Commentary on Haggai
Latin source: Jerome's commentary on Haggai, in one book addressed to Paula and Eustochium (written at Bethlehem about 392–393), from the critical text of M. Adriaen, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 76A (Turnhout, 1970), pp. 713–746, verified against the page images, with the edition's few evident misprints corrected. Each lemma gives Haggai in Jerome's own version from the Hebrew and, in five places, then after "LXX:" in his Latin of the Septuagint; all Scripture is translated as Jerome quotes it, from his own Latin. Italics mark the lemmata and the other Scripture he quotes. Headings follow the Vulgate verse numbering Jerome uses, which in chapter 2 runs one verse ahead of English Bibles (Vulgate 2:1 is English 1:15). Psalms keep the Latin (LXX) numbering, with the Hebrew number in parentheses. Greek words are kept as printed, with an English gloss in parentheses where Jerome gives none. This English translation is released into the public domain.
Prologue
That in the second year of Darius, king of the Persians, son of Hystaspes, the seventieth year of the desolation of the temple, which Jeremiah had prophesied, was completed, the prophet Zechariah is also a witness: for when he had set at the head of his vision the title, in the second year of the same king, in the eleventh month, Shebat, on the twenty-fourth day, he added, saying: O Lord of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which you are angry? This is the seventieth year. And Ezra too, when only the altar had been built and the foundations of the temple laid, relates that the work was forbidden by the letters of King Artaxerxes: Then the work of the house of God in Jerusalem was interrupted, and it was not done until the second year of the reign of Darius, king of the Persians. And at once he added: But Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo prophesied, prophesying to the Jews who were in Judea and Jerusalem, in the name of the Lord of Israel: then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak rose up and began to build the temple of God in Jerusalem, and with them the prophets of God, helping them. At that time Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh from Romulus, was reigning among the Romans, in the twenty-seventh year of his rule; eight years later he was driven out by Brutus; and thereafter consuls administered the commonwealth for four hundred and sixty-four years, down to Julius Caesar. We have said this, O Paula and Eustochium, so that from the very title you may at once recognize in what age Haggai the prophet sang. And it must be known meanwhile that, according to the letter, both Haggai and Zechariah were prophets of great spirit, in that, against the edict of King Artaxerxes, and against the Samaritans and all the nations round about, who were hindering the building of the temple, they ordered the temple to be built; and that Zerubbabel too, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, and the people who were with them, were of no less faith, in that they listened rather to the prophets who commanded than to the order of the king who forbade.
1:1
In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on day one of the month, the word of the Lord came in the hand of Haggai the prophet. Because the people, who seemed to themselves to have returned from captivity, had not yet built the temple nor raised the walls of the city, nor had it the glory of the former Jerusalem, but dwelt in hollow houses, and, as it is said more expressively in Greek, κοιλοστάθμοις, that is, set low down and sunk in a valley; for that reason the word of God comes to them not under King Hezekiah, or Amon, or Josiah, who had ruled the people of God as long as Jerusalem stood, but under King Darius, prince of the Persians, of whom Daniel too speaks mystically in his volume. Now Darius sounds in our language 'generations made', or 'which have been', which in Greek is said γενεαὶ γενομέναι; and a people without a temple and dwelling low down did not deserve to have any other king than one who was a slave to generations, and loved the flesh, and kept the first sentence given to man while he was still untaught and cast out of paradise: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth. Therefore, because Darius was a lover of intercourse and a companion of the dragon, whose whole strength is in his loins, for that reason the vision is seen by the people in the second year, in an unclean number, which, after the unity of virginity and the nakedness of paradise, signifies the tunics of skin. Indeed in Genesis, although on the first day, and on the third, and on the fourth, and on the fifth, and on the sixth, after the completion of each work, it is said: And God saw that it was good, on the second it is not found according to the Hebrew, and Aquila, and Symmachus, and Theodotion. For the second day, which makes the number that divides from unity, could not be approved by the sentence of God as being good. The sixth month too is assigned, which does not have the solemnities of God, as the seventh month does, but is neighbor to the six days in which the world was made; in which there is toil, and bread is eaten in the sweat of the face; and the earth brings forth for us thistles and thorns, and when it has received a sowing of wheat, it is more fruitful in darnel and wild oats. But because the altar had already been built, and they had wished to build the temple against the enemies who resisted them, and had not built it, on day one of the sixth month the word of the Lord came in the hand of Haggai the prophet, so that the people, forsaking the second year of King Darius, which divides from unity, and the sixth month, which had passed, a number that is assigned to toil, might return to the unity of God, and follow the odd and single number, which even a pagan poet knew to be clean, saying: ... God delights in an odd number. And the word of the Lord, seeking someone to come to and to teach, comes about in the hand of Haggai the prophet, who had good works, and in whose deeds the word of God could rest. But where hands are full of blood, and Jesus is killed, and the people dare to say: His blood be upon us and upon our children, there the word of God does not come about. To this day carnal Israel, having unclean hands, stretches them out to the Lord; but because they are full of blood, the Lord speaks to them through the prophet: If you stretch out your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you; for your hands are full of blood. The word of the Lord does not come about in their hands, because they are unclean; the word of God does not come to them, because they killed the word of God in themselves. Nor is it to be thought that the word of the Lord came about only in the hand of Haggai the prophet; but because Haggai means festive, everyone who can celebrate feasts, not in the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, can receive the word of God. Let us too have clean hands and be called ἑορτάζοντες, that is, celebrating feasts, and the word of God will come to us. Let us set before our eyes, since the law is spiritual, spiritual solemnities, of which it is written: Three times in the year you shall celebrate feasts for me. You shall keep the solemnity of unleavened bread; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time of the month of new things; for in it you came out of Egypt. You shall not appear in my sight empty; and the solemnity of the harvest of the firstfruits of your works, whatever you have sown in the field; and the solemnity of the consummation at the end of the year, at the gathering of your works from the field. If we wish the word of the Lord to come to be in us, let us be Haggais, that is, celebrating feasts, and let us not appear in the sight of God empty; and sowing in the spirit, let us reap from the spirit eternal life, so that we may celebrate the solemnity of the consummation at the end of the year, that is, the gathering of our works from the field, and the solemnity of the firstfruits of our works, whatever we have sown in the field which the Lord has blessed. Let us also be Haggais, and through our whole life, until the consummation of the year, that is, until our departure from this world, let us celebrate feasts in our works, which have sprung up for us in our field. There are many things, and not for this occasion, which might be said about the solemnity, to which the diligent reader can fit a spiritual understanding from all of Scripture.
To Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the great priest, saying. We read in Chronicles that Shealtiel was the son of Jeconiah, who was led away into Babylon, and that from him Zerubbabel was born. Matthew too, enumerating the generation of the Savior, says this: And after the transmigration of Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel; and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel; and Zerubbabel begot Abiud. This Zerubbabel, of the tribe of Judah, that is, descending from the stock of David, is a type of the Savior, who truly built the destroyed temple, that is, the Church, and led the people back from captivity. And he built the Church both from the stones of the old temple and from new ones, which had previously been unhewn; that is, he raised a tabernacle to God the Father both from the remnants of the Jewish people and from the multitude of the nations. And according to the manifold accents of the Hebrew language, the name is interpreted either ῥεῦσις παρακειμένη, that is, a flux lying near, set out, or 'born in Babylon', or 'prince from Babylon'. Contrary to the first interpretation is that flux which is signified in the name Jezebel, that is, vain flux, or the flux of a menstruous woman, which certainly sounds plainly of uncleanness. And Zebulun too is expressed as flux of the night. Leaving, then, the vain and sordid and dark flux of this world, let us follow the flux of Jesus, which is set out for us to drink, and offers itself in a most abundant fountain, according to what is said in the Gospel: Jesus stood in the temple and cried out, saying: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. And we shall then be able to drink right here, when we have asked it of God the Father, according to what we read: Ask, and it shall be given to you. For Shealtiel means petition of God. And no one comes to Jesus unless the Father has drawn him. A flux, then, will be born to us, set out through supplication to God, and it will be of the tribe of Judah, the royal tribe, that is, and the one that confesses or praises the Lord, because Judah means both. Moreover, 'born in Babylon' is truly said of Zerubbabel according to the history, because he was born there. But according to a higher understanding too, it sounds of our Lord Jesus, because he too was born in the confusion of this world, and was near the most grievous river Chebar, and saw that great vision which Ezekiel, under his type, beholds at the beginning of his volume. But when I said that Zerubbabel is interpreted 'prince from Babylon', I did not say it because 'prince' is truly its meaning: for among the Hebrews his name is reported to be composed of three whole words: zo means 'this'; rob, 'master' or 'greater'; Babel properly sounds 'Babylonian'; and the name Zerubbabel is formed, this master from Babylon. But for brevity of understanding, in place of the minutiae given above, I chose to interpret it 'prince from Babylon', or 'in Babylon'. So that, just as Joshua son of Nun, who was himself also a type of the Savior, led the people from the wilderness into the land of promise, so this man too was born in Babylon for this purpose: to lead back those who were in Babylon into the land of promise, from which they had been carried off captive, and to say to those who were in chains: Come out, and to those who sat in darkness: Be enlightened. The word of the Lord, however, which came in the hand of Haggai, is directed not only to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, of whom we have already spoken, but also to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the great priest. As far as the history is concerned, Zerubbabel of the royal tribe is one person, and Joshua of the priestly tribe another. But as far as spiritual understanding is concerned, our Lord and Savior is one and the same, king and great priest; the type of him, according as he was king, Zerubbabel bore; but according as he was high priest, it was borne by his namesake Joshua (Jesus), which means Iao salvation, that is, salvation of the Lord; and he is the son of Jehozadak, which itself also is rendered in our language Iao just, that is, just one of the Lord. For God the Father is just and holy, and God the Son, and there is no iniquity in him. Against Marcion and the other heretics, who assert that the Lord Savior is the son of another, good God, I know not which, and not of the Creator, whom they call just. And truly Jesus is the great priest, compared with whom all the prelates of God are small and nothing. For if he is called the great priest, it is surely said to distinguish him from those who are lesser. And all who are outside him and after him are lesser, so that, just as he is the firstborn of all creation, and the firstborn from the dead, so he is the prince and the great one among all priests.
1:2
Thus says the Lord of hosts, saying: This people says: The time has not yet come for the house of the Lord to be built. Note carefully that it is not Zerubbabel or Joshua who say: The time has not yet come for the house of the Lord to be built, but the people, which, still placed under King Darius, had not yet shaken off the yoke of servitude. And always those who are held in captivity, and have gone out of Jerusalem, put off and delay building the temple of God, and say: The time has not yet come for the house of the Lord to be built. And you, when you see someone who has gone out of the Church, who had been delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved, thinking and planning to build through chastity the temple which he had before destroyed through lust, and yet putting it off from day to day, say to him: Truly you too are of the people of the captives; you too say: The time has not yet come for the house of the Lord to be built. For him who has once resolved to restore the temple of God, every time is fit for building; neither the devil as king can hinder him, nor the enemies round about, nor the feigned affection of parents, kinsmen, children. As soon as you turn and call on the name of the Lord, he too will say: Here I am.
1:3-4
And the word of the Lord came in the hand of Haggai the prophet, saying: Is it a time for you to dwell in panelled houses — or, as the LXX translated: Κοιλοστάθμοις, that is, hollow —, and this house deserted? On the same day as above, this vision is seen again. And as the works of the prophet advance, the gifts of prophecy also grow; and after a little silence, to what the people had said: The time has not yet come for the house of the Lord to be built, the Lord's response, as if thought over, is brought forth, and it is said to them: Is it then time for you to dwell in houses set low down and placed in a valley, and shall my house, which is on the mountain, be deserted? Or, as it stands in the Hebrew: That you should dwell in panelled houses, that is, adorned and well arranged, and which serve not so much for use as for delight; and shall my dwelling, in which were the holy of holies, and the Cherubim, and the table of the showbread, be drenched by the rains, lie squalid in desolation, be scorched by the sun? Moreover, according to anagogy: every time in which a dwelling in the valley is chosen, or we serve pleasures, is unseasonable. Hence the Stoics too, who take care to define single words, said that time is the time of correction or of accomplishment, which is said more expressively in Greek χρόνον εἶναι κατορθώσεως. For every time in which we devote ourselves not to virtues but to vices perishes, and is reckoned as nothing, as if it had not been. If, then, any of us either dwells in a valley, or panels his house in worldly pleasure and luxury, he does not build a temple to God, nor does the Lord have in him where to lay his head; and while he builds a house with the foxes, he suffers what was once the dwelling of God to be deserted.
1:5
And now thus says the Lord of hosts: Set your hearts upon your ways. Let there not be one time for speaking and another for doing; turn my precepts at once into deeds. For it is the Lord Almighty who commands, and surely the command of God Almighty is no light thing. Until now you have had hearts that served vices, without order, without a teacher, going wherever your desires dragged them. But now the Lord commands you to set charity in order toward him, and to set your hearts upon your ways, so that you do nothing without judgment and consideration, but the lamp of the law always goes before your feet, and you say: Your law is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths. Or certainly thus: Because you say, it is not the time for building the house of the Lord, and you yourselves dwell in dwellings sunk in the depths, while my house is deserted, consider, at my command, the Lord's, and call back to your memory what you have done and what you have suffered.
1:6
You have sown much, and brought in little; you have eaten, and have not been satisfied; you have drunk, and have not been inebriated; you have covered yourselves, and have not been warmed. And he who gathered wages put them into a bag with holes. All your labor, you who built your own houses and neglected the house of God, has had no result. For you sowed more, and gathered much less than had been sown; nor can you say that famine followed because the farmer ceased from working the land. You ate too, lest perhaps any of you should say that the fast had been voluntary; and you were not filled, because you had gathered small fruits into your barns. You drank wine from the vineyards, but not so much that your heart was gladdened and it could be said of you: And wine gladdens the heart of man. You had a cloak, but one that would neither keep off the cold nor keep in the warmth. Whoever of you, too, gathered wages, whether by trade or by hired hand, spent his labor in vain, without the price of the labor. For all the money flowed away, as if someone were putting it into a bag with holes. But according to spiritual understanding too, those who have returned from Babylon and have not yet built the temple of God, but, putting off its building from day to day, have said: The time has not yet come for the house of the Lord to be built, are neither captives nor yet endowed with full freedom, but are placed as it were in a kind of middle ground: they have sown much, and brought in little; they have eaten, and have not been satisfied; they have drunk, and have not been inebriated; they have covered themselves, and have not been warmed; they have gathered wages, and have lost them, as if they were putting them into a purse with holes. If you ever see someone, among many works of sin, doing some things that are just, God is not so unjust as to forget a few good deeds on account of many evils; but he will make him reap only those things which he has sown in good earth, and gather them into his barns. But whoever is wholly an ἀποστάτης (apostate) will not eat at all, but will perish of hunger. Moreover, he who sows much and brings in little eats little, and not to satiety, according to what the Lord threatens among the curses of Leviticus: And you shall eat and shall not be filled. But he who is holy will eat to satiety, and in him will be fulfilled what is written: The just man, eating, fills his soul. Likewise, whoever does not drink at all will perish of thirst; as also in Judith, if one is willing to accept the woman's book: And the little ones perished of thirst. But he who drinks little does indeed drink, but not to inebriation. Moreover, there is he who can say to the Lord: Your cup that inebriates, how glorious it is. And he is inebriated with Noah; and although placed in Egypt, yet at the banquet of Joseph, with the patriarchs and brothers, he is drenched with wine.
