Gregory of Nazianzus — Commentary on Scripture

Isaiah 40:2

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins.

How is it that some receive at the Lord’s hand double for their sins and the measure of their wickedness is doubly filled up, as in the correction of Israel, while the sins of others are removed by a sevenfold compensation? What is the measure of the Amorites that is not yet full? And how is the sinner either acquitted or chastised again, acquitted perhaps, because reserved for the other world, chastised because healed thereby in this?

Isaiah 41:4

Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.

[Where] do you get those fortresses of yours, “ingenerate” and “unoriginate,” from—or where the term “immortal”? Show us the express words, or we cross them out as unscriptural, and you will be dead as a result of your own principles, since the words, the wall of defense you trusted in, will have been destroyed. Is it not plain that these terms derived from passages that imply, without actually mentioning them? Which passages? What about “I am the first, and I am hereafter,” and “Before me there is no other God and after me there shall be none,” “for everything that exists” [God is saying] “is mine, without beginning or ending”? You have taken the truths that there is nothing before God and that he has no prior case, and you have given him the titles “unoriginate” and “ingenerate.” The fact that there is no halt to his ongoing existence means he is “immortal” and “indestructible.”

Isaiah 42:1

Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

Next is the fact of his being called Servant and serving many well, and that it is a great thing for him to be called the Child of God. For in truth he was in servitude to flesh and to birth and to the conditions of our life with a view to our liberation, and to that of all those whom he has saved, who were in bondage under sin. What greater destiny can befall humanity’s humble state than that it should be intermingled with God and by this intermingling should be deified, and that we should be so visited by the Dayspring from on high, that even that holy thing that should be born should be called the Son of the Highest, and that there should be bestowed on him a name that is above every name? And what else can this be than God?—and that every knee should bow to him that was made of no reputation for us, and that mingled the form of God with the form of a servant, and that “all the house of Israel should know that God has made him both Lord and Christ”? For all this was done by the action of the Begotten and by the good pleasure of him that begat him.

Isaiah 42:8

I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.

The same thing applies to the word Lord, which is also used as a name of God. “I am the Lord your God,” he says. “This is my name,” and “The Lord is his name.” But we are making deeper enquiries into a nature that has absolute existence, independent of anything else. The actual, personal being of God in its fullness is neither limited nor cut short by any prior or any subsequent reality—so it was, and so it will be.

Isaiah 45:3

And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

Who is the person whose heart has never been made to burn, as the Scriptures have been opened, with the pure words of God that have been tried in a furnace;16 who has not, by a triple inscription of them on the breadth of his heart, attained the mind of Christ, or been admitted to the treasures that to most people remain hidden, secret and dark, to gaze on the riches therein and become able to enrich others, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

Isaiah 47:15

Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee.

For I know a cleansing fire that Christ came to send on the earth, and he himself is anagogically called a fire. This Fire takes away whatever is material and of evil habit. This [Christ] desires to kindle with all speed, for he longs for speed in doing us good, since he gives us even coals of fire to help us.

Isaiah 48:4

Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass;

Perchance he will say to me, who am not reformed even by blows, “I know that you are obstinate and your neck is an iron sinew, the heedless is heedless, and the lawless person acts lawlessly, and for nothing comes correction from heaven and the scourges.” The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed, as I once reprimanded you by the mouth of Jeremiah: “The founder melted the silver in vain; your wickednesses are not melted away.” … May it not be that I should ever, among other chastisements, be thus approached by him who is good, and yet by my own contrariness continue to walk against his goodness. This causes God to walk against me in fury.

Isaiah 49:6

And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

He is called Servant and serves many well. And his being given the grand title “Child of God” agrees with this. For in truth he was subject as a servant to flesh and to birth and to the conditions of our life with a view toward our liberation. He was subject to all that he saved, held captive as we were in sin.

Isaiah 50:11

Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.

One light alone let us shun: that which is the offspring of the terrible fire. Let us not walk in the light of our own fire and in the very flame we have kindled. For I know of a cleansing fire that Christ came to send on the earth, and that he himself is anagogically called a fire. This Fire takes away whatever is material and of evil habit. This he desires to kindle with all speed, for he longs for speed in doing us good, since he gives us even coals of fire to help us. I know also a fire that is not cleansing but avenging; either that fire of Sodom, which he pours down on all sinners, mingled with brimstone and storms, or that which is prepared for the devil and his angels.

Isaiah 51:17

Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.

