Translated by Qwen
Commentary on Ezekiel 36 by Cornelius a Lapide
"According to the uncleanness of a menstruous woman has your way been" (Ezek 36:7-18). As a husband abominates a wife who is filthy and foul-smelling in her menstruation, so I have abominated Israel on account of her menstruation, that is, the filth of idolatry, homicides, and other crimes, says Theodoret. As he explains in the following verse, he says: "FOR THE BLOOD," that is, on account of the blood, "AND FOR THEIR IDOLS." Repeat the causal "for," that is, on account of that which preceded. As if to say: "I hated them on account of the blood which they shed, and on account of idols," namely, because in their idols they polluted the land. Why crimes are compared to menstruation, I have explained in Jeremiah 2:24.
"I scattered them...And they entered unto the nations" (Ezek 36:19-20). To the nations to which they were led, they adhered in vices and idolatry, and thus polluted the name of God, that is, they gave occasion for the Gentiles to blaspheme the God of Israel, saying: "THIS IS THE PEOPLE OF THE LORD." As if to say: The Jews are the people of the Lord, and yet they are expelled from Judea and led away to Babylon; therefore either the Lord neglects and does not care for them, or He is not able to preserve and protect them; therefore they worship Him and hope in Him in vain.
"And I spared My holy name" (Ezek 36:21-22). I determined to spare My name, that is, to bring it about that it should no longer be mocked by the Gentiles, but rather I will sanctify it, that is, I will show it to be holy and admirable, not on account of your merits, but on account of My name.
"When I shall be sanctified in you" (Ezek 38:23-24), that is, when My holy justice shall have been shown through your punishment and captivity, and now My mercy through your liberation. For when you, repenting, shall invoke God and renounce vices and idols, then God will liberate you from captivity, and the Gentiles will understand the power, justice, and mercy of God—He has justly and fittingly disposed and ordered all these things.
"I will pour upon you clean water" (Ezek 36:25). The Jews understand by water the abundance of temporal goods, and especially rain which waters and fertilizes crops. But this does not cleanse sins, as follows; rather, it often increases them. Therefore this water is grace and the abundance of spiritual goods which flows from Christ through the Sacraments, but most properly it is the water of Baptism, cleansing all sins, concerning which the Apostle says to Titus 3:5: "Cleansing her [the Church] by the laver of water in the word of life." Thus the Fathers passim, and also the Chaldean and Rabbi David, although they do not acknowledge Baptism, nevertheless think that here there is treatise concerning the remission of sins. Wherefore Saint Augustine, Book 3 On Christian Doctrine, chapter 34, and others passim, teach that all these promises pertain to the New Testament.
Excellent is Saint Clement, Book 6 Apostolic Constitutions, chapter 26: "Everyone," he says, "who is truly baptized according to truth is separated from the diabolical spirit, but stands within the Holy Spirit, and in him indeed who studies honest actions, the Holy Spirit remains; He fills him with wisdom and understanding, nor does He permit the evil spirit to approach nearby; He watches his assaults and aggressions."
Hear what Saint Cyprian writes concerning the efficacy of Baptism and his own transformation through it, Book 2, Epistle 2 to Donatus: "As I, entangled in very many errors of my former life, was held—errors which I believed I could not put off—so, yielding to vice and despairing of better things, I favored my evils as if they were now my own and innate. But after the stain was wiped away by the help of the regenerating font, after pure light from above poured itself into my expiated and clean breast, after a second birth repaired me into a new man by the Spirit received from heaven, in a wonderful manner immediately doubts were confirmed, closed things were opened, dark things were illuminated, ability was given for what previously seemed difficult to be done, for what was thought impossible to be accomplished—so that I was able to recognize that what previously was born carnally and lived subject to sins was earthly, [and] that what now the Holy Spirit animated had begun to be of God."
Then he subjoins: "You yourself surely know and recognize with me what that death of the old man has taken away from us and what that life of virtues has bestowed upon us." Note here: Baptism is the death of crimes and the life of virtues, which Saint Paulinus elegantly expressed in verse, Epistle 12 to Severus:
"Guilt perishes, but life returns; the old Adam dies,
And a new one is born for eternal commands."
