Commentary on Joel

Gregory of Nazianzus (329–390)

Joel again summons us wailing and will have the ministers of the altar lament under the conditions of famine. He does not allow us to revel in the misfortunes of others. After sanctifying a fast, calling a solemn assembly and gathering the old men, the children, and those of tender age, we ourselves must further haunt the temple in sackcloth and ashes, prostrated humbly on the ground, because the field is wasted and the meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord, till we draw down mercy by our humiliation.

Terrible is an unfruitful season, and the loss of the crops. It could not be otherwise, when people are already rejoicing in their hopes and counting on their all but harvested stores. Terrible again is an unseasonable harvest, when the farmers labor with heavy hearts, sitting as it were beside the grave of their crops, which the gentle rain nourished but the wild storm has rooted up, "with which the reaper does not fill his hand or the binder of sheaves his bosom." Nor have they obtained the blessing which passers-by bestow upon the farmers. Wretched indeed is the sight of the ground devastated, cleared and shorn of its ornaments, over which the…

See also

• More works by Gregory of Nazianzus

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