Letters 20.1–21.23

Many have invented different explanations of this word. Among them our Hilary, in his commentary on Matthew, put it thus: "Hosanna in the Hebrew language means 'the redemption of the house of David'." But in the first place, "redemption" in the Hebrew language is rendered pheduth; next, "house" is beth; and that "David" is not included in this word is plain to everyone. Others have thought that hosanna means "glory"; but "glory" is called chabod. Some have said "grace"; but "grace" is called thoda or anna.

It remains, then, to leave the streams of opinion and run back to the very source from which the evangelists took it. For just as we cannot find in Greek or Latin manuscripts the words "that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: He shall be called a Nazarene," or "Out of Egypt I called my son," so now too the truth must be drawn from the Hebrew manuscripts, as to why the crowd, and especially the band of little children in perfect agreement, broke out into this cry. Matthew says: "And the crowds that went before and that followed cried out, saying: Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest." Mark put it thus: "They cried out, saying: Hosanna; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; blessed is the kingdom of our father David that comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest." John also agrees with the same cry: "And they cried out: Hosanna; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel." Luke alone did not put the word hosanna, agreeing in the rest of the rendering: "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord; peace in heaven and glory in the highest." Therefore, as we said, the Hebrew words themselves must be set down and the opinion of all the translators set out, so that from a review of them all the reader may more easily find for himself what to think on the matter.

In Psalm 117, where we read, "O Lord, save, O Lord, prosper well; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," in the Hebrew we read: anna adonai, osianna, anna adonai, aslianna; baruch abba basem adonai. Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and the fifth edition render this (to avoid seeming to change anything in the Latin) as: "O now, Lord, save now; O now, Lord, prosper now; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Only the sixth edition agrees with the Seventy translators, writing "O" where the others had put "O now". And since osianna, which through ignorance we say in the corrupt form osanna, means "save" or "make safe", as all the translations show, the question now is what the word anna by itself, without the addition of "save", means. And it should be known that in this place anna is said three times; the first and second are written with the same letters, aleph, nun, he, but the third with heth, nun, he. Symmachus, then, who in Psalm 117 agreed with the rendering of all the others, gave us a clearer understanding in Psalm 115, where it says, "O Lord, deliver my soul", translating it: "I beseech you, Lord, deliver my soul." And where the Seventy translated "O" and he "I beseech", while Aquila and the other editions render "O now", in the Hebrew anna is written, but with aleph at the beginning, not heth. From this we notice that if anna is written with aleph, it means "I beseech"; but if with heth, it is a conjunction or interjection, which the Greeks render as δή, as in σῶσον δή ("save now"), for which the Latin language has no equivalent.

But since these minutiae, and the hidden depths of a discussion of this kind, weary the reader because of the strangeness of the language and the letters alike, I come to a short explanation. I say that Psalm 117, which clearly prophesies of Christ and was read very often in the synagogues of the Jews, so that it was better known to the people, is where these verses were taken from: because he who was promised from the family of David had come to save Israel, as David says: "The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. This was done by the Lord, and it is wonderful in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. O Lord, save, O Lord, prosper well; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord; the Lord is God, and he has shone upon us." Hence the writings of the evangelists also record that the Pharisees and scribes were indignant because they saw that the people understood the prophecy of the psalm to be fulfilled in Christ, and the children crying out, "Hosanna to the Son of David"; and that they said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" and that Jesus answered, "Have you never read: Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have perfected praise?" confirming Psalm 117 by the testimony of Psalm 8. And on what could easily be rendered, "blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord", the writings of all the evangelists agree; but the word osianna, because they could not translate it into Greek, as we see was done also with alleluia and amen and many others, they set down in the Hebrew itself, saying osianna. Luke, then, who among all the evangelists was the most learned in the Greek language, being a physician and one who wrote his gospel among Greeks, saw that he could not render the proper sense of the word and thought it better to leave it out than to put down something that would raise a question for the reader.

