Mockery of Zion and the Willow

concerning the judgment: for we anticipate them being raised, not being judged, even if it happens at once. As I have often said, that the body and the color are at once. It is not possible to say one before the other; for the body is anticipated; it is necessary for it to be a body so that it may be color; for I do not anticipate the color so that it may be the body.

“And all the daughters of song shall be humbled” (12:4d). According to all those things assigned to “shall rise to the voice of a sparrow,” I speak of the “humbling” of the “daughters of song.” The false teachers are “daughters” of “song”; they are “daughters” of “voice” alone, not of mind, nor of wisdom, nor of knowledge, nor of light. And because of their unintelligible and because of what has been exposed concerning the “pro kairos,” these “daughters” are spoken of. Therefore these “shall be humbled”; and in the way that darkness is dissolved by the presence of light, so by the presence of “rising to the voice of a sparrow,” or the “marketplace,” or the Savior, or the divine teachers, their nothingness is exposed. It is shown that their teaching had existence only insofar as it lived by the presence of the moment—and so that I may say something much more impoverished than what is often said by some—that “human wisdom,” promising eloquence and a composition of words, has existence up to “voice.” And since this “voice” will pass away, no longer being struck air, when they become above the air, those concerning whom the word is spoken “shall be humbled.” The “daughters of song” are found to be nothing, if the wise teachers were not called “daughters” or “daughters of song,” but rather “sons of light,” “sons of wisdom.” Furthermore, do we have something to say from another scripture appropriately? “Turn away from me the sound of your songs, and the melody of your psalter I shall not hear” (Song of Songs 5:6); their “song” is considered a disturbance. And “song” and “melody” are the same. And even “I will turn,” he says, “their feasts into mourning and their songs into lamentations” (Hosea 7:8); behold, an appropriate “song.” And the. Text cuts off..

Having said, 'Sing to us a hymn from the songs of Zion,' they were mocking. They said, 'Even upon the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept' (Ps 137:1). 'Having reached Babylon and its unstable currents called rivers, we sat; we no longer desired to depart, taking memory of their own fatherland. This happened by us remembering Zion; we no longer desired to depart before Babylon.'

Then he says, 'Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our instruments' (Ps 137:2), the musical instruments, the instruments of the new song. And the willows are a plant that is fruitless, deceiving men. They say that if its flower is rubbed into water and drunk, it makes the castrated ones lustful. For this reason the poet said the willows are 'fruitless,' because they castrate the men in a certain way. The instruments, therefore, that is, the bodies, were hanging from the willows, the branches of impurity.

Then they, as if performing a circumcision, were saying, 'Sing to us a hymn from the songs of Zion,' saying 'songs' in the plural more insolently. For one song is that of Zion and one hymn; for it is said, 'O God, I will sing to you a new song' (Ps 96:1), one song. These, therefore, since the discordant one makes many songs, are saying this in a broken way; it is said discordantly, 'Sing to us a hymn from your songs' (Ps 137:3).

Then they, knowing that they are saying the songs in the plural badly, say: 'How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land?' (Ps 137:4). 'In a foreign land we are yours' (Ps 137:4). So it is a broken song and a thing to be blamed. And if he says, 'with the singing not to be allowed,' it signifies a broken song, a psalm not being properly brought forth.

'And from on high they shall see and be amazed in the way; and the almond shall blossom, and the thorn shall grow thick' (Jer 31:19). If anyone sees from on high, being called high, having a high heart and a high mind, he sees that 'in the ways there are amazements' (Jer 31:19).