Saint Augustine confesses that he experienced this same thing in his conversion and Baptism, Book 9 Confessions, chapter 12 and following. Even now, wild and barbarous Indians experience this power of Baptism, who through Baptism and the grace of Christ received through it are so often changed—and that suddenly—that they seem to be transformed from beasts into men, and they themselves marvel and are stupefied at their own transformation. To pass over others, the conversion, faith, holiness, and martyrdoms of the Japanese are known, which contend with, if they do not surpass, the martyrs and Martyrs of the Primitive Church.
"And I will take away the heart of stone" (Ezek 36:26), that is, hard and obstinate in vices, which admits no impression of pious and salutary doctrine.
Note here nine great gifts which God here promises to the Church and to each faithful and just person through Christ, which the Baptism of Christ confers and works in any saint through grace:
You shall be cleansed from all your filthiness.
I will give you a new heart.
I will take away the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put My Spirit in the midst of you.
I will cause that you walk in My precepts and keep My judgments and work them, and therefore that you abound in good works, virtues, and merits of heavenly glory.
You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers. That is: In peace, joy, and abundance of spiritual goods you shall dwell in the Church, as the Patriarchs dwelt in it in Canaan.
You shall be My people.
And I will be your God. That is: I will be your protector, provider, nourisher, promoter, governor, leader, justifier, glorifier, and every good thing. For this is what God is to His own. Whence it follows: "I will call upon the God of Abraham," and in Him to each saint who is spiritual, a son of Abraham, He promised in Genesis 15:1: "Fear not, I am your protector, and your reward exceeding great." And Zachariah 2:8: "He who touches you, touches the apple of My eye." And Psalm 90:1: "He who dwells in the help of the Most High shall abide under the protection of the God of heaven." And Psalm 33:16: "The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and His ears unto their prayers. Many are the afflictions of the just, and out of them all will the Lord deliver them," etc.
The land, once untilled, shall be a garden of delight, as He says in verse 35.
"And I will give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek 36:26), that is, as Saint Jerome, Theodoret, and others [say], soft, docile, tractable, persuadable; and as Saint Augustine reads, obedient; and as the Chaldean [says], fearing Me, so that it may do My will.
Note metaphorically: a "heart of stone" is said to be a free will but accustomed to vices, or liberty in binding but, as follows, in giving a new spirit, namely by soothing and softening it with His threats, promises, consolations, and other holy inspirations, by which allured, strengthened, and lifted up, it freely bends itself to the nod of God. In this way therefore God compels even the rebellious wills of men to Himself, not by forcing by violence but by persuading; not only externally through laws and preachers, as Pelagius wished, but also internally by either terrifying the mind or gently attracting it and instilling pious affections into it, and thus He brings it about that they walk in His precepts, and thus "He works in us both to will and to accomplish," as the Apostle says in Philippians 2:13. See what has been said there.
Note: "Heart" in Scripture signifies the mind and will. Therefore a "new heart" is a will renewed by the grace and Spirit of God, which, dying to the old life and earthly conversation, lives for God and heaven; for which David prays in Psalm 50, saying: "Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels." A "heart of stone" is a will obstinate and hardened in impiety and sins, like a stone—such as was that of the Jews. Thus a "hirsute and hairy heart" is said to have been had in reality by Hermogenes, Leonidas, Aristomenes, Messenus, Lysander, which is to say, of hard, rough, and cruel men, as Pliny reports, Book 11, chapter 37; Plutarch in Parallels; and Rodiginius, Book 4, chapter 16. A "heart of flesh," smooth and polished, is a will easy, compliant, and flexible, like flesh, which immediately receives the instincts, law, and impressions of God, imprints them upon itself, and executes them in work.
The reason for this phrase:
First, because just as the heart is the principle of natural life, so the will is the principle of pious or impious life. "The heart," says Pliny, Book 11, chapter 37, "they hand down is first formed in the womb for those being born, then the brain, just as the eyes [are formed] most tardily, but these [the eyes] first die, the heart last." Others however say that the liver is first formed in the body, not the heart, but that the heart is first animated and last dies, as Francis Valles teaches, Book 2 Medical Controversies, chapter 6. Whence the heart is called "the first living and the last dying," just as on the contrary the eyes are "the last living and the first dying," because they are most distant from the heart, which is the principle of life. Wherefore historians have noted that to Julius Caesar the Dictator, on that day on which he first proceeded in purple and sat in a golden chair, while sacrificing, the heart was missing from the entrails of the victim. Also to Helvius Pertinax, on that day on which he was killed, when he was sacrificing, the heart did not appear in the victim—which they interpreted as an evil omen of death.
