Commentaria in Isaiam
Wonderful. In Hebrew it is pele, that is, wonderful, marvelous. By this word the Prophet signifies that in Christ are hidden inestimable treasures of wonderful things. In the word pele he alludes to the Angel, forerunner of Christ, who says to Manue, Judges 13:18: “Why askest thou my name, which is wonderful?” Indeed St. Augustine, questions 52, 53, 54 on the book of Judges, holds that this Angel who was called pele, that is, wonderful, was Christ, the Angel of great counsel, as the Septuagint render here; and that therefore he ascended in the flame with the sacrifice, to signify that Christ made man would not receive a sacrifice but would himself be the sacrifice. But it is truer that that Angel was a true Angel, not Christ, but a type of Christ. Symmachus, according to Eusebius, book 7 of the Demonstratio, chapter 2, renders it “a paradox,” as if to say: A certain paradoxical, incredible, unexpected thing, wonderfulness itself, this child shall be called; for first, wonderful and incomprehensible are his divinity, eternity and majesty.
Secondly, because wonderful are his power and working, and above all the creation and government of the whole universe.
Thirdly, and properly, because wonderful were his conception and birth of the Virgin by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Wonderful also were his life, teaching, passion, death and resurrection: whence Isaias calls him “a wonder,” chapter 8, verse 18. St. Cyprian says excellently, in the treatise On the Nativity of Christ: “Your heart will wonder and be enlarged when you understand the profoundest mystery, in that he who was despised became wonderful; and he who had not learned letters, nor been instructed in laws, is a sufficient counsellor in things divine and human; how divinity and humanity came together in one person; and where weakness was reckoned, strength was found; and the body of our lowliness, made like to the divine brightness, has perpetual dominion not in this world but in heavenly glory.” And below: “O Lord, how wonderful is thy name! Truly thou art the God that dost wonders. I admire not only the stature of this world, not the stability of the earth, not the eclipse of the moon, not the sun ever whole and its perpetual labor, etc. I wonder at God in the womb of a Virgin, I wonder at the Almighty in a cradle, I wonder how flesh adhered to the Word of God.” And soon: “I wonder at the fast, I wonder at the temptations, I wonder at the Almighty lying in a sepulchre, I wonder at the Slain who rises again,” etc.
Fourthly, because wonderful is his grace in his Saints, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins; and Christ gives each Saint some proper grace by which he excels others and is wonderful, as daily experience teaches us. Let those, therefore, who purpose great and heroic things in their mind call upon Emmanuel as pele, that is, the Wonderful, that by the virtue and grace of this pele they may do illustrious and wonderful things; for he it is who alone doeth great wonders; he is wonderful in Paul (who truly was pele, as I said on Galatians 1:15), and in all his Saints, and will be more wonderful in them in future glory, as St. Paul teaches, 2 Thessalonians 1:10. See what is said there.
Moreover, among the Jews, Rabbenu Haccados, that is, our holy master, who flourished before the coming of Christ in the times of the Antiochi, kings who reigned in Syria, explains this place of Christ in the book called Gale razeya, that is, Revealer of Secrets. He (though there was another of the same name under the emperors Severus and Antoninus) wrote thus: “Because the Messias is to be God and man, his name is called Emmanuel, that is, God with us, namely in our body and flesh, as Job testifies, chapter 19: In my flesh I shall see God. For he devised a wonderful counsel for snatching from the demon the souls that were condemned on account of Adam’s sin, and could in no way be saved unless the king Messias should undergo a most bitter death and many torments; for this cause he is called a man; and because all strength is his, he is called God the Mighty; and because he is eternal, he is called the everlasting Father; likewise because in his days peace shall be multiplied, he is called Prince of Peace; and because he will hasten to take away the spoils of souls, he is called the swift spoiler, the speedy plunderer; and because he will save them and bring them into paradise, he is called Jesus, that is, Saviour.” So that Rabbi, who seems to have been divinely enlightened to know in Isaias, before the coming of Christ, these things.
