The evils that flow from yielding to concupiscence and being friends to this world. Admonitions against pride, detraction and the like.
By concupiscence and loue of this vvorld, vve are made enemies to God: but vve should rather humble vs to him, punishing our selues for our sinnes. 11 Against detraction, and rash iudging. 13 To remember alvvaies the vncertenti• of our life.
1From whence are wars and contentions among you? Are they not hence, from your concupiscences, which war in your members?E donde le guerre, e le liti tra di voi, se non di qui: dalle vostre concupiscenze, le quali militano nelle vostre membra?FROM vvhence are vvarres & contentions among you? Are they not hereof? of your concupiscences vvhich vvarre in your members?Unde bella et lites in vobis ? nonne hinc: ex concupiscentiis vestris, quæ militant in membris vestris ? 2You covet, and have not: you kill and envy and cannot obtain. You contend and war, and you have not: because you ask not.Desiderate, e non avete: uccidete, e zelate: e non vi riesce di conseguire: litigate, e fate guerra: e non ottenete l'intento, perché non domandate.You couet: and haue not, you kil, & enuie: and can not obtaine, you contend and vvarre: and you haue not, because you aske not.concupiscitis, et non habetis: occiditis, et zelatis: et non potestis adipisci: litigatis, et belligeratis, et non habetis, propter quod non postulatis. 3You ask and receive not: because you ask amiss, that you may consume it on your concupiscences.Chiedete, e non ottenete: perché chiedete malamente onde spendere ne' vostri piaceri.You aske, and receiue not: because you aske amisse: that you may consume it on your cōcupiscences.Petitis, et non accipitis: eo quod male petatis: ut in concupiscentiis vestris insumatis. 4Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world becometh an enemy of God.Adulteri, e non sapete voi che l'amicizia di questo mondo è nimistà con Dio? Chiunque pertanto vorrà esser amico di questo mondo, vien costituito nemico di Dio.Aduouterers, know you not that the frendship of this vvorld, is the enemie of God? Vvhosoeuer therfore vvil be a frende of this vvorld: is made an enemie of God.Adulteri, nescitis quia amicitia hujus mundi inimica est Dei ? quicumque ergo voluerit amicus esse sæculi hujus, inimicus Dei constituitur. 5Or do you think that the scripture saith in vain: To envy doth the spirit covet which dwelleth in you?Credete forse, che invano dica la scrittura: lo spirito, che abita in voi, vi ama con amor geloso?Or do you thinke that the Scripture saieth in vaine: To enuie doth the spirit couet vvhich dvvelleth in you?An putatis quia inaniter Scriptura dicat: Ad invidiam concupiscit spiritus qui habitat in vobis ? 6But he giveth greater grace. Wherefore he saith: God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.Ed egli da una grazia maggiore. Per la qual cosa ella dice: Dio resiste a' superbi, e agli umili da la grazia.And giueth greater grace. For the which cause it saith, God resisteth the proud, & giueth grace to the humble.majorem autem dat gratiam. Propter quod dicit: Deus superbis resistit, humilibus autem dat gratiam.
7Be subject therefore to God. But resist the devil: and he will fly from you.Siate adunque soggetti a Dio, e resistete al diavolo, ed ei fuggirà da voi.Be subiect therfore to God, but resist the Deuil, and he vvil flee from you.Subditi ergo estote Deo, resistite autem diabolo, et fugiet a vobis. 8Draw nigh to God: and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded.Accostatevi a Dio, e a voi si accosterà. Mondate le mani, o peccatori: e purificate i cuori, o voi doppi di animo.Approche to God, & he vvil approche to you. Cleanse your handes, ye sinners: and purifie your hartes, ye double of minde.Appropinquate Deo, et appropinquabit vobis. Emundate manus, peccatores: et purificate corda, duplices animo. 9Be afflicted and mourn and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into sorrow.Affliggetevi, e siate in duolo, e piangete: il vostro riso si cangi in lutto, e il gaudio in mestizia.Be miserable, and mourne, & vveepe: let your laughter be turned into mourning: and ioy, into sorovv.Miseri estote, et lugete, et plorate: risus vester in luctum convertatur, et gaudium in mœrorem. 10Be humbled in the sight of the Lord: and he will exalt you.Umiliatevi nel cospetto del Signore, e vi esalterà.Be humbled in the sight of our lord, and he vvil exalt you.Humiliamini in conspectu Domini, et exaltabit vos. 11Detract not one another, my brethren. He that detracteth his brother, or he that judgeth his brother, detracteth the law and judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.Non dite male l'uno dell'altro, o fratelli. Chi parla male del fratello, o giudica il suo fratello, parla contro la legge, e giudica la legge. Che se giudichi la legge, non sei osservator della legge, ma giudice.Detracte not one frō an other my brethrē. He that detracteth from his brother, or he that iudgeth his brother, detracteth from the Law, and iudgeth the Law. But if thou iudge the Lavv, thou art not a doer of the Lavv, but a iudge.Nolite detrahere alterutrum fratres. Qui detrahit fratri, aut qui judicat fratrem suum, detrahit legi, et judicat legem. Si autem judicas legem, non es factor legis, sed judex. 12There is one lawgiver and judge, that is able to destroy and to deliver.Uno è il legislatore, ed il giudice, il quale può mandar in perdizione, e salvare.For there is one lavv-maker, and iudge that can destroy and deliuer.Unus est legislator et judex, qui potest perdere et liberare. 13But who art thou that judgest thy neighbour? Behold, now you that say: To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and there we will spend a year and will traffic and make our gain.Ma tu, che giudichi il prossimo, chi se' tu? Su via adesso voi, che dite: Oggi, o domane anderemo a quella città, e vi starem per un anno, e mercanteremo, e farem guadagno:But thou, vvhat art thou that iudgest thy neighbour? Behold novv you that say, To day or to morovv vve vvil goe into that citie, and there certes vvil spend a yere, and vvil traficke, and make our gaine (Tu autem quis es, qui judicas proximum ? Ecce nunc qui dicitis: Hodie, aut crastino ibimus in illam civitatem, et faciemus ibi quidem annum, et mercabimur, et lucrum faciemus:
14Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow.Voi, che non sapete quel, che sarà domane.vvho are ignorāt vvhat shal be on the morovv.qui ignoratis quid erit in crastino. 15For what is your life? It is a vapour which appeareth for a little while and afterwards shall vanish away. For that you should say: If the Lord will, and, If we shall live, we will do this or that.Imperocché che è la vostra vita? Ell'è un vapore, che per poco compare, e poi svanisce. In cambio di dire: se il Signore vorrà; e se sarem vivi, farem questa, o quella cosa.For vvhat is your life? It is a vapour appearing for a litle vvhile, and aftervvard it shal vanish avvay) for that you should say, If our Lord vvil: and, If vve shal liue, vve vvil doe this or that.Quæ est enim vita vestra ? vapor est ad modicum parens, et deinceps exterminabitur; pro eo ut dicatis: Si Dominus voluerit. Et: Si vixerimus, faciemus hoc, aut illud. 16But now you rejoice in your arrogancies. All such rejoicing is wicked.Ora poi vi vantate della vostra superbia. Ogni vantamento di tal fatta è malvagio.But novv you reioyce in your arrogancies. Al such reioycing, is vvicked.Nunc autem exsultatis in superbiis vestris. Omnis exsultatio talis, maligna est. 17To him therefore who knoweth to do good and doth it not, to him it is sin.Chi adunque conosce il bene, che dee fare, e noi fa, egli è in peccato.To one therfore knovving to doe good, and not doing it: to him it is sinne.Scienti igitur bonum facere, et non facienti, peccatum est illi.
4:1
Witham
Whence are wars[Ver. 1. Unde bella et lites? polemoi kai machai, as also in ver. 2, litigatis et belligeratis, machesthe, kai polemeite. I see no reason to translate it, by lawsuits and pleadings, as Mr. N.] and contentions, in all kinds, but from your lusts and disorderly passions, coveting to have and enjoy what you have not, as to pleasures, riches, honours, etc. (Witham)
4:2
Witham
You covet, and have not. Though God has promised that whosoever asks shall receive, (Matthew 7:8.) yet no wonder you receive not, because you ask amiss, by asking such temporal things as would be prejudicial to your soul, or because you ask not with humility, devotion, and perseverance. (Witham)
4:4
Witham
Adulterers: which is here taken in a figurative sense for those who love creatures more than God, the true spouse of their souls; who reflect not that the love and friendship of this world is an enemy to God, and the true manner of serving him. (Witham)
4:5
Witham
Do you think that the scripture saith in vain: To envy doth the spirit covet, which dwelleth in you?[Ver. 5. Ad invidiam concupiscit Spiritus, qui habitat in vobis: pros phthonon epipothei to pneuma o katokesen (habitavit) en umin. Ven. Bede expounds it, nunquid Spiritus Gratiae....hoc concupiscit ut invideatis alterutrum?] This verse is obscure, and differently expounded. By some, of an evil spirit in men, by which they covet and envy others for having what they have not. Others understand God's spirit inhabiting in them; and then it is an interrogation, and reprehension, as if he said: Doth God's spirit, which you have received, teach or excite you to covet and envy others, and not rather to love and wish their good? And to enable men to do this, God is not wanting, who gives us greater grace, especially to the humble that ask it, though he resists the proud. (Witham)
Calmet
It is not evident to what part of Scripture St. James here alludes, the exact words are nowhere in the sacred writings. That which seems the most like this text, and the most adapted to his subject, is a passage from Ezechiel, "I will set my jealousy against thee:" (Ezechiel 23:25.) that is I have loved thee with the love of jealousy, and I will revenge upon thee my slighted affections. (Calmet)
4:6
Calmet
But he giveth greater grace. The Holy Spirit which dwelleth in you, giveth you graces in proportion to your fidelity in complying with them, and according to your humility and the love which you bear to your neighbour. (Calmet)
St. James may also mean by these two verses, to exhort the Jews and Gentiles, who were rather jealous of each other, to nourish no jealousy against one another, nor be troubled at the blessing which their neighbour enjoyed from the bountiful hand of the Almighty. Then will God deal to us with a more liberal hand, and will bestow upon us greater graces in proportion as we lay aside all ill-will towards our neighbour. But that he will withhold his hand from the envious man, because he resists the proud, and gives his grace to the humble. Glory is the exclusive property of heaven; whoever, therefore assumes it to himself, makes God his enemy. There is nothing in man since his fall; there is nothing in holy writ which does not preach to us this truth.
Calmet
N. B.[Nota Bene, Note Well?] These last words, "God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble," are only in the Septuagint edition, Proverbs 3:34. The Hebrew and Vulgate read in this place, "He shall scorn the scorners, and to the meek he will give grace." (Calmet)
4:7
Witham
Be subject therefore to God; humble yourselves in his sight, considering your own nothing. (Witham)
4:8
Witham
Purify your heart from the love of creatures, so that your affections be not divided betwixt God and this world, like persons of two minds[Ver. 8. Duplices animo, dipsuchoi.] or two souls. (Witham)
4:9
Witham
Be afflicted[Ver. 9. Miseri estote, talaiporesate.] and mourn, and deplore your sins against his divine majesty; punish yourselves, and think not that a mere change of life is sufficient after so many sins committed. (Witham)
4:11
Witham
Detract not one another, (nor judge rashly) brethren. Though he spoke so much against the evils of the tongue, he gives them a special admonition against the vice of detraction, so common in the world, as also against rash judgments, which happen so frequently where there are dissensions and divisions. He that detracteth, judgeth, and rashly condemneth his brother, may be said to detract and judge the law, inasmuch as he seems to contemn and condemn the law, by which these sins are forbidden; when, instead of obeying and complying with the law, he rather takes upon himself to act as a judge,[Ver. 11. Parens....exterminabitur, phainomene, aphanizomene.] without fear of the law and of God, the only lawgiver, who is to judge all our actions, and who alone is able to destroy, or to free us and deliver us from the punishments we have deserved. (Witham)
4:13
Witham
To-day or to-morrow, etc. An admonition against that presumption, when persons forget the uncertainty of life, and the vanity of all things in this world, which vanish like a vapour, and can never be relied upon, so as to count upon years and the time to come. All things here appear and disappear in a moment. Take heed, therefore, not to glory or boast in your arrogancies; (ver. 16.) literally, pride; like the rich man, (Luke x.) who thought of nothing but a long and merry life, and was cut off that very night. And being now admonished, reflect that it is sinful to know what is good, what is your duty, and not to comply with it. (Witham)
4:15
Calmet
For what is your life? it is a vapour. We frequently meet with three beautiful comparisons in holy writ. "Remember that my life is but wind....As a cloud is consumed, and passeth away; so he that shall go down to hell, shall not come up." (Job 7:7, 9.) "Man is like to vanity, his days pass away like a shadow." (Psalm 143:4.) Similar expressions also frequently occur in profane authors. Nemo tam Divos habuit faventes Crastinum ut possit sibi polliceri. (Seneca) With reason then did our Saviour say, "Be you then also ready, for at what hour you think not, the Son of Man will come." (Luke 12:40.) (Calmet)
4:4
Concordance 1. Io. 2, 15.
4:6
The boldnes of Haeretikes adding here the vvord Scripture to the text thus, And the Scripture giueth greater grace.
Concordance Prou. 3, 35. 1 Pet. 5, 5.
4:8
8. Purifie your hartes.] Man (vve see here) maketh him self cleane and purgeth his owne hart. Mans vvorking vvith Gods grace, is no derogation therevnto. Vvhich derogateth nothing to the grace of God being the principal cause of the same. Yet Protestants thinke vve derogate from Christs Passion vvhen vve attribute such effects to our owne vvorkes, or to other secundarie helpes and causes.
Free vvil & mans owne endeuour necessarie in comming to God.
4:9
Concordance 1 Pet. 5, 6.
4:11
He forbiddeth detractiō, euil speaking, slaundering.
〈Greek〉
4:12
Concordance Ro. 14, 4.
4:15
Al promises and purposes of our worldly affaires are to be made vnder condition of Gods good liking & pleasure: and it becommeth a Christian man to haue vsually this forme of speache in that case, if God vvil, if God otherwise dispose not.
4:1
Pope St Clement I † AD 99 The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians 46
… Why are there strifes, and tumults, and divisions, and schisms, and wars
St Jerome † AD 420 Against the Pelagians 2
James iv. 1 . Wars arise from our lust. David indeed said,
4:3
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Homilies on 1 Timothy 1
… and why does God suffer the wicked to be prosperous?” We answer, Because the retribution, according to the desert of each, does not take place here, but is reserved for hereafter. Show me any such thing taking place Then! “Well,” say you, “give me here, and I do not look for hereafter.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 73.1
… But what is to be made of the words, “Whatsoever ye shall ask,” when we behold His faithful ones so often asking and not receiving? Is it, shall we say, for no other reason but that they ask amiss? For the Apostle James made this a ground of reproach when he said, “Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”
4:4
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 The Confessions 1.13
… I did not love Thee, and committed fornication against Thee; and those around me thus sinning cried, “Well done! Well done!” For the friendship of this world is fornication against Thee;
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 92.3
3. For He doth not so reproach as to insult her; but He would bring her to confusion of face to heal her. Vehement are the exclamations of Scripture, nor doth it deal softly by flattery with those whom it would by healing recover. “Ye adulterers, know ye not that the friend of this world is constituted the enemy of God?”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 79
… And as often as the name of the world is used in a bad sense, He is pointing only to the lovers of such a world; of whom it is elsewhere recorded, “Whosoever will be a friend of this world, becomes the enemy of God.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 101.2
… For by the name of the world the wickedness of this world may be understood; in other words, those who are the friends of this world. As the Apostle James says in his epistle, “Whosoever will be a friend of this world, is become the enemy of God;”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 92.10
… Beware of such enmities of God. For the Scripture revealeth some such secret enemies of God: that because thou knowest them not in thy heart, thou mayest know in God’s Scriptures, and beware of being found with them. James saith openly in his Epistle, “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?”
Pope St Gregory I the Great † AD 604 The Book of Pastoral Rule 3.30
… For what is weeping for sin but exhibiting the humility of one’s devotion to God ? And what is doing wickedly after weeping but putting in practice arrogant enmity against Him to whom entreaty has been made? This James attests, who says, Whosoever will be a friend of this world becomes the enemy of God (
4:6
Pope St Clement I † AD 99 The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians 30
… “For God,” saith [the Scripture], “resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”
St Ignatius of Antioch † AD 108 Epistle to the Ephesians: Shorter and Longer Versions 5
… if any one be not within the altar, he is deprived of the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two possesses such power, how much more that of the bishop and the whole Church! He, therefore, that does not assemble with the Church, has even by this manifested his pride, and condemned himself. For it is written, “God resisteth the proud.”
St Ignatius of Antioch † AD 108 Epistle to Hero, a Deacon of Antioch 5
Flee from haughtiness, “for the Lord resisteth the proud.”
St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 43.57
… This was the doing of the God of Saints, Who worketh and changeth all things for the best, who resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom 62
And that thou mayest learn in another way their vileness; who will be abased? He who has God for his ally, or he with whom God is at war? It is quite plain that it is he with whom He is at war. Hear then touching either of these what saith the Scripture. “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles 29
… vi. 10 ); and the Prophet, “If riches flow in, set not your heart upon them” ( Ps. lxii. 10 ); and many other like sayings. And from the histories thou hearest of Gehazi, Judas, the chief scribes, and that “gifts blind the eyes of the wise.” ( Exod. xxiii. 8 and Deut. xvi. 19 .) Is another proud? Let him hear that “God resisteth the proud” (
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Homilies on First Corinthians 1
[4.] But how shall a man find grace with God? How else, except by lowliness of mind? “For God, “saith one, (St.
St Jerome † AD 420 The Letters of St. Jerome 76.1
… of many sins and every day pray on bended knees, “Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions, yet because I know that it has been said by the Apostle “let a man not be lifted up with pride lest he fall into the condemnation of the devil,” and that it is written in another passage, “God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble,”
St Jerome † AD 420 Against the Pelagians 2
James iv. 6 . God giveth grace to the humble.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 The Confessions 4.15
26. But I pressed towards Thee, and was repelled by Thee that I might taste of death, for Thou “resistest the proud.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 The Confessions 7.9
13. And Thou, willing first to show me how Thou “resistest the proud, but givest grace unto the humble”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 The Confessions 10.36
59. The desire to be feared and loved of men, with no other view than that I may experience a joy therein which is no joy, is a miserable life, and unseemly ostentation. Hence especially it arises that we do not love Thee, nor devoutly fear Thee. And therefore dost Thou resist the proud, but givest grace unto the humble;
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Letters of St. Augustin 55.18
… When the soul finds pleasure from itself, it is not yet seeking delight in that which is unchangeable; and therefore it is still proud, because it is giving to itself the highest place, whereas God is higher. In such sin the soul is not left unpunished, for “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Letters of St. Augustin 93.49
… you are the persons in whom alone the Son of man when He cometh shall find faith, when on the earth He shall find no faith, forasmuch as you are not earth and on the earth, but heavenly and dwelling in heaven! Do you not fear, or do you not observe that “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble”?
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 City of God 1.pref
… For the King and Founder of this city of which we speak, has in Scripture uttered to His people a dictum of the divine law in these words: “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 City of God 11.33
… the one to whom it is said, “Praise ye Him, all His angels,” the other whose prince says, “All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me;” the one blazing with the holy love of God, the other reeking with the unclean lust of self-advancement. And since, as it is written, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble,”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 City of God 17.4
… By this poverty of His we are made rich; for “the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich.” But that we may know what this is, let us hear what follows: “He bringeth low and lifteth up;” and truly He humbles the proud and exalts the humble. Which we also read elsewhere, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 City of God 19.27
… Whence it is said, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Christian Doctrine 3.23
… For the sins of these men were recorded to this end, that men might everywhere and always tremble at that saying of the apostle: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” For there is hardly a page of Scripture on which it is not clearly written that God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Of Holy Virginity 34
… for this one I fear pride, for this so great good I am in alarm from the swelling of arrogance. The more there is in any one on account of which to be self-pleased, the more I fear, lest, by pleasing self, he please not Him, Who “resisteth the proud, but unto the humble giveth grace.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Of Holy Virginity 45
… Nay, let her not doubt to prefer this thing to that thing; yet let not this or that virgin, obeying and fearing God, dare to set herself before this or that woman, obeying and fearing God; otherwise she will not be humble, and “God resisteth the proud!”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter 20
Now why need I speak of what follows? For why it was that by this their impiety those men—I mean those who could have known the Creator through the creature—fell (since “God resisteth the proud”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter 66
… Men, however, ask why He does not do this; but they who raise the question consider not duly the fact that they are human. I am quite certain that, as nothing is impossible with God so also there is no iniquity with Him. Equally sure am I that He resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount 1.11
32. Perhaps, therefore, we are enjoined to yield to God, and to be well-disposed towards Him, in order that we may be reconciled to Him, from whom by sinning we have turned away, so that He can be called our adversary. For He is rightly called the adversary of those whom He resists, for “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble;”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 31.3
… “For God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 81.3
… Low grounds are filled, high grounds are dried up. Grace is rain. Why dost thou marvel then, if “God resist the proud, and giveth grace unto the lowly”?
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 54.1
… but some did not believe, and could not believe, because that, by the mysterious yet not unrighteous judgment of God, they had been blinded and hardened, because forsaken of Him who resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 19.8
… “The testimony of the Lord is sure, giving wisdom to babes.” “The testimony of the Lord is sure;” for, “no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him,” which things have been hidden from the wise and revealed to babes; for, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 68.10
… which seemeth to me more to approve itself. For much more in accordance with the context, grace itself is understood to be the voluntary rain, because with no preceding merits of works it is given gratis. “For if grace, no longer of works: otherwise grace no longer is grace.” …“But to humble men He giveth grace.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 86.13
… He who saith this. Whoever will be great among you, said the Lord, shall be your servant. If that man had wished to be the servant of his brethren, he would not have separated them from their mother: but when he wishes to be great, and wishes not to be small, as would be for his welfare, God, who resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble,
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 107.8
… 32 ). Let them exalt, let them praise, peoples and elders, merchants and pilots. For what hath He done in this assembly? What hath He established? Whence hath He rescued it? What hath He granted it? Even as He resisted the proud, and gave grace to the humble:
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 119.7
51. “The same is my comfort in my humiliation” ( ver. 50 ). Namely, that hope which is given to the humble, as the Scripture saith: “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 131.7
… But if ye continue in Catholic peace, if perchance ye are in anything otherwise minded than ye ought to be, God will reveal it to you, if ye be humble. Wherefore? Because “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace unto the humble.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 145.13
… but the wicked shall be weakened in evils.” When evils befall the wicked, they are weakened thereby; when evils befall the righteous, “the Lord strengtheneth all that are falling.”…“And lifteth up all those that have been cast down:” all, that is, who belong to him; for “God resisteth the proud.”
John Cassian † AD 435 The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 12.6
… how hard is that watchfulness even for those that are perfect, he did not so presume on his own efforts, but prayed to God and implored His help, that he might escape unwounded by the darts of this foe, saying, “Let not the foot of pride come to me,” for he feared and dreaded falling into that which is said of the proud, viz., “God resisteth the proud;”
Pope St Gregory I the Great † AD 604 Register of the Epistles of St. Gregory the Great 5.18
… But in this matter, even though our tongue protested not at all, the power of Him who in His own person peculiarly opposes the vice of pride is lifted up for vengeance against elation. For hence it is written, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble (
Pope St Gregory I the Great † AD 604 Register of the Epistles of St. Gregory the Great 5.20
… If therefore he be willing to hear me, he has a devoted brother. But, if he persists in pride, I already see what will follow:—that he will find Him as his adversary of whom it is written, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble (
Anonymous A Treatise Against the Heretic Novatian by an Anonymous Bishop 13
… I beseech thee, hast thou not read, “Boast not, and speak not loftily, and let not arrogancy proceed out of your mouth: for the Lord lifteth the poor from the earth; He raiseth up the beggar from the dunghill, and maketh him to sit with the mighty ones of the people?” Hast thou not read, that “the Lord resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble?”
4:7
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin 1.23
… as this writer has already suggested in reference to God’s grace, in that work which he addressed to a holy virgin, whom he mentions in the letter sent by him to Rome. For, after adducing the testimony of the Apostle James, in which he says, “Submit yourselves unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you,”
John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 7.8
… viz., that when evil thoughts assault him he does not immediately meet them with refusal and contradiction, for it says: “resist him, and he will flee from you.”
4:8
St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 42.26
… Paul, who was one of you, carry about in my body for my own profit, and which is the cause of my now leaving you. Farewell, my throne, envied and perilous height; farewell assembly of high priests, honoured by the dignity and age of its priests, and all ye others ministers of God round the holy table, drawing nigh to the God Who draws nigh to you.
John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 13.9
… not of works, that no man may boast?” What is this too which is said: “Draw near to the Lord, and He will draw near to you,”
4:9
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 86.23
… May God, who hath written this in your hearts, confirm it in your deeds. Ye see, brethren, that those who say unto you, Ye are happy, seduce you), “O My people, they that call you happy cause you to err, and disturb the way of your feet.” So also from the Epistle of the Apostle James: “Be afflicted, and mourn: let your laughter be turned to mourning.”
Theodoret of Cyrus † AD 458 Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus 2
Orth. —And rightly; for since the whole first man became subject to sin, and lost the impression of the Divine Image,
4:11
St Jerome † AD 420 Against the Pelagians 2
James iv. 11 . “Thou judgest the law,” that is, if you say that the condemnation of sins of ignorance is unreasonable. That we all sin in such ways is evident from
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 The Confessions 13.23
… because we submit our understanding unto it, and esteem as certain that even that which is shut up from our sight is rightly and truly spoken. For thus man, although now spiritual and renewed in the knowledge of God after His image that created him, ought yet to be the “doer of the law, not the judge.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on Grace and Free Will 4
… “That thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but of thine own will.” Servants also he advises to obey their masters “with a good will.” In strict accordance with this, James says: “Do not err, my beloved brethren . . . and have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect to persons;” and, “Do not speak evil one of another.”
John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 16.16
… And so it comes to pass that as we make up our minds that He has commanded things which are impossible and unsuitable, we become, to use the Apostle’s expression, “not doers but judges of the law.”
4:13
St Jerome † AD 420 The Letters of St. Jerome 133.7
… Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow: for what is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings; all such rejoicing is evil.”
4:14
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 The Confessions 1.13
… For the Latin I loved exceedingly—not what our first masters, but what the grammarians teach; for those primary lessons of reading, writing, and ciphering, I considered no less of a burden and a punishment than Greek. Yet whence was this unless from the sin and vanity of this life? for I was “but flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 74.1
… For the health of the body which was restored to this man, of how long duration was it? “For what is your life?” saith Holy Scripture; “it is a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 144.5
… And why should I say more than that which the Apostle James said, willing to bring down proud men to humility, “What is,” saith he, “your life? It is even a vapour, which appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”
4:15
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Reply to Faustus the Manichæan 21.5
… See here, lowest in the scale, the animals which fly, and swim, and walk, and creep. These are mortal creatures, whose life, as it is written, "is as a vapor which appeareth for a little time."
4:16
Theodoret of Cyrus † AD 458 The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret 1.24
… He only requires of men a pure mind and a spotless soul, and by these He weighs their deeds of virtue and piety. He is pleased with gentleness and modesty; He loves the meek , and hates those who excite contentions; He loves faith, chastises unbelief; He breaks all power of boasting
4:17
Origen † AD 254 Origen De Principiis 1.3.6
… And this is the meaning of the expression, that “men have no excuse for their sin,” viz., that, from the time the divine word or reason has begun to show them internally the difference between good and evil, they ought to avoid and guard against that which is wicked: “For to him who knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on Nature and Grace 68
… There is accordingly an easy refutation of the objection which our author says is alleged by some against him: “The devil opposes us.” This objection we also meet in entirely identical language with that which he uses in reply: “We must resist him, and he will flee. ‘Resist the devil,’ says the blessed apostle, ‘and he will flee from you.’
4:1
1. Whence come wars and quarrels among you? — The first Christians waged no wars, nor could they wage any, being few in number and subject to the Gentiles: he therefore calls quarrels, brawls and fights "wars," so that it is explanatory, as if to say "Wars," that is "quarrels." Thus Lyra. Secondly, "quarrels" can be understood of words, "wars" of blows; whence Thomas Anglicus: Quarrels, he says, pertain to litigants before a judge, while they wish to obtain their case through calumny, under the pretext of justice; wars pertain to the violent, who strive to vindicate something for themselves through violent injury. Thirdly, by wars understand fights and duels: for a duel is a war of two. Finally, James foresaw that after Constantine there would be wars among Christians, and he strives to eliminate them here. The sense therefore is, as if to say: In the preceding chapter I blamed envy and contentions, which stir up wars and quarrels, and I urged the pursuit of modesty, concord and peace: now I will point out their root more deeply with my finger, so that when they are cut off from you, the branches of this evil may likewise be cut off. Whence therefore and from what root do wars and quarrels arise among you? Surely from your concupiscences: for when many desire the same thing, and all cannot obtain it at the same time, each one strives, litigates and fights to obtain it and to claim it for himself. You wish to extend the boundaries of your field and dominion, you aspire to dignity, you seek office: you are resisted by others who strive to retain or obtain the same things; you are therefore incited to quarrel with them and to destroy them, and thus to obtain the thing you desire. All quarrels and wars therefore arise on account of mine and thine: take these two pronouns from the world, or at least from the minds of men, there will be no quarrels, no wars, says St. Chrysostom. Hence, as Virgil says in the twelfth book of the Aeneid: "A boundary set in the field, that it might settle disputes in the fields." Indeed, the ancient princes and tyrants were incited to wars by no other cause than ambition to extend their empire and desire for external riches. This is signified by the Hebrew rib, that is, quarrel: for it is derived from or alludes to rahab, that is, he was proud; and to rabab, that is, he multiplied. For from pride and desire of excelling, and of multiplying riches and honors, all quarrels and wars arise. Hear Sallust in the Conspiracy of Catiline: "One," he says, "and that an ancient cause of waging war, a deep desire for empire and riches"; and Tacitus in the fourth book of the Histories: "Gold and riches are the chief causes of wars"; and Lucan in the third book of the Pharsalia: "But the basest of things / You have stirred to contention, riches." and Ovid in the first book of the Metamorphoses: "And now harmful iron, and more harmful than iron gold / Had come forth, comes forth war, which fights with both." Furthermore, St. Augustine wisely says in the fourth book of the City of God: "To wage wars against neighbors, and from there to proceed to others, and to destroy peoples not troublesome to you by mere desire of dominion, what else should be called than great robbery?" Such were formerly the wars of Alexander, Nebuchadnezzar, Caesar, and throughout the kings of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Greeks and Romans. Whence, although Priscian thinks the word "war" is derived by antiphrasis, as if meaning not at all war, that is, beautiful; and Festus, as if meaning bestial and savage; yet others think it is derived from Belus, who was the first king of the Assyrians and began to seek out and subjugate neighbors by war. Moreover, Belus by his proper name was called Nimrod, whose tyranny is described in Genesis x. But called appellatively in Hebrew he was Bal, Baal, Bel and Belus, that is, lord, because he strove to rule over all. See the sayings at Genesis x, 10. Thus Cassiodorus in the first book of the Variae, epistle 30: "There were not," he says, "previously armed contests, but however fierce intention provoked itself with blows; whence also the fight received its name. Later Belus first brought forth the iron sword, from which it pleased to name war. A fierce conflict, a cruel protection, a savage contest. It should be charged as a crime that from this posterity could perish." Understand this after the flood; for before the flood giants were infamous for wars and slaughter, as Joseph testifies in the first book of the Antiquities, chapter xiii. Where he also thinks that the first who practiced the military art was Tubal Cain, who invented the art of working in all works of brass and iron, Genesis iv, 22. Joseph is followed by the Gloss. Is it not from this, — namely from concupiscences, as follows. From concupiscences (in Greek ἡδονῶν, that is, pleasures) of yours,—which namely you covet, that is, from concupiscences of riches namely of honours and delights: because although anger is in the irascible appetite, it nevertheless arises from the concupiscible appetite. For from the fact that it cannot obtain the thing coveted, it becomes angry, stirs up quarrels and wars. Moreover peace gave matter to concupiscence, concupiscence to war: whence in the time of persecutions there were no wars among Christians until Constantine, but peace being given by him to the Church, immediately in it the Arian bishops and princes began to stir up quarrels and wars; and soon the others. Whence truly St. Leo, sermon 6 on the Epiphany: "The terrors," he says, "of proscriptions the devil changes into the burning of avarice, and those whom he has not broken by losses, he corrupts by cupidity; he inflames with concupiscences those whom he cannot vex with torments." And Tertullian: "The toga has harmed the commonwealth more than the breastplate." For although quarrel and war justly undertaken in due manner is also lawful and holy for Christians, as St. Augustine teaches against Erasmus and the Anabaptists, Enchiridion LXXVIII, nevertheless it scarcely lacks sins, at least venial ones: for it is almost always undertaken from excessive love of earthly things. Moreover the desire for vengeance, envy, malevolence, pride, glory, etc., easily interpose themselves. Which make war in your members.—Although passions and concupiscences are in the soul and appetite, either concupiscible or irascible, nevertheless because these appetites have their seat and as it were pitch their camp in the members, and through them exert themselves, hence likewise concupiscences have their seat in the members, as anger in the bile, lust in the members destined for generation, sadness in the spleen, love in the liver, etc. Hence concupiscence is called by the Apostle the law of the members, Rom. vii, 23. Moreover concupiscences make war against the mind and spirit. For, as the Apostle says, Gal. v, 17: "The flesh, that is concupiscence, covets against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." These therefore are as it were two soldiers, or rather two commanders of war, who continually clash with each other, and lead their soldiers into battle, namely concupiscence leads forth all passions, sensations, imaginations and members; the spirit leads forth faith, hope, charity and all moral virtues, which contend with individual concupiscences, as Prudentius graphically describes in the Psychomachia, that is the battle of the soul. Finally these concupiscences in the members make war in such a way that they dominate as to sudden and undeliberate acts, which precede reason and freedom; but as to human acts, free and deliberate, they do not dominate: but both they themselves and the members are subject to the will and free choice, by which they are ruled not despotically, as a brute is ruled by man; but politically, as a citizen is ruled by a magistrate, to whom he can contradict and resist. Whence the Apostle exhorts the faithful already baptized and justified, Rom. vi, 12, saying: "Let not therefore sin (the fuel of sin, namely concupiscence) reign in your mortal body, so as to obey the concupiscences thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of iniquity to sin; but present yourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of justice to God: for sin shall not have dominion over you." See the things said there. Hence truly and wisely says Lawrence Justinian, book On Interior Conflict, chapter viii: "All discipline of Christian profession is not commended in doing miracles, not in foretelling the future, not in composed eloquence and explanation of scriptures, but in cutting away concupiscences. Let each one recognize in this spiritual contest how much he loves Christ." And St. Augustine, book On the Christian Contest, chapter ii: "There therefore," he says, "visible powers hostile to us are conquered, where visible cupidities are conquered. And therefore those of us who conquer in ourselves the cupidities of temporal things, it is necessary that in ourselves we also conquer him who reigns in man through these very cupidities. For when it was said to the devil: Thou shalt eat earth, it was said to the sinner: Thou art earth, and into earth thou shalt go. The sinner therefore was given as food to the devil. Let us not be earth, if we do not wish to be eaten by the serpent."
4:2
2. You desire, and have not. — He teaches that concupiscence, which stirs up quarrels and wars, is a restless evil, which torments the soul with an unceasing desire and thirst for things coveted, and never fills and satisfies it. Again, concupiscence stirs up quarrels and wars, so that one may claim for himself the thing coveted, but in vain: for the thing coveted is not to be obtained by arms, but is to be sought from God, the author and giver of all things. Concupiscence therefore stirs up nothing but tumults of angers and quarrels in the mind, and these are empty and fleeting; inasmuch as by them one cannot possess the desired thing, and rather brings upon himself anguish, fear and sorrows. "You desire" therefore "and have not." This can first be taken in the Hebrew manner for "because," as if to say: You desire, because you do not have that which you desire: by desiring therefore you signify that you are needy and miserable. Secondly, "and" can be taken simply as a copulative word, as if to say: "You desire," and yet "have not," do not obtain what you desire, and this first, because you often desire things that are alien and illicit, which you cannot acquire by right and law, and often by injury and wrong. Secondly, because concupiscence is insatiable; for when one has obtained what he coveted, immediately he covets another and another without end. We see this in merchants, who when they have gained a hundred, desire a thousand, then ten thousand, then a hundred thousand, then a million, etc., according to that saying: "The more waters are drunk, the more they are thirsted for"; and in the ambitious: for he who desires to be a senator, when he has obtained that, desires to be a governor, then a Count, then a Duke, then a Prince, then a King, then an Emperor. Thirdly, because concupiscence is unstable: for when one has obtained the thing coveted, he despises it, and covets another: thus the end of one concupiscence is the beginning of another, according to that in Lamentations i, 8: "Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore she is become unstable," where I have brought forward many causes of this instability. Seneca saw the same thing, in the book On the Happy Life, chapter vii: "Pleasure," he says, "is extinguished precisely when it most delights. Nor does it have much space: and so it quickly fills and becomes tedious, and after the first impulse it withers. Nor is that ever certain, whose nature is to be in motion. Thus there cannot be any substance of it, since it comes and passes most swiftly, destined to perish in the very use of itself. For it reaches the point where it ceases; and while it begins, it looks toward the end." The same, in book III of On Benefits, chapter iii: "Always occupied with new desires," he says, "we do not look at what we have, but at what we seek: not intent on what is, but on what is desired. Whatever is at home is vile." Therefore "you have not," because although you have, you do not think you have; and because you desire another thing, which you truly do not have. The one who desires therefore is like a chameleon, who lives on the wind of his desire, and does not enjoy the desired thing: and he is, as that one says, "a man of desires," but in a different sense than Daniel, chapter ix, verse 23. Fourthly, because the one who desires does not so much have the thing coveted, as is had and possessed by it as by a master, indeed a tyrant. Hear Seneca, in the book On the Happy Life, chapter xiv: "Moreover, pleasure does not have them, but they have pleasure, by the lack of which they are tormented, or by the abundance of which they are strangled. Wretched, if it abandons them; more wretched, if it overwhelms them. Just as those caught in the Syrtis sea, now are left on dry ground, now are tossed by a torrent of waves." And soon after: "As we hunt wild beasts with labor and danger, and the possession of those captured is also anxious; for often they maul their masters: thus those having great pleasures have fallen into great evil, and the captured have captured; and the more and greater these are, the smaller and more enslaved is he, whom the crowd calls happy, etc.; nor does he buy pleasures for himself, but sells himself to pleasures." Fifthly, because the life of the covetous is often almost entirely consumed in the pursuit of things coveted. "Some," says Seneca, in On the Brevity of Life, chapter xix, "while striving toward the summit of ambition, age leaves them struggling at the beginning. Some, when they have burst forth to the completion of dignity through a thousand indignities (others read indignities), a wretched thought comes upon them that they have labored for a title on their tomb. The old age of some, while it is disposed toward new hopes, as in youth, amid great and stubborn efforts, fails in weakness." James deals especially with this concupiscence of ambition here: for this stirs up for itself countless tumults, for others quarrels and wars. Sixth, because often the covetous man does not dare to use and enjoy the thing he covets; thus the miser heaps up riches, and lives sordidly, nor does he dare to spend them, lest he diminish them. The riches therefore which he has, he truly does not have, but keeps them for others to have. This is what the Wise Man says, Proverbs chapter thirteen, verse 7: "There is one that maketh himself rich, whereas he hath nothing; and there is one that maketh himself poor, whereas he hath great riches." Whence Democritus, as Hippocrates testifies, epistle 2 to Damagetus, laughed at the madness of men, in that while they do not have riches, they seek them; while they have them, they hide them; in that they pervert all things to their own cupidity; in that they are sick from all affections; in that they covet those things which bring sadness and harm; and therefore they are worse and more foolish than beasts, inasmuch as beasts contain themselves within sufficiency. Finally the Wise Man, Proverbs xxx, 15: "The leech," he says, "hath two daughters, saying: Bring, bring." The leech is a bloodsucker, which is named from adhering, according to that: "The leech that will not let go of the skin unless full of blood." Two daughters therefore are two mouths, by which the leech sucks blood. Symbolically the leech is concupiscence, especially avarice toward the poor, concerning which the Wise Man had spoken immediately before, which like a leech sucks the blood of the poor. This says: Bring gifts, that I may sell justice; bring donations, that I may sell grace, says Cajetan. But Bede: The leech, he says, is the devil, whose two daughters saying: "Bring, bring," are lust and avarice. But St. Bernard in the Declaration, at the beginning: "Of one's own will," he says, "the leech hath two insatiable daughters, crying out: Bring, bring. For neither is the mind ever satisfied by vanity, nor the body by pleasure." Flee this leech, and thou hast left all things. Truly Seneca, book VIII On Benefits, chapter twenty-six: "Behold," he says, "how the immense cupidities of men always gape and demand. Thou wilt not marvel that no one gives there, where no one receives enough." Ye kill. — The interpreter reads with the Syriac, Complutensian and Royal editions, φονεύετε, or φονεύετε. Others read φθονεῖτε, that is, ye envy. Thus Cajetan, Clarius, Vatable; for it does not seem that the faithful envied rivals so much as to kill them. But I answer that in so great a number of the faithful some burst forth into murders, as they burst forth into heresies and schisms: whose crime, though of few, James here exaggerates and as it were proposes as unworthy and to be execrated by all. Again "ye kill," in an imperfect act, but begun, that is, ye think to kill, ye plot slaughter. For envy and anger always grow, and finally burst forth into murders. Whence they are near, both in name and in fact and operation, φόνος καὶ φθόνος, that is, envy and murder. Orators are wont, when they assail a vice, to recount and exaggerate its extreme and gravest harms, though rare, so that they may impel their hearers more to hatred of the vice: thus James does here, especially because he writes also for posterity, whom he foresaw would commit murders from anger and envy, as we often see happen now. And ye are zealous. — First, "and" is the same as "because," as I said a little before, that is to say, Because ye envy, therefore ye kill; otherwise the discourse would diminish: for it is less evil to envy than to kill. Second, properly, that is to say, After ye have killed, ye proceed to envy others, nay to be zealous: for zeal signifies not any kind of envy, but vehement and keen envy, such as was in Cain the fratricide. Wherefore Eusebius, book XI On Preparation, chapter four, "Cain" from the Hebrew is interpreted envy and zeal, from the root קָנָא kana, that is, to be zealous (whence Simon the Apostle was called Chananaeus, that is, zealot), although his mother Eve called him Cain, that is, possession, from the root קָנָה kanah, that is, he possessed, saying: "I have gotten a man through God," Genesis iv, 1. Assuredly it signified that the love of possessing in Cain would cause envy, envy murder, nay even parricide. And ye cannot obtain, — that which ye covet and on account of which ye are zealous and ye kill. I have given the causes a little before. Ye fight and war. — Whether and how much a lawsuit differs from war, I said at the beginning of the chapter. Because (for the reason that; for in Greek it is διὰ τὸ μὴ αἰτεῖσθαι, that is, because) ye ask not. — It signifies the cause why they do not obtain the thing they covet, to be that they strive to seize it by lawsuits and arms unjustly, not however ask it of God, who alone is the giver of all things.
4:3
3. You ask, and you receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it in your concupiscences (in Greek ἡδοναῖς, that is, pleasures). — The Syriac version says, that you may spend, feed, pasture and nourish them. This is a response to an objection: for it meets the objection of the concupiscent and those saying: Behold, we have often asked from God the things which we desire, and we have not obtained them: therefore you admonish us in vain to ask them from God, not to seize them through quarrels and wars. St. James responds: You ask indeed, but you receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may abuse them against God for your lust. Hear Bede: "He asks amiss from God," he says, "first, who, despising the commandments of the Lord, desires heavenly benefits from the Lord. Secondly, who, having lost the love of heavenly things, seeks only to receive the lowest goods. Thirdly, and these not for the sustenance of human frailty, but for the abundance of free pleasure; which is to wish to consume in concupiscences." The manner of asking rightly is that which Christ teaches, Matthew vi, 33, saying: "Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you," namely those things which are necessary for life, not for concupiscence: for God gives only good and salutary things, not evil and harmful things, such as those by which concupiscence is satisfied. To those therefore who ask for such things, God completely closes his ears. For he hates those things, because they are base, and therefore cannot grant them; nor can a fountain of sweetness produce anything bitter, says Cyril, book IX on John, chapter xliii, and St. Augustine, tract. 73 on John, and from him St. Bernard, sermon Against the vice of ingratitude. Mercy, he says, is sometimes to withhold mercy, just as to show mercy in wrath and indignation, as it was with the Hebrews murmuring and asking for flesh, to give it to them: for soon the wrath and vengeance of God rose up against them, Psalm lxxvii, 30. Wherefore Cassian, Collation IX, chapter xxiii, teaches that riches, honors, delights, power, strength, etc., are not to be demanded from God. "For nothing perishable," he says, "nothing base, nothing temporal does the creator of eternities wish to be implored by him. And so whoever, passing over eternal petitions, shall prefer to ask from him something transitory and perishable, will inflict the greatest injury upon his magnificence and omnificence, and will incur the displeasure rather than the propitiation of his judge, by the baseness of his prayer." St. Gregory elegantly, homily 27 on the Gospel, explaining that saying of Christ, John xiv, "If you ask me any thing in my name": "The name," he says, "of the Son is Jesus: but Jesus is called Savior, or also Saving: he therefore asks in the name of the Savior, who asks that which pertains to true salvation, etc. Weigh, I beseech you, your petitions, see if you ask in the name of Jesus, that is if you ask for the joys of eternal salvation. In the house of Jesus you do not seek Jesus, if in the temple of eternity you pray importunately for temporal things. Behold, one in prayer seeks a wife, another asks for a farm, another demands a garment, another begs to be given food. And indeed when these are lacking, they are to be asked from almighty God; but we ought to remember that by the command of our same Redeemer we receive: Seek ye first the kingdom of God." He adds that some pray for things prohibited by God, such as vengeance and the death of an enemy, and says: "Whoever therefore prays thus, in his very prayers fights against God; whence also under the figure of Judas it is said: Let his prayer be turned into sin. But prayer turned into sin is that which asks for things which he himself who is asked prohibits." Chrysologus, sermon 132: "He who asks evil things from God," he says, "judges God to be evil and feels him to be the author of evil." The Gentiles sanctioned the same thing. Seneca, epistle 10, from Athenodorus: "Then," he says, "know that you are freed from all desires, when you shall have come to this, that you ask nothing from God except what you can ask openly. For now, what great madness of men! they whisper the basest vows to the gods; if anyone should put his ear near, they fall silent; and what they do not wish a man to know, they tell to God." And soon after: "Live thus with men, as if God sees: speak thus with God, as if men hear." And Juvenal, satire 10: "One should pray that the mind be sound in a sound body; / Ask for a brave spirit, lacking fear of death, / Who places the final span of life among the gifts / Of nature; who can bear whatever labors, / Does not know how to be angry, desires nothing..." The prayer of Plato was: "Jupiter, give us good things, whether we ask for them or not: but keep away evil things, even if we ask for them through error." For in this way we seem to wish to prescribe to God a law of wisdom and giving. But hear concerning Socrates from Valerius Maximus, book VII, chapter ii: "Socrates, as it were an earthly oracle of human wisdom, thought nothing further ought to be asked from the immortal gods than that they should bestow good things: because they alone would know what would be useful for each person: but we for the most part seek in our prayers that which it would have been better not to have obtained. For indeed, the mind of mortals, wrapped in the densest darkness, into which you scatter your blind prayers far and wide into the open error—why do you desire riches, which have been the ruin of many; why do you covet honors, which have destroyed many; why do you turn over kingdoms in your mind, whose outcomes are often seen to be miserable; why do you lay hands on splendid marriages, which, although they sometimes bring glory, sometimes utterly overturn houses? Cease therefore, O foolish one, to be eager for future causes of your evils as if for the happiest things, and commit yourself entirely to the judgment of the heavenly powers: because those who are accustomed to bestow good things easily are also able to choose the most fitting things.'" Wherefore God shows His mercy when He denies the harmful things which we ask for; but He shows His wrath when He grants and gives them. "God does not hear many according to their will, that He may hear them unto salvation," says Isidore, book III On the Highest Good, chapter vii; and St. Augustine, epistle 34 to Paulinus: "The Lord is good, who often does not give what we wish, that He may give what we would prefer." St. Bernard, sermon against the vice of ingratitude: "It is an act of mercy, in this matter, for God to withhold mercy." Finally St. Gregory, book XV of the Morals, xii: "It is a sign of greater wrath," he says, "when that is given which is wickedly desired, and from this sudden vengeance follows: for the more quickly an evil prayer is permitted to be fulfilled, the more swiftly it is punished"; just as God punished the Jews desiring flesh, when by giving it to them, He immediately sent upon them the plague of death as a punishment, Numbers xi, 33; and therefore the place was given the name, "Graves of Lust."
4:4
4. Adulterers. — The Greek texts add καὶ μοιχαλίδες, that is "and adulteresses": for he rebukes both women and men. You will say: To call someone an adulterer is a grave insult. I answer: It is an insult when it is hurled at someone to twist it into a reproach, to defame or dishonor him; but when it is cast at someone to correct and rebuke him, so that he may amend himself, it is correction and discipline, which proceeds from love, not from hatred and anger. Such is this rebuke of James, just as that of John the Baptist, Matt. iii, 7: "Generation of vipers"; and that of Christ, Luke, last chapter, verse 25: "O foolish and slow of heart to believe!"; and that of Paul, Gal. iii, 1: "O senseless Galatians"; and Acts xiii, 10, to Elymas the Magician: "O full of all guile and all deceit, thou child of the devil." For the hard must be rebuked harshly, as the Apostle commands Titus, cap. i, verse 13. For just as long and stubborn diseases are cured only by burning, cutting and cautery: so also the love of the world, namely the concupiscence innate in all, which men follow like brute beasts, can be cured only by sharp rebuke and long mortification, as it were by rubbing and cutting. Moreover, if it is permitted to parents and teachers to strike their sons and disciples with rods and blows, much more is it permitted to chastise them with sharper words; indeed, as St. Chrysostom says, homily 7 to the People: "Then especially are fathers, when they forbid their sons from the table, inflict blows upon them, and visit them with shame." You will ask, in what sense and with what truth does he call them "adulterers"? I answer: In the same sense in which idolaters are called adulterers by the Prophets, because namely, abandoning God, the spouse of their souls, they cleave to idols, as it were to adulterers; so these, abandoning God the spouse, cleaved to the world, as it were to an adulterer. For, as the Apostle says, II Cor. xi, 2: "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." Or, which amounts to the same thing, they are called adulterers because they shamefully turned to the embrace of worldly wisdom, spurning the heavenly wisdom, which St. James celebrated a little before: concerning which the Wise Man also says, cap. viii, verse 2: "I sought to take her for my spouse, and I became a lover of her beauty." Morally, learn here how much we ought to hate and flee the world, namely as an adulterer: therefore the love of the world is a spiritual and mystical adultery, which is so much more grave than carnal and literal adultery, as God, who is here despised, is more noble than the man to whom a wife pledges herself. Therefore, he who loves the world is truly an adulterer before God, and as an adulterer shall be punished. For all his loves are adulterous, which directly oppose the chaste love and charity of God, which is poured forth through the Holy Spirit into our hearts. This is what Jeremiah thunders forth, rebuking the idolatrous Synagogue, cap. iii, verse 2: "But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers." And Hosea, cap. ii, verse 2: "Judge your mother, judge her: for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her put away her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts." To this James alludes here; for the concupiscences, of which he treats here, are the mystical fornications and adulteries of the soul: hence those who obey them against God's law are to be called sons of the devil, whom they imitate and follow, rather than sons of God, says St. Irenaeus, lib. IV, cap. lxxix. Thus St. Gregory of Nazianzus in his Iambics, poem 3, calls riches "a harlot," because just as a harlot now flatters this lover, now that one, now another, and deceives and tricks them all, so also do riches. Secondly, others explain it thus: "Adulterers," that is, you appear to be spurious, degenerate and adulterous children; because you love and worship not God your father, but the world, an adulterer. Thus Paul says, Hebr. xii, 8: "But if you are without discipline, etc., therefore you are adulterers," in Greek νόθοι, that is adulterous and spurious, "and not sons." But the former sense is the genuine one: because in Greek it is μοιχοί, that is adulterers, not νόθοι, that is wild and spurious. Know ye not. — This word has emphasis and pierces sharply, as if to say: Do you not know, or do you not consider your sworn enemy, namely the world, or do you even think him a friend, who has made you enemies of your God? And indeed it is a marvelous ignorance, thoughtlessness and madness of men, that they follow and love the world with the eternal loss of God and heavenly goods. Because the friendship of this world is the enemy of God. — Some read more forcefully, "is enmity of God"; for if you read τὸ ἔχθρα with the Syriac accent on the penultimate syllable, it signifies "enmity": but if you read it with the accent grave ἐχθρά as is common elsewhere, it signifies "hostile." You will ask, what is "the friendship of the world"? First, some take it actively, that by which the world loves, cherishes and exalts the wicked; but truly hates, depresses and persecutes the good, John xv, 18. Secondly, others better understand "friendship of the world" passively, namely that the world is loved and cultivated by worldly men before God, indeed with God's law spurned. Whence James fittingly adds: "Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, is made an enemy of God." Friendship of the world therefore is that by which someone loves the goods of the world, namely riches, honors, delights, so that on account of these he violates God's law, or is prepared to violate it and mortally offend Him. Likewise that by which someone loves and cultivates worldly men, namely the proud, the rich, the powerful, so that in order to win or retain their favor he transgresses the precepts of God and the Church. That this is so is evident from the fact that those things which he called concupiscences a little before, he here calls the world. Whence St. John, explaining this passage of James with an antistrophic sense, in his first epistle, chapter ii, verse 15, says: "Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world." Truly Seneca, epistle 84, says: "Leave those things to which men run about; leave riches, the danger of those who possess them, or their burden; leave the pleasures of body and mind: they soften and enervate: leave ambition: it is a swollen thing, vain, windy, it has no limit: it is as anxious lest it see anyone before itself, as lest another come after it: it labors with envy, and indeed twofold: but you see how miserable he is, if he who is envied also envies. The path to the summit of dignity is rough." Wherefore Tertullian speaks Christianly and wisely: "In this world," he says, "nothing is of concern to us, except that we depart from it as soon as possible." And St. Cyprian, in the book On the Dress of Virgins, chapter ii: "Let Christians know that those goods are spiritual, divine, heavenly, which lead us to the Lord, which remain with us in perpetual possession before God. But whatever things are earthly, received in the world and remaining here with the world, ought to be despised as much as the world itself is despised, when we come to the Lord with better passage." The same, in the treatise On Mortality: "Moreover," he says, "since the world hates the Christian, why do you love it which hates you, and do you not rather follow Christ who redeemed you and loves you? Behold the world totters and falls, and testifies to its ruin not by the old age of things, but by its end, etc. It must be considered and repeatedly thought upon that we have renounced the world, and as guests and pilgrims dwell here for a time." See St. Ambrose, throughout the entire book On Flight from the World, who also in chapter 1 of On the Form of Life of the Virgin, urges with these words of James the virgin devoted to God, that she plainly flee the company of worldly people. And St. Gregory, homily 28 in the Gospel: "Behold," he says, "the world which is loved flees; these Saints (Nereus and Achilleus) at whose tomb we stand, trampled underfoot the flourishing world with contempt of mind. There was then long life, continuous health, abundance in things, fruitfulness in offspring, tranquility in peace: and yet when it flourished in itself, already in their hearts the world had withered. Behold now the world has withered in itself, and still it flourishes in our hearts. Everywhere death, everywhere mourning, everywhere desolation, we are struck from all sides, we are filled everywhere with bitternesses; and yet with blind mind of carnal concupiscence, we follow its very bitternesses, we follow it as it flees, we cling to it as it falls. And because we cannot retain it as it falls, we fall with it whom we hold as it falls." Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world (the world), is constituted an enemy of God. — Therefore God and the world are contrary and antagonistic, and mortal enemies; the love of God and the love of the world are opposed. Thus Didymus here: "Just as," he says, "it is impossible to serve God and mammon, so it is impossible to be a friend of God and of the world at the same time." And St. Augustine, book XIV of the City of God, chapter xxviii: "Two loves," he says, "have made two cities: the city of Jerusalem by the love of God, even unto the contempt of self; the city of Babylon by the love of self, even unto the contempt of God." Hence the Apostle, sounding the trumpet call to the love of Christ: "God forbid," he says, "that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world." See the words there; whom St. Ignatius followed as it were as a master, in his epistle to the Romans: "My love," he says, "is crucified." Wisely Richard of St. Victor, On the Degrees of Charity, chapter III: "The eye of the truly pious," he says, "is love, which fixes itself with no lust upon things conceded to human use, but in transitory things contemplates the eternal." Truly indeed Bede here: "All," he says, "lovers of the world, all seekers of trifles." St. Augustine (or whoever is the author), book On the Twelve Abuses, degree 7: "The love of the world," he says, "and the love of God cannot dwell together in one heart in the same way, just as the same eyes cannot look upon heaven and earth at the same time." St. Cyprian, epistle to Donatus: "The world smiles," he says, "that it may rage; it flatters, that it may deceive; it entices, that it may kill; it exalts, that it may cast down; by a certain usury of harm, the greater the sum of dignity and honors has been, the greater is the usury of punishments exacted." Finally, the type of the world was Sodom, full of all unspeakable crimes, which therefore the heavens struck with fire and consumed. Just as therefore Lot, following the angel, fled the burning of Sodom, so we, following the grace of God, should flee the dangers and fires of the world. Note: For "is constituted" the Greek is καθίσταται, that is, is plainly and firmly constituted, namely always and for all eternities, unless God in his mercy should catch up the lover of the world rushing into hell, and recall him to himself and to heaven. Thus Theodore the Archimandrite, while still a boy, moved and pierced by this teaching of James, despised the world and riches, as his Life relates; likewise St. Nicholas of Tolentino, having heard an Augustinian preacher discourse on that passage of St. John, First Epistle, chapter I: "Love not the world," spurned it and embraced the monastic life of the Order of St. Augustine.
4:5
5. Do you think? — In Greek ή, that is "or," and thus some Codices read it. But ή, that is "or," is often the same as "whether," as the Thesaurus of the Greek language teaches by many examples. Because Scripture says it in vain (uselessly, without cause). — What? Some answer, that which immediately preceded, namely that we should flee the friendship, laws and associations of the world, and seek the grace and friendship of God: for this the Prophets and other books of Sacred Scripture preach everywhere. Thus Bede. Others with Oecumenius will refer it to that which follows shortly after: "God resisteth the proud, but to the humble he giveth grace." But others generally refer it to that which immediately follows: "The spirit that dwelleth in you lusteth to envy," that is to say, God is zealous and as it were jealous of your soul, as of his spouse; whence he does not suffer a rival, namely the world: for to lust to envy is the same as to be jealous. For he who is jealous so lusts after the thing loved, that he envies it to any rival, and desires to possess it alone, nor suffers anyone to be admitted to a share in the love: but that God is zealous is written in Exodus xx, 5; Nahum, I, 2, and elsewhere. If you wish to prefer St. James, namely that this sentence recited by him is written precisely and in the terms of Scripture, I confess that I am ignorant where it is written, nor has anyone hitherto been able to point it out. Wherefore the punctuation, translation and exposition of Oecumenius seems new and forced. For he himself thus punctuates, translates and explains: "Do you think that Scripture says it in vain, or to envy?" that is to say, Do you think that Scripture delivers to us difficult precepts and those exceeding our strength concerning the hatred of the world and concupiscence, because it envies them to us? You err: for it does not do this in vain or from envy, but because the "spirit" in the accusative, that is the spirit, namely the right spirit, that is the good purpose and good will, it desires to stir up and dwell in you by its exhortation; when it shall find this working in us through spiritual modesty, it gives greater grace. For all the rest read and translate otherwise; except Francis Lucas, Annot. 594, who follows Oecumenius. Does the spirit that dwelleth in you lust to envy? — Thus by interrogation these Codices of Rome and many others read it: yet some remove the interrogation and read it assertively. Again, some refer the interrogation to the "do you think," others to the "the spirit lusteth." Now some understand by spirit the human spirit, but in various senses. First, some, that is to say, The spirit of man devoted to the world and coveting the things that are of the world, harms himself and his own salvation and as it were envies; but God imparts grace more abundantly than we ourselves desire. Second, that is to say, The human and worldly spirit impels us to covet things belonging to others, and to envy them to others. Thus Lyran, Hugo and Thomas the Englishman. Third, Emmanuel Sa, that is to say, The spirit of man lusts to envy, that is through envy, the goods of our neighbor. Fourth, others, that is to say, The spirit of zeal and fervor dwelling in us so lusts, that is, causes us to lust for virtue and holiness, that it stirs up in us a holy envy of equaling, nay even surpassing those who go before us in the study of virtue. But others everywhere here understand the divine Spirit and the Holy Spirit, and this is better. For to that alone belongs what follows: "But he giveth greater grace." First therefore Bede among other expositions brings forward this one, as if to say: Do you think that the divine Spirit excites us to concupiscence and envy? You err, if you think so: for he himself is the spirit of continence, charity and concord, and "giveth greater grace," than are the goods and grace of the world, which you covet: therefore it must be an evil spirit that incites you to coveting and envying. Second, the Gloss, as if to say: The Spirit of God desires and covets that we envy the world and pursue it with hatred. Third, Hugh, as if to say: The Spirit covets unto envy, that is, against envy, so that namely it, as it were the work of the devil, be taken away from the world. Fourth, our Justinian, as if to say: The Holy Spirit, with whom you were imbued in baptism, covets unto envy, that is, is so disposed toward you his worshippers and friends, and heaps such gifts upon you, that lovers of the world may deservedly envy you, according to that of Isaiah LXV, 13: "Behold my servants shall eat, and you shall be hungry. Behold my servants shall drink, and you shall be thirsty," etc. In this sense envy is given to the worldly, not to God, as happens in other expositions, which on that account seem rather harsh. For nowhere else in Scripture is envy attributed to God, nor can it properly be attributed. Fifth, aptly others, referring the interrogation to τὸ "the Spirit covets," expound it; as if to say: Do you think the Holy Spirit dwelling in you and governing you is jealous of you, and envies you the friendship of the world, which would be for your good, so that he alone may possess and enjoy your heart, as if from this great good accrues to him? as if to say: Far from it: but rather "he giveth greater grace" than either can be received or hoped for from the world; which however he denies to lovers of the world, as being contrary both to himself and to their own salvation. For which reason it is written: "God resisteth the proud, but to the humble he giveth grace." Thus Francis Titelmannus and Francis Lucas, Notat. 593. Sixth, Gagneius, Cajetan, Catharinus, Salmeron, Mariana and Corinus, referring the interrogation to τὸ "do you think," judge that more significantly and forcefully here envy is attributed anthropopathically to the Spirit of God, that is, jealousy, which is attributed to God by the Prophets and Apostles, II Cor. XI, 2; Exodus XX, 5; Jeremiah cap. II, and other places to be cited presently. For envy is sometimes taken in a good sense, as when we call the emulation of two in virtue, and contention in precedence, holy envy. Such also is that which envies vices and the vicious the riches and honors, which they themselves abuse against God for crimes. Such also is that of Pliny, lib. II, epist. ult.: "Why do you envy a good death, to which you could not give a good life?" Thus God envies the world, that it allures and destroys souls from God to itself, which is surely holy envy. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Do you think, O Christians, that it is in vain that God is called in the Scriptures jealous of you, and a hater of the world, and as it were envying you the possession of your heart, and coveting it "unto envy," that is with the envy of the world, or so that he envies it to the world? surely it is not in vain that he is so called. In reality he is jealous, impatient of a rival: he does not suffer us to love others besides himself, he does not bear us to love the world as adulterers. God therefore covets our heart like one jealous, and with great zeal affects it, and therefore grieves and as it were envies the world, that it allures souls espoused to God through its enticements to itself. James proves what he said, namely that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, from the fact that the Spirit of God so loves us, that he alone wishes to be loved, and does not suffer a rival. For he loves us as his most beloved spouses. Whence if we love another, namely the world, he is angry with us as adulterers. He therefore burns with love of us: if therefore at any time when we ask for something else he denies it, he does not do so because he envies us, seeing that he loves us even unto envy, but lest it harm us, and turn us away from his love to the love of the world. Note here immediately how great is the love of the divine Spirit toward us: namely, He loves us with burning zeal, and wishes to be loved by us with the same; and if He is not loved, He is indignant and rages like a bear robbed of her cubs rushing upon the robber, Hosea XIII, 8. Most excellently St. Augustine places this zeal in God from Scripture and defends it, in his book Against Adimantus, chapter XIII: "Remove," he says, "error and sorrow from zeal, what else will remain but the will guarding chastity and avenging conjugal corruption? By what word therefore could God's zeal be better conveyed? whereby we are called to marriage with God, and He does not wish us to be corrupted by base love; and He punishes our unchastity, and loves chastity. For it is not without reason that it is commonly said even among the people: He who does not show zeal does not love." This zeal of God therefore is holy, this holy jealousy. By a similar scheme and figure, indignation, vengeance, and fury against sinners are attributed to God, who prefer the world to God: for if you govern fury by reason, as God governs it, and exercise it for justice, it will be holy, and will be not so much the fury of vengeance as the rigor of justice. Thus also St. Jerome in Zephaniah I: "Unless God," he says, "loved the human soul, He would never show zeal for it, and would not avenge sin in the manner of a husband avenging love." Indeed, St. Paul himself, II Corinthians XI, 2: "I am jealous," he says, "over you with the jealousy of God: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." Wherefore it behooves us, with a similar step, though we cannot equal it, to meet this love of God, and to repay zeal with zeal in return, so that, drawing away our whole heart and all our love from the creatures of the world, we may direct them entirely upon Him alone with the full intensity and ardor of our soul. Thus did St. Agnes, who devoted herself entirely to Christ as her spouse, and therefore indignantly rejected a most noble young man seeking her marriage and promising and giving all things as it were a satellite of the devil with his gifts: "Depart," she said, "from me, incentive of sin, nourishment of crime, food of death. Depart from me, because I have already been anticipated by another lover, who has offered me far better ornaments than you, and has betrothed me with the ring of His faith, far nobler than you both in lineage and dignity. Whose generosity is more exalted, whose power stronger, whose appearance more beautiful, whose love sweeter and more elegant in every grace: whose Mother is a Virgin, whose Father knows not woman, whose beauty the Sun and Moon marvel at, by whose fragrance the dead are revived. To Him alone do I keep faith, to Him do I commit myself with all devotion. When I shall have loved Him, I am chaste; when I shall have touched Him, I am pure; when I shall have received Him, I am a virgin," as St. Ambrose relates, book IV, epistle 34. The same we must say to the world, to the flesh and to the devil, when they tempt us and strive to draw us away from Christ to themselves. Wherefore St. Agnes, appearing after her death to her parents with a choir of Virgins, shining in golden tunics and with great light, standing beside the Lamb whiter than snow, said to them: "Rejoice with me and congratulate me, because with all these I have received bright seats: I am joined in heaven to Him whom, placed on earth, I loved with all the intention of my soul." Thus St. Ambrose. Similar is the Bride in the Canticles, who everywhere breathes nothing but the ardor of love, languor, delights and zeal: "Strengthen," she says, "me with flowers, compass me about with apples, for I languish with love. Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, because love is strong as death, jealousy hard as hell; the lamps thereof are lamps of fire and of flames," Canticles VIII, 6, etc. And the Psalmist in the Epithalamium of Christ and the Church, or of the holy soul: "The Queen," he says, "stood on thy right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety. Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear, and forget thy people and thy father's house: and the King shall greatly desire thy beauty." Moreover Christ even unto agony and bloody sweat was zealous for us. For suffering and praying for us in the garden, he sweated copious blood from anguish not so much of pain as of love for us, and because he loves us greatly yet is loved little by us, indeed is hated by many. This his zeal for us he explains throughout the Prophets, as in Isaiah IX, 6: "A little child," he says, "is born to us, etc. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this." And cap. LIX, verse 17: "He is covered as with a cloak of zeal." Zechariah VIII, 2: "I have been zealous for Sion with great zeal, and with great indignation I have been zealous for her." Ezekiel XXXVI, 6: "Behold I in my zeal and in my fury have spoken, because you have borne the confusion of the nations." And verse 5: "In the fire of my zeal I have spoken against the rest of the nations." Psalm LXXVIII, 5: "Thy zeal shall be kindled like a fire." Wisdom I, 10: "The ear of jealousy heareth all things." Ezekiel XXIII, 25: "I will set my zeal upon thee." Zephaniah III, 8: "In the fire of my zeal all the earth shall be devoured." To these passages St. James here alludes. This zeal for God and in God's stead the guardian Angel of St. Cecilia showed. For she herself thus speaks of him to Valerian her spouse: "I wish you to know that I have an Angel of God as my friend, who guards my body with the greatest zeal. And if he shall have suspected even the least thing, that you touch me with unchaste love, he will immediately kindle his wrath upon you, and will destroy the flower of your youth; but if he shall have known that you hold me with simple and immaculate love, and guard my virginity whole and undefiled, he will love you as he loves me, and will show you his grace," as he indeed did, appearing visibly to him and making him a Christian, a virgin and a martyr. Moreover most piously and beautifully Chrysologus explains the most ardent zeal of the heavenly spouse Christ hanging on the cross, and kindly calling adulterous souls to himself, sermon 108: "He stretches out his limbs, he dilates his bowels, he extends his breast, he offers his bosom. Does he not say: See in me your body? and if you fear what is God's, why do you not love what is your own? if you flee the Lord, why do you not run back to your Parent? But perhaps the magnitude of my passion, which you wrought, confounds you? Do not. These nails do not fix pain in me, but fix your charity more deeply in me. My blood is not lost to me, but is prolonged for your ransom." Nor less elegantly does Bernard, both the charity of the Holy Spirit and of Christ, extol it, epistle 197: "O twofold and most firm proof of God's love toward us! Christ dies, and merits to be loved; the Spirit affects, and makes to be loved: he makes why he should be loved, this one that he should be loved: he commends his great love to us, this one both gives it: in him we see what we should love, from him we take whence we should love: therefore of charity from him the occasion, from this one the affection." Who dwelleth. — In Greek κατῴκησεν, that is "dwelleth," as if to say: Once in baptism the Spirit of God dwelt in you; but now in many of you he dwelleth not, because you have revolted from him and love the world: in the rest, however, who persevere in the grace of baptism, he still dwelleth.
4:6
6. But He giveth greater grace. — The Syriac version: "But the Lord our God giveth us more excellent grace," namely the Holy Spirit showeth the Spirit of God to be jealous, that is, to love us most ardently and as it were zealously and to desire us, from the fact that He giveth far greater grace, gifts and goods than the world, and than we deserve, so that He may turn us away from the love of the world, His rival, and invite and almost compel us to love Him. Therefore He is jealous of the world, because giving few things, it is much loved: but He Himself, giving infinite things, is loved little and scarcely by us. Again, He meets the objection of worldly men saying: The love of the world is so innate in us that we cannot cast it off. For He answers: God giveth greater grace than is the love of the world, so that through it you may easily overcome the love of the world and cast it out from your heart, if you will submit yourselves to the grace of God and strive to cooperate with it. For, as the Apostle saith, Philip. IV, 13: "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me"; and: "God is able to do all things more abundantly than we ask or understand," Ephes. III, 20. James alludeth to that passage of Exodus XX, 6: "Shewing mercy unto thousands to them that love me": as in the phrase "to jealousy desireth the spirit," he alluded to "I am the Lord thy God, strong and jealous." Ibid. vers. 5. Wherefore he saith (this verse is wanting in some Greek copies; whence the Zurich and Pagninus editions omit it. But the Roman and many other Greek and Latin copies read it. He proveth that the Spirit of God giveth greater grace to those who love Him, reverence Him, call upon Him, and wholly submit themselves to Him, from the fact that Scripture and the Holy Spirit saith): God resisteth the proud (who, despising God, follow the world and its honours and pomps) (or, as Cassian readeth, lib. XII Instit. cap. VI, "opposeth"; or, as Cyprian, epist. to Novatian, "resisteth against"; the Syriac, "depresseth, crusheth"), but giveth grace to the humble (who, despising the pomps and pride of the world, humbly submit themselves to the Spirit of God and obey in all things, and suffer themselves to be led and ruled by Him in all things). — Moreover the Holy Spirit saith this, Prov. III, 34; for there we read: "He shall mock the mockers, and to the meek He shall give grace." The Septuagint, which St. James here followeth after his manner, and St. Peter in his first epistle, cap. V, translate: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." For mockers are the proud, and the meek are the humble. All the hagiographic authors have antistrophes to this maxim of James, so that by so many consonant witnesses they may persuade us of this most true dogma, though obscure and difficult in practice. The first is David's, Psalm XVII, 28: "Thou wilt save the humble people, and wilt bring down the eyes of the proud." The second, Solomon's, Proverb. XXIX, 2 and 3: "Humility followeth the proud, and the humble in spirit shall receive glory." The third, Isaiah's, cap. II, vers. 12: "The day of the Lord shall be upon every one that is proud and arrogant." And cap. LXVI, 1: "To whom shall I have respect, but to the poor and contrite in spirit, and that trembleth at my words?" The fourth, Anna's, mother of Samuel: "The bow of the mighty is broken, and the weak are girded with strength. They that were full have hired themselves out for bread, and the hungry are filled, so that the barren hath borne many, and she that had many children is weakened." The fifth, Judith's, IX, 16: "Neither have the proud pleased thee from the beginning, but always the prayer of the humble and meek hath been pleasing to thee." The sixth, the Virgin Mother of God's: "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away," Luke I, 51. Let there be added a seventh, one of the Seventy interpreters of Holy Scripture, who, being asked by Ptolemy Philadelphia, king of Egypt, by what means one could beware of pride, answered: "If he consider that God depresseth the proud, but exalteth the meek and humble." Finally, all the pages of divine volumes breathe this sentence everywhere, saith St. Augustine, lib. III Doct. Christ., cap. XXIII. Wherefore fitly Isidore of Pelusium, lib. I, epist. 164, warneth Martyrius, saying: "God resisteth the proud: for He even opposed Himself to their very prince from the beginning. Consider therefore how great a thing it is to have God as an enemy and adversary, and the ancient enemy as a companion." There are many causes. The first, because as pride is the root of all sin and evil, Eccli. cap. X, vers. 15: so humility is the root and fountain of all good and virtue. The second, because the proud man is a swollen vessel full of the wind of arrogance, and therefore incapable of grace: but the humble man is a lowly and empty vessel, and therefore capable of grace and divine liquor. As therefore rain descendeth from hills into valleys, so grace raineth down from heaven into the humble. Third, because God is zealous for His glory: wherefore He casts down and prostrates the proud who ambitiously seek it into hell, but exalts the humble who adore it to grace and glory. Again, humility deserves to be enriched and exalted, pride to be despoiled and cast down. Just as a shadow flees from one who pursues it and pursues one who flees from it: so honor flees from the proud, who ambitiously pursue it; and follows the humble, who flee from it. Fourth, because grace is grace and is given freely, nor except freely, such as are the humble, who give thanks for it; not the proud, who attribute it to their own strength and merits. Fifth, because the sublimity and magnificence of kings, and especially of God, demands that saying of Virgil, Aeneid, book VI: "To spare the vanquished, and to war down the proud." Finally, humility is the virtue proper to Christ and to Christianity, according to that in Matthew XI, 29: "Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart"; thus St. Bernard, treatise On the Degrees of Humility. Whence humility is so powerful that it resists God, according to that: "He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood in the breach before Him." For the breaking of the heart is humility, the queen of virtues, which conquers God by its reverence, says Rupert, book IV on Exodus, chapter XXVI. Wherefore St. Chrysostom, homily 20 on the epistle to the Romans, says that pride is the height of folly and madness, nor is anything more mad in the proud. For what is more mad than to resist God, and to wish to wage war with God like giants? What is more mad than to willingly deprive and despoil oneself of the favor, grace and aid of God, on whom all things depend? What is more mad than to have not a man, not an angel, not a demon, but God as an antagonist and enemy, and to provoke to single combat Him who thunders and lightens against the proud? Whence St. Jerome, epistle 43: "What," he says, "must be the evil which has God as its adversary!" For the proud man by his arrogance as it were provokes God, and challenges Him to singular combat. Whence God the zealous accepts this, and says: This is my antagonist, this is my combat: here my strength is to be exercised, here a new Lucifer is to be trampled. Thus Cassian, book XII On the Institutes of Renunciation, chapter VII. Whence St. Ambrose, sermon 7 on Psalm CXVIII, speaking of pride: "What," he says, "can be worse than this sin, which began with an injury to God? and therefore Scripture says: God resisteth the proud, James IV, 6. As the repeller of His own affront, He has undertaken as it were a special combat against pride; as if He were to say: This is my adversary, who has provoked me; this contest is due to me." Wisely therefore St. Fulgentius, epistle 6, chapter IX: "Let," he says, "humility of mind grow in you, which is the true and complete sublimity of a Christian; and the more you see humility of heart abounding in you, so much the more will you know the grace of God to grow in you." And St. Augustine, sermon 16 On the Martyrs: "Do you seek height?" he says, "through the valley one reaches the mountain. Do you seek the seat of brightness? first drink the cup of humility." The same, sermon 3 On the Words of the Lord: "Christ was seized, beaten, crucified and slain. This is the way. Walk through humility, that you may reach eternity. God is Christ: the homeland is where we go; man is Christ: the way is by which we go. To Him we go, through Him we go. Why do we fear lest we err? He did not depart from the Father, and came to us: He sucked the breast, and held the world: He lay in a manger, and fed the angels—God man. The same man who is God, the same God who is man." The same, sermon 8 On the Epiphany: "The whole," he says, "discipline of Christian wisdom consists not in abundance of words, not in the subtlety of disputation, nor in the appetite for praise and glory, but in true and voluntary humility, which the Lord Jesus Christ chose and taught from the womb of His mother even to the punishment of the cross, for all strength." The same, epistle 65 to Dioscorus, teaches that there is no other way to truth than humility; and just as Demosthenes said that all the force of eloquence consists in delivery, so all the force of Christianity consists in humility. The Gentiles saw the same. Aesop, asked by Chilon "what God does," answered: Τὰ ταπεινὰ ὑψοῖ, τὰ ὑψηλὰ ταπεινοῖ, that is, He exalts the humble, He humbles the high; thus his Life has it. Artabanus, to dissuade Xerxes from his expedition against the Greeks, says that God strikes down tall trees, towers and mountains with lightning, but preserves and protects the humble; He overthrows great and proud camps with small forces, nor suffers any other to be high and wise besides Himself. Thus Herodian, book VII. Truly the Tragedian: "God the avenger follows the proud from behind." Moreover, St. Basil assigns these signs and effects of humility, in his oration 17 On Humility: "He who," he says, "is endowed with the greatest modesty, and who, when he is assailed with insults, confesses himself to be far inferior to what is said of him, his mind will never be shaken and disturbed by any insults: but if he is called poor, he knows himself to be poor, and in need of all things, and to have need of the daily provision of the Lord. And if he should be told that he is of ignoble birth and born in an obscure place, he has already perceived in his mind long before that he is formed from clay." And soon after: "There follows upon the humble mind a somewhat sad countenance and eyes cast down to the earth, neglected clothing, disheveled hair, filthy garments, yet in such a way that these things appear to happen by chance and accident, which those who mourn do deliberately."
4:7
7. Be subject therefore to God, — ὑποτάγητε, that is, subordinate yourselves; the Syriac version, "be servants": for the right order of nature demands that the creature be subordinate and serve its Creator. "Therefore serve God," so that you may obtain God's grace and friendship. For, as I have said, "God gives grace to the humble." Wherefore the Psalmist, Psalm LXI, 2: "Shall not my soul," he says, "be subject to God? for from him is my salvation. For he is my God, and my saviour, my protector, I shall be moved no more." Resist (ἀντίστητε, that is, stand against, oppose yourselves, resist; the Syriac version, "rise up against him") the devil, — who, as it were a king over all the children of pride, as Job says in chapter XLI, verse 25, urges you to pride and to seek after the pomps of the world. But we cannot resist a more severe and prolonged temptation without new aid of God's grace, as the Doctors teach from St. Augustine. Therefore above all things the grace of God must be invoked constantly, and when victory is obtained, we ought to ascribe it not to ourselves, but to God's strength. "For indeed, so that we may resist the devil and he may flee from us, therefore praying we say: Lead us not into temptation," says St. Augustine, On Nature and Grace, chapter LVIII. And he will flee from you. — If you resist a man attacking you, you do not thereby put him to flight and conquer him: but if you resist the devil, you put him to flight and conquer him. In your power therefore, and easy for you is victory over him: because, as St. Augustine says, homily 12, among 50, "The devil can persuade and solicit, but he cannot compel at all; and therefore when through God's help it is in your power whether you consent to the devil, why should you not obey God rather than him, so that therefore the brother of God cries out, St. James: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Thirdly, St. Chrysostom, discourse 3 On Lazarus, compares the devil to a dog, who stands by the table as long as something is thrown to him from it; but if nothing is thrown to him, and he is even driven away forcefully with a stick, he flees, and does not return rashly. The same, homily 22 to the People: "Pleasure," he says, "is like a dog: if you drive it away, it flees; if you feed it, it remains." Fourthly, the devil is like a soldier who pursues the fleeing more fiercely, as cowards and the unwarlike; thus St. Bernard, letter 1 to Robert, who had fled from Cluny to Citeaux: "Do you think," he says, "because you have fled from the battle line, that you have escaped the hands of the enemy? The adversary pursues you fleeing more willingly than he would endure you resisting; and he presses more boldly from behind than he would resist in front." Wherefore wisely St. Cyprian, sermon On Zeal and Envy: "The mind," he says, "ought always to be as ready to resist as the enemy is always ready to attack." Morally: St. Gregory notes in the Third Book of Morals, chapter VIII, that the devil, the more powerfully he is conquered, the more ardently he is incited to snares, so that he who is conquered by strength may conquer by snares and deceits. Whence Cassian, book V of the Institutes, chapter XIX, warns the athlete of Christ, that the more he has grown through the success of triumphs, the more robust an order of struggles he should expect to follow. Hence, just as foxes lie down as if dead, to allure and devour hens as if secure: so also the demon sometimes feigns himself as conquered and fleeing, so that he may attack man as if secure of victory, and suddenly cast him down: just as Horatius, one of three survivors, fleeing, killed the three Curiatii in turn, and thus secured dominion for the Romans over the Albans. And Antigonus, yielding to enemies, said he was not fleeing; but pursuing his advantage from behind, as Plutarch testifies in his Apophthegms. Finally, the devil harasses the holier more, and lays snares for them more, as those whom he sees to be more unlike himself and more like God, and whom he envies: for sinners, as it were like himself, he neglects, because he possesses them. Again, the demon once conquered and put to flight, returns again and again to tempt us, as he returned to Christ, Matthew IV, 5 and 8. If, however, he is repelled strongly and constantly, he does not return so easily and quickly to tempt us, at least not with the same kind of temptation, lest he be conquered again and put to shame. Whence St. Ambrose in chapter IV of Luke: "He is wont," he says, "to yield to true virtue, and although he does not cease to envy, yet he fears to press on: because he more frequently flees from being triumphed over." Wherefore St. Ignatius, our Father, in the Spiritual Exercises, compares the devil first to a wanton woman, who dominates and insults a timid man impotently, but fears a bold man and submits herself to him in silence. Secondly, St. Gregory, book V of the Morals, chapter XVII, and Olympiodorus, and others expounding that passage from Job chapter IV, verse 11, "The tiger perished, because he had no prey"; where for "tiger," the Septuagint translates μυρμηκολέων, that is "ant-lion": The devil, they say, is an ant-lion, who before the pious and steadfast who resist him is most timid like an ant; but before the impious and inconstant who yield to him, he presses upon them terrible as a lion. Thus also Theodore of Studium, epistle 68: "The devil," he says, "is timid, contemptible, unwarlike, and therefore is to be driven far away by a certain boldness of spirit, so that therefore the brother of God, St. James, cries out: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Furthermore the devil "attacks us through our own desires," says St. Basil, homily 23. And, as St. Ambrose says, book I On Cain and Abel, chapter V: "He delights the eyes, he soothes the ears, but he corrupts the mind; he lies much, he adds falsehoods, he removes truths; he promises money, he offers gold, but he takes away discipline." To this is added the cunning of the devil, that he attacks us in that part in which we are weaker; just as a commander attacks a fortress in that part in which it is weaker, says St. Gregory, XXXI Morals, XVII, or XXX in another numbering, who also adds: "The deceitful adversary strives to strike at once, both raging openly and lurking in ambushes, etc. For often he proposes a temptation concerning lust, and suddenly ceasing more fraudulently he suggests elation concerning preserved chastity. And there are some who, while they see many fallen from the fortress of chastity into the pit of elation, neglecting the chastity of their life, plunge themselves into the filth of lust. But on the other hand there are some who, while they flee the filth of lust, through the height of chastity rush into the abyss of elation." Wherefore we must always be watchful, and always prepared for combat, and resist temptation as soon as it is born; for, as he says in XXI Morals, VII: "If resistance is not hastily made to temptation being born in the heart, by the very delay with which it is nourished it is strengthened; and existing outwardly in deeds, he can scarcely be overcome who holds the mind captive within as the mistress of the members."
4:8
8. Draw near to God (not with the steps of the body, but with the steps of the heart and mind, that is, with affections), and He will draw near to you. — You will ask by what way we should draw near to God? I answer first, by withdrawing from the devil and resisting him, as has preceded: for God and the devil are two extremes most contrary to each other, and two enemies most hostile to each other: hence the more you withdraw from one, the more you approach the other opposite; thus Origen, book IV on the epistle to the Romans, chapter v: "War," he says, "against the devil prepares peace toward God; and then we draw near to Him when we resist the devil." On the contrary, the Apostles drew near to Christ, Peter saying: "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life," John vi, 69. Furthermore, not only sinners through mortal sin, but also the just through venial sins withdraw themselves in some measure from God, especially through lukewarmness and torpor, when they grow cold in good works and the study of making progress: but they draw near to God when they wash away their defects with tears, resume their fervor, diligently apply themselves to good works, and strive for perfection. Now because manifold negligence creeps upon us daily, hence we have need of its continual purification and the stirring up of the mind, as St. Leo teaches, sermon 8 and 11 On Lent. Note: God draws near to the penitent and to the just who are fervent through manifold operation and effect, which Thomas Anglicus assigns as fourfold. The first, he says, is the illumination of the mind with respect to things to be known, as when the blind man was illuminated by Jesus, Luke xviii, 40. The second is instruction with respect to things to be done, according to that in Deuteronomy chapter xxxiii, verse 3: "All the Saints are in his hand: and they that approach to his feet shall receive of his doctrine." The third is the recovery of divine grace, namely of justice, either the first or the increase of it. The fourth is the delight of internal joy, which is called a hymn to all the Saints of God, to the people drawing near to Him, Psalm cxlviii, verse 14. "Thou art good, O Lord, to the soul that seeketh thee, what then to the soul that findeth thee? Dost thou wish to be found that thou mayest be sought, to be sought that thou mayest be found," says St. Bernard, On the Love of God. And the Psalmist, Psalm LXXXIII: "Blessed is the man whose help is from thee, he hath disposed ascents in his heart, in the vale of tears, in the place which he hath set." Secondly, by humbling ourselves: for God giveth grace to the humble, as has preceded; thus St. Augustine, sermon 2 On the Ascension: "Behold, brethren," he says, "a great miracle. God is on high: thou liftest thyself up, and He fleeth from thee; thou humblest thyself, and He descendeth to thee. Why? because He is exalted and He regardeth the lowly, and the high things, that is, the proud, He knoweth from afar, that He may bring them low"; thus Hugh: By humility, he says, and good works we ought to draw near to God, "as to mercy, as the naked to the rich man, as the hungry to bread, as the sick to the physician, as servants to the master, as disciples to the teacher, as the blind to light, as the cold to fire." Thirdly, by purifying ourselves from sins through penance. Whence, as if explaining this, St. James adds: "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts"; for the more we withdraw from sin and impurity, the more we approach virtue, purity and God, according to that Psalm xxxiii, 15: "Depart from evil, and do good." Thus the Council of Trent, session VI, chapter VI, teaches that the sinner draws near to God through acts of faith, fear, hope, love, contrition and the purpose of a new life; according to that in Zechariah I, 3: "Turn ye to me, and I will turn to you." Thus the Magdalene, penitent, drew near to the feet of Jesus, washing them with tears, kissing and anointing them, Luke vii. Fourthly, by loving God and exercising works of charity. For love joins the lover to the beloved, indeed transforms him into him. Whence St. John, epistle 1, chapter IV, verse 16: "God," he says, "is charity, and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God and God in him"; and the Wise Man, Proverbs viii, 17: "I love them that love me, and they that watch for me in the morning shall find me"; and the Apostle, Romans viii, 35: "Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress?" etc. Truly love is a magnet: love draws love, as a magnet draws iron. Fifth, through prayer and the pursuit of perfection; thus Origen, homily 1 on Genesis: As, he says, the eyes of the body are not equally illuminated by the sun, but the more so the higher one ascends to higher places: so the mind, the more excellently it approaches Christ, the more clearly it is radiated by his light; according to that passage in Psalm 33:6: "Draw near to him, and you shall be enlightened." We properly approach God, however, when, as obedient servants, friends and sons, we offer ourselves and all that is ours to God as to the supreme lord of all, friend and father; and we say with the Psalmist: "But it is good for me to adhere to God," Psalm 72:28. On the other hand, God complains of some, saying in Isaiah 29:13: "This people draw near to me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from me"; and in Jeremiah chapter 9:2: "Thou art near to their mouth, and far from their reins." The Platonist philosopher Plotinus saw this in shadow, Ennead 6, book 9, chapter 7, when he says: "We must separate the soul from all external things as from burdens and obstacles, so that it may be illuminated by God. For just as prime matter must be empty of all forms, so that it may thus receive the forms of all things: so the human soul must be formless, so that it may be conveniently informed by God." Moreover, we approach God not by the pure powers of nature and free will, as if by these we prepare ourselves to receive God's grace: as the Semipelagians contended, making grace a handmaid of free will; but prevented and stirred up by God's grace. For this is the guide and principle of our conversion and access to God, as the Council of Trent defines it, session 6, chapter 5. And Christ himself, Apocalypse 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man shall hear my voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." And the Psalmist, Psalm 58:11: "His mercy shall prevent me." Christ himself asserts plainly in John chapter 6:44: "No man can come to me, except the Father, who sent me, draw him." Truly St. Jerome in chapter 2 to the Ephesians: "Without the blood (that is, the merit of the blood) of the Lord Jesus, no one approaches God." And he shall draw nigh to you. — Since God is everywhere, he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live, and move, and are, as the Apostle says, Acts 17:28. Therefore he does not approach anyone locally and substantially, but accidentally through grace, and causally through the operation of virtues. For just as the sinner through sin recedes from God and approaches the devil, death and hell: so the same person through penance and good works draws near to God. Thus Cain after killing his brother wandered and fled in exile from God, Genesis 4:12. And the prodigal son went into a far country, Luke 15:13. But, as St. Augustine rightly notes, book 4 of the Confessions, chapter 9: "He who loses God by abandoning him flees from him as placated to him as angry." Through imitation of the virtues of Christ and the Saints, who drew near to Christ most closely; for in these consists our approach to God: thus Bede and Anselm. Cleanse your hands — from all robbery, fighting, lust, gluttony and every sin. For by "hands" he understands by metonymy every external work: for this is done and perpetrated by hands; just as by "hearts" he understands internal work. "Hands" therefore signify external actions, heart internal affections, that is to say, Purify your hearts from every evil thought, scheming, and delight, and in turn your hands from every evil work, so that you neither do nor will anything evil. He alludes to Psalm 23:3: "Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord? The innocent in hands and clean of heart." Thus Paul commands those praying to lift up pure hands to God, 1 Timothy 2:8: see the remarks there. As a symbol of this matter priests and the faithful wash their hands before sacred communion, to testify that they repent of faults committed by their hands; for, as Bede says: "This is truly to draw near to the Lord, namely to have cleanness of work and simplicity of heart." And purify (the Syriac, "sanctify") your hearts, — your minds and souls. He says this first against the Jews, who placed all purification in external ceremonies, whereas Christ and Christianity place chief holiness in purity of heart and mind. Second, to teach how they ought to cleanse their hands, that is their works, namely by purifying their source and root, that is the heart. For, as Christ says: "From the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies: these are the things that defile a man," Matthew 15:19. Just as physicians cure external diseases of the members by purging the internal corrupt humours of the viscera which cause them: so the mind of the faithful must be purged, that the filth of the hands, that is, of works, flowing from it may be cleansed. Wherefore St. Paul, I Timothy I, 5: "The end," saith he, "of the commandment is charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned." Double-minded. — In the Psalms they are called "of a double heart," who hide one heart as it were in their viscera, and show another in their hands and works. In Greek δίψυχοι, that is "double-souled, inconstant," who now desire and will this, now that; whence the Syriac translator renders it "divided or doubtful in mind"; see the remarks on chapter I, verse 8. Excellently Gregory of Nyssa: "A simple mind," saith he, "and one of a single kind I call that which is intent on good alone, and is mixed with no communion of evil." And Cicero, in the book On Old Age: "The mind," saith he, "freed from all admixture of the body, desires to be pure and whole."
4:9
9. Be miserable — ταλαιπωρήσατε, that is "afflict yourselves," or "be afflicted," both through internal sorrow and compunction of mind; and through external afflictions of the body, such as fastings, prayers, lying on the ground. The Syriac version: "be made humble." He teaches that the manner of cleansing hands and hearts, and thus drawing near to God, is penance, compunction, affliction, by which we not only know and confess the miseries of our soul, but also bewail them, punish them, chastise them, root them out through punishments and miseries partly of this life patiently endured, partly voluntary and willingly undertaken. "Be miserable" therefore, first, by humbly acknowledging your misery; second, by bewailing and chastising the misery of guilt and sin; third, by patiently enduring the miseries of this life; fourth, by redeeming the miseries and torments of eternal hell through moderate and brief penances; fifth, by manfully enduring temptations and persecutions with Christ; sixth, by compassion for the calamities of others; seventh, by cheerfully passing through the labors of the present life to eternal joys; eighth, by sighing from the miseries of this pilgrimage and exile toward Christ and heaven. Whence Thomas the Englishman recounts eight miseries of this life, namely those of original sin, actual sin, innate fragility, worldly poverty, human persecution, diabolical temptation, eternal calamity, and salutary penance. We are therefore here in the valley of tears and miseries, and therefore we ought to have compassion on ourselves, to groan and bewail, according to that saying in Ecclesiastes VII, 5: "The heart of the wise is where there is mourning: and the heart of fools where there is mirth." Indeed, Seneca in his Consolation to Polybius says: "There is," he says, "abundant and constant matter for weeping everywhere. Tears will not fail us before cause for sorrow." For this reason Heraclitus always wept over his own misery and that of men; but Democritus, on the other hand, by perpetually laughing, mocked the foolish and stupid mirth and laughter of the same men in such great troubles. St. Bernard carefully gathers from the example of Christ, sermon 3 On the Nativity: "He is the little child once promised through Isaiah, knowing to reject evil and to choose good; evil therefore is bodily pleasure, good is affliction: since indeed he chooses this and rejects that." Now as to meriting pardon for sins, Nazianzen asserts emphatically, oration 18, page 490: "For God is not reconciled by anything so much as by bodily affliction." And the Blessed Virgin Mary affirmed to St. Elizabeth according to Bonaventure in the Life of Christ, chapter III: "Be assured that no grace descends into a soul except through prayer and affliction of the body." Sermon on the Mount. More blessed are those who mourn and bewail their own or others' sins. Thus St. Chrysostom, Ambrose, Hilary and Jerome in Matthew v. Most blessed are those who, on account of the sorrow of the struggle they have with the flesh, the world and the devil, and on account of their longing for the heavenly homeland and love of God and Christ, mourn their exile in this body. Thus the Nyssenus, oration 3 On the Beatitudes. Such a mourner was Paul, saying: "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Romans VII, 24; and: "Having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ," Philippians I, 23. See the sayings there. Such also was David, saying: "My tears have been my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God?" Psalm VI, 7. And Jeremiah throughout the Lamentations, and especially chapter II, verse 18: "Pour out," he says, "thy tears like a torrent day and night: give not rest to thyself, neither let the apple of thy eye cease." Such were the ancient Anchorites, whose mourning John Climacus recounts, step 7, where he defines holy mourning thus: "Mourning according to God is sorrow of soul, the affection of an afflicted heart, always most ardently seeking that which it thirsts for; when it does not obtain it, it pursues it with the greatest labor, and mourning after it, it wails." Then he assigns to this mourning both signs and effects. "It is proper to those who advance in blessed mourning to have continence and silence of lips. But to those who have already advanced, not to be angry and to forget all injuries. But to those who are perfect and complete, profound humility of soul, a hunger for ignominy, and a spontaneous craving for vexations coming unwillingly, not condemnation of sinners, but compassion beyond their strength." And soon after he gives the practice of mourning: "Stand in the prayer of supplication trembling, and stand before the judge in no other way, so that by both interior and exterior bearing you may win the favor of the just judge," etc. Among the ancient mourners St. Ephrem excelled, who is wholly given to compunction and lamentation, as is evident from all his works, and especially from his treatise On Compunction: "O virtue of tears," he says, "thou who art a medicinal workshop of sinners, through thee sinners are made blessed." And: "Lamentation wipes the soul with tears, renders it clean, cuts away pleasures and perfects virtues." And St. Bernard, sermon 16 in the Canticles: "I fear," he says, "hell; I tremble at the teeth of the infernal beast, and the belly of hell, at the roarings prepared for food; I shudder at the worm gnawing and the raging fire, the smoke and vapor, and sulphur and the spirit of tempests; I shudder at the outer darkness. Who will give water to my head and a fountain of tears to my eyes, that I may prevent weeping with weeping, and the gnashing of teeth?" And most pathetically St. Augustine in the Meditations, chapter XXXVI: "Give me," he says, "O Lord, the upper rain and the lower rain, that my tears may be bread to me day and night. Grant me this grace for thy sake, that as often as I think of thee, speak of thee, write of thee, as often as I remember thee, stand before thee, offer praises, prayers and sacrifice, I may weep wholly with tears arising in thy sight abundantly and sweetly, so that my tears may become bread to me day and night," etc. And St. Lawrence Justinian, in the Wood of Life, IX: "O humble tear!" he says, "thine is the power, thine the kingdom; thou fearest not the tribunal of the judge, thou imposest silence on the accusers of thy friends. What more? Thou conquerest the unconquerable, bindest the almighty, inclinest the Son of the Virgin, openest heaven, puttest to flight the devil." And mourn and weep. — The Syriac, אתאבלו etabbelu, that is, mourn like Abel, who having suffered persecution and been slain by Cain his brother bears a type of those who mourn, just as Cain bears a type of those who rejoice: whence Abel, Hebrew הבל Habel, signifies "vanity" or "lamentation" (from the root אבל aval, that is "he mourned." For the Hebrews often interchange ה with ר), says Origen, tract. 26 in Matthew, and St. Augustine, book XVIII On the City of God, chapter XV. The causes of lamentation are the eight miseries already recounted. Whence Bede thus explains it, as if to say: "Do not enrich yourselves and rejoice in this age, but mindful of the sins which you have committed, rather strive that through the brief miseries of this life, poverty, and transitory lamentation you may attain to the eternal joys of the heavenly kingdom." And St. Augustine on this passage of James: "Surely this region is one of scandals, and temptations, and all evils, so that we may groan here, and merit to rejoice there; to be troubled here, and comforted there, and to say: For thou hast delivered my eyes from tears, my feet from ruin, for I shall please the Lord in the land of the living; in the land of the dead labor, pain, fear, tribulation, groaning, sighing." It behooves Christians therefore in this life to have lamentation and sorrow, not laughter and joy; but they await that in heaven. On the other hand, the unfaithful and impious may rejoice here for a little while, but in hell they shall wail eternally, according to that saying of Christ: "Woe to you that laugh, for you shall weep," Luke VI, 25; and: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted," Matthew V. This holy lamentation therefore is opposed to laughter and those who laugh, and to joy and all abundance of happiness, to whom the world applauds as to the blessed, Christ threatens woe; He pronounces those who truly mourn blessed. Note here three degrees of this beatitude: For blessed indeed are they who patiently bear the sorrowful adversities sent or permitted by God, says St. Augustine. He returns to the sayings of verses 6 and 7, concerning humility; and because humility is the daughter of true lamentation, of which he treated in the preceding verse. "For he who weeps does not grow proud; he who mourns is humbled," says St. Ambrose, book V in Luke. For there are some who mourn falsely and fictitiously, namely those who while lamenting grow proud against their neighbor or God and murmur, says St. Gregory, book IX of the Morals, XIX, otherwise XXVIII. "Your laughter (by which you laughed in paganism, rejoicing in feasts, jests, foolish talk, buffoonery, and indulging in every base pleasure) shall be turned into mourning" of penance and of a graver and more austere Christian life; according to that saying of Christ: "The world shall rejoice; but you shall be made sorrowful; but your sorrow shall be turned into joy," etc., and: "your joy no one shall take from you," John XVI, 20; and that passage from the Apocalypse VII, 17: "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." And that from Psalm CXXV, verse 5: "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. They went out weeping, carrying their seeds: but they shall come home with rejoicing, carrying their sheaves." And that from Psalm CXXXVI, verse 1: "Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Sion." Where St. Augustine says in scattered remarks: "The rivers," he says, "of Babylon are all things which are loved here and pass away." Do you love honors, riches, delights? You love the rivers of Babylon, that is, of confusion, which pass by most swiftly like rivers. "Therefore the other citizens of holy Jerusalem, understanding their captivity, attend to human desires, and the various lusts of men snatching, dragging, and driving them hither and thither into the sea. They see these things, and do not cast themselves into the rivers of Babylon, but sit upon the rivers of Babylon. O holy Sion, where all things stand, and nothing flows! who has cast us down into this? Why have we abandoned your creator and your fellowship? Behold, placed among flowing and passing things, scarcely anyone snatched by the river, if he could hold to wood, would escape, etc. Sit upon the rivers, be not in the river, be not under the river, but nevertheless sit humbly. From there you ought to weep, remembering Sion. For many weep with Babylonian weeping, because they also rejoice with Babylonian joy: because they rejoice in gains, and weep at losses: both are of Babylon. You ought to weep, but remembering Sion. O that peace which we shall see with God! O that peace, and the holy equality of Angels! O that vision and beautiful spectacle! Behold, in Babylon beautiful things are which hold you, let them not hold you, let them not delight you. One is the consolation of captives, another the joy of the free." Namely, that to which the Psalmist sighs, Psalm LXXXIII, verse 1: "How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord." And joy into sorrow. — The Syriac [version], "into distress."
4:10
10. Be humbled in the sight of the Lord. — The Zurich [version] clearly, "humble yourselves"; the Syriac, "make yourselves humble before the Lord." James alludes to, indeed cites, that saying of Christ, Luke chapter XIV, verse 11: "Everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted"; just as Christ, humbling himself below all things, was exalted above all things, Philippians II, 8. For, as St. Augustine says, tract. 404 in John: "Humility is the merit of glory, glory is the reward of humility." Note "in the sight of the Lord," that is to say, First, be humbled not falsely, not outwardly, but sincerely and inwardly from your whole heart before the Lord, who beholds the heart. Second, that is to say, strive for profound and intimate humility: for this excels other virtues before the eyes of the strict judge, as St. Gregory says, in the place already cited. Third, that is to say, be humbled not only before men by prostrating yourselves, confessing yourselves sinners, kissing feet, but also before God by depressing the pride of the mind and trampling it; concerning which matter see Cassian, collation XIX, chapter XI, and St. Bernard, sermon 42 in the Song of Songs: "Humility," he says, "justifies us, not humiliation. How many are humiliated, and are not humble? Some are humiliated with rancor, others patiently, and others willingly. The first are guilty, the following are innocent, the last are just: although innocence too is a part of justice; but its consummation is in the humble one. But he who can say: It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, he is truly humble." Fourth, because true humility is nothing other than true and practical knowledge of oneself and of God, namely that a man know his own nothingness and the immensity of God. The truly humble one therefore does not regard men, but God: for considering himself in the eyes of God, and seeing himself to be an abyss of nothingness, ignorance, sins and vices, he casts himself down most deeply before God: and if he has anything good, he acknowledges it as freely given to him by God, and refers all of it to Him. Thus St. Francis spent whole nights saying nothing else, meditating on nothing else than: "Who art thou, O Lord? Who am I? Thou art an abyss of all good, I am an abyss of all evil and nothingness." Finally, the humble one, since he knows and reveres God, always thinks of God's presence, and does and speaks all things so humbly that he never offends the eyes of God beholding him, but pleases and delights Him. And he will exalt you — in heaven, and also in this life through grace, and often through fame and glory among men, especially after death, as if to say: Do not fear to devote yourselves to humility, as though it were to be a source of depression and disgrace to you. For this is a well-known error which occupies many men: for humility alone will exalt and honor you, and in such proportion and measure that in the degree to which you have humbled yourselves by descending, in that degree you will be exalted by ascending: as Christ ascended above all the heavens, because dying he descended to the lowest depths of hell. He himself promised this to his own, he who is eternal truth and immutable faithfulness, Luke XIV, 11. The first reason is, because exaltation is the fitting reward of humiliation. The second, because the humble supremely honor God: they therefore deserve in turn to be honored by him. Whence wisely Ecclesiasticus, cap. III, vers. 21: "As great as thou art," he says, "humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God: for great is the power of God alone, and he is honored by the humble." For the humble man sees and acknowledges both his own supreme worthlessness before God and God's supreme majesty. Third, because humility is a glorious thing, by which even pride itself desires to cloak itself, lest it appear base, says St. Bernard in the ninth degree of humility. I have given more reasons in verses 6 and 7. The antistrophe to this sentence of James is that of St. Peter I, cap. V, vers. 6: "Be you humbled under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in the time of visitation"; and that of the Wise Man: "Glory shall uphold the humble of spirit," Proverbs XXIX, 23, and Job XXII, 29. Thus the Virgin Mother of God, by reason of her humility, was made the Mother of God, and exalted above all the choirs of Angels. St. John became the Baptist of Christ, because he thought himself unworthy to loose the latchet of his shoe. St. Peter, judging himself as an unworthy sinner for the hospitality of Christ, became the Vicar of Christ, and the first of the Apostles and the head of the Church. St. Paul, feeling himself an abortion and the last of the Apostles, as he afterwards called himself, became a vessel of election. Wherefore deservedly St. Cyprian says in the book On Zeal and Envy: "There can be no contention among us for exaltation: from humility we grow to the highest things; we have learned whence we please." Our heavenly Master prepared this way for us, Mark cap. IX, 34: "If any man will be first, he shall be (that is, let him be, or become) last of all." St. Augustine confirms the same, serm. 213 On the Seasons: "Be small in thine own eyes, that thou mayest be great in the eyes of God." And St. Bernard, serm. 2 On the Ascension: "Humility alone is that which exalts, humility alone which leads to life: this is the way, and there is no other besides it." Note: This sentence of James and the following several are cited word for word by St. Clement, epistle 2 to James the brother of the Lord, and are attributed by him to St. Peter, not to James: whence those Epistles of Clement are not without scruple, as Bellarmine observes in On Ecclesiastical Writers, on Clement, especially because epistle 1 says that St. Peter was already dead; whereas it is certain that James to whom he writes was killed before St. Peter: wherefore it seems that the author of those Epistles thought James the brother of the Lord, and the first Bishop of Jerusalem to whom he writes, to be different from James the Apostle, the author of this Epistle, as I said in the Preface. The same Epistle five cites Plato saying that all things of friends ought to be common, even wives; nor does he refute this, although in the Vatican manuscript it is not found: whence it seems to have been inserted by some ignorant person, and transferred hither from lib. X of the Recognitions, where Clement cites the same and refutes it.
4:11
11. Do not detract from one another. — He passes from humility to detraction, as it were to the opposite vice. For the humble man esteems himself inferior and worse than all; hence he detracts from no one except himself: but the proud man detracts from others, so that he may appear greater and better than them, and thus he stirs up hatreds, quarrels and wars, which James censured in verse 1. Moreover, this vice of detraction is so prone and common that it occupies almost all houses and the faithful, even the pious, and so scarcely is there any conversation of some length into which it does not insert itself, "and so great a lust of this evil has invaded the minds of men, that even those who have withdrawn far from other vices fall into this one as it were into the final snare of the devil," says St. Jerome, epistle to Celantia. Moreover it happens in five ways; first, by imputing a false crime to another; second, by exaggerating a true one too much; third, by revealing a hidden one; fourth, by interpreting a good deed badly, or diminishing it, or praising it coldly; fifth, by keeping silent about virtues and praises, when he ought to reveal and recount them. This is a grave crime, because it deprives the neighbor of his reputation, which is better than riches and goods of fortune: hence it is greater than theft and next to homicide of the neighbor: indeed it flowing from hatred is spiritual homicide, says St. Peter in Clement, epistle 1 to James, because namely it kills the soul both of the one speaking and of the one listening, if he consents: and even of him from whom it is detracted, if it incites him in turn to hatred and detraction. Hence the detractor is called hateful and abominable to God, Prov. cap. VI, verses 16 and 17; Rom. I, 30. The reason is threefold. First, because it harms not only charity, but also justice, which we owe to our neighbor: for it takes away from him his reputation, which is a great good of his. Second, because it despises God's law forbidding this. For the law of Christ is: "Judge not, and you shall not be judged," Matt. VII, 1; and of Moses, Levit. XIX, 16: "Thou shalt not be a tale-bearer, nor a whisperer among the people"; and of the Wise Man, Prov. IV, 24: "Remove from thee a froward mouth, and let detracting lips be far from thee." Again the detractor and unjust censor unjustly usurps the judgment of God, whose alone it is to judge of the deeds and intentions of men, especially hidden ones. Third, because no one is without sin. When therefore someone judges and censures the sin of another, by this very fact he condemns his own, and judges himself worthy of similar censure. Add that the detractor perverts order: for he ought first to censure and amend his own vices, before he censures another's: he thus falls under that sentence of Christ spoken against the Pharisees: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," John VIII, 7. Meritedly therefore St. Augustine complains, serm. De Temp.: "The greatest," he says, "part of the human race is proved to be ready and prepared by indiscreet judgment to reprove, although yet it does not wish to be judged by others in the way it wishes to judge others." He thus violates that precept of nature and of Christ: "As you would that men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner," Luke VI, 31. And St. Jerome, epistle to Rusticus: "Detract from no one, nor think yourself holy in this if you lacerate others. We often accuse what we do, and against ourselves we speak eloquently in our vices, many judging of eloquent men." The same to Celantia: "This is indeed a vice which ought to be extinguished above all, and wholly excluded by those who wish to conduct themselves holily. For nothing so disturbs the mind, nothing is there which so makes the mind mobile and light, as easily to believe all, and to follow the words of detractors with rash assent of mind. Hence frequent dissensions, hence unjust hatreds are born. This is what often makes enemies even of the closest friends, while indeed concordant, but credulous souls are separated by a malicious tongue." St. Bernard, serm. De Simplici custodia, calls "the tongue of the detractor" "a viper and a lance, which penetrates with three blows at once. The sword indeed two-edged," he says, "nay three-edged is the tongue of the detractor." See the same, serm. 24 in Cantic. St. Chrysostom, hom. 3 ad Pop., says that the detractor ought to be avoided, just as we avoid those stirring up dung, which stir up nothing but stenches; according to that of the Wise Man: "Hedge in thy ears with thorns, hear not a wicked tongue," Ecclesiasticus XXVIII, 28. St. Francis, as St. Bonaventure says in his Life, book I, chapter VIII, "abhorred the vice of detraction, an enemy to the font of piety and grace, as a serpentine bite, and the most atrocious plague; and he affirmed it to be abominable to the most pious God, because the detractor feeds on the blood of souls, whom he kills with the sword of the tongue. So much greater," he said, "is the impiety of detractors than that of robbers, as the law of Christ, which is fulfilled in the observance of piety, binds us to desire the salvation of souls more than of bodies." Whosoever speaketh against his brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and judgeth the law,—and consequently judgeth God himself the legislator, that is, reproves and condemns him: thus Oecumenius. But in what sense? First, some expound it thus, i.e., The detractor condemns the law, because those whom the law sustains as sinners that they may repent, he immediately judges as deserving punishment, and cries out that they are worthy of torment. Second, St. Thomas, II II, Question LXXV, article 1, to 3: The detractor, he says, speaketh against the law, that is, he despises it. For just as he who keeps the law honors it: so he who transgresses it, as it were detracts from and defames it. Third and genuinely, i.e., The detractor judges the law in act, not signified but exercised: because not in word, but in deed he says the law was not rightly enacted, lest we detract from anyone, or lest we judge anyone. He judges therefore the law not by formal and explicit judgment, but by virtual and tacit judgment, because in reality and practically he judges it to be done by him here and now what the law forbids, namely to detract. Whence he seems to blemish, censure and render reprehensible the divine law, as if it had commanded impossible or incongruous things: thus Dionysius, Cajetan, Catharinus, Salmeron here, and Cassian, Collation XVI, chapter XVI. For the law says: Thou shalt not judge thy brother. On the contrary the detractor, knowing this law, in reality says: Nay verily, my brother is to be judged by me here and now. In judging therefore his brother, he judges the law forbidding this judgment of the brother, and tacitly reproves and condemns it, as if it had wrongly forbidden this. In like manner he who steals tacitly judges the law which says: Thou shalt not steal; but more properly he who judges his brother judges the law forbidding it, because he forms for himself a formal judgment about the brother, and formally judges concerning him against the law: which the thief does not do, who judges no one. Finally the detractor judges the law in terms, when he detracts from someone on account of works of virtue sanctioned or counseled by the law of the Gospel, and turns them into reproach and mockery: which then was frequent, as it is also now, so that while he calls the brother studying piety a hypocrite; while he calls him patiently enduring reproaches a coward; while he calls him silent a fool; while he calls him modest an idiot and simple; while he calls him giving all his goods to the poor a spendthrift, and withdrawing into a monastery mad. By this very thing indeed he condemns the works of virtue and sanctity which the law commends, and makes them vices: he therefore enacts a new law contrary to the law of God, but his law is a law of vices: God's law is a law of virtues. Thus Oecumenius, Lyra, Hugh and Gagneius. Wherefore St. Bernard wisely admonishes, sermon 40 in the Canticles: "Beware," he says, "of being a curious investigator or rash judge of another's conduct, even if you discover something done wrongly: nor judge thy neighbor thus, but rather excuse him. Excuse the intention, if thou canst not excuse the deed; suppose ignorance, suppose deception, suppose accident. If the certainty of the matter refuses all dissimulation whatsoever, nevertheless persuade thyself, and say to thyself: The temptation was too vehement. What would it have done to me, if it had received in me a like power?"
4:12
12. There is one lawgiver and judge, — namely God and Christ, or God made man: therefore leave judgment to Him, nor arrogate it to yourself, as if to say: When you judge your brother, you judge the law and the lawgiver, and you sin against Him in two ways: first, because you tacitly reprove His law; secondly, because you arrogate to yourself and usurp His judgment, when He alone is both lawgiver and judge of all, namely the first and supreme, from whom Moses, Abraham, Solomon and other kings and lawgivers, as His ministers as it were, received their force and power of making laws, according to that in Proverbs VIII, 15: "By me kings reign, and they that make laws decree just things: by me princes rule, and the mighty decree justice." Who is able to destroy and to deliver. — In Greek, σῶσαι καὶ ἀπολέσαι, that is "to save and to destroy," namely both in the present life and in the future and eternal life. So also the Syriac. James adds this in order to teach that it is not the part of men to judge their brethren, but of God, who will save and make blessed eternally those who are His and obedient to His law (who namely do not detract from, nor judge their brethren); but the disobedient, namely those who detract and judge their brethren, and therefore tacitly judge the law, and are injurious to the lawgiver Himself, He will destroy and condemn to hell, so that He may call all away from detraction and rash judgment by this hope and fear. Again, he meets the objection of the detractor who says: If I do not punish the sin and injury of my brother, it will remain unpunished. For he answers that it will not remain unpunished, but will be punished by God, as if to say: Since therefore your sinning brother has his judge and most severe avenger, let Him suffice you; do not judge him: but if He should wish to have mercy on him, and to convert and save him, you ought not to wish, nor are you able to destroy him. Thus Hugh. "The judgment of the tribunal of Christ is not the same as that of the corner of whisperers," says St. Jerome, epistle 39; and St. Ephrem, Paraenesis 4: "Let us not judge anyone," he says, "because we do not know his repentance: gold is often hidden in earthen vessels." The counterpart to this sentence of James is that of Paul to the Romans XIV, 4: "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own lord he standeth or falleth." And verse 10: "But thou, why judgest thou thy brother? or thou, why dost thou despise thy brother? for all we shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ."
4:13
13. But thou, who art thou that judgest thy neighbour? — "Who," that is, what manner of person, how rash and bold art thou, who, being a vile creature, and subject to like and often the same sins, darest nevertheless to judge thy brother in these things, and to usurp God's judgment concerning him. Thus saith David: "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that hath reproached the armies of the living God?" 1 Kings XVII, 26. Morally, note here how much detraction and rash judgment of one's neighbour is to be avoided. Wherefore in the Lives of the Fathers, lib. V, booklet IV, § 1, Abbot Moses saith: "A man ought," he says, "to be as it were dead to his companion, that is, to die to his friend, so that he may not judge him in any matter." And St. Antony saith: "Judge not before the time: for all things ought to be reserved to Christ, to whom alone hidden things are manifest, as judge. For the judgment of men is one thing, and the judgment of God another. Let each one examine and judge himself." Thus St. Athanasius in his Life. To Abbot Isaac, who had judged a certain sinner, an angel appeared saying: "Where dost thou command that I send that guilty brother, whom thou hast condemned?" Forthwith Isaac said: "I have sinned," he says, "forgive me." To whom the angel said: "Rise, God forgives thee; but see that thou judge no one henceforth before God hath judged him." Thus in the Lives of the Fathers, lib. V, booklet IX. In the same place another saith: "My sins are running after me, and I see them not; and have I come today to judge the sins of others." And another: "Whatsoever hour we cover the sin of our brother, God will cover ours also; and whatsoever hour we betray the faults of the brethren, God will likewise betray ours." Another: "Judge not the fornicator, if thou art chaste: for thou hast likewise broken the law. For he who said: Thou shalt not fornicate, said: Judge not." Another saw the grace, which was wont to descend visibly upon a holy man in the celebration of the Eucharist, depart from him; and when he admonished him concerning this, and he acknowledged the fault of detraction and did penance, the grace was seen to return to him. But most of all ought that august sentence and promise of Christ to deter all from judging rashly, Matthew VII, 1: "Judge not, and you shall not be judged; condemn not, and you shall not be condemned." Memory-worthy is the example which St. Anastasius of Sinai, Bishop of Antioch in the time of St. Gregory (whose Pastoral he translated from Latin into Greek), writeth in his discourse on the Divine Synaxis, and from him Baronius, tom. VII, in the year of Christ 599: "A certain," he saith, "monk, who had lived most negligently in the utmost idleness, when he fell ill unto death, not dreading it, departed from his bonds with the greatest pleasure and with great thanksgiving. To whom one of the Fathers sitting by said: Brother, we know that thou hast lived hitherto in the utmost negligence: whence then cometh to thee this great security? To whom he said: It is so, I have lived most negligently: but the angels of God have brought to me at this very hour a record of my sins; and when they had read those things which I had done after I had renounced the world, they asked whether I acknowledged them. To whom I said: Yea verily, I acknowledge them: but from the time that I renounced the world and established my life in the monastic way, I have neither judged any one, nor have I wished to remember any injury done to me by any one. Therefore I desire and pray that the words of the Lord pertain also to me, who said: Judge not, and you shall not be judged; and: Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. When I had said these things to the angels, they tore up the record of my sins; and hence now I depart with the greatest joy and security to the Lord." When that brother had related this to the Fathers, he gave up his spirit to the Lord in peace." I have reviewed more at Jeremiah XXXVII, 17. Behold, — ἄγε. Which word is a note of transition, and beginneth a new discourse and matter, as if to say: Come, see your prudence, pride and folly, which I demonstrate to you. Whence verse 16, concluding, he saith: "All such exultation is evil." You who say: Today or tomorrow we will go into that city. — This sentence seems disconnected from the preceding one: for the ancients taught their ethical doctrines through disconnected maxims, as is evident in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. However, the Roman codices connect these with the preceding verse in the same sentence, as if these pertain to rash judgment, that is to say: Who are you that judge your brother? Namely, you are a free man, headlong, inconsiderate, who promises yourself a long and unrestrained life; nor do you think that death impends over you; in which you will render to God the judge an exact account of rash judgment and all sins. But be it so connected; nevertheless this is a general sentence, as Bede notes, by which James censures the folly of many, who, intent upon gain and worldly business, think they will live long, and therefore dispose of the future at their pleasure, as if free and masters of life and time; nor do they think that all these things depend upon God's will, who has appointed to each a swift end of life and a certain day of death, who will cut off all these dispositions and hopes; concerning which that festive apologue of a rustic is celebrated, who carrying an amphora of milk to market was silently thinking to himself: I will sell my milk for so much, from the price I will buy a hen, which will bear chicks for me; I will raise them, and when they are grown I will sell them, from the price I will buy a piglet, which I will fatten and sell; and I will buy a calf, which I will feed and sell. What shall I do with so great a price? I will buy a horse for my son to ride upon, and becoming excited he began to leap and to express the appearance of his son exulting on the horse. Leaping up, he knocked the amphora from his head, and poured all the milk upon the ground, and with the milk he likewise poured out all his hopes, conceived plans and joys. Thus today many undertake great things, promise themselves great things, live like chameleons on the breath of the court, form for themselves the highest hopes, but chimerical ones; which either disease, or death, or some adverse chance overturns, and often cuts off at the very beginning. Namely, "The mind of men knows not the fate and future lot." An example of the rich man is found in Luke XII, 17, who applauding himself and saying: "What shall I do, because I have no room where to lay up the fruits of my harvest? And he said: This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and will build greater; and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods. And I will say to my soul: Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thy rest; eat, drink, and be merry." But on that same day he heard from God: "Fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and the things which thou hast provided, whose shall they be?" namely, of an heir often unmindful, ungrateful, and often unknown and uncertain. Note: These futures, "we will go, we will do, we will trade, we will make gain," can be taken as optatives, "let us go, let us do, let us trade, let us make gain," as Pagninus and the Zurich Bible translate them; for they signify not only their disposition concerning the future, but also (and this more so) their eagerness for gain, namely that they think of and seek not God, not heaven, but gain alone; whom St. Ambrose rightly pities, in the book On Naboth, XII: "You serve," he says, "O rich men, and indeed a wretched servitude, you who serve error, cupidity, avarice, which cannot be satisfied. Wealth is captive, poverty is free." And cap. XIV: "They are tossed about by the heat of their desires, and fluctuate as it were with a certain salt." For, as St. Chrysostom says, hom. 39 in Genesis: "The sea does not swell with waves as we see such a soul infested by thoughts and affections." And St. Gregory calls this plague the flies of Egypt inflicted by Moses: "For the fly," he says, "is an exceedingly insolent and restless animal, in which what else is designated than insolent cares of carnal desires?" Whence the Wise Man, censuring these, cap. XV, vers. 12: "They esteemed," he says, "our life a pastime; and the conversation of our life to be for gain, and that we must get money by all means, even by evil; whereas ill-gotten gains always bring loss, as Hesiod and Menander say. We will make a year there indeed. — St. Ignatius, founder of our Society, said to someone who said he would do something after some months: "Good God," he said, "do you think you will live so long?" to whom certain death impends, but on an uncertain day, and eternity. For what is a year of your life, but a ring which always rolls in a circle, until it runs through the number appointed to it by God? Hear Servius: Year, he says, is called as if "anus," that is "ring," because it returns into itself: "And the year rolls back upon its own footsteps." Or from ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀνανεοῦσθαι, that is, from renewal, because namely it is continually renewed and becomes different.
4:14
14. Who know not what shall be on the morrow. — It is a great presumption of men, that they dispose of the morrow so securely, as if the morrow were in their hand and dominion, when they know not whether they shall live on the morrow, have their possessions, enjoy liberty and health. Wisely therefore does the Wise Man admonish: "Glory not in the morrow, knowing not what a day that is coming (the morrow) shall bring forth," Prov. XXVII, 1; and the Psalmist: "Thou art my God, in thy hands are my lots, Hebrew, my times," Psalm. XXX, 13. And Christ, Matt. XXV, 13: "Watch ye, because ye know not the day nor the hour." Wherefore St. Gregory wisely admonishes, lib. IV Dial., cap. XLIX, that the devil ensnares men by promising them a long life, and gives an example of a certain man: "Who while he paid close attention to dreams," he says, "long stretches of this life were promised to him in a dream. And when he had gathered many monies for the stipends of a longer life, he died so suddenly that he left all untouched, and carried nothing of good work with him." Thus we see many deceived by Mathematicians, who while they falsely promise great honors, take away the fear of death: whereby it comes to pass that the credulous do not prepare themselves for death, because they expect the honors promised by them; and when death comes upon them, they are deprived not only of honors, but also of present life, and often of eternal life. Truly Pindar in the Nemean Odes, ode 8: "Vain hopes," he says, "have futile outcomes." The same in the Isthmian Odes, ode 3: "Time, while the days roll on, brings one change after another of things, but nevertheless the children of the gods are invulnerable"; and ode 5: "Mortal things." Wherefore Plutarch, lib. De Tranquill., teaches that the wise man should so moderate his life through prosperity and adversity, that he be not insolent in these, nor cast down in those: just as a musician tempers strings and pipes, of which some produce a high, others a low, others a middle sound, so that they produce a sweet harmony. 13. For what is your life, — that you should dare to dispose of it certainly for the morrow and the future? "What," that is, what kind and how small, namely how unstable, brief, frail and miserable it is. "You live as if you were always to live; the frailty of yourselves never occurs to you," says Seneca, De Brevit. vitae, cap. IV: "You fear all things as mortals. You desire all things as immortals." The same, epist. 124: "Nothing," he says, "can be conceived more imprudent or foolish, than if, having received a putrid body, we nevertheless propose eternal things to ourselves, and occupy our hope as far as human age can be extended." And soon after: "Therefore a great soul, conscious of a better life, indeed gives attention to conduct itself honestly and diligently in this station in which it is placed: but it judges nothing of those things which are around it to be its own; but uses them as a traveler and one in haste uses borrowed things." It is a vapor (that is, as it were a vapor, or similar to a vapor) appearing for a little while, and afterwards shall be made to vanish away. — The Greek ἀτμίς signifies first, "a vapor"; secondly, "a breath"; thirdly, "smoke"; fourthly, "an exhalation"; fifthly, "a thin breeze"; from ἀτμίζω, that is "I evaporate, I exhale, I expire." It alludes to that axiom and epiphonema, Eccles. cap. 1, vers. 1: "Vanity of vanities, and all things are vanity," for which Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion and all the others, except the Septuagint, as St. Jerome says there, translate, "vapor of vapors, and all things are vapor." For what is more vain than a vapor, which straightway thin vanishes into the air? Furthermore, vapor, says Aristotle, I Meteorol., cap. 1, is made when the moisture which is about the earth, evaporating from the rays and from another heat which is from above, is borne upward, where being cooled it is either resolved into dew and rain, or being compressed into snow, rain, ice and hail is densified and coalesces. Whence he calls this as it were a perennial river, which flows circularly upward, when it becomes vapor; and downward, when it is resolved into rain which falls upon the earth, from which the vapor ascends. Such a vapor is our life. First indeed, as vapor is driven by heat, ascends and subsists, but for a short time: so also our life subsists by heat, but for a short time, and is as it were a spark of fire, as the Wise Man says, cap. II, vers. 2. Secondly, just as vapor straightway is dispersed into the air and vanishes, so also our life. And this is what St. James properly intends here. Thirdly, just as vapor is so thin, tenuous and almost invisible, that it appears not so much a thing, as the shadow and image of a thing: so also our life, and indeed all created things with respect to uncreated and eternal being, namely God, is only a shadow; whence God's name is: "I am who am"; ours: "I am who am not," as I said at Exodus III, 14. Excellent Seneca, book XVII, epistle 102, after recounting the sudden death of Cornelius Senecius, who, wholly intent upon riches, was snatched away in the very rush of flowing money, adds: "Now plant, Meliboeus, pear trees, set out vines in order. How foolish it is to arrange one's life! We do not even control tomorrow. O what great madness it is to have long hopes for those beginning! I shall buy, I shall build, I shall lend, I shall exact, I shall hold office, then at last I shall consign my weary and full old age to leisure! All things, believe me, are uncertain even for the fortunate. No one ought to promise himself anything about the future; that very thing which is held in one's hands slips away, and chance strikes even the very hour which we press upon. Time rolls on by a fixed law indeed, but through obscurity. But what is it to me whether nature's course is certain, when it is uncertain to me? We propose long voyages and returns to our homeland after wandering strange shores, military service and the slow pay of camp labors, procuratorships and the advancement of offices through offices; when meanwhile death is at our side, which, because it is never thought of except as another's, examples of mortality are continually thrust upon us, not to remain longer than while we marvel at them." And soon after: "There is indeed a limit fixed for us, where inexorable necessity of the fates has fixed it; but none of us knows how near our limit hovers: thus therefore let us form our mind, as if we had come to the end: let us defer nothing, let us make each day equal to life. The greatest vice of life is that it is always unfinished, that it is deferred from one thing to another. He who has laid his hand upon the sum of his life each day does not need time. But from this need, fear is born, and desire of the future consuming the soul. Nothing is more wretched than those rolling in doubt as to where they will end up, how much remains, or what kind it will be. How shall we escape this rolling about? In one way, if our life does not jut forward, if it gathers itself into itself. For he is suspended from the future to whom the present is vain. But where whatever I owed myself has been paid back, where the established mind knows that there is no difference between a day and an age, whatever of future days and things shall come looks down from on high, and with much laughter thinks upon the series of times. For what variety and mobility of chances will disturb, if he be certain against uncertainties? Therefore, my Lucilius, hasten to live, and count each day a separate life. He who shall adapt himself in this way, to whom his life has been whole each day, is secure. To those living in hope, each approaching time slips away, and the greediness of time rushes in, and the most wretched fear of death, making all things most wretched. Hence that most shameful wish of Maecenas, by which he does not refuse weakness and deformity, and finally a sharp cross, provided that the spirit be prolonged amid these evils." Fourth, just as vapor is so weak that it is carried hither and thither by every even the smallest wind: so also our life is impelled and changed by the smallest thing. Whence St. Gregory in the Prologue to Psalm VI of Penitence says: "Laborious," he says, "is temporal life, lighter than fables, swifter than a runner, fluctuating in instability, wavering in weakness; to which there is no strength, no constancy of purpose, no rest from disturbances, no relief from labors. Who finally is there whom pain does not torment, whom anxiety does not press, whom fear does not undermine? Laughter follows weeping, joy accompanies sadness: satiety succeeds hunger, hunger again excludes satiety: in the night day is desired, in the day night is sought, in cold heat, in heat coolness: before food sighs, after food tribulation, angers, indignations agitate, and innumerable wretched human movements disturb." Fifth, just as vapor is dark and coalesces into a cloud, so also our life is full of ignorance, error, imprudence. Whence St. Gregory, book XXIII of the Morals, chapter XII, citing Isaiah, chapter XXVI: "The prophet," he says, "felt himself pressed by a certain darkness in order to see the Lord, saying: My soul hath desired thee in the night, that is to say, In this obscurity of present life, I desire to see thee; but still I am circumscribed by the cloud of weakness. David also, seeing the darkness of this night, awaiting the clarity of true light, says: In the morning I will stand before thee and will see." Sixth, just as vapor is confused, so also our life is confused and disturbed; and by the pious counsel of God, says St. Gregory, XXV Morals, chapter XV, "so that we may love the way for the sake of the homeland; lest, while the wayfarer delights in the way, he forget what he desired in the homeland." The same, book XXXI, chapter XVII: "The just man," he says, "sees his life mixed with goods and evils, and confuses his thoughts in some way with hope and fear." Seventh, just as vapor resolved into rain descends and returns to the earth from which it ascended by exhalation: so also our life and body, dissolved by sickness and death, return to the earth from which they were taken; whence Solomon concludes his discourse on the vanity of the world, which he had experienced more than others, thus in Ecclesiastes XII, 1: "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the time of affliction come, etc. And the dust return into its earth, whence it was, and the spirit return to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, and all things are vanity." Others, as I said, translate: "Vapor of vapors, and all things are vapor." Eighth, just as earthly vapor putrefies and is called "situs," as Aristotle says, lib. V De Gener. animalium, cap. IV: "Situs," he says, "is the decay of earthly vapor: for if vapor rising up congeals, it becomes frost; but if it putrefies, situs. Thus comedians call the situs of old age frost." Whence he infers: "You would rightly say that disease is accidental old age, and old age is natural disease." So also our life exhales vapors, both corporeal resolved into catarrhs, phlegms and flatus; and spiritual, namely carnal concupiscences, as it were vapors, and is corrupted and putrefies. Whence Avicenna and physicians teach that the air is purer in mountains, and therefore men living there have longer, healthier and more robust lives: but in valleys the air is more impure, on account of the continuous vapors ascending from it, and therefore the life of men dwelling in valleys is less long-lived, healthy and robust. In like manner in this vale of tears our life is brief, sickly and infirm on account of corporeal vapors by which the body, and spiritual vapors by which the soul is infected. But in the heavens, as it were in eternal mountains free from all vapor and exhalation, life is eternal, most healthy, most strong and most glorious. Furthermore, Holy Scripture, in order to represent to us the brevity, instability, slightness and misery of our life, uses various similitudes. First, it compares it to a moment, that is, to the inclination of a balance, whose scales continually rise and fall, Isaiah XL, 15. Second, to a drop of dew before dawn, which is immediately absorbed by the rising sun, as life is by fever or another disease, Wisdom IX, 13. Third, to smoke, Wisdom cap. II, 2: "Smoke is the breath in our nostrils, and a spark to move our heart, which being extinguished, our body shall be ashes, and our spirit shall be dispersed as soft air, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist that is driven away by the rays of the sun." Fourth, to a shadow: "For the time of our passing is a shadow." Ibid. Fifth, to a flower quickly withering and dry grass, Isaiah XL, 6: "All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field." See the sayings there. Job XIV, 1: "Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries; who cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed, and fleeth as a shadow, and never continueth in the same state." Sixth, to a drop and dust, Isaiah XL, 15: "Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket, etc. Behold the islands are as a small dust." Seventh, to nothing, ibid. vers. 17: "All nations are before him as nothing, and they are counted to him as nothing and empty." Eighth, to a palm, that is, a measure of four transverse fingers, Psalm XXXVIII, 6: "Thou hast made my days measurable"; in Hebrew טפחות tepachot, the Septuagint παλαιστάς, that is "palmar." Symmachus, "thou hast made my days a palm." Ninth, to a spider, Psalm LXXXIX, 10: "Our years shall be as a spider's meditation." The Greek ἀράχνη rather signifies "web" than "spider": just as therefore the web of a spider is swept away by a broom, so our life is swept away by a web, or disease. In Hebrew it is הגה hege, that is "meditation," or "the speech of one speaking," as St. Jerome translated it. But the Septuagint translates "spider"; because it itself is an animal to be meditated upon and as it were meditating. The Psalmist adds: "The days of our years in them are threescore and ten years: but if in the strong, fourscore years, and their labour and sorrow." Tenth, to an image and vanity, Psalm XXXVIII, 7: "All vanity is every man living: yet man passeth as an image, but also is troubled in vain." Eleventh, to wind, Job VII, 7: "Remember that my life is wind." Twelfth, to rain or a river, II Kings XIV, 14: "We all die, and like waters slip away into the earth, which return not." Thirteenth, to a messenger running, a ship ploughing the sea, a bird flying through the air, and an arrow sent forth, Wisdom cap. V, vers. 9 and seq. Go now, mortals, raise up families, titles, palaces, fortresses: do you believe yourselves eternal, you who will die tomorrow? Death will close the final act of your life: when you shall have come to the end of mortality, there will likewise be an end of honors and riches: ambition will depart, there will be no place for avarice, all desire will be silenced forever. Why therefore do you seek after fleeting things, which death will take away, nay, will extinguish? O the cares of men! O how much emptiness is in things! O how narrow are the bounds of mortals! O how narrow are the minds of mortals! You have been created for eternity: why do you live for so brief a time? Destined for heaven, why do you bend to the earth like moles? About to possess God, why do you yearn for the possession of the world? "What profit that the mind was drawn to the pole, what profit that the head was raised on high, if like beasts they wander through pathless ways, if they break the common pasture, the acorns?" says Claudian, III On the Rape of Proserpine. Acorns are delights, riches, honors, pomp: leave these to swine and beasts; seek the food of angels; strive for the nectar and ambrosia of Christ. The Gentiles cry out with one voice the same thing. Manilius, in book IV: "We are born dying, and the end hangs from the beginning." Martial, lib. I: "If you are wise, Colinus, use all your days, and always think the last is at hand." Seneca in Hercules Furious: "Live happily, life hastens in swift course, and with winged day the wheel of the swift year turns, etc. The Fates come in fixed order. To no one is it written to prolong the day, to no one is it allowed to cease at command: the urn receives the peoples in swift succession." Menander: "Man is the shadow of a dream." "Man," says the Philosopher, "is the sport of fortune, the spoil of time, the image of inconstancy, the example of weakness, the balance of envy and calamity, the remainder of phlegm and bile." Again: "Man is a bubble." Just as boys inflate shells full of soap and water, and raise trembling bubbles, which soon burst into thin air: so too all the ornament and honor of our life is a bubble, which soon vanishes into air. Do you seek a bride? You seek a bubble. Do you seek the delights of belly and lust? You seek a bubble. Do you seek a Canonry, a Bishopric, etc.? You seek a bubble. Horace, lib. IV Carm., ode 7: "We are dust and shadow." Homer in Plutarch in the Consolatory Oration: "What is the nature of leaves, such is also that of men"; for just as those are shaken by wind, so men are shaken by light adversity. Zeno: "Man is the mockery of God." "Daily," says Seneca, epist. 24, "we die, for daily some part of life is taken away, and even when we grow, life decreases; we have lost infancy, then childhood, then youth: whatever time has passed until yesterday has perished; this very day which we live, we share with death." The same, lib. VI Natur. quaest., cap. XXXII: "Time flows," he says, "and abandons those most greedy of it; nor is what is to come mine, nor what has been: I cling to a point of fleeting time." And epist. 99: "Nothing firm is in the weak, nothing fragile is eternal and unconquered; it is as necessary to perish as to lose." The same, epist. 59, teaches that our life does not consist, but flows continually. "None of us," he says, "is the same in old age as he was in youth: no one is in the morning who was yesterday: our bodies are swept along like rivers. Whatever you see runs with time: nothing of the things we see remains. I myself while speaking am changed, these things are changed. This is what Heraclitus says: We do not descend twice into the same river." I have reviewed more on this matter at Ezech. II, 1. For a short time appearing. — Appearing for a short time: in Greek φαινομένη, that is to say, this life is a vapor, which has no solidity, no substance and consistency as it were, but only a brief and short-lived appearance: just as specters which are in the air, and persons and masks which are represented in comedies, have scarcely any subsistence, but are merely apparent and fictitious things, which are therefore called by the Philosophers φαινόμενα, such as parhelia, or three apparent suns, gaps in the air, halos, colors of the rainbow, etc., concerning which Proclus in the Sphere, Aristotle in the Meteorology, and Aratus in the Phenomena: for these are made from the rays of the sun variously received, transmitted and reflected in vapor and cloud. Thus Augustus Caesar dying said that all the pomp of his life was a comedy now finished. Hear Suetonius in his Life, cap. XCIX: "Having admitted his friends, he asked whether it seemed to them that he had played the mime of life appropriately?" and he added also the conclusion: Δότε κρότον, καὶ πάντες ὑμεῖς μετὰ χαρᾶς κτυπήσατε, that is "give applause, and all of you clap with joy." For when the comedy is finished, the actors, bidding farewell to the spectators, say: "Farewell and applaud." And thereafter it shall be destroyed. — In Greek there is an elegant and emphatic paronomasia between φαινομένη, that is "appearing," and ἀφανιζομένη, that is "vanishing," as if he were to say: This life is like a vapor appearing and suddenly disappearing, so that no trace of it is seen, but it utterly vanishes and is destroyed: for this is what ἀφανίζεσθαι means; whence the Syriac translator renders it, "which quickly appears and is cast down and vanishes." Wisely St. Antony, according to St. Athanasius: "To trample upon sloth," he says, "let us recall the precepts of the Apostles, by which he testified that he died daily: similarly we also, turning over in our minds the uncertain life of human condition, shall not sin. For when aroused from sleep, we doubt whether we shall reach evening; and when we give our bodies to rest, we do not trust in the coming of light, and everywhere mindful of the uncertainty of nature and life, let us understand that we are governed by God's providence. In this way we shall not go astray, or be snatched away by some fragile desire; but we shall not even be angry with anyone, nor shall we desire to gather earthly treasures: rather, through fear of daily departure, and through constant meditation on the separation of the body, we shall trample upon all things perishable." Do you want examples? Pliny writes, book VII, chapter VII, and Valerius Maximus, book IX, chapter XII, that the poet Anacreon was strangled by a raisin persistently lodged in his throat, and the senator Fabius by a single hair crossing his throat in the drinking of milk. Chilon the Spartan, while embracing his son the victor at Olympia, breathed out his soul from joy in his son's embrace; Pliny says so, book VII, chapter XXXII. Sophocles, when announced as victor in the tragic contest, expired from joy, says Valerius, book IX, chapter XII. Clidemus, while being crowned victor with gold, suddenly died, says Tertullian, book On the Soul, chapter LII. Diagoras, when he saw three sons win and be crowned on the same day at Olympia, and they removed the crowns and placed them on their father's head, breathed out his soul, says Gellius, book III, chapter XV. Go now, mortals, who weave so fragile a web and warp of life, and promise yourselves the years of Nestor, you who are to die tomorrow. Wisely Tertullian, On the Soul, chapter LII: "There is also that force in ships," he says, "when far from rocks, assailed by no storms, shaken by no great waves, caressed by a favorable breeze, gliding smoothly, attended by a joyful company, suddenly struck by an internal blow, they sink with complete security. Not otherwise are the shipwrecks of even a tranquil life the outcome of death."
4:15
15. For this reason, that you may say (this refers back above to verse 13: "Behold now you who say: Today or tomorrow we will go into that city," etc., as if to say: You arrange your actions and gains as though you depended on no one, and therefore you say: We will go, we will buy, we will make a profit, when you ought to consider that life and all your acts depend on the will of God, and therefore you ought to add and say): If the Lord will; — so that by this saying you may confess God's providence, revere it, invoke it, and submit and commit yourselves and all that is yours to Him with humble and whole heart. For He Himself is your Elohim, that is, "Lord, creator, provider, governor, preserver, protector, judge and avenger." Thus in their decrees and purposes they are accustomed to add: "If God will," not only Christians, but also Jews, Gentiles and Saracens. Christians do so from the teaching of St. James here. Whence St. Augustine in Psalm XXXII, discourse 1: "Learn," he says, "to have in your heart what every man has on his tongue: what God wills. That very popular tongue is often a saving doctrine." Thus St. Paul, I Corinthians IV, 19: "I will come," he says, "to you quickly, if the Lord will"; and chapter XVI, verse 7: "I hope indeed to remain with you for some time, if the Lord permit"; Philippians II, 19: "I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you quickly." This therefore is the Christian voice, this is the Pauline voice: I will do this God willing, if the Lord will, permit, with God's help, by the grace of God, etc. Jews. As Judas Maccabaeus about to enter battle says: "As the will in heaven shall be, so let it be done," I Maccabees chapter III, verse 60. The same is the practice and manner of speech of other Jews, so that about to do something they say: "If God will"; whose origin from Ben Sira our Serarius relates here. Someone, he says, saying: "Tomorrow I will go to a wedding," was admonished by a friend to add: "If God will." But he: "Whether," he said, "God wills or does not will, I tomorrow with the bride will sit in my chamber": and he sat with her all day; but at night both died. When they found them dead, they said: "Truly Ben Sira spoke: The bride went up to the chamber, and knew not what would happen to her." Whoever therefore desires to do something successfully, let him first say: "God willing"; or: "If God will." Jeremiah speaks plainly, chapter X, verse 23: "I know," he says, "O Lord, that the way of man is not his, nor is it for a man to walk and direct his steps"; and chapter XVII, verse 7: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence"; and verse 14: "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for Thou art my praise." Gentiles. Socrates taught his Alcibiades to say before an undertaking: "If God will," says Plato in the Alcibiades. See Brissonius in Formulae, book I, page 57, where he shows that these words were familiar to Augustus, Cicero, Cato, Ennius, etc.: "If the Gods will, the Gods willing." Seneca, epistle 41: "God," he says, "is near to you, is with you, is within you. Thus I say, Lucilius, a sacred spirit sits within us, observer and guardian of our evils and goods: as he is treated by us, so he treats us: no good man exists without God. Can anyone rise above fortune unless aided by Him? He gives magnificent and right counsels." And below: "An excellent mind, moderate, passing over all things as lesser, laughing at whatever we fear and desire, is moved by heavenly power: so great a thing cannot stand without the aid of divinity." The same, book IV of Benefits, chapter VI: "Whence comes to you this spirit which you draw? Whence this light by which you arrange and order the acts of your life? Whence the blood, by the flow of which vital heat is maintained? Whence this palate of yours provoked by exquisite flavors beyond satiety? Whence these stimuli of already weary pleasure? Whence this rest in which you rot and waste away? Will you not, if grateful, say: — God made these leisure times for us. For He will always be God to me: His altar / Often a tender lamb from our flocks will stain: / He allows my herds to wander (as you see), and the very / Things I wished to play on the rustic pipe." The Saracens and Turks altogether depend upon God's will as if upon fate; and therefore they rush headlong into battles and dangers, blind and precipitate. For they are driven by this dilemma: Either God has determined that I die in this battle, that I be overwhelmed by this danger, or He has not: if He has determined it, I cannot escape; if He has not determined it, therefore I shall not die, I shall not be overwhelmed. For no good or evil can befall anyone unless God wills and sends it. But they reason fallaciously: for God determines many things only when foreseen by the free disposition of men, by their merit or demerit. Thus He did not determine that you die in battle unless you throw yourself into it; He did not determine that you be overwhelmed by danger unless you cast yourself into it willingly. But the Turks do not grasp this subtlety. Wherefore Suleiman the Emperor, when he had a rebellious son who was disturbing the government, and one of the princes consulted him that he should remove him from the midst as pernicious to the commonwealth, immediately ordered his head to be cut off before him, because he had not added: "If it please God thus"; for afterwards, following his counsel, he killed his son. Thus Father Salmeron relates it here. And if we live. — He acts against the proud and those who trust in themselves, not leaning upon God. To these he commands to be added: "And if we live"; so that mindful of their fragility and mortality, they may lay down their crests and profess that they and theirs depend upon God. For otherwise the faithful tacitly understand this in all their deliberation and purpose: but those who are more religious and modest add it expressly, following the example of the angel, who said to Abraham: "I will return to thee at this time, life accompanying," Genesis, chapter XVIII, verse 10. The Gentiles wished to admonish and represent this same thing when they devised the three Fates as presiding over the life and death of ours: of which one held the distaff wrapped in wool; another gradually drew the threads from the wool and wound them upon the distaff; the third finally, when the moment appointed by fate arrived, suddenly cut the threads and cut off life, according to that of the Poet: "Clotho holds the distaff, Lachesis spins, and Atropos cuts." Cicero, in book III of On the Nature of the Gods, makes the Fates daughters of Erebus and Night, and thinks them to be the same as fate. Whence comes that saying of Cleanthes: "The fates lead the willing, the unwilling they drag." And Virgil: "The Fates, in harmony with the stable divinity of fate." Scripture alludes to this from time to time, as Hezekiah, in Isaiah chapter XXXVIII, verse 12: "My life is cut off as by a weaver: whilst I was yet beginning, he cut me off." Ezekiel chapter XXXVII, verse 11: "Our hope is lost, and we are cut off." Where some translate, "our thread is lost, and we are cut off." Hence the first was called Clotho, from the office of winding around, because she holds all things twisted and coordinated: for κλώθω in Greek means the same as "I wind around, I wind into a ball, I twist." The second was called Lachesis, that is "allotment," from λαγχάνειν, that is "to allot," as if the spaces of life are allotted to men by lot; for this is she who draws the threads. Martial, book I, epigram 89: "When Lachesis has spun out my final years for me." We also find a trace of this name in sacred monuments. For where it is read in the Hebrew text, Psalm XXX, 16: "In thy hands are my times," the Septuagint rendered it, "In thy hands are my lots." The wisest men wished (as Agellius observes learnedly there) to correct the fables of the Fates and lead them to the true meaning. The Poets asserted that the spaces of life are allotted to each either by fate or happen to them by their own lot by chance; whence they called one of the Fates Lachesis, that is "allotment." The Septuagint refuted this falsehood and said that all allotment is in God's hand; from Him the spaces of life are given to mortals, by Him they are prolonged, by Him finally according to His eternal counsel and judgment they are ended, although these things seem to happen to men by allotment and as if by chance, because we cannot investigate the causes of such great variety hidden in the secret breast of divinity. The third Fate finally was called Atropos: rendered word for word "not to be turned," or, if you prefer it more in the Latin manner, "inexorable, implacable, inflexible"; because that fatal necessity of dying, when the appointed instant arrives, can in no way be bent or changed. Whence Martial, book III: "It has befallen no one to entreat the three wool-working maidens: they observe the day which they have appointed." Wherefore Seneca wisely says, epistle 61: "I strive," he says, "that each day be to me like a whole life: thus I regard it, as if it could be the last." More wisely St. Gregory, homily 12 in the Gospel: "He who promised pardon to the penitent," he says, "did not promise tomorrow to the sinner: therefore we ought always to fear the final day, which we can never foresee," according to that: "Believe every day has dawned as your last." Christ warned all, saying: "Watch ye therefore, because you know not what day nor what hour," Matthew chapter XXV, verse 13. Wherefore Seneca wisely says, epistle 61: "I strive," he says, "that each day be to me like a whole life: thus I regard it, as if it could be the last." More wisely St. Gregory, homily 12 in the Gospel: "He who promised pardon to the penitent," he says, "did not promise tomorrow to the sinner: therefore we ought always to fear the final day, which we can never foresee," according to that: "Believe every day has dawned as your last." Christ warned all, saying: "Watch ye therefore, because you know not what day nor what hour," Matthew chapter XXV, verse 13.
4:16
16. Now therefore you exult in your pride. — In Greek ἀλαζονείαις, that is, "in your boastings and arrogances," by which you boast that on this or that day you will do these and those things, will gain such great profits and gains. Secondly, the Gloss and Thomas Aquinas: "In pride," they say, that is, in riches which make men proud, and in which you are proud. "For pride is the worm of riches," says St. Augustine. For ἀλαζονεία is the boasting of men promising more than they are able to accomplish, as Ulpian says in his commentary on Demosthenes. Hence for "you exult" in Greek it is καυχᾶσθε; or, as others read it, κατακαυχᾶσθε, that is, "you glory against another," namely God, as if by your own strength you procure for yourselves so many riches. Socrates wittily mocked Alcibiades boasting of his estates, when he showed him a cosmographical map of Attica, and asked him to point out his lands on it: when he could not show them: "See," he said, "how small they are, which cannot be shown on so small a map." Thus Aelian, book III of Miscellaneous History. All such exultation (in Greek καύχησις, that is, "boasting") is evil, — suggested by the evil spirit, in Greek πονηρά, that is, "wicked, base is it."
4:17
17. To him that knoweth to do good and doth it not, to him it is sin. — St. James tacitly signifies that the faithful know these his admonitions, as if to say: I believe you know these things; wherefore I admonish you to fulfill them in deed. For he who knows the good which God and the law command, if he does not do it, sins, and will be guilty before God for punishment. Rightly St. Ephrem from this teaching concludes, sermon On Penance: If to him that knoweth good and doth it not it is sin; much more to him that knoweth evil and doth it, it will be sin. St. Bernard, sermon 36 on the Song of Songs: "To him that knoweth," he says, "good and doth it not, to him it is sin; as if by a similitude he should say: To him that taketh food and doth not digest it, it is harmful to him. For undigested food generates bad humours, and corrupts the body, does not nourish it: so also much knowledge poured into the stomach of the soul, which is memory, if it has not been digested by the fire of charity, and through certain faculties of the soul, namely morals and acts, transferred and distributed, etc., will be reckoned as sin, as food converted into noxious and depraved humours. Will not he who is such, knowing namely good and not doing it, endure swellings and writhings in his conscience?"
Machine translation from the Latin, not reviewed.
4:1
1. Unde hella et lites in vobis? Id est inter vos. A specie transit ad genus, hoc est, ab aemulatione et contentione magistrorum inter se ad similia vitia passim inter fideles grassantia, bella scilicet et lites. Quamquam Oecumenius, etiam quae hic dicuntur, specialiter ad magistros refert. Haec autem vitia B. Jacobus ita castigat acri objurgatione, ut statim eorum fontem et originem commonstret. Bella vocat conflictus et concertationes de iis rebus, quas male concupiscebant, ut depecuniis, honoribus, aut etiam de his, quae ad solam voluptatem facerent. Idem fere per lites significalur. Nam Graece est |ia;(oci^ pugnae. Poterant alioqui lites intelligi forenses, de quibus Paulus 1 Cor. 6.: Jam omnino delictum est in vobis, quod judicia habetis inter vos. De quibus et in hac Epistola Jacobus cap. 2.: Nonne divites per potentiam opprimunt vos, et ipsi trahunt vos ad judicia?
Nonne hinc? ex concupiscentiis vestriSf quae militant in membris vestris? Concupiscentiis, Graece: '^Sovojv^ voluptatibus. Sed interpres ad sensum Apostoli respexit, qui voluptates dixit concupiscentias, id est carnalia desideria, per tropum, quo objectum ponitur pro actu, qui in ipsum fertur. Interrogatio haec Apostoli responsiva est; ac si dicat: Certe haec causa est contentionum vestrarum ac dissidiorum, quam nunc indico; nimirum concupiscentiae vestrae, quae militant in membris vestris, id est, tamquam milites membris vestris, ut armis, utuntur ad opera peccati, cujus imperio et regno militant; velut oculis ad male appetendum, manibus ad fraudandum, lingua ad maledicendum. Metaphora est a re militari sumpta, qua etiam Petrus et Pauhis usi sunt; ille 1 Epist. 2. dicens: Abstinete vos a carnalibus desideriis, quae militant adversus animam; hic vero Rom. 6.: Neque exhibeatis membra vestra arma iniquitatis peccatOy sed arma justitiae Deo.
4:2
2. Concupiscitis, et non habetis. Causam contentionum et pugnarum, quam dixit, explicat. Qui enim concupiscunt, quod non habent, ut opes, honores, voluptates, insurgunt et incenduntur adversus alios, qui habent, aut a quibus impediuntur.
Occiditis et zelatis, et non potestis adipisci. Zelatis, (^"qXooxe, id est aemulamini; sed aemulationem intelligit amaram, ut supra. Porro noster interpres, dum vertit: Occiditis, haud dubie legit in Graeco: cpovs^exs, vel cpovsTxs; utrumque enim dicitur. Sic etiam legit et exponit Oecumenius Graecus; nec diversum reddit translatio Syriaca. Rursus eandem lectionem ^ovsucts exhibent biblia Complutensia, et alia ex illis expressa. Porro alii quidam codices habent: (p^ovslxSj id est invidetis. Atque ita vertit Erasmus, et alii ex recentioribus. Quam et Cajetanus veram esse lectionem censet. Ac facile potuit, cum sint vicina vocabula, aboscitante librario alterum pro altero scribi. Quamquam nonnullis suspicio est, Erasmum fuisse primum auctorem mutandae lectionis. Nam in annotat. hac de re agens, nullum pro se codicem allegat, sed tantum dicit: Forte scriptum fuit: ^^ovsTts. Non improbabile quidem est, imo satis verisimile, B. Jacobum ita scripsisse, sed non debuit ex sola conjectura, sine codicum ope, lectio consueta mutari. Dico: satis verisimile, quia non hic agit Apostolus adversus homicidas ac miserorum oppressores, quales illi divites, quibus sequenti capite dicit: Addixistis et occidistis justum; sed contentiones et aemulationes, quae inter fideles Judaeos erant, reprehendit. Unde et Oecumenius, hanc partem exponens, confugit ad occisionem spiritualem, qua quis sectando cupiditates suam occidit animam. Quae tamen expositio pariim convenit. Est enim communis omni mortaliter peccanti. Quod si B. Jacobus scribere voluisset: occiditis^ ordinem commutasset, dicendo: zelatis et occiditis, ut a minus gravi faceret gradum ad id, quod gravius est. Deinde qr.id est: Occiditis, et non potestis adipisci? cum occidere non sit via ad adipiscendum quippiam, nisi apud homines valde sceleratos? Invidetis autem hic maxime quadrat; invident enim plerumque, qui adipisci volunt, quod vident alios habere. Docet autem Apostolus hoc loco, cur ea, quae petunt, non accipiant; quia nimirum aflfectibus invidiae et aemulationis aguntur. Inter invidiam et aemulationem hoc discriminis esse vult Cajetanus, quod in~ vidia referatur ad tristitiam interiorem, aemulatio ad conatum conformem invidiae. Verum magis placet, ita distingui, quod invidus proprie doleat de bono alieno, volens illud non esse; aemulus autem proprie suum velit bonum aequandum alieno. Certe nisi differrent haec duo, etiam dum in malo accipiuntur, non utrumque poneret Apostolus Paulus in enumeratione operum carnis, Gal. 5. Porro si quis contendat, germanam esse lectionem: occiditis, non repugnabo; sed dixero, sensum hunc esse: Occiditis, id est, odio habetis alius alium; omnis enim, qui odit fratrem suum, homicida estj 1 Joan. 3. Notandum vero, etiam apud Paulum loco jam citato, tam in Graecis codicibus, quam Latinis, legi haec duo: invidias et homicidia; sed et eam lectionem Hieronymus in comment. vitiosam esse confirmat, negans, homicidia ad textum pertinere, quemadmodum illic annotavimus.
Litigatis et helUgeratis. Repetit ordine converso, quae initio dixerat: hella et lites. Sunt enim hic verba, quorum illic nomina. Graece: pugnatis et bellatiSj Bcilicet verbosis et clamosis contentionibus.
Et non habetiSy propter quod non postulatis. Oecumenius negationem posteriore loco omittit. Sic autem habet, interprete Hentenio: Et non accipitis id. propter quod postulatis. Verum apparet, eam lectionem essemendosam; esset enim tautologia. Nam hoc ipsum sequitur: PetitiSj et non accipitis. Est igitur sensus: Ad ca bona, quae desideratis, non ea via conamini, qua oportuif. Si quid vobis deest, quod merito desideretur, id non pugnis aut couflictationibus quaerendum, sed a Deo postulandum, qui dat omni-' bus afftuenter; sicut dictum est cap. 1.
4:3
3. PetitiSj et non accipitis, eo quod male petatis. Praeoccupat, quod dicturi erant: Imo vero petimus a Deo precibus quotidianis. Atqui, inquit, male petitis; ideo non accipitis. Ergo quod Dominus in Evangelio promittit: Omnis, qui petit, accipit, Matth. 7., ita accipiendum, ut non satis sit, bona petere, nisi et bene pelantur; alioqui nec petere censendus est, qui non petit, quomodo Salvator in suapromissione verbumpetendi intellexit. Jam autem ad bene petendum in primis necessaria est bona intentio, quae istis defuit. Sequitur enim:
Ut in concupiscentiis vestris insu^ matis. Concupiscentiis, Graece: voluptatibus, ut supra. Sensus: Ea, quae, petitis, sive pecunias, sive honores, sive scientiam, eo fine petitis, ut habeatis, unde vohiptates vestras expleatis. Nomine voluptatum comprehendere videtur omnem illicitam delectationem, qualis etiam ea est, quam ex pecuniis avari, ex honoribus ambitiosi, ex scientiis quaerunt curiosi; licet proprie verba B. Jacobi pertineant ad voluptates sensuum, quibus saturandis solent homines saeculo dediti facultates suas impendere, quod Graece est: SaTiavav^ insumere, sumptum facere. In summa vult Apostolus, frenandas esse cupiditates, ut moderatae sint et ordinatae; deinde, quae moderate cupimus, a Deo postulanda esse; ita futurum, ut, remotis contentionibus atque aemulationibus, pacem colant et fructum justitiae proferant. Hic monendus es, lector, quosdam interpretes, Oecumenii commentarium secutos, totum hunc locum restricte exponere de magistris, seu magistralis scientiae cupidis, contra quos in fine capitis praecedentis agebatur. Exponunt autem hoc modo: Unde pugnae verborum et contentiosae disputationes inter vos, dum quisque videri vult alio doctior et sapientior, nisi ex concupiscentiis vesti is? Non enim Christo Domino servitis, sed alius suo ventri studet, id est, voluptatibus carnis; aliuB opes et ex opibus splendorem quaerit; alius honores ambit; alium gloria titillat. Et haec consequi speratis, excitata apud discipulos opinione magnae scientiae. Hinc inter vos odia, invidiae, aemulationes. Nec sic tamen obtinetis ea, quae concupiscitis. Si dicatis, sapientiam vos expetere, ne illam quidem consequimini, quia non eam petitis a Deo, sicut V08 initio docui esse faciendum; aut si petitis, male petitis, ut ea abutamini ad quaestum, ventrem, honores etc. Gravis haec increpatio est adversus doctores et concionatores, qui in sua professione ac munere aliud spectant, quam gloriam Christi. Ad hanc sensum, quem non improbo, possunt etiam accommodari, quae sequuntur:
4:4
4. Adulterij nescitis, quia amicitia hujus mundi inimica est Dei? Graeci codices sic habent: Adulteri et adulterae, nescitis, quod amicitia mundi inimicitia Dei est? Eadem lectio est apud Oecumenium; nec dissonat editio Syriaca, nisi quod additum non habet illud: Et adulterae. Quod sane adjectivum videri potest. Nusquam enim muliebrem sexum alloquitur Apostolus tota hac Epistola. Sed et proxime dicta ad viros proprie dirigebantur. Non dissimilis huic sententia est apud Pauhim Rom. 8.: Sapientia carnis inimica est Deo. Ubi similiter in Graeco et Syriaco legitur: inimicitia. Praesens objurgatio tangit et castigat eum afiPectum, quo laborare solent ii, in quibus est aliquid excellens; ut sunt sapientiae magistri. Volunt enim esse magni in saeculo, ideoque quaerunt hominibus placere magis, quam Christo servire; quam vocat Apostolus amicitiam mundi; videlicet mundi nomine signifi canfi homines, ut plerique sunt, id est, quales ex Adam nati, non quales in Christo renati. Haec amicitia est inimicitia Deij vel, ut Paulus loquitur, in Deum, adversus Deum; quia hominem constituit a Deo aversum, Deoque contrarium, utpote tendens ad diversum et contrarium finem; item quia est amicitia cum eo, qui est hostis Dei, id est, cum mundo et diabolo, mundi principe. Adulteros autem appellat metaphorice, tum quia voluptatum fecerat mentionem, quarum immodicus et exaestuans appetitus adulteros facit; tum quia a Deo fornicatur atque adulteratur, quisquis amorem, quem Deo debet, ad mundum transfert.
Quicumque ergo voluerit amicus esse saeculi hujus, inimicus Dei constituitur. Saeculi hujus, Graece: mundi, ut in parte praecedeati. Infert autem hanc conclusionem argumento expresso a conjugatis. Amicitia mundi est inimicitia Dei; ergo omnis amicus mundi constituitur inimicus Dei. Terribilis valde sententia adversus eos, qui suas actiones et studia componunt ad gratiam humanam. Hoc enim vere est, esse amicum hujus saeculi.
4:5
An putatis, quia inaniter Scriptura dicit: Ad invidiam concupiscit spiritus, qui habitat in vobis? Aut putatis, habent antiqui codices. Pro verbo: habitat, in Graeco est aoristus: xaxoIxTjaev, id est habitavit, uti quidam verterunt, vel potius: habitationem accepit et fixit; ut significetur actus praeteritus in praesentem continuatus, quemadmodum verbo: ixadtosv, Marc. ult., Heb. 1, 10. et 12., quod alii: sedit, alii: sedet, transferunt; de quo diximus suis locis. Eam esse vim hujus aoristi, docent alia loca, maxime si Graeca consulantur; ut Malth. 2.: Veniens habitavit in civitate, quae vocatar Nazarelh, et cap. 4.: Venit et habitavit in Capharnaum, id est, ad eas civitates commigravit, et in iis habitationem constituit. Unde recte noster interpres, quemadmodum et Syrus, verbo praesentis temporis Graecam vocem hoc loco reddiderunt. In vobis, Graece et Syriace: in nobis, Sicque legisse Oecumenium, commentarius ejus indicat; tametsi parum id refeit ad sensum. Nam modestiae est Apostolicae, conjungere se eorum personae, quos increpat; sicut vidimus capite praecedenti. Caeterum de intellectu lotius sententiae non parva difficultas est, multumque in ea tum distinguenda, tum explicanda, variant tractatores, quod non appareat, de qua Scriptura loquatur Apostolus, nec de quo spiritu. Unde et invidiam alii aliter interpretati sunt, et ad diversa retulerunt. Illud in primis admoneo, Scripturam intelligi debere veteris instrumenti. Nam ubicumque in libris Apostolicis Scriptura citatur, ad legem et Prophetas respicitur, non ad ea, quae Apo- Btoli jam scripserant. Habemus, inquit Petrus, firmiorem propheticum sermcnem f 2 Epist. 1. Est autem distinctio maxime obvia, quam nostri codices exhibent, quamque Sjrus interpres secutus est, ut post verbum: dicat, stigme ponatur, et interrogationis nota totam sententiam claudat. Ita significatur, Scripturam non inaniter, nec frustra dicere haec verba, saltem quoad sensum: Adinmdiam concupiscit etc. Quod tamen adhuc varie exponitur. Plerique, quorum et Beda meminit tertio loco (tres enim adfert expositiones), dictum accipiunt de spiritu humano, per se prono ad male concupiscendum. Et Scripturas citant Gen. 7. et 8., ubi dicitur, quod sensus et cogitatio cordis humani ah adolescentia sua sit intenta ac prona ad malum omni tempore. Sed ibi nulla invidiae mentio. Alii Spiritum Dei intelligunt, quem dicunt concupiscere usque ad invidiam, id est zelotypiam, dum more viri zelotypi non patitur, cultores suos amorem transferre ad mundum et ea, quae mundi sunt, et id si fiat, zelo vindictae adversus eos commovetur. Prosequitur hunc sensum pluribus verbis Cajetanus, et Scripturam adfert Exod. 20., ubi Deus in legislatione zeloten se vocat. Sed aliis istud non probatur; ac merito. Nusquam enim in sacris literis invidia accipitur in bono. Et utique superius invidiam et pugnas graviter culpatas audivimus. Hinc alii, quos Beda memorat secundo loco, ad invidiam exponunt: adversus invidiam; ut sensus sit: Invidiae morbum debellari atque a vestris mentibua exstirpari, desiderat Spiritus Dei per baptismum habitans in vobis. Id enim Scriptura dicit iis locis, quibus invidiam damnat. Nec refugit hanc significationem Graeca praepositio iipo:;. Porro Oecumenius aliter distinguit. Nam partem illam: Ad invidiam, annectit interrogationi praecedenti, reliquum affirmate, et t6 TivsujJia quarto casu accipiens: concupiscit spivitum; tametsi id interpres ejus non animadverterit. Facit enim hunc sensum Oecumenius: An putatis, Scripturam inaniter et ad invidiam (id est, tamquam nobis invideat) dicere, praecipere, id est, difficilia humilitatis praecepta nobis praescribere? Nequaquam; sed id facit exaltationis nostrae causa. Concupiscit enim, sive expetit, spiritum, id est gratiam, in nobis per suam exhortationem inhabitare, per quam exaltemur; uti sequentia Jacobi verba declarant. Alius vir doctus, eandem distinctionem secutus, notam interrogationis in fine collocat, et hoc modo exponit: An existimatis, frustra Scripturam dixisse, eo quod vobis invideat, spiritum carnis vestrae prave concupiscere, nec bona esse ea, quae desiderat? Non ita sane, quod vobis invideat; quinimo majorem (uti sequitur) gratiae coelestis pollicetur opulentiam, quam quae cunctis carnis desideriis queat comparati. Sic ille. Sed mihi coactae videntur hae expositiones. Est autem et alia hujus sententiae distinctio, sive potius pronuntiatio, quae utrumque membrum facit interrogativum. Exponitur autem dupliciter. Uno modo, ut posterius membrum contineat in se Scripturam allegatam, utpote sensum hunc habens negativum: Non concupiscit (id est, concupiscere facit) Spiritus sanctus, quem in bapti.smo accepistis, ad invidiam, sed magis ad beneficentiam. Id enim docet Scriptura Sap. 1.: Benignus est Spiritus sapientiae. Quae Lirani expositio est. Altero modo, ut allegatio Scripturae referatur ad praecedentia, ac sensus sit hujusmodi: Num putatis, Scripturam inaniter dicere ac docere hoc, quod modo dixi; mundi scilicet amicitiam Deo adversari, nosque Dei inimicos constituere? (Id enim docent omnes Scripturae, quae a malorum conversatione et amicitia fideles revocant). Numquid spiritus gratiae, quo signati estis in die redenlptionif, hoc concupiscit, ut invideatis alterum; ac non potius ad caritatem et pacem invitat atque impellit? Ipse enim est, qui, ut sequitur, majorem dat gratiam. Hic sensus, quem Beda probat et alii post eum, instituto Apostoli non male quadrat; ut qui contra simultates et dissidia, quae inter fideles erant, concionatur hoc loco. Verum non est ea negligenda pronuntiato, quae posteriorem sententiae partem: Ad invidiam etc, legit absque interrogatione; et est observandum, huic parti in Graeco non praemitti voculam: OTi^ quiay quod; quae tamen fere praemitti solet, ubi de Scriptura testimonium aliquod assumitur, ut Marc. 11.: Nonne scriptum est: Quia domus mea domus orationis vocabitur? Rom. 3.: Sicut scriptum est: Quia non est justus quisquam etc. Unde nihil necesse est, hanc partem: Ad invidiam etc, accipi ut Scripturam, quam velit Jacobus citare. Nam fieri potest, ut alio respiciat; vel ad id, quod praecedit, juxta Bedae expositionem, quam dixi; vel ad id, quod paulo post sequitur: Deus superbisresistit etc, quod suspicatur Emanuel Sa; vel ad aliam quamlibet Scripturam. Pro cujus investigatione mihi videtur illud bene considerandum, quod haec pars: Ad invidiam concupiscit spiritus, qui habitat in vobis, admodum conveniat cum verbis illis superioribus: Concupiscitis et non habetis. Occiditis, sive invidetis, et zelatis, et non potestis adipisci. Item: Petitis et non accipUiSy eo quod male petatis, ut in concupiscentiis vestris insumatis. Continet enim similem cum illis exprobrationem, similemque rationem, cur petentes non accipiant; quia scilicet eorum spiritus ad invidiam concupiscit ac petit. Itaque sententiam ita suppieo et expono: An putatis, inaniter Scripturam dicere: Petite, et dabitur vobis? Non. Sed ad invidiam concupiscit spiritus vester; ideo non datur, quod petitis. Cum enim Scriptura passim dicat et moneat, ut a Deo petamus, quidquid boni desideramus; neque id sine promissione impetrandi, ut Psalm. 24.: Universi, qui sustinent te, non confundentur, et 33.: Accedite ad eum, et iUuminamini, et facies vestrae non confundentur, et 33.: Revela Domino viam tuam, et spera in eo, et ipse faciet; et Eccl. 2.: Nullus speravit in Domino, et confusus est, et iterum: Quis invocavit eum, et despexit illum? denique cum Dominus noster planissime promittat: Petite, et accipietis. Omnis enim, qui petit, accipit^ Matth. 7. et alibi: in vobis tamen contrarium apparet. Petitis enim, et non accipitis. Sed non ideo putetis, Scripturam inaniter et falso haec dicere, aut vanam esse Christi promissionem; defectus enim ex vestra parte est, ut ante dixi, quia male petitis. Nam spiritus, qui in vobis sedem habet, spiritus utique vitiosus ac mahis, ad invidiam et aemulationem concupiscit, id est, ad ea concnpiscenda vos incitat, pro quibus consequendis invicem invidetis et aemulamini; sive sint opes, sive honores, sive sapientia atque scientia. Sic autem efficimini Dei inimici, ea videlicet, quae mundi sunt, amando et concupiscendo, mundique amicitiam ambiendo. Cum igitur et pessime petatis, et Dei sitis inimici: cur miramini, vos non exaudiri? Non enim simpliciter omnes aliquid a se petentes exauditurum se promisit; sed Deum timentes, et in veritate ipsum invocantes, et ea, quae Dei, non quae mundi sunt, quaerentes. Voluntatem, inquit, timentium se faciet, et deprecationem eorum exaudiet. Prope est Dominus omnibus invocantibus eum, in veritate, Psalm. 144. Delectare in Domino, et dabit tibi petitiones cordis tui, Psalm. 36. Haec expositio perspicua est, et quam maxime videtur inhaerere contextui Apostolico. Cui et sequentia probe respondent, ut mox docebimus. Eodem redibit sententia, si Scripturam dicamus intelligi eam, quae fuit insinuata in superiori illa occupatione: Petitis, et non accipitis. Nam sensus erat: Miramini, vos non accipere, cum Scriptura sacra toties promittat petentibus exauditionem. Unde, quod ibi sequitur: eo quod male petatis, sicut illic explicatur, addendo: ut in concupiscentiis vestris insumatis, ita nunc amplius declaratur hac parte: Ad invidiam concupiscit spiritus etc. Quod jam de spiritu vitioso interpretati sumus; sive per hunc spiritum intelligatur animus hominum depravatus, sive spiritus mundi, de quo Paulus 1 Cor. 2.: Nos autem non spiritum hujus mundi accepimus; sive malum habitans in nobis, de quo Rom. 7., id est concupiscentia, ab ipso ortu penitus insidens Adae filiis, et in eis excitans desideria, quae militant in membris ipsorum, ut supra dictum est. Qui commentarius est Hasselani, idemque nobis prae caeteris probatur.
4:6
6. Majorem autem dat gratiam. Gratiae nomen in Scripturis comprehendit omne datum gratuitum et salutare; nec aliter hoc loco accipiendum. Qui partem proxime praecedentem de spiritu Dei interpretantur, hic non laborant. Nam eundem spiritum in hac parte commodissime subaudiunt. Qui vero de spiritu vitioso partem illam exponunt, eos, necesse est, hic aliud quaerere suppositwm verbi: dat. Cum autem Scriptura sit verbum Dei, et, quod Scriptura promittit, ipse Deus promittat: recte hic subintelligitur Deus, utpote tacite nominatus ibi: dicat Scriptura, videlicet divina. Certe, inquit, Deus, qui promisit, si bene rogetur, atque ex humili corde petitio vestra procedat, etiam majorem dabit gratiam, id est, beneficia tribuet majora petitis; ut pro terrena sapientia coelestem, pro splen- 6aiL Estii Comm. Toto. III. dore saeculi gloriam sui regni. Aut majorem intellige, ea, quam dedit; quasi dicat: Gratiam ante datam augebit, aliquid ad eam adjiciet, majorem eam et cumulatiorem reddet. Cui sensui bene congruit, quod sequitur:
Propter quod dicit: Deus superbis resistit, humilibus autem dat gratiam. Propter quod, nempe significandum, dicit Deus vel /Scriptura. Totam hanc partem Graeci quidam codices praetermittunt. Oecumenius quoque non interpretatur, nec in sua versione exhibet Erasmus, qui et suspicatur, a studioso quopiam annotatam in margine ex Epist. Petri priore, cap. 5., ubi eadem habetur sententia, postea in contextum irrepsisse. Verum illic non est additum: Propter quod dicit. Latini omnes et legunt, et interpretantur. Habent et Graeci codices multi ac vetusti, et ex his editioues Aldina et Complutensis. Nam de Aldina Erasmus ipse fatetur, ideoque in sua paraphrasi sententiam hanc restituit. Denique dat eam Syrus interpres. Unde non dubitamus, quin a B. Jacobo scripta fuerit. Occasionem ejus praetermittendae fuisse puto, quod similiter desinat cum parte praecedente; quae res scribam oscitantem fefellit, ut, omissis verbis mediis, ad sequentia transiret. Tale quid enim et alias fuit a nobis observatum. Desumpta est autem sententia ex Proverbiis Salomonis, cap. 3., juxta antiquam translationem, ut ait Beda, id est eam, quam primi ex Hebraeo iecerunt interpretes LXX., nisi quod hic 6 {^sog^ Deus, in Proverbiis xopiOQ, Dominus, scribitur. Atqui ex Hebraeo sic transtulit eam Hieronymus: Ipse deludet illusores, et mansuetis dabit gratiam. Quod tamen sensu non est diversum. Nam illusores sive derisores iidem sunt, qui superbi. Inde enim quis alium irridet, unde se illo meliorem reputat. Mavsueti quoque et humiles iidem fere in Scripturis intelliguntur. Resistit autem Deus superbis, dum eos humiliat, et humiliando contemptibiles reddit; quod proprium est deridentis. Convenit tamen resistendi vocabulum, quia superbi sunt velut invasores gloriae divinae, dum sibi rapiunt, quod Dei est. Invasoribus autem et raptoribus vis opponitur, quod est resistere. At vero mansuetis et humilibus, qui Deo jam grati sunt, et ab ejus gratia praeventi, gratiam dat, scilicet majorem, ut dictum est, dum auget gratiam prius datam, ac nova subinde gratiae munera prioribus adjicit. Humilitas enim non tantum gratia est, sed etiam vas gratiarum. Dat enim Deus humilitatem, cui tamquam vasi alias virtutes infundat, ut in eo conserventur. Unde humiles typice per valles significantur, quae aquas coelestes suscipiunt ac retinent, ideoque frugiferae sunt, Luc. 3.: Omnis vallis implebituTj Psalm. 64.: Valles abundabunt frumento, Pulchre S. Augustinus serm. 27. de verbis Domini, loquens de Maria, sorore Lazari: Sedebat ad pedes capitis nostri. Quanto humilius sedebat, tanto amplius capiebat. Confluit enim aqua ad humilitatem convallis; defluit de tumoribus collis. Ex qua declaratione hujus Scripturae liquet, eam haudquaquam patrocinari Pelagianis, qui gratiam dari dicebant secundum merita nostra. Nam merita intelligebant, quae ex nobis sunt, quaeque gratiam Dei praeveniunt. At e diverso confirmat eadem Scriptura Catholicam doctrinam, quae tradit, hominem juatificatum bonis operibus ac in primis humilitate mereri gratiae augmentum. Haec enim merita nobis ex Deo esse profitemur, a quo omne datum optimum, et omne donum perfectum, sicut dictum est cap. 1. Docet autem haec Scripturae sententia, quemadmodum aliae multae similes, quid Deus agat ut judex ac meritorum discretor. Resistit enim superbis ac deprimit eos, quia hoc eorum superbia meretur; humilibus autem dat yratiam, eosque exaltat, quoniam id meretur eorum humilitas. Verum quia malis non semper rependit Deus, quod merentur, non huic repugnat sententiae, quod aliquando superbos deprimit et humiliat salubriter, convertens eos ad se, et gratiam humilitatis inspirans, per quam caetera Dei dona recipiant. Sed id misericordiae est, non justitiae. Porro significat Apostolus, ex superbia fuisse natas contentiones et aemulationes, ac caetera vitia, contra quae superius egit; eamque ob causam in postulatis suis non fuisse exauditos. Idcirco superbos eos hic vocat. Hortatur autem ad humilitatem amplectendam, si velint exaudiri et exaltari a Deo. Quod quidem in sequentibus agit expressius.
4:7
7. Subditi ergo estote Deo. Id est, per veram humilitatem vos illi substernite, confitentes peccata vestra, et agnoscentes, quam sine illo nihil possitis. Ita fiet, ut gratiam ampliorem consequamini.
Resistite autem diabolo, et fugiet a vobis. Autem de suo adjiciunt interpretes. Innuit Apostolus, a diabolo, qui est rex super omnes filios superbiae, Job 41., suscitatas fuisse lites et contentiones, de quibus supra. Hinc vero patet, non ita tentari unumquemque a propria concupiscentia, quod dixit cap. 1., ut non etiam diabolus in tentandis hominibus suum negotium agat. Ipse enim suis suggestionibus concupiscentiae fomitem excitat atque incendit. Resistitur autem diabolo, dum ejus tentationibus opponuntur arma, quibus nos instruit Paulus, Ephes. 6. dicens: Accipite armaturam Dei, ut possitis resistere in die malo. Et infra: In omnibus sumentes scutum fidei, in quo possitis omnia tela nequissimi ignea exstinguere. De quo et Petrus 1 Epist. 5.: Cui resistite, fortes in fide. Potest igitur et B. Jacobi praeceptum sic accipi: Resistite diabolo per fidem. Sed nihil vetat, etiam caeteras armaturae Dei partes intelligi, praesertim humilitatem, et ex ea profectam orationem ad Deum. Nam de humilitate nunc sermo versatur. Nec ulla alia re magis fugatur diabolus, quam humilitate, quippe quam maxime oderit ipse superbissimus. Sed quomodo fugiet a nobis, si ei resistamus, qui numquam nos oppugnare desinit; imo adversus resistentes vehementius insurgit? Respondeo: Fugere dicitur, dum repellitur ac vincitur; etiamsi victus subinde redeat et pugnam instauret. Est enim in verbo fugiendi metaphora, sic explicanda: Fugit diabolus, quatenus debilitatur; nam debilium est fugere;. ^Qbilitatur autem, quatQpus homini, quem impugnat, vires crescunt ipsa victoria, qua meretur atquo consequitur augmentum virtutis. Quamquam nec permittit illum Deus nos tentare, quantum et quoties vult; sed interdum tentatis post graviorem impugnationem ferias ab immanihosteconcedit; quemadmodum docet exemplum sancti Antonii apud Athanasium.
4:8
8. Appropinquate Deo, et appropinquabit vobis. Deo, qui ubique est et omnia implet, appropinquamus, non gressibus corporis, sed motibus animi. Sen- 8U8 igitur est: Appropinquate Deo per humilitatem, et appropinquabit vobis per gratiam, secundum quod ante dixit: Humilibus dat gratiam, et infra dicet: Humiliamini in conspectu Dei, et exaltabit vos. Veruntamen nemo appropinquat Doo, nisi tractus ab eo. Vocat quidem Christus et invitat, dicens: Venite ad me omnes, qui laboratis, Matth. 11. Sed idem ipse testatur et dicit: Nemo potest venire ad me, nisi Pater, qui misit me, traxerit eum, Joan. 6. Praeclare S. Hieronymus in comment. Epist. ad Eph. 2.: Quod absque cruore Domini Jesu nemo appropinquat Deo. Quare nec ista Jacobi sententia favet supradicto Pelagiano dogmati.
Emundate manus, peccatores; et purificate corda, duplices animo. Generalem nunc subjicit rationem appropinquandi Deo: scilicet per munditiam operum et cogitationum. Manuum nomine comprehendit omnia membra, quibus exterius aliquid operamur, inter quae principatum obtinent manus. Caeterum a corde cogitationes procedunt. Praecipit ergo, ut tam opera, quam cogitationes habeant mundas ac repurgatas a pravis cupiditatibus, iis potissimum, de quibus eos in superioribus reprehendit, et quae contentionum inter eos erant seminaria. Nondum enim ab eo argi^mento discedjt. Peccatores vocat propter opera foris conspicua, quae supra nominavit bella et lites. Duplices autem animo vocat, propter ancipites cordium affectiones et cogitiones, quibus fluctuabant inter amicitiam X),t?i et mundi. Volebant enim esse Dei amici, quo fides urgebat; sed cupiditatibus impliciti mundo vale dicere nequibant. Unde et in suis actionibus erant instabiles ac varii, sicut dixit cap. 1.: Vir duplex animo inconstans est in omnibus viis suis. