Augustine of Hippo — Commentary on Scripture

Daniel 3:26 · 2 passages

Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came forth of the midst of the fire.

Let faith be yours, and God will be with you in your trouble. There are waves on the sea, and you are tossed about in your cabin, because Christ sleeps.… If you allow faith to sleep in your heart, Christ is, you might say, sleeping with you in your ship. Because Christ dwells in you through faith, when you begin to be tossed about, awake Christ from his sleep. Awaken your faith, and you shall be assured he will not desert you. You may think that you are forsaken, because he does not rescue you at the very moment you desire. But did he not deliver the three children from the fire?

The flame could not approach or hurt the innocent and righteous children praising God, and he delivered them out of the fire. Some might say, “Truly, those who are righteous are those that are heard,” as it is written, “The righteous cried, and the Lord heard them and delivered them out of their troubles.” But I have cried, and he does not deliver me; either I am not righteous, or I do not do the things that he commands me to do or perhaps he just does not see me. Fear not: do what he commands you, and if he does not deliver you in bodily form, he will deliver you spiritually.… He delivered Peter when the angel came to him when he was in prison and said, “Arise, and go forth,” and suddenly his chains were released, and he followed the angel, and he delivered him. Had Peter, then, lost his righteousness when he did not deliver him from the cross? Did he not deliver him then? Even then God delivered him.… When God first delivered Peter, how many times did he suffer afterwards? So in the end, God sent him where he could suffer no evil.

Daniel 3:27

And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.

Human weakness uses its acquaintance with things experienced to measure divine works that are beyond its experience and thinks it has made a keen observation when it says, “If there is flame, it is hot; if it is hot, it burns; if it burns, then it burned the bodies of the three men thrown into the fiery furnace by the wicked king.” If then even those who might not understand the idea of divine works still believe that a miracle was wrought on these three men, why should we then not believe that he who prevented those bodies from being consumed by the fire also prevented his body from being consumed by fire or famine or disease or old age or any other of the forces by which corruption usually breaks down human bodies? But if anyone says that incorruption against the fire was not added to the flesh of the three men, but that the power of the destruction was taken away from the fire itself, why do we fear that he who took away the ability of the fire to destroy not make flesh that could not be destroyed?… The divine power is able to remove whatever qualities he wills from that visible a…

Human weakness uses its acquaintance with things experienced to measure divine works that are beyond its experience and thinks it has made a keen observation when it says, “If there is flame, it is hot; if it is hot, it burns; if it burns, then it burned the bodies of the three men thrown into the fiery furnace by the wicked king.” If then even those who might not understand the idea of divine works still believe that a miracle was wrought on these three men, why should we then not believe that he who prevented those bodies from being consumed by the fire also prevented his body from being consumed by fire or famine or disease or old age or any other of the forces by which corruption usually breaks down human bodies? But if anyone says that incorruption against the fire was not added to the flesh of the three men, but that the power of the destruction was taken away from the fire itself, why do we fear that he who took away the ability of the fire to destroy not make flesh that could not be destroyed?… The divine power is able to remove whatever qualities he wills from that visible and palpable nature of bodies, while some qualities remain unchanged; so he is able to add unwearying strength to mortal members, preserving the characteristic marks of their form, even when they have died because of the corruption of mortality, so that the mortal appearance is there but wasting disease is absent; motion is there, but fatigue is not; the ability to eat is there, but the necessity of hunger is not.

Daniel 3:29

Therefore I make a decree, That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort.

If past events in the prophetic books serve as a figure of future ones, in the king named Nebuchadnezzar two periods were foreshadowed: that during the time of the apostles and the present one in which Christ is now living. For in the times of the apostles and martyrs that part was fulfilled that was foreshadowed when the king forced devout and upright men to adore an idol and when they refused had them thrown into a fire. Now, however, that part is fulfilled that was prefigured in the same king when he was converted to the true God and decreed for his realm that whoever blasphemed the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego should suffer due penalties. Therefore, the first part of the king's reign signified the earlier periods of impious kings, when Christians suffered instead of the impious, but the latter part of that king's reign signified the period of later faithful kings under whom the impious suffered instead of the Christians.

Daniel 4:26

And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots; thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule.