This man, for the greatness of his joy and his daily gladness, transported with the apostles into ecstasy, will be called full of new wine. But how the fact that the sons of Jonadab son of Rechab did not drink wine, and are praised by the Lord, is not contrary to this exposition will be discussed more fittingly in Jeremiah. After this it is said to those who neglected to build the temple of the Lord: You have covered yourselves, and have not been warmed. This we understand from Psalm 103 (104), in which it is said of God: The abyss, like a garment, is his clothing. For although according to the Hebrew truth it is referred to the lands, which are encircled by the Ocean, yet according to the LXX translators, who said Τὸ περιβόλαιον αὐτοῦ (his garment), in the masculine gender, and not αὐτῆς (her), in the feminine, we are compelled to understand what was said of God, because his wisdom is unsearchable, and the Lord makes darkness his hiding place, and his mysteries are not betrayed to any who are unworthy. Hence the just man too rejoices and says: In my heart I have hidden your words, that I may not sin against you. This cloak, woven of the senses and words of manifold wisdom, does not allow those who are fervent in spirit to grow cold, nor the warmth of love to freeze when the north wind blows. But he who is in the middle has a cloak indeed, but one with which he is not wholly covered; just as he carried little into the barns, and eats, but not to satiety, and drinks, but not to inebriation, so he will indeed be covered with the cloak of his senses and works, but will not be warmed. But he who, because of the excessive poverty of his soul, has no cloak, has none for this reason: because iniquity has multiplied, charity has grown cold in him. Hence also concerning a man of this kind, whose cloak is held by another, it is commanded in the law: You shall give his garment back to him before the sun sets, since he is poor and has his hope in it. And this too befell those who dwelt in valleys, or in panelled houses, and said: The time has not yet come for the house of the Lord to be built: that they gathered wages into a bag with holes. If any of us does good works, worthy also of a wage — which the Lord will render to us, of whom it is said: Behold the Lord, and his wage is in his hands, to render to each according to his works, and that other saying of the Apostle: If anyone's work which he has built upon remains, he will receive a wage —, he gathers wages to be kept and to endure, and, always joining virtues to virtues, heaps up money in a bag without holes. But he who after good works sins not once or twice but frequently, and darkens and soils his past charity with the vices that follow, gathers money into a bag with holes. And all these things befell those who said: The time has not yet come for the house of the Lord to be built, and who, while they themselves dwelt in valleys, suffered the house of the Lord to be deserted.
1:7-8
Thus says the Lord of hosts: Set your hearts upon your ways; go up into the mountain, bring wood, and build the house; and it shall be acceptable to me, and I shall be glorified, says the Lord. LXX: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Set your hearts on your ways; go up upon the mountain and cut down wood. The rest likewise. Again I, the Lord, command you, I who had also ordered it before, that you set your hearts upon your ways, and consider all that you do, and, leaving off your zeal for your own lowly houses, go up into the mountain, where there is not wood to be burned, but wood that serves for the works of my house; and so that you may do this more attentively, know that what you are doing will please me. The Hebrews say that only wood for roofing was needed, since the walls of the temple were left standing after the fire. So they say. But we are commanded not to set our hearts outside our ways, but to set again in our ways the hearts we had set before; and after we have done this, to go up from the hollow houses up the mountain, so that when we have come to the height of the mountain, in which is the wood needed for building the temple of God, from the whole mountain of holy Scripture, in which the various trees of the virtues and of paradise are planted, we may cut them down, and build the temple of the Lord with good works and the doctrines of truth; and when it has been built, may it please the Lord, and may he be glorified in it. Therefore, since these things have been commanded us, that we set our hearts in our ways, let us go up the rational mountain, and, seeking for each problem the fitting wood from the testimonies of the Scriptures, let us cut it down and build the house of wisdom in ourselves; for after this has been built, the end of its building will be that the Lord be glorified in us.
1:9
You looked to more, and behold, it became less; and you brought it into the house, and I blew it away. LXX: You looked to many things, and they became few, and you brought them into the house, and I blew them away. So that, casting aside delay and laying down all hesitation, you may build my house more zealously, I tell you also another thing that has befallen you, who put off building my house: not as above, You have sown much, and because the earth did not return the seed, you have brought in little; but when the crops were already whitening, and the time of harvest was at hand, and you thought you held the grain in your hands, you reaped empty stalks and gathered hollow straw without the fruit of the ears. The threshing floors were full: hope in the eyes, grief in the hands. But even this very thing which had scarcely been picked out of the great crop and the countless heaps, you brought into the house, and it was scattered by my power. For I blew it away and reduced it to nothing, because the dead grain and the empty husks had not the flour and the fine flour which are useful for eating. Now what he said, You brought it into the house, and I blew it away, can also be taken of the gifts which they offered on the altar, and that God blew them away. But since he said, you brought it into the house, if we understand the things brought in as gifts, we are certainly saying that they were offered in the temple. And that will not fit our case, because at that time the house of God had not yet been built. This indeed happens to very many even to this day, who dwell in lowly buildings and, as far as in them lies, despise the desolate house of God, and though they could build it, disdain to; and as if already seeing ripe crops, they promise themselves the fruits of their works, and, when hope deceives them, instead of great things they scarcely find small ones. But even these small things, which they had stored in the house and granary of the mind, are blown away by the word of God, as unworthy of his keeping and protection. How often have I myself seen very much hoped for from certain men, both in doctrine and in way of life; and after it came to the point that they had their time of harvest, that is, the time of teaching and of offering their life as an example to the peoples, I have seen them cast down from on high, and less found in them than the opinion of all had promised itself. Whence it happened that little by little, as negligence crept in, they lost even the very little that they seemed to have. And they suffered this for the reason that they were secure in their former houses, and did not go up the mountain of the Scriptures, cutting from it the wood for the Lord's building, nor did they build up the house of the Lord in themselves daily, but, despising its desolation, they lost even what they believed they had. For this is the cause given for the aforesaid evil.
For which cause, says the Lord of hosts, because my house is deserted, and you hasten each one into his own house.
1:10
Because of this, over you the heavens were forbidden to give dew, and the earth held back its growth. Not only, he says, did the heavens not give rain, by which the watered soil produces crops, but not even the morning and the night dew, so that the parched fields might at least be tempered by a little moisture. The earth too devoured, and, not meaning to return the seed to the farmers, held back in its greedy bosom even what it is accustomed to produce of its own accord. I think that this is the dew of which it is said to Jacob in the blessing: May God give you of the dew of heaven; and the dew of Hermon which descends upon Mount Zion, and descends not from the air, in which flits a manifold number of eagles and hawks and vultures, but from heaven, so that if anyone's soul burns with passions and has been wounded by the dart of the devil, it may be cooled by this dew and temper its heats. When this is withheld, the earth also does not bring forth its growth. For no soul can bring forth grain without the dew of Christ.
1:11
And I called a drought upon the earth, and upon the mountains, and upon the wheat, and upon the wine and upon the oil; and whatever the ground brings forth, and upon men and upon beasts, and upon all the labor of hands. For drought the Seventy translated μάχαιραν, that is, sword; but in the Hebrew too I found it written with three letters, heth, res, beth, which, if we read harseb, means sword; if oreb, καύσωμα, which we have translated drought, although it could better be translated burning wind. And indeed, since the discourse is about the earth and about the barrenness of the fields, it seems to me that burning wind ought rather to be understood in the present place than sword, although every plague that is brought upon men for their sins can also be taken for a sword. Now a drought, or a sword, was called upon the earth and upon the mountains, so that they should not bring forth wheat, and wine and oil, and whatever the ground produces of its own accord. And with famine going before, death consequently comes upon men and upon beasts. And the same sword or burning wind consumes all that the hands of men have labored on. Therefore the word of God, living and effective and sharper than any two-edged sword, is called or brought in, so that the negligent soul, which is interpreted as parched earth, and which desires rather to dwell in hollow places than to build the house of God, may be struck by its point, and may lose whatever fruits it thinks it has. The sword is brought also upon the mountains that lift themselves up against the knowledge of God, and upon the grain and the wine and the oil, with which, as with food and drink and refreshment, the conventicles of the heretics flatter the deceived peoples. One might fittingly say that their bread is the bread of mourning, and that their wine is the fury of dragons and the incurable fury of asps. Their oil too is the promise of heavenly things, with which they as it were anoint their disciples and promise them rewards for their labors, which the prophet detests, saying: But let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head. But also the other things which, without the authority and testimonies of the Scriptures, they find and invent of their own accord, as if by apostolic tradition, the sword of God strikes; and men and beasts we may take either as λογισμοὺς and αἰσθήσεις, that is, their thoughts and their senses, or at any rate as the rational and the irrational among them, that is, the learned and the unlearned alike; and all the labor of hands as their fasts, and their various observances, and chameunias, that is, sleeping on the ground. Those who fast three Lents a year, and humble their soul with ξηροφαγίαις (dry-food fasts), and above all spring from the root of Tatian, hear concerning labors of this kind: You have suffered so much without cause. Now all these things that I have said can be understood of the rulers of the Church, who, building a carnal house and providing for their children and their possessions, do not care either to build up the temple of God in themselves or to restore the Church of the Lord, which is unroofed and demolished; their life and incongruous speech often scandalize very many and cast them out of the Church, and bring the house of God to desolation. Nor do we say this in order to accuse all in general, but because in every office and rank there are some who build and others who destroy the temple of God, and because of their vice neither do the heavens give dew nor the earth its growth; the ground is dried up, the mountains are parched, the wheat and the oil, and all that the earth brings forth, the men themselves too and the beasts, and all the labor of hands perish under the cutting sword, and by drought, or burning wind.
