The Judgment of God and the Victory of the Just

For there was no cause for indignation regarding places, and such a one, through the sparing of place, prepares philanthropy to happen toward the people. But this is not as if a certain field were able to be God-loving; for God is not bound by places but by justice.

112a Ps 73:15b [The Helper thus says: 'You dried up ancient rivers' (Ps 73:15). For the making of springs to bubble up and rivers to flow from them, while on the other hand the streams of ancient rivers are dried up, this is the power of working wonders. This also he says in another psalm: 'He set rivers in the desert and channels of waters for thirst' (Ps 73:17). For it is easy for him, as he wills, to let the flow of the waters participate. But because of this, the text also shows elsewhere: that for the Jews, because of the lawlessness of the prophetic rivers, the waters will not come to them, but for the nations, formerly a desert, to the crashing of the falls from the rock; and the rock, the divine apostle says, is the Christ, and all the things said point to Him who worked salvation in the midst of our earth through benefits. And these things are thus. But Isidore of Pelusium says in a letter that Etham, a place so called, not far removed from Jerusalem, was watered and easy to reach and shady; to dry this up according to the wrath of God against the Romans is said to be war, just as Joseph in the Archaeology says.]

113A Ps 73:20–22 Remember your covenant and those who were carried away into dark places, lead them again into your illuminated dwelling, receiving the place of the prayer of the humbled by evils and being poured out, and giving them to hymn with joy (Ps 73:20-22).

114a Ps 74:2–4 Christ, the cause and creator of incorruption, says these things to the prophet, the one saving as God and bringing the grace of salvation as a man to the Father (Ps 74:2). Therefore he says to you, we shall open confessions and thanksgivings concerning salvation, the sa-

We shall recount wonders, father, when the church of all people having come together is able to hear concerning you, and all people are brought to serve you. And he says of mine, even the discernment over all, saving the worthy of salvation from those being destroyed—those having thought of earthly things being dissolved with the earth, but those having thought of heavenly things remaining like pillars for the foundation of the new creation.

It is not right to dare to be presumptuous or to exalt oneself by seizing upon God or wisdom, saying things terrible and unrighteous against God, as if He does not provide, nor justly rewards each one, but rather leaves things to the risings and settings of stars, and as if the things concerning men are disposed by the stars either well or badly, and already not only by stars but also by the demons worshipped in the heights. For the whole universe has encompassed these things not thus or nearby, but by the just judgment of God, regarding the humbling and the exalting of men, the ones being cast down and the ones being lifted up. Didymus says likewise.

Upon such an end, he says, in which the evil ones, perishing with wickedness, I shall make the narration of the wonders of God, and I will cast down the strong things of the ungodly, having cut them off like horns; but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up, having shorn off the uncorrupted power from God. Then they shall be lifted up when they shall have reigned with their own King.

A good end and the victory of the righteous according to God is prophesied to be, after having been brought to a clearer and more brilliant state than the prophecy revealed before this.

He calls the grazed mountains of prey, that is, mountains of food. For food is prey, and in Psalm 181 he says, 'Blessing his prey I will bless it,' which indeed Sitias said in that Psalm Symmachus. And in Psalm 182, 'He gave prey to those who fear him,' Achilles said, and Symmachus.