It is written, as I reminded you a short while ago, “O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you.” … And there are many other teachings in the divine writings that show how much almsgiving and deeds of charity avail for extinguishing and wiping out sins. Accordingly, to those whom he is going to condemn—no, first, on the contrary to those whom he is going to reward with crowns, he is going to impute nothing but their acts of charity, as though to say, “It would be difficult, if I examined you closely, and weighed you in the balance and thoroughly scrutinized your deeds, for me not to find reasons to condemn you; but, ‘Go into the kingdom; for I was hungry and you gave me to eat.’ So you are not going into the kingdom because you never sinned, but because you redeemed your sins with alms deeds.”

Daniel 7:13

I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

I do not know in what manner these people understand that the Ancient of Days appeared to Daniel, from whom the Son of man, which he deigned to be for our sakes, is understood to have received the kingdom; namely, from him who says to him in the Psalms, “You are my son; this day have I begotten you; ask of me, and I shall give you the nations for your inheritance” and who has “put all things under his feet.” If, however, both the Father giving the kingdom and the Son receiving it appeared to Daniel in bodily form, how can those people say that the Father never appeared to the prophets, and, therefore, that he only ought to be understood to be invisible whom no one has seen or can see? For Daniel has told us thus.… Behold the Father giving and the Son receiving an eternal kingdom; and both are in the sight of him who prophesies, in a visible form.

Daniel 7:18 · 2 passages

But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.

Just as God’s promise made to Abraham is already visibly fulfilled in Christ, so other promises made to the seed of Abraham will be no less certainly fulfilled. The promise to Abraham was that “all the nations of the earth will be blessed in your seed.” It is one of many such promises. Some of the prophecies concerning Abraham’s seed say, “The dead shall rise again.… There shall be a new heaven and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered, and they will not come on the earth, but they will be glad and rejoice forever in these things. For see, I shall make Jerusalem a rejoicing and my people joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping will be heard in it no more.” Then there are the promises made to and through another prophet, saying, “At that time your people will be saved, everyone that will be found written in the book. And every one of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awaken, some to everlasting life and others to reproach and everlasting confusion.… But the saints of the most high God will take the kingdom, a…

Just as God’s promise made to Abraham is already visibly fulfilled in Christ, so other promises made to the seed of Abraham will be no less certainly fulfilled. The promise to Abraham was that “all the nations of the earth will be blessed in your seed.” It is one of many such promises. Some of the prophecies concerning Abraham’s seed say, “The dead shall rise again.… There shall be a new heaven and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered, and they will not come on the earth, but they will be glad and rejoice forever in these things. For see, I shall make Jerusalem a rejoicing and my people joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping will be heard in it no more.” Then there are the promises made to and through another prophet, saying, “At that time your people will be saved, everyone that will be found written in the book. And every one of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awaken, some to everlasting life and others to reproach and everlasting confusion.… But the saints of the most high God will take the kingdom, and they will possess the kingdom forever and ever … whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.”

But then there had not yet risen the prophet Daniel to say, “The saints shall receive the kingdom of the Most High.” For by these words he foretold the merit not of the Old but of the New Testament. In the same manner did the same prophets foretell that Christ himself would come, in whose blood the New Testament was consecrated.

Daniel 9:21

Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.

Let them read that Daniel says, “And behold, the man Gabriel.” But why do we delay to shut up their mouths with another most evident and weighty proof, where no angel is mentioned individually or humankind in the plural, but rather the angels in their entirety are mentioned, namely, when it is said that through the angels not just any old word was spoken, but the law itself was given? Certainly, none of the faithful doubts that God gave Moses the law so that the people of Israel might be made subject to it, but nonetheless the law was given through angels. Thus Stephen says, “You received the law proclaimed by angels, and yet you do not keep it.” What is more evident than this? What is stronger and with such authority? The law was given to that people in the proclamations of the angels, but the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ was arranged and foretold through the law. Christ himself, the Word of God, was in a marvelous and indescribable manner in the angels, in whose proclamation the law was given. Thus he says in the Gospel, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me also, for he…