In sum, just as we in the Latin language have certain interjections, so that in exulting we say ua, in wondering papae, in grieving heu, and, when we want to command silence, we press our breath through clenched teeth and force out the sound st, so the Hebrews too, among the other features of their language, have an interjection, so that when they wish to entreat the Lord they put in a word expressing the feeling of one who asks and say anna domine, which the Seventy rendered "O Lord". Osi, then, means "save"; anna is the interjection of one entreating. If you want to make one compound word of these two, you will say osianna, or, as we pronounce it, osanna, with the middle vowel elided, as we usually do in verse when we scan mene incepto desistere victam as men incepto. For aleph, the first letter of the following word, finding the last letter of the preceding word, shut it out. Therefore, to return to the origin of the question: where we read in Latin, "O Lord, save, O Lord, grant success; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," according to the Hebrew sense we can read: "I beseech you, Lord, save, I beseech you; I beseech you, Lord, prosper, I beseech you; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." "Save" is said so that we understand "your people Israel" or, in general, "the world". Finally Matthew, who wrote his gospel in the Hebrew language, put it thus: osianna barrama, that is, "hosanna in the highest", because when the Savior was born salvation reached even to heaven, that is, even to the heights, peace being made not only on earth but also in heaven, so that at last it would cease to be said: "My sword has been made drunk in heaven."

Meanwhile I have dictated this briefly and concisely, according to the modest measure of my understanding. But let your blessedness know that in discussions of this kind weariness ought not to creep in as one reads, for we too could easily have made up something that would solve the question in a single word, as we have shown others did. But it is far more fitting to labor a little for the truth and lend one's ear to a foreign language than to offer a made-up opinion about another tongue.

Your blessedness's question was itself a discussion, and to have asked what should be asked in this way is to have shown the way to the answers. For "to one who asks wisely, wisdom will be reckoned." You say: "Who is the father in the gospel who divides his property between two sons? Who are the two sons? Which is the elder and which the younger? How does the younger squander the property he received with prostitutes, and, when famine comes, is set over the pigs by the ruler of the region, eat pods, return to his father, receive a ring and a robe, and have the fatted calf killed for him? Who is the elder brother, and how, coming from the field, does he envy his brother's welcome?" and the rest that is more fully set out in the gospel. You add further: "I know that many have said different things about this reading, and have taken the elder brother to be the Jew and the younger the Gentile. But I ask how it can fit the Jewish people: 'See, I have served you so many years and never transgressed your command, and you never gave me a kid, that I might feast with my friends,' and: 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.' But if," you say, "we take the parable to be about the righteous man and the sinner, it cannot suit the righteous man to be saddened by the salvation of another, and above all of a brother. For if through the envy of the devil death entered the world, and those who are on his side imitate him, such monstrous envy can never be fitted to the person of a righteous man, that he should stand outside, harshly resist a most merciful father, and alone, tormented by jealousy, refuse to share the joy of the house."

So, as with the other parables that were not explained by the Savior, we usually ask why they were spoken, so we must do with this one: why the Lord broke out into words like these, and in answer to what question the likeness was put forward. The scribes and Pharisees were muttering, saying: "Why does this man receive sinners and eat with them?" For the preceding passage had said: "All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to him to hear him." Hence all their resentment: why did the Lord not avoid conversation and table fellowship with those whom the precepts of the law condemned? That is Luke; Matthew speaks thus: "And as they reclined at table in the house, see, many sinners and tax collectors came and reclined with Jesus and his disciples. And the Pharisees, seeing it, said to his disciples: Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? Hearing it he said: Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Mark also agrees in the same words. So, as we said, the whole question arose from the law. For the law, holding fast to justice, had no clemency: whoever was guilty of a mortal crime, adultery, murder, fraud, in short, was released from his crime by no pardon for repentance, but was ordered to pay eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life. "All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there was none who did good, not even one." "But where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more," and God "sent his Son, made of a woman," who, having broken down the dividing wall, "made both one," and tempered the severity of the law by the grace of the gospel. Hence Paul too, writing to the churches, says: "Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ": grace, which is not repaid for merit but granted by the giver; and peace, by which we have been reconciled to God, having the Lord Jesus as our propitiation, who forgave us our sins and "blotted out the bond of death that was against us, nailing it to the cross, and made a show of the principalities and powers, triumphing over them on the tree." What greater clemency can there be than that the Son of God should be born a son of man, endure the discomforts of ten months, await the coming of birth, be wrapped in rags, be subject to his parents, grow up through each stage of life, and, after insulting words, blows, and scourgings, become for us also the curse of the cross, to free us from the curse of the law, "made obedient to the Father even to death", and fulfill in deed what he had earlier prayed as mediator, saying: "Father, I will that, as I and you are one, so these may be one in us"? Therefore, since he had come for this purpose, to overcome by unspeakable mercy what was impossible for the law, because no one was justified by it, he called tax collectors and sinners to repentance, even seeking their table fellowship so that they might be taught at meals, as will be clear to anyone who reads the Gospels attentively: how his food and drink and walking and everything he did served the salvation of men. Seeing this, the scribes and Pharisees said he was acting against the law: "See, a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." For they had earlier blamed the Lord for healing on the Sabbath. So, to overcome this accusation of theirs by the reasoning of mercy, he set out three parables: one of the ninety-nine sheep left on the mountains and the one lost sheep, which was carried back on the shepherd's shoulders; another of the drachma, which the woman searched for with a lamp lit, and when she found it called her neighbors to rejoice, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma I had lost"; and the third of the two sons, about which you have told me to discuss a few things.