1:12
And Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Joshua son of Jehozadak, the great priest, and all the remnant of the people heard the voice of their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God sent him to them, and the people feared before the face of the Lord. Attend carefully (because of the two understandings of the Savior in Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the priest, for he himself is both king and priest) to this: that he did not say, Zerubbabel and Joshua feared; but when Zerubbabel and Joshua and the people heard the words of Haggai the prophet, which are the words of the Lord, the people alone feared before the face of the Lord, that is, the multitude alone, which had not yet come into one and perfect man, and which, not joined to the spirit, did not merit to be what the spirit is. But the people feared before the face of the Lord, knowing that the face of the Lord is upon those who do evil, to destroy their memory from the earth.
1:13
And Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, from among the messengers of the Lord, spoke to the people, saying: I am with you, says the Lord. Some think that John the Baptist, and Malachi, which means angel of the Lord, and Haggai, whom we now have in hand, were angels, and that by the dispensation and command of God they took on human bodies and lived among men. Nor is it surprising that this should be believed of angels, since for our salvation even the Son of God took on a human body; and for this reason they also offer testimony from the apocrypha, where it is said that Jacob, who was afterwards called Israel, was an angel, and that for this reason he supplanted his brother in his mother's womb; also that John, at the voice of Mary, the mother of the Lord, leapt for joy in the womb of Elizabeth; and that all rational beings have one nature, and that for this reason men who have pleased God become equal to the angels. Let them think so. But as for us, let us take the messenger of the Lord, that is, the angel, which in Hebrew is called Malach, to be called simply a prophet from the fact that he announced the Lord's will to the people; or else, since in many places our Lord and Savior is called the angel of God, as in that place: Angel of great counsel; we say that a type of the Savior went before in Haggai. Moreover, what he says: The messenger of the Lord, from among the messengers of the Lord, is as if he had said: a prophet from among the prophets. What he says: The messenger of the Lord to the people, saying: I am with you, says the Lord, is not spoken to Zerubbabel and Joshua, with whom and in whom the Lord always was — for we have said once for all that, according to different understandings, they are taken in the person of the Savior —, but to the people, which had feared before the face of the Lord. And they, because they were the people, had not yet come to the love of God, which casts out fear. The people, therefore, receives as the reward for the fear of God that the Lord should be with them; and the sense is: I will be your helper; build my house, which has been destroyed in you; with me set in your midst, no one will be able to hinder your building.
1:14-2:1
And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the great priest, and the spirit of the rest of all the people; and they went in and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God. On the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of King Darius. For governor of Judah the Seventy translated, of the tribe of Judah, and for work, works; the rest likewise. But wherever we put: the Lord of hosts, they variously render either the Lord Almighty, or the Lord Sabaoth, or the Lord of powers. So the spirit of Zerubbabel is stirred up, and the spirit of Joshua, for the present according to the letter, so that the kingdom and the priesthood may build the temple of God. The spirit of the people is stirred up too, which before was sleeping in them: not the body, not the soul, but, as we have said, the spirit, which knows better how to build the temple of God. And they went in, for they had been outside, and did works, such as were worthy of the inner chambers of the house of the Lord; in the same year of King Darius as above, in the month that was also set down at the beginning, but not on the same day. For there the first day of the month is set down, but here the twenty-fourth, so that between the first day, on which the Lord speaks through Haggai, and the twenty-fourth, on which they went in and did work in the house of the Lord, there were twenty-two days in between, as many as the letters among the Hebrews. For they needed to be taught what the elements of the beginning of the words of God were, which would keep them from saying: The time has not yet come for the house of the Lord to be built, and from living in hollow houses and, as I said above, being sunk into the depths. But they were to be roused to set their hearts upon their ways, and to remember how much they had suffered through negligence. And they were to go up into the mountain, and cut wood, and build the house of the Lord, and not suffer the things they had suffered before. Finally, in these twenty-two days the people feared before the face of the Lord, and they went in on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of King Darius, and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God. But we are commanded, so that a spiritual house may be built into a holy priesthood, for offering spiritual sacrifices pleasing to God, to show ourselves such that the Holy Spirit may be stirred up in us, and that we may go into the house of the Lord and do the works of the Lord. For Zerubbabel of the line of David and Joshua, priest for ever, has already been raised up by the Father in power, according to the spirit of sanctification, from the resurrection of the dead, so that he may preside over the work; and let us do it, with him helping and directing. Yet we cannot do these works of God unless we first fear before the face of the Lord, and believe, and go into the temple of God, and accomplish the things that are worthy of the house of God. But since we are still in the world, and the time of our building falls under King Darius, in which generation, marriage and the flesh are served, for this reason, in the sixth number, in which the world was made, and in the second year, which divides unity — for the matter in which the restoration of the world and of offspring consists loves the double number —, we go into the house of the Lord, and with both peoples gathered together we build the temple of God. For from two twelves the sum of the number twenty-four is made up, because the Church of Christ, the first, which had been overthrown, was built from the circumcision as well as from the Gentiles. But we can also say this: since the number eight, which is holy and is taken as a type of the true circumcision, when tripled makes the number twenty-four, we are taught figuratively to build the house of the Lord in the cutting off of the flesh and the circumcision of vices, and to believe that true purity is in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, another has reckoned the number as four six times, and refers the four to the elements of the world, of which we consist, and the six to the creation of the world, in which those very elements are found. And he says: since we are still in matter, and are surrounded by a heavy body, and serve generations, we do indeed build the temple, and enter the house of God, and our spirit is stirred up as if from a heavy sleep, but we still do this very thing on the twenty-fourth day.