Counsellor. The Septuagint, according to the Roman edition (for other editions vary here), which St. Basil, Cyril, Procopius, and the Arabic and Syriac translations that exist at Rome, made from the Greek Septuagint, follow; the Septuagint, I say, terrified, says St. Jerome, by the majesty of so many august names of Emmanuel, put one in place of them all, namely six, that is, Angel of great counsel. St. Cyprian perhaps renders the Greek, Angel of great thought, that is, ambassador and messenger; whence Orpheus, who learned much from the Jews, is called phanes, that is, Angel, from phainein, that is, to make manifest, declare, announce, as Proclus testifies, book 4 on the Timaeus. Again the Chaldee, joining this epithet with the first, renders: God of wonderful counsel. Our version better separates these and renders it apart, “Counsellor.” Our little child is therefore a counsellor, first, on account of his divine knowledge and wisdom, in which the counsels of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the same, and by which he is the master and director of Angels and of all creatures. So Clement, book 6 of the Stromata, and Lactantius, book 4 On Religion, chapter 6, where he asserts that the incarnate Word is also called counsellor by the Sibyl, because through him this world, as it was most wisely made, so is also governed by the Father. Plato too seems to have alluded to this in the Epinomis, when he says that God sits in heaven like a master in a chair, to teach all men who are willing to attend the things that belong to wisdom and salvation.
Secondly, Emmanuel is a counsellor as man, on account of his blessed knowledge, by which from the first instant of his conception he beheld most perfectly in God himself all the counsels of God concerning the present and the future age, concerning Angels and men, concerning the elect and the reprobate.
Thirdly, and most properly, he is a counsellor because he most prudently and faithfully carried out the counsel and dispensation of God’s plan for accomplishing human redemption through his incarnation and passion; which was the greatest and most divine of all God’s works, and above all the mystery of the calling of all the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jews, say St. Jerome and Basil.
To this belongs that of St. Cyril and of St. Cyprian, in the book On the Nativity of Christ, at the end: Christ, he says, is called Counsellor, because he taught men the secrets of God and of the Holy Trinity, and the other things necessary for salvation, namely the divine commandments and institutions, by which he trained men to a new and heavenly life, and laid bare and scattered all the counsels, arts and frauds of the devil; for hence the law of God is often called counsel, as Psalm 118: “Thy counsel I have justified.” So St. Dionysius, in the book On the Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 4, and Justin, Against Trypho: “Christ,” they say, “is called Angel of great counsel, because no one knows the Father but the Son, who reveals to us what he has received from the Father, himself the Word of the Father; he himself evangelized the world.”
Where note, among other things, one wonderful counsel of God and of Christ in his incarnation, namely that among other reasons why he willed to be incarnate, one was to give us the object and exercise of the heroic acts of all the virtues; first, of faith, by which we believe that the Word was made flesh. Who would believe that this little child lying in a manger and crying is God the Creator, unless heroic faith dictated and commanded it? Secondly, of hope. Who would not hope for salvation and every good from God, when he sees him made man, suffering and dying for him and for his salvation? Thirdly, of love. Who would not love in return with the utmost love him who so loved us as to will to become our brother, our flesh, and who says: “My delights were to be with the children of men”? Fourthly, of religion. It is an heroic act of religion to adore this man like to us, miserable and weak, namely Jesus Christ, with the same latria with which the Holy Trinity itself is adored. Fifthly, of justice. Who would not love justice supremely, when he sees his God crucified for it, so that by this cross he might in justice make satisfaction for the injury done to God by our sins? Sixthly, of patience. Who would not bear generously all things, even the most bitter, when he sees God so patiently and bravely endure all insults, all torments, all poverty? Seventhly, of obedience. Who would not obey, when he sees the Son of God obedient to the Father unto death, even to the death of the cross? Ninthly, of humility. Who would not humble and lower himself even to the abyss, when he sees God in his humanity emptying himself, as it were, entirely? Who would not say to himself: Why art thou proud, earth and ashes? God humbles himself utterly, and thou dost exalt thyself.