Anger, which is called “the cup in the hand of the Lord” and “the cup of falling that is drained,” is in proportion to transgressions, even though he abates to all some of what is their due and dilutes with compassion the unmixed draught of his wrath. For he inclines from severity to indulgence toward those who accept chastisement with fear, and who after a slight affliction conceive and are in pain with conversion and bring forth the perfect spirit of salvation. But he nevertheless reserves the dregs, the last drop of his anger, that he may pour it out entire on those who, instead of being healed by his kindness, grow obdurate, like the hardhearted Pharaoh.

Isaiah 53:2

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

For he whom you now treat with contempt was once above you. He who is now man was once the uncompounded. What he was he continued to be; what he was not he took to himself. In the beginning he was uncaused; for what is the cause of God? But afterwards for a cause he was born. And that cause was that you might be saved, who insult him and despise his godhead, because of this, that he took on him your denser nature, having converse with flesh by means of mind. While his inferior nature, the humanity, became God, because it was united to God and became one person because the higher nature prevailed, [this happened] in order that I too might be made God so far as he is made man. He was born—but he had been begotten. He was born of a woman—but she was a virgin. The first is human, the second divine. In his human nature he had no father, but also in his divine nature [he had] no mother. Both these belong to godhead. He dwelled in the womb—but he was recognized by the prophet [John the Baptist], himself still in the womb, leaping before the Word, for whose sake he came into being. He was wr…

For he whom you now treat with contempt was once above you. He who is now man was once the uncompounded. What he was he continued to be; what he was not he took to himself. In the beginning he was uncaused; for what is the cause of God? But afterwards for a cause he was born. And that cause was that you might be saved, who insult him and despise his godhead, because of this, that he took on him your denser nature, having converse with flesh by means of mind. While his inferior nature, the humanity, became God, because it was united to God and became one person because the higher nature prevailed, [this happened] in order that I too might be made God so far as he is made man. He was born—but he had been begotten. He was born of a woman—but she was a virgin. The first is human, the second divine. In his human nature he had no father, but also in his divine nature [he had] no mother. Both these belong to godhead. He dwelled in the womb—but he was recognized by the prophet [John the Baptist], himself still in the womb, leaping before the Word, for whose sake he came into being. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes—but he took off the swathing bands of the grave by his rising again. He was laid in a manger—but he was glorified by angels, and proclaimed by a star and worshiped by the magi. Why are you offended by what is presented to your sight, because you will not look at what is presented to your mind? He was driven into exile into Egypt—but he drove away the Egyptian idols. He had no form or comeliness in the eyes of the Jews—but to David he is fairer than the children of humankind. And on the mountain he was bright as the lightning and became more luminous than the sun, initiating us into the mystery of the future.

Isaiah 53:4

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

“He was made flesh” seems to be equivalent to that in which it is said that he was made sin or a curse for us, not that the Lord was transmuted into either of these—for how could he? But because by taking them on him he “took away our iniquities and bore our infirmities.”

Isaiah 53:7

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

He prays, but he hears prayer. He weeps, but he causes tears to cease. He asks where Lazarus was laid, for he was man; but he raises Lazarus, for he was God. He is sold, and very cheap, for it is only for thirty pieces of silver, but he redeems the world, and that at a great price, for the price was his own blood. As a sheep he is led to the slaughter, but he is the shepherd of Israel, and now of the whole world also. As a lamb he is silent, yet he is the Word and is proclaimed by the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He is bruised and wounded, but he heals every disease and every infirmity. He is lifted up and nailed to the tree, but by the tree of life he restores us, yes, he saves even the robber crucified with him. … He dies, but he gives life, and by his death, he destroys death. He is buried, but he rises again; he goes down into hell, but he brings up the souls; he ascends to heaven and shall come again to judge the living and the dead.

Isaiah 53:12

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

If you are a Simon of Cyrene, take up the cross and follow. If you are crucified with him as a robber, acknowledge God as a penitent robber. If even he was numbered among the transgressors for you and your sin, do you become law-abiding for his sake. Worship him who was hanged for you, even if you yourself are hanging; make some gain even from your wickedness; purchase salvation by your death; enter with Jesus into paradise, so that you may learn from what you have fallen.

Isaiah 54:7-8

For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.

I seem, indeed, to hear that voice from him who gathers together those who are broken and welcomes the oppressed.… The measure of his kindness exceeds the measure of his discipline. The former things were owing to our wickedness, the present things to the adorable Trinity, the former for our cleansing, the present for my Glory.