Let them read that Daniel says, “And behold, the man Gabriel.” But why do we delay to shut up their mouths with another most evident and weighty proof, where no angel is mentioned individually or humankind in the plural, but rather the angels in their entirety are mentioned, namely, when it is said that through the angels not just any old word was spoken, but the law itself was given? Certainly, none of the faithful doubts that God gave Moses the law so that the people of Israel might be made subject to it, but nonetheless the law was given through angels. Thus Stephen says, “You received the law proclaimed by angels, and yet you do not keep it.” What is more evident than this? What is stronger and with such authority? The law was given to that people in the proclamations of the angels, but the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ was arranged and foretold through the law. Christ himself, the Word of God, was in a marvelous and indescribable manner in the angels, in whose proclamation the law was given. Thus he says in the Gospel, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me also, for he wrote about me.” Therefore, the Lord was speaking then through the angels; through the angels the Son of God, the one who would be the mediator between God and humankind, arranged his coming from the seed of Abraham so that he could find those who would receive him and confess themselves guilty, inasmuch as their failure to keep the law had made them transgressors.

Daniel 10:11

And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.

Daniel was called by the angel “a man of desires.” What were those desires of his, but ardent longings for the beauty of wisdom? Because in his youth he had trampled on lust, as a prisoner he had crushed the pride of kings, when shut in close he had shut the mouths of lions.

Daniel 10:14

Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days.

The Greek version has a more concise expression for “give me understanding,” sunetison me, expressing “give understanding” by the single word sunetison, which the Latin cannot do; as if one could not say, “Heal me,” and it were necessary to say, “Give me health,” as it is here said, “Give me understanding”; or “Make me whole,” as here it may be said, “Make me intelligent.” This indeed an angel could do, for he said to Daniel, “I come to give you understanding”; and this word is in the Greek, as it is here also, sunetisai se; as if the Latin translator were to render therapeusai se by sanitatem dare tibi. For the Latin interpreter would not make a circumlocution by saying, to give you understanding, if, as we say from health, “to heal you,” so one could say from intellect, “to intellectuate you.” But if an angel could do this, what reason is there that this man should pray that this be done for him by God? Is it because God had commanded the angel to do it? Just so: for Christ is understood to have given this command to the angel.

Daniel 12:1

And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

“And the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name.” For he has their names written in the book of life. “He calls his own sheep by name.” Because of this the apostle says, “The Lord knows who are his.” “And he leads them out. And when he has led out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice...”

Daniel 12:2

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Nor is there any real contradiction between John’s “all who are in the tombs” and Daniel’s “many” in place of “all.” As an illustration of this, notice how, in one place, God said to Abraham, “I have made you the father of many nations” and in another, “In your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”

Daniel 12:7 · 2 passages

And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.

The word times may seem an indefinite plural in our language [Latin], but the Greek texts (and, so I am told, the Hebrew texts as well) show that “times” is written in the dual number and so means “two times.”

The last of all persecutions, the antichrist’s, is to go on for three and a half years.… Now the question, quite reasonably, presents itself: Should these three and a half years, brief as they are, be included in the thousand years of the devil’s binding and the saints’ reign with Christ, or are they outside the thousand and superadded to them?… We conclude that the reign of Christ with his saints will be longer than the devil’s bonds and imprisonment, for, even when he is released, they will continue to reign with their King, the Son of God, for these three and a half years.

Daniel 13:23

"It is better for me not to escape your hands than to sin in front of God." She refused the proposals she heard because she feared him who she could not see and to whose divine gaze, however, she was very visible. Because she did not happen, in fact, to see God does not mean that God did not see her. God saw what he was building up: he inspected his work, inhabited his temple. He was there; he was answering their insidious trap. If the giver of chastity had abandoned her, chastity also would have been extinguished. Therefore she said, "I am trapped on every side." But she waited for the one who would save her from weakness of spirit and from the fury of the false witnesses who were like stormy winds. Between these winds and that storm, however, chastity did not suffer shipwreck because the Lord guided the route. She screamed. People came. The process began, and the case came up for judgment. The servants of Susanna believed what the imposter elders said against their mistress. It seemed to them that it would be against their religion not to believe the elders, even though the innocen…

"It is better for me not to escape your hands than to sin in front of God." She refused the proposals she heard because she feared him who she could not see and to whose divine gaze, however, she was very visible. Because she did not happen, in fact, to see God does not mean that God did not see her. God saw what he was building up: he inspected his work, inhabited his temple. He was there; he was answering their insidious trap. If the giver of chastity had abandoned her, chastity also would have been extinguished. Therefore she said, "I am trapped on every side." But she waited for the one who would save her from weakness of spirit and from the fury of the false witnesses who were like stormy winds. Between these winds and that storm, however, chastity did not suffer shipwreck because the Lord guided the route. She screamed. People came. The process began, and the case came up for judgment. The servants of Susanna believed what the imposter elders said against their mistress. It seemed to them that it would be against their religion not to believe the elders, even though the innocent and stainless life Susanna had led up to this point seemed to offer valid testimony of her chastity. No such chatter had been made on her account. There they were, false witnesses, but God noticed. The household believed one thing; God saw another. But what God saw, human beings did not know, and it seemed right to believe the elders. Therefore she had to die, but if her flesh were to die, her chastity still would have triumphed. Instead, the Lord was present to whom she prayed, and he heard because he knew her.

Daniel 13:44

“With my voice I have cried to the Lord.” I have not, that is, cried with the voice of the body, whose sound is made from the vibration of the air, but with the voice of the heart that is silent for human beings but sounds like an outcry to God. Susanna was heard by this voice. With this voice the Lord has taught to us to pray without sound in the secret places, that is, in the recesses of the heart. Nor would one say that we pray less intensely because of the fact that no word comes out of our mouth. In fact, when we pray silently in our heart, if alien thoughts come to distract the mind of one who prays, we cannot anymore say, “With my voice I have cried to the Lord.” We can rightly say these words only when the soul—without being dragged down with the flesh and having no sexual purposes in mind—alone speaks to the Lord. Then this prayer can be truly called an “outcry” because of the vigor of the tension that the soul experiences. “And he has heard me from his holy mountain.” From the prophet the Lord called a mountain where it is written that the stone that was cut without human h…

“With my voice I have cried to the Lord.” I have not, that is, cried with the voice of the body, whose sound is made from the vibration of the air, but with the voice of the heart that is silent for human beings but sounds like an outcry to God. Susanna was heard by this voice. With this voice the Lord has taught to us to pray without sound in the secret places, that is, in the recesses of the heart. Nor would one say that we pray less intensely because of the fact that no word comes out of our mouth. In fact, when we pray silently in our heart, if alien thoughts come to distract the mind of one who prays, we cannot anymore say, “With my voice I have cried to the Lord.” We can rightly say these words only when the soul—without being dragged down with the flesh and having no sexual purposes in mind—alone speaks to the Lord. Then this prayer can be truly called an “outcry” because of the vigor of the tension that the soul experiences. “And he has heard me from his holy mountain.” From the prophet the Lord called a mountain where it is written that the stone that was cut without human hands has grown into the grandeur of a mountain.

Deuteronomy 5:22

These words the LORD spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.

There the finger of God worked upon tables of stone: here upon the hearts of men. So there the law was set outside men to be a terror to the unjust: here it was given within them to be their justification. “For this: you shall not commit adultery, you shall do no murder, you shall not covet, and if there be any other commandment”—written, as we know, upon those tables—“it is briefly comprehended,” said the apostle, “in this saying: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love works not a neighbor’s ill: and charity is the fullness of the law.” This law is not written on tables of stone but is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which is given to us. Therefore the law of God is charity. To it the mind of the flesh is not subject, neither indeed can be. But when, to put fear into the mind of the flesh, the works of charity are written upon tables, we have the law of works, the letter killing the transgression. When charity itself is shed abroad in the hearts of believers, we have the law of faith, the Spirit giving life to the lover.

Deuteronomy 6:4 · 2 passages

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

Consider now for a while the passages of Scripture which force us to confess that the Lord is one God, whether we are asked about the Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone, or about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit together. Certainly it is written, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord.” Of whom do you think that this is said? If it is said only of the Father, then our Lord Jesus Christ is not God. Why did those words come to Thomas when he touched Christ and cried out, “My Lord and my God,” which Christ did not reprove but approved, saying, “Because you have seen, you have believed”?

That Trinity is one God. Not that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are identically the same. But the Father is Father, the Son is Son, and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit, and this Trinity is one God, as it is written: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God.”