, speaking of Christ being born: “The great day of the Angels becomes small in the day of men. The Creator of the sun is created under the sun. The Maker of heaven and earth is born on earth under heaven. Ineffably wise, wisely an infant. Filling the world, lying in a manger. Ruling the stars, sucking at the breast. So great in the form of God, so small in the form of a servant, that neither was that greatness diminished by this, nor this smallness crushed by that greatness. For when he took on human members he did not abandon divine works, etc., that the food of wisdom might not be withdrawn from the Angels, and that we might taste how sweet the Lord is.” And St. Bernard, sermon 4 on Missus est: “Let the great Lord be magnified by us little ones, to make whom great he became a little one. A little child, he says, is born to us, not for himself, not for the Angels, who had him great and did not seek him little.” Whence he infers: “Now that he is born and given to us, let us do that for which he was born and given. Let us use what is ours for our profit, and work out our salvation from our Saviour. Behold, the little child is set in the midst. O little child, desired by little ones! Let us strive to become like this little child: let us learn from him, for he is meek and humble of heart; lest the great God should have become a little man without cause, lest he should have died in vain, been crucified for nothing. Let us learn his humility, imitate his meekness, embrace his love, share in his sufferings, be washed in his blood, offer him as the propitiation for our sins, since for this he was born and given to us.”
And the government is upon his shoulder. As if to say: This child will be, indeed will be born, prince, king and emperor of the world, lord of heaven and earth; for such was Christ from the beginning of his conception, and that by the force of his origin, namely because of the hypostatic union with the Word. Wherefore Christ as man could have deposed Augustus and all kings from their kingdoms; but he was unwilling in this bodily life to use this empire and kingdom, but only the spiritual.
Moreover he says that this government is upon the shoulder, first, because magistrates, or their attendants on their behalf, carry rods or fasces on their shoulders, as signs of rule and command. The government, then, that is, the sceptre or fasces, which are the symbols of government, are carried on the shoulder. Secondly, the government or sceptre is borne on the shoulder to signify that the prince ought to be as it were the shoulder of the people, to bear and sustain it and its burdens like a shoulder, as Atlas is said to hold up heaven on his shoulders.
Hence prince in Hebrew is called nasi, that is, bearer, carrier of his people and commonwealth. Hence Eliseus also cried out to Elias as he was being taken up: “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the driver thereof,” as if to say: Whither art thou carried off, O Elias? who now will sustain Israel? For thou didst sustain it, thou like a chariot didst carry the burdens of Israel, and didst guide it, as a driver guides the horses yoked to a chariot. The prince in the commonwealth, then, drives and presides as in a chariot, and at the same time as a chariot and as a shoulder bears it. To bear on the shoulder, in Scripture, especially when attributed to Christ, signifies obedience, submission and patience; it alludes to “the rod of his shoulder,” verse 4, as if to say: The devil and tyrants lay their rod and sceptre, that is, the burdens of their rule, on the shoulders of their subjects; but Christ will bear on his own shoulders the rod and burden of his government; especially because Christ will bear on his shoulders the badge and sceptre of his empire, namely the cross, and God will reign from the wood, as the Church sings. So the Hebrews expound it in Galatinus, book 3, chapter 19, and St. Basil, Cyril, Augustine, and other Fathers everywhere, whom Leo Castrius cites at length here.
Hear among others Tertullian, Against the Jews: “What king at all,” he says, “carries the badge of his power on his shoulder, and not either the diadem on his head or the sceptre in his hand? But the one new king of new ages, Christ Jesus, bore his new glory, power and sublimity on his shoulder, that is, the cross, that according to David’s prophecy (Psalm 44:10, according to the Septuagint) he might from then on reign.” Aquila, says St. Jerome, deceived, read mesura, that is, measure, for misra, that is, government; yet this you may rightly apply to the measure and dimensions of the cross of Christ, of which I spoke on Ephesians 3:18. Some by the cabala subtly explain the word misra here, as if by contraction it were the same as missin sara (for the letter sin is equivalent to the letter samech), that is, empire from a thorn, signifying that Christ obtained empire through thorns and crosses, so that because he once wore a crown of thorns he now wears an imperial crown of gold and gems. Just as Christ appeared to Blessed Catherine of Siena, offering her two crowns, one of thorns, the other of gems, bidding her choose one of them in this life, to have the other in the life to come. She chose that of thorns, and pressed it firmly on her head, that in the future she might have that of gems. So God reigned from the wood, and his Saints reign.
And his name shall be called Wonderful. Six names are here given to our little Emmanuel: the first is Wonderful; the second, Counsellor; the third, God; the fourth, the Mighty; the fifth, Father of the world to come; the sixth, Prince of Peace; the Septuagint add a seventh, Angel of great counsel, of which presently; for these should be distinguished one from another and set apart by commas, as the Roman Bible sets them apart, and Theodotion, Aquila and Symmachus, according to St. Jerome.
Hear St. Bernard, sermon 10 among the little ones, explaining each of these briefly: “Wonderful,” he says, “in his nativity, Counsellor in his preaching, God in his working, Mighty in his passion, Father of the world to come in his resurrection, Prince of Peace in everlasting blessedness.” Then tropologically, adapting each of these names to the converted and justified, he teaches that all of them are contained in the name of Jesus, that is, Saviour; for he says, here and more clearly in sermon 29 On the Circumcision: “Have we not each of us truly found him wonderful, in the change of our wills? For this is the beginning of our salvation, when we begin to reject what we loved, to grieve over what we rejoiced in, to embrace what we feared, to follow what we fled, to desire what we despised. Plainly wonderful is he who works these wonders. But it is no less necessary that he show himself Counsellor in the choice of penance and the ordering of life; lest zeal be in us without knowledge, and prudence be lacking to a good will. And it is needful that we also prove him God, in the forgiveness of former sins, because without this our salvation cannot stand; and no one can forgive sins but God alone.” He then adds his other three names: “But not even this is enough for salvation, unless we also find him Mighty in overcoming those who assail us, lest we be again overcome by the same desires, and our last state be worse than the first. Does anything now seem wanting to the Saviour? Plainly the greatest thing would be wanting, were he not also Father of the world to come, that through him we might rise to immortality, who by the father of the present world are begotten unto death. Nor is this enough, unless as Prince of Peace he also reconcile us to the Father, to whom he will deliver up the kingdom; lest perhaps, as sons of perdition and not of salvation, we should seem to rise again unto punishment. His empire shall be multiplied, so that he is rightly called Saviour also for the multitude of those to be saved; and of his peace there shall be no end, that you may know that salvation to be true which cannot fear failure.”