Second, because just as the heart is the workshop of the spirits which it supplies to the whole body, and through these is the principle and cause of every motion and animal action, so the will is the workshop of virtue and vice, of merit and demerit, and of every good or evil action. Physicists hand down that there are four vital parts by which life especially consists and is preserved: the heart, the brain, the liver, the lung. For the heart supplies heat and spirits to the body; the liver [supplies] blood by which the body is nourished; the brain [supplies] animal spirits by which sensation, intellection, and local motion are accomplished; the lung, like a bellows, gives refrigeration to the heart. So also spiritual life consists of: right will, as the heart; prudence, as the brain; justice, as the liver, the effecter of blood and decorum; continence, as the lung, moderating and refrigerating the affections.
Third, as the heart is, such is the spirit and habit of the body; so as the will is, such also is the man. Hence we are commanded to love God "with the whole heart" (Matthew 22:37). And God asks for the heart: "My son, give Me your heart" (Proverbs 23:26). For he who gives his heart to God gives the tree with its fruits.
Fourth, just as the body serves the soul, so the heart serves the will; whence corporeal passions excite similar spiritual passions in the will. For example, anger, which is a boiling of blood around the heart, excites similar anger in the will, that is, indignation and desire for vengeance. Wherefore Blessed Catherine of Siena, as her Life has it, Book 2, chapter 16, asked Christ her spouse that her own heart be taken away from her and the heart of Christ be given to her. Christ assented and truly took out her heart, and after some days during which she lacked a heart, He placed in her another, namely His own, that is, made by Himself and conformed to Himself. Whence she thereafter, praying to Christ, used to say: "I commend to You, Lord, Your heart, not mine." For the heart is the symbol and seat of love. Wherefore Nyssen and Saint Thomas say that the Holy Spirit was given to the Church as a heart from God at Pentecost.
Fifth, some physicists have thought that the common sense is in the heart, although others better think it is in the brain, but that the heart is its origin. Whence it is commonly said: "The heart understands, and the lung speaks." Hence also the ancients used to call a prudent, clever, and wise man "cordatus" [hearted], and a little heart "corculum," just as Nasica was called "Corculum" on account of his prudence, as Pliny rightly reports, Book On Illustrious Men, chapter 44; just as Jude Thaddaeus was surnamed "Lebbaeus," that is, "Corculum." Hence also Ecclesiasticus 21:29 says: "In the mouth of fools is their heart, and in the heart of the wise is their mouth," as if to say: Fools can keep back nothing, but whatever comes into their mouth they pour forth; but a wise man pours forth nothing unless first examined, weighed, and premeditated in the heart. Hence Solomon prays: "Give to Your servant a docile heart" (1 Kings 3:9).
Sixth, with a healthy heart the body is healthy; rejoicing, it rejoices; grieving, it grieves. Hence intimate and supreme grief is called "cordolium" [heart-grief] by Plautus and others. Whence the Pythagorean riddle: "Do not eat the heart," that is, do not afflict or lacerate your mind with cares. So with a healthy will the mind is healthy; rejoicing, it rejoices; grieving, it grieves. Wherefore the Wise Man in Proverbs 4:23 says: "With all keeping, keep your heart, because life proceeds from it." This namely is the will.
Seventh, the heart of man in its substance is solid and firm, as Galen says, Book 6 On the Use of Parts, chapter 2; in complexion fiery; in figure pyramidal, but with inverted position—for above, toward celestial things, it is ample and hollow; below, toward earthly things, it ends in a point. It signifies therefore that the will of man ought to be carried with solid love toward celestial things, and to receive and embrace them with full bosom, but scarcely and as if at a point only to touch earthly things. Galen adds that the heart is placed in the middle of man so that it may represent the mind and right will standing in the middle of vices, inclining neither to the right nor to the left, imbued with the love of God and virtue—for virtue consists in the mean.
Eighth, the heart is restless and is moved by continuous agitation from itself, as if a solitary animal. For either through diastole it extends itself to receive those things which are useful to man, or through systole it contracts itself to expel those things which are harmful. So also is our will. Whence Saint Augustine, Confessions 1: "You have made me for Yourself, O God, and my heart is restless until it rests in You." And Saint Bernard, Treatise On the Interior House, chapter 55: "The mind," he says, "agitated by its desires, never rests; therefore it ought to be fixed immovably in the desire of one eternity."