2:2-10
In the seventh month, on the twenty-first of the month, the word of the Lord came in the hand of Haggai the prophet, saying: Speak to Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the great priest; and to the rest of the people, saying: Who is left among you that saw this house in its first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not so, as if it were not, in your eyes? And now take courage, Zerubbabel, says the Lord, and take courage, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, great priest, and take courage, all people of the land, says the Lord of hosts, and do it. For I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. The word that I covenanted with you when you came out of the land of Egypt, and my spirit will be in your midst; do not fear. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet there is one little while, and I will shake heaven and earth, and the sea and the dry land, and I will move all nations. And the one desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. Mine is the silver, and mine is the gold, says the Lord of hosts. Great will be the glory of this latter house, more than of the first, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of hosts. In the same year, but in the seventh month, in which the solemnities of God fall, on the twenty-first day of the month, that is, when three weeks had been completed and rest had been made perfect in the mystery of the Trinity, the word of the Lord came for the third time in the hand of Haggai the prophet, who sweated in continual labor, so that the word of God might always have access in him. For, forgetting what was past and stretching forward into the future, he labored every day as if he had nothing of his previous works. So it is said to him: Speak to Zerubbabel, and to Joshua, and to the rest of the people, who saw the ancient house of God and are now present at its restoration: in comparison with the former, is not this one which is seen such that in a certain way it seems not to exist? But do not despair, and do not let your weary hands drop; but you too, Zerubbabel, and you, Joshua, and all you people, take courage, and do the work in my house. For I am with you, and my word, which I covenanted with you when you came out of the land of Egypt. And my spirit will not depart from you; do not fear: it is I who command, the Lord Almighty, for whom to have said is to have done. When I was giving the first covenant and was seen on Mount Sinai, I shook heaven and earth, and the Red Sea and the desert, to set up a covenant with you; but now I promise you that I will yet once more shake heaven and earth, and the sea and the dry land, so that, when they are shaken, all the nations may be moved, and there may come, according to the LXX, the things that are chosen of the Lord from all the nations; but according to the Hebrew, the one desired by all nations will come, our Lord and Savior. Then I will fill this house with a glory greater than the former's, and I will always add to you, says the Lord Almighty. And lest perhaps you think the guarantor weak, mine is the gold, and mine is the silver, and mine are all riches. I will give gold and silver for the adornment of the temple, so that the glory of this house may become greater than that of the former. And because what I promise seems difficult, and human unbelief always hesitates before greater promises, I who promise therefore say again: I am the Lord Almighty. Moreover, since I know that nothing serves so well for the building of a renowned house, one that is to surpass the former house, as peace, I pledge this too. For I will give peace in this place, says the Lord of hosts, so that the peace which surpasses all understanding may guard my house, and my place may be in peace. For the present I have drawn these lines of exposition παραφραστικῶς (by way of paraphrase), so that from them the prudent reader may ascend to a more sublime understanding, even while we are silent. So the word of God comes to those who had begun to work in the house of the Lord Almighty, now in rest, that is, in the seventh month and in the most complete mystery of the Trinity, on the twenty-first of the month, and to Haggai, who was celebrating the feasts of God and had again prepared his hand for the word of the Lord, and he says to him: Speak to Zerubbabel of the tribe of Judah, and to Joshua the great priest, who for our sake deigned to become both man and priest, and to the remnant of the people; for in comparison with the whole world, the part of those who believed was small in the beginning. Let us therefore hear what he said. There was once in Israel a house of God, which is now so deserted that it is not even believed to have existed, since she who had been beloved became not beloved, and they who were not the people of God began to be the people of God. And that house, once glorious, is now in the sight of Zerubbabel and Joshua and the remnant of the people as if it were not. And we ought to take this not only of the buildings of the temple, which we see have collapsed, but of all the things which the Jews once had as glorious. Nevertheless, because the former house has become as if it did not subsist, Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the priest are roused, so that the kingdom and the priesthood of Christ may be strengthened, and his people, which was once the people of the land, may do works in the house of the Lord and know that God is present to it. Let it also do the word which the Lord covenanted with them when they were coming out of the land of Egypt. And would that we too may come out of Egypt, so that we may fulfil the word of the covenant which we have received. The Lord God also promises his spirit to those who do works in his house and fulfil the word they have received, saying: And my spirit will be in your midst. Behold the mystery of the Trinity: I am with you, and my Spirit, and the Word, in which I set the covenant when you came out of Egypt. But what he says, in your midst, is to be understood in the sense of what we read written in the Gospel: For he stands in your midst, whom you do not know, who will come after me. These things, then, says the Lord of hosts to you who see that the former house is as if it were not. I moved heaven, when my voice was heard from heaven. I moved the earth, when I delivered the covenant to the former people, and at my coming gloom, whirlwind and darkness were seen. I moved the Red Sea, when I provided a way for the people passing over. I moved the dry land, either Egypt, emptied of the worship of God through the plagues, or the wilderness through which I led the people about for forty years. These I will move yet once more. This we see fulfilled in the coming of the Lord the Savior. For at the time of his passion, as the sun fled, heaven was moved, and darkness came over all the earth from the sixth hour until the ninth hour. The earth was moved, and the rocks were split, and the tombs were opened; the sea was moved, when the dragon that was in it was slain; the dry land too was moved, the once fruitless wilderness of the nations. And in this trembling of the universe all the nations too were shaken, because into all the earth has gone out the sound of the apostles of the Lord, and their words have penetrated to the ends of the world. And all the nations were moved for this reason, that from their movement the chosen things of the nations might come, and whatever is excellent anywhere. For example, the chosen things from Corinth, because there was much people of God in it; the chosen things from Macedonia, because the great Church of God gathered in Thessalonica had no need to be taught about love; the chosen things from Ephesus, so that they might know the secrets of God and mysteries revealed to none before. Why say more? All the nations were shaken to which the Savior had sent the apostles, saying: Go, teach all nations; and out of the many called, the few chosen built the Church of the firstborn. Hence the apostle Peter too: Greets you, he says, she who is elect in Babylon, and Mark my son; and John: The elder, he says, to the elect lady; and then he mentions the children of the elect lady. So when the nations had been shaken, which indeed we can also take as the opposing powers, unable to bear the splendor of the Lord, the chosen things of all the nations came, and the house of the Lord, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth, was filled with glory. This is according to the LXX. But in the Hebrew it stands better and more expressively, as we set it down above: And I will move all nations, and the one desired by all nations will come. For truly, after he came, the house of the Lord was filled with glory. And as far as the Lord is distant from the servant, so much better is the house of the Lord, over which the Lord presides, than the former house, over which a servant presided. And as for what he says: Mine is the silver, and mine is the gold, says the Lord of hosts, I do not think that anyone supposes that he is speaking of the silver and gold that are possessed by the rich and by kings. For in this way not only silver and gold belong to God as Creator, but also the other metals, bronze, tin, lead, and iron, which tames all things. But I take the silver with which the house of God is adorned to be the utterances of the Scriptures, of which it is said: The utterances of the Lord are pure utterances; silver tried by fire, proved by the earth, purged sevenfold; and the gold to be what dwells in the hidden thought of the saints and in the secret place of the heart, and shines with the true light of God; which, it is clear, the Apostle also meant concerning the saints who build upon the foundation of Christ, gold, silver, precious stones, so that in the gold there is hidden thought, in the silver seemly speech, in the precious stone works pleasing to God. With these metals the Church of the Savior becomes more illustrious than the synagogue once was; with these living stones the house of Christ is built, and eternal peace is granted to it. Moreover, what follows in the Seventy: And peace of soul for acquisition to everyone who is created to raise up this temple, we have omitted as superfluous and scarcely coherent, since it is found neither among the Hebrews nor in any other translator.
2:11-15
On the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests the law, saying: If a man carries sanctified flesh in the border of his garment, and with its edge touches bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any food, shall it be sanctified? And the priests answered and said: No. And Haggai said: If one polluted in soul touches any of all these, shall it be defiled? And the priests answered and said: It shall be defiled. And Haggai answered and said: So is this people, and so is this nation, before my face, says the Lord; and so every work of their hands, and all that they have offered there, shall be defiled. LXX: On the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, in the second year under Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet, saying: Thus says the Lord Almighty: Ask the priests the law, saying: If a man takes holy flesh in the edge of his garment, and the edge of his garment touches bread, or cooked food, or wine, or oil, or any food, will it be sanctified? And the priests answered and said: No. And Haggai said: If one unclean in soul touches any of all these, will it be defiled? And the priests answered and said: It will be defiled. And Haggai answered and said: So is this people, and so is this nation before me, says the Lord, and so are all the works of their hands. And whoever draws near there will be defiled; because of their morning gifts they will grieve before the face of their wickednesses, and you scent those who reprove in the gates. We have set down the edition of the Seventy translators as well for this reason, that they seemed to disagree in certain words. And this which is said, Because of their morning gifts, they will grieve before the face of their wickednesses, and you scent those who reprove in the gates, is found neither in the Hebrew nor among the other translators. It is to be noted, however, that in this place, On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month in the second year, it is not said, as it was above for the third time, The word of the Lord came in the hand of Haggai the prophet, but to Haggai the prophet. For there — because he was still making progress and had only clean works, but his heart had not yet received full wisdom, or because he still dwelt among those who said, The time has not yet come for the house of the Lord to be built — the word of the Lord came only in his works. Here, however, since the foundations of the temple have now been laid, and the people with its rulers has entered the house of God and is doing work befitting the temple of God, and has heard the mystery, I will move all the nations, and the one desired by all the nations shall come, and is full of prophecy, therefore the word of the Lord comes wholly to Haggai. Of the twenty-fourth day and the second year we have already spoken. The number of the ninth month, which is added here, is never read in a good sense. The people sacrifices the Passover and celebrates other festivals; every solemnity of theirs ends on the eighth day and does not reach the ninth. Those who prepare the Passover lamb begin to prepare it when the ninth day is past. The day of propitiation and expiation of the seventh month, too, is celebrated after the ninth day. And in Jeremiah, as will be plain to those who read, Jerusalem is besieged by the Babylonians in the ninth year. Since, therefore, the prophecy was to concern the uncleanness of the people, for that reason the ninth month is joined to the second year of Darius. Again, because room is given for repentance after the rebuke of uncleanness, the word of God comes to Haggai the prophet on the twenty-fourth day, so that, as if in the person of the Lord, he may put to the priests a question arising from the law; and it is said to him: Ask the priests the law, saying. And at the same time consider that it is the office of priests to answer one who asks about the law. If he is a priest, let him know the law of the Lord; if he does not know the law, he himself proves that he is not the Lord's priest. For it belongs to the priest to know the law and, when questioned, to answer concerning the law. This indeed we read in Deuteronomy too: that if anywhere in the cities of Israel a question should arise between blood and blood, between judgment and judgment, leprosy and leprosy, dispute and dispute, they are to go to the priests and Levites, and to the high priest who shall have been appointed in those days, and ask of him the law of the Lord; and when these have answered, they are to do what they are commanded. But if they do not do it, they are to be cut off from their people. And lest perhaps these precepts should seem to be in the old Instrument alone, the Apostle too speaks to Timothy, saying that a bishop ought to be not only irreproachable, and the husband of one wife, and wise, and chaste, and well-ordered, and hospitable, but also a teacher. And lest he should seem to have said this by chance, the same caution is observed also to Titus concerning the ordaining of presbyters, whom he wishes to be understood as bishops too: For this reason I left you in Crete, that you might set right what remained and ordain presbyters throughout the cities, as I instructed you: if anyone is irreproachable, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not under accusation of dissipation or insubordinate. For a bishop must be irreproachable, as the steward of God, not insolent, not irascible, not given to wine, not a striker, not greedy for base gain, but hospitable, chaste, kind, just, holy, continent, holding in his teaching to the faithful word, that he may be able to console in sound teaching and to refute those who contradict. For there are many who are also not subject, vain talkers and seducers, especially those who are of the circumcision, on whom silence must be imposed. I have set these things down at some length so that we may know, from the Old as well as from the New Testament, that it is the office of priests to know the law of God and to answer whatever they are asked; and that simplicity and abstinence in food are not enough in a teacher unless he can also instruct others in what he himself does. Certainly, since I think they will reply that this belongs to those who prepare themselves for teaching from their youth, but that often, by the judgment of the Lord and the vote of the peoples, simple men are chosen for the priesthood: let them at least have this, that after they have been ordained priests they learn the law of God, so that they may teach what they have learned, and increase their knowledge rather than their wealth; and let them not blush to learn from laymen who know the things that belong to the office of priests; and let them spend nights and days in the study of the Scriptures rather than in accounts and reckoning. But what is it that Haggai, in the person of the Lord, asks the priests? If a man carries sanctified flesh in the border or in the edge of his garment, and with its edge touches bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any food, shall it be sanctified? Before we treat of the question, we ought meanwhile to know, according to the letter, what sanctified flesh is and what one unclean in soul is. As for the victim that was sacrificed on the altar, its flesh was holy, and among these sanctified meats themselves there was much diversity. For some the priests ate in the inner sanctuary of the temple, some their kinsfolk ate at home, some those of the priests who were held to be blemished, some Israelites who had no uncleanness. The full account of this diversity is given in Leviticus. But one was called unclean in soul who had touched the body of a dead man. Here it is to be observed that as long as the soul is in the body the human body is not unclean, but as soon as the spirit that quickens the limbs has withdrawn, what is earthly becomes unclean, as is written in the same Leviticus: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and you shall say to them: They shall not be defiled by souls among their nation, but by kinsfolk who are near to them: over a mother, and over a father, and over sons and daughters, and over a brother and his sister, a virgin, who is near to him and has not been given to a husband; over these he shall not be defiled, and he shall not be polluted suddenly among his people to his defilement. Consider that these priests are commanded not to go in to any dead person whatever, except to those kinsfolk and near relations of whom it was said above. But the great priest, that is, the high priest, had something more than the other priests: neither filial devotion nor affection could bend him to become unclean in the cases named above. For the Scripture says: And he shall not go in to any soul that is dead: over his father, nor over his mother, and he shall not be defiled. Knowing, then, what sanctified flesh is, and one unclean in soul, let us see what the prophet asks. If any man: here it is not said of the high priest, or of a priest, or of a Levite, but of any man whatever; where no person is specified, all are freely permitted to touch the flesh. If, he says, he carries sanctified flesh and has tied it in the edge of his garment, and the edge of the garment itself touches bread, or any other cooked food, or wine, or oil, or anything besides these on which a man can feed, can the bread or pottage, or wine, or oil or any food be sanctified by the touch of the garment in which the holy flesh is tied? And the priests answered and said: It cannot; that is, none of the things you ask about will be sanctified, but each will remain as it was. Again another question is put to the priests, since, that is, they had answered the former one well, and a sort of likeness of the problem is fitted to it, in which an unskilled man could easily slip. For suppose someone does not know the law: just as he answered concerning the sanctified flesh that bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any food is not sanctified, so in this case too he will answer alike and say: One polluted in soul does not defile the things that holy flesh could not sanctify. He asks, therefore, and says: If he who is polluted in soul, that is, who has been made unclean by contact with the dead, touches any of all these, namely bread or pottage, or wine, or oil, or the other foods, will the things he has touched be polluted by contact with them? And the priests answered, whose chief was Joshua son of Jehozadak, whence they also knew the law, and they said that by the touch of him who is unclean all things touched by him are polluted. And Haggai answered and said, passing over in silence the earlier point, that sanctified flesh cannot sanctify the other foods, and weaving the occasion of his discourse from the second question alone: So is this people, and so is this nation before my face, says the Lord. He who is unclean in soul and has touched a carcass, everything he touches and whatever he offers to me will be unclean. What he says according to the letter is of this kind: O people, who, with only the altar built and my house in ruins, offer me sacrifices on the altar and think that you are sanctified by its victims and its flesh, know that you are not so much sanctified by the sacrifices, which, with the temple in ruins, can be of no profit to you, as that all your works and everything you do are defiled, from the fact that you are negligent and have striven to build your own house rather than mine. What is offered on the altar is indeed holy; but you are not so much sanctified by the sacrifices as you are polluted by the fact that you dwell in valleys and are present among dead works. This according to the history, although we have drawn in it the lines of a spiritual understanding. But according to ἀναγωγὴν (anagogy), the man of the Church who has sacrificed the lamb without blemish and a year old, and has put on Christ, if he takes some of its flesh and ties it in the edge of his garment, and that edge touches the bread of the Scriptures, which strengthens the hearts of believers; or cooked food, the apostolic epistles, which, as it were, cut up the meats of the old law and cook them through and offer them seasoned for eating; or wine, which gladdens the heart of man; or oil, by which the face of the hearer is made cheerful; or any food: the milk on which the Corinthians are nourished, and the herbs on which the weak feed, and other things like these; those to whom they are given will not at once eat them as sanctified. For it is not from their being spoken but from their being received that they sanctify the hearers, because many are hearers of the law and not doers. But I think also that all these things I have named are by no means conveyed sanctified to those who eat from the touch of the garment for this reason: that they are touched only by the edge of the cloak, and the sanctified meats do not know, inwardly, moisture, blood, veins and sinews. As, therefore, the edge of the Lord's garment and a light touch do not sanctify, except him who has eaten the flesh of the Lamb and drunk his blood, so, on the contrary, one unclean in soul, all perverse doctrines, must needs make unclean whatever they touch. For they have in their mysteries bread, and wine, and oil, and every food; but their mysteries are like the bread of mourning: all who touch them will be defiled. They too read the Scriptures, and, as it were, from the testimonies of the Scriptures they mix the dough for bread and bake it all night in the oven; but when it has been given to eat, it provokes those who eat it to madness. They have pottage and cooked food, attempting, according to the sense of their perversity, to weave every mystical thing out of the Scriptures, and, as it were, to cook and season the flesh of the lamb; but that cooked food is perdition. They have wine too, but not from the vine of Sorek, the one the Lord planted in Jeremiah, choice and wholly true, but from the vine of Sodom. They have oil also, which they forcibly press out of the testimonies of the Old and the New Scripture, and which they promise to deceived and weary minds as if for refreshment; but the holy man abhors it and says: But let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head. They have also diverse foods, namely the manifold and diverse treatises of various ὑποθέσεων (of arguments), which, because those who wrote them are unclean and they were uttered from an unclean mouth, everyone who touches will become unclean and will be drawn into their error. Hence Haggai answered, who knows the differences between the solemnities, and for that reason received the name of festive. So is this people and so is this nation, that is, of the Jews, and of the Gentiles, and of all heretics, in my sight, says the Lord. Everything they do, whatever they offer me, whether vows for welfare, or peace offerings, or offerings for sin, or for trespass, or as a holocaust, or alms, or fasts, or abstinence in diet and chastity of body, will be defiled in my sight. For although the things offered by such people seem holy in their appearance, yet because they have been touched by one who is polluted in soul, all of them will be polluted.