Isaiah 58:10

And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:

[My father] actually treated his own property as if it were another’s, of which he was but the steward, relieving poverty as far as he could and expending not only his superfluities but his necessities—a manifest proof of love for the poor, giving a portion not only to seven, according to the injunction of Solomon, but if an eighth came forward, not even in his case being stingy but more pleased to dispose of his wealth than we know others are to acquire it.… This is what most people do: they give indeed, but without that readiness that is a greater and more perfect thing than the mere offering. For he thought it much better to be generous even to the undeserving for the sake of the deserving than from fear of the undeserving to deprive those who were deserving. And this seems to be the duty of casting our bread on the waters, since it will not be swept away or perish in the eyes of the just Investigator but will arrive yonder where all that is ours is laid up and will meet with us in due time, even though we think it not. But what is best and greatest of all, [my father’s] magnanimi…

[My father] actually treated his own property as if it were another’s, of which he was but the steward, relieving poverty as far as he could and expending not only his superfluities but his necessities—a manifest proof of love for the poor, giving a portion not only to seven, according to the injunction of Solomon, but if an eighth came forward, not even in his case being stingy but more pleased to dispose of his wealth than we know others are to acquire it.… This is what most people do: they give indeed, but without that readiness that is a greater and more perfect thing than the mere offering. For he thought it much better to be generous even to the undeserving for the sake of the deserving than from fear of the undeserving to deprive those who were deserving. And this seems to be the duty of casting our bread on the waters, since it will not be swept away or perish in the eyes of the just Investigator but will arrive yonder where all that is ours is laid up and will meet with us in due time, even though we think it not. But what is best and greatest of all, [my father’s] magnanimity was accompanied by freedom from ambition.

Isaiah 63:3

I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.

And, if they marvel and say, as in Isaiah’s drama, “Who is this that comes from Edom and from the things of the earth?” or “How are the garments red when he is without blood or body, as of one that treads in the full winepress?”—if they say this, then set forth the beauty of the array of the body that suffered, adorned by the passion and made splendid by the Godhead. Nothing can be lovelier or more beautiful than that.… Will you think little of him because he humbled himself for your sake?… Do you conceive of him as less because he girds himself with a towel and washes his disciples and shows that humiliation is the best road to exaltation?

Jeremiah 1:6 · 2 passages

Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.

It is a good thing even to hold back from God for a little while—as did the great Moses in ancient times, and Jeremiah later on—and then to run readily to him when he calls. This is what Aaron and Isaiah did—as long as both are done with a respectful spirit. Do the former because you lack strength. Do the latter because of the power of God who calls you.

I resort once again to history. When I consider the men of best repute in ancient days, who were ever preferred by grace to the office of ruler or prophet, I discover that some readily complied with the call while others deprecated the gift. I also learn that those who drew back were not blamed for their timidity, nor were those who came forward accused of being too eager. The former stood in awe of the greatness of the ministry; the latter trustfully obeyed him who called them. Aaron was eager, but Moses resisted; Isaiah readily submitted, but Jeremiah was afraid of his youth and did not venture to prophesy until he had received from God a promise and a power beyond his years.

Jeremiah 1:8

Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.

Some readily complied with the call, others deprecated the gift... Isaiah readily submitted (Is 6:8), but Jeremiah was afraid of his youth. Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: What is it that has induced this fear in me, that, instead of supposing me to be needlessly afraid, you may highly commend my foresight? I hear from Moses himself, when God spoke to him, that, although many were bidden to come to the mount, and Moses alone to draw near, and the people were not to go up with him. Exodus 24:1-2 For it is not everyone who may draw near to God, but only one who, like Moses, can bear the glory of God. Moreover, before this, when the law was first given, the trumpet-blasts, and lightnings, and thunders, and darkness, and the smoke of the whole mountain, and the terrible threats that if even a beast touched the mountain it should be stoned, Hebrews 12:18 and other like alarms, kept back the rest of the people, for whom it was a great privilege, after careful purification, merely to hear the voice of God. But Moses actually went up and entered into the cloud, and was charged with the law, and recei…

Some readily complied with the call, others deprecated the gift... Isaiah readily submitted (Is 6:8), but Jeremiah was afraid of his youth.

Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: What is it that has induced this fear in me, that, instead of supposing me to be needlessly afraid, you may highly commend my foresight? I hear from Moses himself, when God spoke to him, that, although many were bidden to come to the mount, and Moses alone to draw near, and the people were not to go up with him. Exodus 24:1-2 For it is not everyone who may draw near to God, but only one who, like Moses, can bear the glory of God. Moreover, before this, when the law was first given, the trumpet-blasts, and lightnings, and thunders, and darkness, and the smoke of the whole mountain, and the terrible threats that if even a beast touched the mountain it should be stoned, Hebrews 12:18 and other like alarms, kept back the rest of the people, for whom it was a great privilege, after careful purification, merely to hear the voice of God. But Moses actually went up and entered into the cloud, and was charged with the law, and received the tables, which belong, for the multitude, to the letter, but, for those who are above the multitude, to the spirit.