Ninth, the heart is in man what the sun is in the universe, namely, the fountain of light and life. Indeed, the Stoics thought the sun to be the world, a great animal endowed with sense and reason. Whence Plutarch, Treatise On the Face in the Orb of the Moon, says: "The stars are shining eyes in the face of the universe; the sun, endowed with the power of the heart—for as this [the heart] diffuses blood and spirit, so the sun diffuses from itself vegetating heat and light to earth and sea." The world, as an animal, uses the moon as if a belly and bladder; the moon, between the sun and earth, is as if between the heart and belly, like a liver or other soft viscus. Therefore what the sun is in heaven, this the heart is in man—that is, in the body the heart itself, in the soul the will itself—which therefore ought just as continually to regard its Maker as the sun [regards the earth]. Thus Saint Paul continually had Jesus Christ in his mouth, continually in his heart. Thus Saint Ignatius assiduously called Jesus "my love," nor does almost anything else resound in his whole Epistle to the Romans; whence also he is surnamed "Deifer" and "Christifer" [God-bearer and Christ-bearer], and from this some think arose that which is commonly said: that the name of Jesus was found after his death inscribed in golden letters in his heart—which phrase signifies that he continually had this name in heart and mouth. For otherwise the ancients, and from them Baronius, Tome 2, year of Christ 110, hand down that he was devoured by lions even to the bones, as he had wished; although Ado denies this in the Martyrology, who writes that the name of Jesus was truly found in his heart—which Saint Thomas, Saint Antoninus, and very many others have followed.
Tenth, the heart is the seat of the soul, of the will, and of love, and consequently of God, who inspires into us a soul similar to Himself. Wherefore symbolically they interpret the heart through its individual letters, as if you should say: Camera Omnipotentis Regis [Chamber of the Omnipotent King], that is, the acropolis of divinity. Whence Saint Augustine, Sermon On Redemption: "The hearts of the faithful," he says, "are heaven, because they are raised to heaven each day." For as Christ says: "Where your treasure is, there is your heart also." Hence David is said to have been "a man according to the heart of God" (1 Kings 13:14), and the heart of the king is said to be "in the hand of the Lord" (Proverbs 21:1).
Again, Saint Augustine, describing the wonderful conversion of himself and his will made from heaven by God, Book 9 Confessions, chapter 2: "You had shot," he says, "our heart, O Lord, with Your charity, and we carried Your words transfixed in our vitals, and the examples of Your servants, whom You had made from black shining and from dead alive, heaped up in the bosom of our thought, burned, consumed our heavy torpor. Pierce us also, O Lord, and wound our heart with the fiery dart of Your love, so that You may enkindle our cold and crystalline heart, make it fleshy, purple, animated. Give what You command, and command what You will, that we may love You alone with the whole heart, ardently; that we may strive to please You alone; that we may fulfill Your most holy law and will in all things exactly."
Therefore let us pray daily, and let us say from the inmost affection of the heart: "Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful; enkindle in them the fire of Your love; wash what is sordid, water what is arid, heal what is wounded, bend what is rigid, warm what is cold, guide what is erring; strengthening the weakness of our body with perpetual virtue. Grant that in the marrow of the heart we may feel what the heart of the spouse, enkindled by You, felt in the Canticles, and with her, jubilation, let us sing: 'My beloved is mine, and I am His, who feeds among the lilies, until the day breaks and the shadows retire. Stay me with flowers, compass me about with apples, because I languish with love.' For what have I in heaven, and besides You what have I desired upon earth? My flesh and my heart have failed; O God of my heart, and O God, my portion forever. O God of my heart—indeed now not mine, but Yours—possess my heart, indeed Yours. O God of my heart, fill and satisfy my heart, which can be filled or satisfied by no other. O God of my heart, whom alone my heart loves, thirsts for, and seeks—grant that my whole heart with all its powers may love You, may burn with Your love alone, may be enkindled, may liquefy with Your fire, and, failing from itself, may pass over into You, and that You may be my God, my love, and my all."
"And you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers" (Ezek 36:28)—in Judea, or rather in the Church, which began in Judea. "To the fathers I gave this," that is, "I promised to give." For "I gave" signifies an act not completed but begun and destined—in which manner the Apostle in 2 Timothy 1:9 says that God "gave us grace in Christ Jesus before the times of the ages"; He gave, that is, He decreed and predestined to give.
CONTINUE
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