2:16-18
And now set your hearts from this day and upward, before stone was laid upon stone in the temple of the Lord. When you came to a heap of twenty bushels, and they became ten, and you went in to the winepress to press out fifty jars, and they became twenty. I struck you with burning wind, and with blight and hail all the works of your hands, and there was none among you who would return to me, says the Lord. LXX: And now set upon your hearts from this day and upward, before stone was laid upon stone in the temple of the Lord, you who were, when you put twenty measures of barley into the cypsele, and they became ten measures of barley; and you went in to the winepress to draw fifty amphoras, and they became twenty. I struck you with barrenness, and with corruption of the air, and with hail, all the works of your hands; and you did not return to me, says the Lord. Although everything you offered me on the altar was defiled because you had not built the temple — for without the building of the temple every gift is polluted — yet now I exhort you, O people, to turn back in thought to the past and to consider what has happened; that is, from this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, embrace in your mind whatever was done before, and for what causes you have endured such great things, so that when prosperity comes to you hereafter you may know for what cause it has come. So, before you began to build the temple and to lay stone upon stone, when you came to the heap and thought that you had twenty bushels, could you not barely gather half? Or, according to the LXX: When you put twenty bushels of barley into the vessel that is called a cypsele, and supposed that, although you were putting in barley, the food of beasts, you were at least secure of those twenty bushels, did you not afterwards, returning to the vessel, find barely ten bushels? When you came to the winepress, too, and saw the grapes, and your eyes promised you fifty amphoras, you could press out, I do not say half, but barely twenty amphoras. And I did these things, striking you with burning wind, and corruption of the air, and dying crops, and empty husks of the ears and clusters of the vines, so that by the weight of evils I might rouse you to the knowledge of me; and even so there was none who would return to me. The Hebrew explained the whole tenor of this passage, from what is written, And now set your hearts from this day and upward, up to the place where he says, The vine and the fig and the pomegranate, and the olive tree has not flowered: from this day I will bless, in this way: Certainly the foundations of the temple have now been laid; from this day, therefore, on which you laid the foundations — although in the past I punished you with barrenness, and famine, and hail, and drought, and there was none of you who returned to me through these plagues — set your hearts toward the future and onward, and see that all things flow for you on a prosperous course. And this will come about because you have begun to build my temple, and do not, putting your trust in the altar alone, despise the building of my house. According to this sense we can say briefly that some offer gifts to God in vain, and think that the Lord can be appeased by alms and oblations, when they themselves have not built in themselves a temple for the Holy Spirit. For alms, and the gifts that are offered on the altar, are of profit when one has built himself up as a temple of God, and after the building of the temple has offered gifts on the altar. Moreover, according to tropology, it is said also to us who now believe in Jesus Christ, if indeed we believe and show its truth by the work of faith, that we should return in mind to that time when we were Gentiles, daily serving vices, and had not built in ourselves a temple to God. And as an architect and most skilled mason joins stone to stone, and cements the lower to the upper with lime and plaster, so also the architect — whom the Apostle too says he is, As a wise architect I have laid the foundation, and whom the Lord threatens that he will take away from Jerusalem — knows how to join works to works and little by little to build up the temple of God. And the foundation of this temple is laid: Jesus, upon whom let each one see what he builds. One builds gold, silver, precious stones; another wood, hay, stubble. And to the three goods three evils are opposed on the contrary side. These are the stones of which the Lord promises that he will build Jerusalem: Behold, I will prepare for you the carbuncle as your stone, and your foundations sapphire, and I will make your bulwarks jasper, and your gates of crystal stone, and your wall of choice stones. For it must not be thought, according to Jewish fables and foolish fictions, that God will build Jerusalem of gold and gems, and not of living stones, which now roll upon the earth, and which, according to the natures of the stones, are either fiery with faith, like the carbuncle; or wholly heavenly and brought up into the throne of God, like the sapphire; or shining with innocence and the simplicity of good works, like crystal. It is said to us, therefore, that we should consider what we suffered in the past before we built the temple of God in ourselves. When you came, he says, to a heap of twenty bushels, and they became ten: Or, according to the LXX: When you put twenty bushels of barley into the cypsele, and they became ten bushels of barley. For whatever virtues and good works we seemed to have before Christ was not wheat but barley; and that very barley did not, according to our hope and prayers, yield a hundredfold harvest, as we read of Isaac, but we could barely find in it half of our labor, and it was said to us: Have you suffered so many things without cause? But also, when we went in to the winepress and reckoned on fifty amphoras of wine — a number which, when seven weeks are completed, the unity of the Godhead closes — and thought that we had wine, which gladdens the heart of man, the holy number thirty was taken away from us — the number at which the Lord is baptized, and Ezekiel sees his vision at the beginning of his prophecy, and, according to the Hebrew, the priests came to the ministry of God — and twenty were left. This number Esau loves; hence Jacob too, knowing that he delighted in this number, sends certain animals as a gift, twenty and twenty. And at the same time observe that Jacob himself, though holy — yet at the time when he was not with his father Isaac, that is, laughter, and his mother Rebekah, that is, patience, but had the Assyrians as neighbors and dwelt in Mesopotamia, with rivers girding him on this side and on that — served for the space of twenty years the most cruel and most avaricious Laban. Nor let it trouble anyone if we say that some, before faith in Christ and the building of his temple, can receive half of their labor, although among unbelievers there is no fruit of good works. For he does not store up twenty and find twenty, but when he has stored up twenty he finds ten, that is, half of his labor. Jews and heathens and the philosophers of this world, and the others who boast of wisdom, receive the fruit and the glory of their way of life and their labor in the present time only, and all their hope and reward of the world to come is taken away. And this is done so that they may not, utterly despairing, despise repentance, but may at some time be converted and lay stone upon stone and build the temple of God. But if they remain in unbelief, they will lose even that half which they seemed to have. For there follows: I struck you with burning wind and with blight and hail all the works of your hands. And whatever is struck by blight and hail and burning wind is reduced to dust and ashes, and nothing is found in it that serves for use or for food. All these things indeed the Lord did, because there was not found among them one who would return to him. But if they return and build the temple of the Lord, from the day on which they begin to build they will have what the word of the prophecy goes on to add.
2:19-20
Set your hearts from this day and into the future, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day on which the foundations of the temple of the Lord were laid, set upon your heart. Is the seed already in the sprout, and have the fig and the vine and the pomegranate and the olive tree still not flowered? From this day I will bless. LXX: Set your hearts from this day and into the future, from the four and twentieth of the ninth month, and from the day on which the foundations of the temple of the Lord were laid, set in your hearts. If the threshing floor will any longer be known upon the earth, and if still the vine and the fig and the pomegranate, and the olive trees that do not bear fruit? From this day I will bless. I have set forth to you, he says, what you endured before you began to build my temple; now I will set forth what prosperity is to come to you, because you have begun to build my temple. From the twenty-fourth day, therefore, of the ninth month, in which the foundations of the temple were laid, consider how great an abundance of things there will be. The ninth month is the one we call November or December. For Nisan is the first month among the Hebrews, which is called the month of new things, at the time when they keep the Passover, that is, at the first beginning of spring; following the course of the moon it often occupies some part of the month of March, and sometimes it begins in April. So if we understand Nisan as April, the ninth month by the reckoning of the Hebrews will be December. So it is the tenth month, at the time when the seeds lie hidden in the earth and future fruitfulness cannot be guessed. Is the seed, he says, already in the sprout? This is better said in Hebrew, in the husk, so as to signify the sheath of the grain. Have the vine and the fig, and the pomegranate and the olive tree given their flower? So that from the flower the fruit too may be understood. Certainly not; for in the month of December, as we have said, there are no signs of the crops to come. So that you may not say, then, that I conjecture this by shrewd reasoning and surmise the future fruitfulness from the flowers of the trees and the blades of the crops: behold, there are no signs, and yet, because you have begun to build my temple, I foretell to you a fruitfulness of all crops at my blessing. This we have said according to the Hebrew. But according to the Seventy the sense is far different, and this too we must first explain according to the letter, so that afterwards the course of tropology we have begun may be treated. Set your hearts from this day on which the temple was founded, toward the future, and you will see that the harvests will be so great, and so much grain carried in from all the fields, that the threshing floor will not know its own crops; or that there will not be separate threshing floors for each man, but, because of the abundance, threshing floor will be joined to threshing floor, and the division between threshing floors will not be known upon the earth. The vine also and the fig and the pomegranate and the olive tree, which before, through your fault, did not bring forth fruit, because you had not yet begun to build me a temple, will be bowed down with such an abundance of grapes and fruits that manifest fruitfulness will point to a manifest blessing. That the ninth month is not taken in a good sense, both the fourth book of Kingdoms (2 Kings) and the history of Jeremiah relate, in which Jerusalem is said to have been besieged. Yet since the foundations of the temple are laid at the end of the ninth month, we can understand this: that the building of the temple of the Lord is not begun unless evil works come to an end. Hence also on the twenty-fourth day of the same month the foundation of the temple is laid; in this number there are a double δωδεκὰς (dodecad), and three ὀγδοάδες (ogdoads), and four ἑξάδες (hexads), of which we have already discussed more fully above. Whoever, therefore, has dedicated himself to the worship of God, and has despised the ῥάθυμον, that is, the negligent patron, who in the volume of Ezra, according to the Seventy translators, forbids the temple of God to be built, he does not know the measure of his crops and of his reward. Or certainly, on account of what is said, If the threshing floor will still be known upon the earth, he who has sown in the spirit and from the spirit has reaped eternal life will by no means store up treasure for himself on earth, but all his works and the rewards of his works will be gathered in the heavens. The vine also, that is, the word of God, whose husbandman in each one is the Father; and the fig, the sweetest gifts of the Holy Spirit; and the pomegranate, the doctrines of the Church and the knowledge of the Scriptures, which is compared to the cheeks of the bride in the Song of Songs; and the olive trees will give refreshment and illumination of heart to him who has begun to build the temple of God. That the vine and the fig and the olive — I put off the pomegranate for a little — refer to the person of the Savior, and of God the Father, and of the Holy Spirit, is read more fully in the book of Judges, where the unfruitful trees go to set a king over themselves, and say in turn to the vine and to the fig and to the olive that they should reign over them, and the vine as well as the fig and the olive refuse such rule and do not deign to reign over unfruitful trees. Then they come to the tree that is king of their barrenness, that is, to the bramble, a thorny shrub and a little tree woven of briars and hooks, which holds whatever it has touched, and wounds what it has held, and delights in the blood of the wounded; and besides sends forth fire from itself and consumes the trees it rules. We refer the bramble to the devil, and according to the nature of the shrub we shall interpret his nature. Moreover, the vine and the fig and the olive will be there where the pomegranate is; and this tree, because of the very great multitude of its seeds, and the kind of geometrical arrangement made by its interwoven membranes, and its little dwellings, separate indeed yet all enclosed by one rind, is always set in the Scriptures for the person of the Church.
2:21-24
And the word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month, saying: Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying: I will move heaven and earth alike, and I will overturn the throne of kingdoms, and I will crush the strength of the kingdom of the nations; and I will overturn the chariot and its rider; and the horses and their riders shall go down, each man by the sword of his brother. On that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, my servant, says the Lord, and I will set you as a signet, because I have chosen you, says the Lord of hosts. In the LXX there is added: The sea and the dry land, and it lacks: I will crush the strength of the kingdom of the nations, which will be recognized more fully from reading their text. It is to be noted, moreover, that on the same day, that is, on the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, with the number of the month passed over in silence because the prophecy concerned the coming of Christ and his kingdom, the word of our Lord comes a second time to Haggai: not in his hand, as before, nor to Haggai the prophet, as in the fourth vision, but simply to Haggai, that is, to one celebrating the feasts of the Lord. For he was to announce and to behold him not as one who would come at some time, but as one coming. And as Abraham saw the day of Christ and rejoiced, and John pointed out the Lamb of God with his finger, so he too, seeing the kingdom of the Son of God, was to have within himself all the solemnities. On this passage most interpreters hold differing opinions: for some suppose that it is said of his first coming; others, of the second, when he is to come in his majesty. We accept both, because he both reigned then, when he came, and is to reign hereafter. Yet if we wish to take it of the end of the world, we shall say what the Apostle says to the Corinthians: To destroy every principality and every power and virtue, that God may be all in all. And because what is said is mystical and pertains to the end of things, the prophet is therefore commanded to speak to Zerubbabel alone, whom we have shown to have come forth as a type of Christ because of the assumption of a body from the seed of David. To him, therefore, are told the things that are to come at the end: that the form of this world passes away, and a new heaven and a new earth come to be, and the Lord shakes heaven and earth, and destroys every principality, and power, and virtue, and scatters the seats of kings, or, as it stands in the Hebrew, of kingdoms, and slays every opposing strength, so that the destruction of their kingdom may profit even those who had reigned before and had held the nations under their sway, and that, with all zeal for warfare scattered, peace may follow. For this is what he says: And I will overturn the chariot, or chariots, and their riders, and the horses and their riders shall go down. And that you may know that what we have said is signified in the overturning of the chariots and of the horsemen falling headlong, see how it is said of Christ in Zechariah that a gentle king comes, mounting upon a yoke-beast and a young colt of an ass, and destroys the chariots out of Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, so that there may be one flock and one shepherd, and both hosts, from the nations as well as from the Jews, may be held under a peaceable shepherd. But so that these things which are perverse may be destroyed, each one with the sword — which I take to be the sharpest word of doctrine, cutting away whatever is perverse — will rise up against his brother, cutting off everything opposed. But the end of all these things is the best. For after the destruction of the thrones, and the strengths of those who reign, and of the chariots and the horses and the horsemen, on that day, says the Lord Almighty: I will take you, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, my servant. Now he is called servant because of the human body, since then the Son himself also will be subjected to him who subjected all things to himself, and among all things subjected he too will be seen subjected. But when this has been fulfilled, God will set him as a signet in his hand: For him God the Father has sealed; and he is the image of the invisible God and the form of his substance, so that whoever has believed in God may be sealed with him as with a ring.
I beg you, reader, to pardon one who dictates in hurried speech, and not to look for the charm of eloquence, which I have lost through long study of the Hebrew tongue; although Alecto may claim that I have always been tongue-tied and mute, to whom I shall say: The Lord will give the word to those who preach the gospel, with much power.