About the sheep and the drachma, although they bear on the same meaning, this is not the time for discussion; let it be enough to have said that these parables were put forward so that, just as there is joy among the angels and the neighbors round about at the finding of the sheep and the drachma, so at the repentance of tax collectors and sinners there ought to be joy among all who have no need of repentance. Hence I greatly wonder at Tertullian, who, in the book he wrote On Modesty against repentance, dissolving the ancient view by a new opinion, chose to hold that the tax collectors and sinners who ate with the Lord were heathen, since Scripture says: "There shall be no one paying tribute from Israel"; as if Matthew, the tax collector, were not of the circumcision, and as if the tax collector who, praying in the temple with the Pharisee, did not dare lift his eyes to heaven, were not a tax collector from Israel; and as if Luke did not record: "And all the people hearing, and the tax collectors, justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John"; or as if anyone could believe that a heathen entered the temple, or that the Lord shared table fellowship with heathen, when he took the greatest care not to seem to abolish the law, and came first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and answered the Canaanite woman who pleaded for her daughter's health, "It is not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs," and elsewhere commanded his disciples: "Do not go on the road of the Gentiles, and do not enter the cities of the Samaritans." From all this we are taught that by the tax collectors we can understand not so much Gentiles as sinners of every kind, that is, those who were both from the Gentiles and from the Jews. But he, because he defended this doctrine according to his mad women, so that he would not have Christians received when they repented, argued in vain that the tax collectors were not Jews, so that only the Gentile people could be understood in their person. So, not to be long, I will set out the words of the gospel themselves and, in the manner of a commentator, add what I think on each point.

"A certain man had two sons." That God is called a man is proved by many testimonies, as here: "The testimony of two men is true. I bear witness about myself, and the Father who sent me." In one parable he is called a shepherd, in another the master of the house; in another he lets out a vineyard, in another he invites to a wedding; and by different likenesses he signifies the same thing, so as to condemn the pride of the Jews and to approve the repentance of all sinners in common, whether Gentiles or Israel. And when he says "two sons", almost all the Scriptures are full of mysteries about the calling of the two peoples.

"And the younger said to him: Father, give me the portion of property that falls to me." God's property is everything by which we live, have understanding, think, and break out into words. This God has bestowed equally on all and in common, as the evangelist says: "That was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world." This is the right eye, which must be guarded from causes of stumbling; this is the lamp of the body; this is the talent which must not be tied up in a napkin, that is, handled with softness and idleness, nor buried in the earth, that is, darkened by earthly thoughts.

"And he divided his property between them." In the Greek it reads more significantly, "he divided to them his living", that is, he gave free will, he gave the will of one's own mind, so that each might live not by God's command but by his own obedience, that is, not by necessity but by will, so that virtue might have a place and we might differ from the other animals, since, after the example of God, we are permitted to do what we wish. Hence a just judgment will be rendered on sinners, and a reward on the holy or the righteous.

"And not many days later, gathering everything together, the younger son set out abroad into a far country." If God holds the heaven in his palm and the earth in his fist, and Jeremiah says, "A God who is near, and not a God far off," and through David too it is proclaimed that there is no place without him, how does the son go abroad and depart from the father? It must be understood, then, that we are either with God or depart from him not by distances of place but by disposition. For just as he says to the disciples, "See, I am with you all days, to the end of the age," so to those who display their own boastfulness and do not deserve to be with the Lord he says: "Depart from me, I do not know you, you who work iniquity."

So the younger son withdrew from the father with his property and set out abroad. Cain too, going out from the presence of God, dwelt in the land of Naid, which is interpreted "tossing". Whoever withdraws from God is at once shaken by the waves of the world, and his feet are moved. For after men moved from the east and withdrew from the true light, then they built against God the tower of their ungodliness, then they invented proud doctrines, wishing by unlawful curiosity to penetrate the heights of heaven itself. And that place was called Babel, that is, confusion.

"And there he squandered his property, living extravagantly." Self-indulgence, the enemy of God and of the virtues, wastes all the father's property, and, soothing for the present with pleasure, does not let one think of poverty to come.

"And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that region." He had received resources from the father so that he might know his invisible things through the things that are visible, and from the beauty of creatures might accordingly understand the Creator. But holding down the truth in unrighteousness and worshiping idols instead of God, he used up all the goods of nature, and, having used up everything, he began to be in want of virtues, having abandoned the fountain of virtues. "A severe famine arose in that region." Every place we inhabit in the father's absence is a place of famine, want, and need. And this is the region of severe famine, of which it is said by the prophet: "You who dwell in the region of the shadow of death, light will shine on you." On the contrary, there is another region, which we shall possess, the pure in heart and the living, which the holy one longs for, saying: "I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living."

"And he began to be in want, and went and joined himself to one of the rulers of that region." Abandoning the one who nourished him, who at his first word had lavished all good things on him, he joined himself to the ruler of this world, that is, the devil, the governor of this darkness, whom Scripture calls now the enemy, now the judge of iniquity, now the dragon, now Satan, now the hammer, now the partridge, now Belial, now the roaring lion, now Leviathan, now tanninim, and by many other names. And when it says "one of the rulers", we must understand that there are many who fly through this air and by the deceit of various vices subject the human race to their slavery.

"And he sent him into his field to feed pigs." The pig is an unclean animal that delights in mud and filth. Such is the multitude of demons, which through idols made by hand feeds on the blood of beasts and on victims, and is finally sated with a kind of fatter offering, the death of man himself. So he sent him into his estate, that is, he made him his servant, to feed pigs, offering his own soul to them.

"And he longed to fill his belly with the pods the pigs ate, and no one gave him any." What is said in Ezekiel with rebuke to Jerusalem, "And in you there was perversity beyond women in your fornication, and after you they have not committed fornication, in that you gave payments and no payments were given to you," we see fulfilled in the younger son. He lost his property in the ruler's region, and after losing his means he was sent to the pigs and wasted away in want. The food of demons is drunkenness, self-indulgence, sexual immorality, and all vices. These are alluring and wanton, and they soothe the senses with pleasure, and as soon as they appear they invite one to use them. The dissolute young man could not be filled with them because pleasure always hungers for itself and, once past, does not satisfy. And Satan, when he has deceived someone by his art and laid his own yoke on him, takes no further trouble to supply abundant vices, knowing that he is already dead, just as we see many idolaters worn out by rags, misery, and want. These are the ones in whom the prophetic word is fulfilled: "Payments are given to all prostitutes, but you gave payments to all your lovers and received no payments." But we can also interpret the pods in another way. The food of demons is the songs of the poets, worldly wisdom, the pomp of the rhetoricians' words. These delight everyone with their sweetness, and while they captivate the ears with verses flowing in sweet measure, they also penetrate the soul and bind the inner heart. But when they have been read through with the greatest zeal and labor, they give their readers nothing but empty sound and the clatter of words: no fullness of truth, no refreshment of righteousness is found there. Their devotees remain in hunger for the truth and in poverty of virtues. A type of this wisdom is also described in Deuteronomy under the figure of the captive woman, about whom the divine voice commands that, if an Israelite wishes to have her as wife, he must shave her head, cut her nails, and remove her hair, and when she has been made clean, then she may pass into the victor's embrace. If we understand this according to the letter, is it not ridiculous? Yet we too usually do this when we read the philosophers, when books of worldly wisdom come into our hands: if we find anything useful in them, we convert it to our own teaching; but if anything superfluous, about idols, about love, about care for worldly things, these we shave off, on these we impose baldness, these we cut away with a very sharp blade like nails. Hence the apostle too forbids anyone to recline at table in an idol's temple, saying: "But see that this liberty of yours does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees one who has knowledge reclining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, since it is weak, be built up to eat food offered to idols, and the weak brother perish by your knowledge, for whom Christ died?" Does he not seem to you to say in other words that you should not read the philosophers, orators, and poets, nor rest in reading them? And let us not flatter ourselves that we do not believe what is written in them, since the conscience of others is wounded, and we are thought to approve what we do not disapprove while we read it. Otherwise, how could we suppose that the apostle approved the knowledge of one who ate in an idol's temple and called perfect one whom he knew to eat food offered to idols? Far be it that from a Christian mouth should sound "almighty Jupiter" and "by Hercules" and "by Castor" and the rest, portents rather than divinities. But now we see even priests of God, leaving aside the Gospels and the prophets, reading comedies, singing the love words of pastoral verses, holding Virgil in their hands, and making into a sin of choice what for boys is a matter of necessity. We must take care, then, not to wish to have the captive woman as wife, not to recline in an idol's temple; or, if we have certainly been deceived by love of her, let us cleanse her and purge her of all the horror of filth, lest the brother for whom Christ died suffer scandal when he hears songs composed in praise of idols resounding from the voice of a Christian.

"And coming to himself he said: How many of my father's hired servants have bread in abundance, but I am perishing here from hunger!" In another sense we take the hired servants to be those of the Jews who keep the precepts of the law only for the sake of present goods; that is, they are righteous and merciful not for the sake of righteousness itself and the good of mercy itself, but in order to receive from God the reward of earthly abundance and long life. Whoever desires these is driven to obey the precepts by fear, lest by transgressing what is commanded he lose what he longs for. But where there is fear, there is no love, for "perfect love casts out fear." For whoever loves keeps what is commanded not because he is driven by fear of punishment or greed for reward, but because what God commands is itself the best. So the sense is this: "How many of the Jews do not withdraw from obedience to God, only for the sake of present goods, and I am worn away by want!"

"Rising, I will go to my father." He rightly says "rising"; for while his father was absent he had not been standing. To lie down belongs to sinners, to stand to the righteous. To Moses it is said: "But you, stand here with me"; and in Psalm 133: "See now, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord": the prophet exhorts those standing in the house of the Lord to bless the Lord.

"And I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son." He had sinned against heaven, since he had left his mother, the heavenly Jerusalem; he had sinned before the father, since, deserting the Creator, he had worshiped wood; he was not worthy to be called a son of God, since he had preferred to be a slave of idols. "For everyone who commits sin is born of the devil as father."

"Make me as one of your hired servants." "Make me," he says, "like one of the Jews, who worship you only for the promises of present things. Receive a repentant son, you who have so very often spared your hired servants when they sinned."

"And he came to his father." We come to the father when we withdraw from feeding pigs, according to the saying: "As soon as you turn and groan, you will be saved."

"And while he was still far off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion." Before he returned to his former father by worthy works and true repentance, God, with whom all future things are already done and who foreknows all that is to come, ran ahead to meet his coming, and through his Word, who took flesh from the virgin, anticipated the return of the younger son.

"And running to him, he fell upon his neck." He came to earth before the son entered the house of confession; he fell upon his neck, that is, he took a human body; and just as John, who became a sharer in his secrets, leaned upon his breast, so he laid his light yoke, that is, the easy precepts of his commandments, upon the younger son, by grace rather than for merit.

"And he kissed him," in accordance with what the church prays in the Song of Songs about the coming of the Bridegroom: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth." "I do not want him," she says, "to speak to me through Moses, I do not want him to speak through the prophets; let him take my body himself, let him kiss me himself in the flesh." So that we may also fit to this sense what is written in Isaiah: "If you seek, seek, and dwell with me in the forest." For there the church is told to cry out weeping from Seir, because Seir is interpreted "hairy" and "shaggy", signifying the former roughness of the Gentiles, with that likeness corresponding to it: "I am black and beautiful, daughter of Jerusalem."

"And the son said to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son." He says he is not worthy to be called a son, and yet, from the voice of nature, from that substance which the father had once given him, he breaks out trembling into the name of truth, saying, "Father, I have sinned against heaven." So some argue in vain that the name "father" applies only to the saints, since here too the one who confesses himself unworthy of the name of son calls God father; unless perhaps he dares to call him father because he has turned with his whole mind.

"But the father said to his servants: Quickly bring out the first robe": the robe which Adam lost by sinning, the robe which in another parable is called the wedding garment, that is, the garment of the Holy Spirit; whoever does not have it cannot share in the king's banquet.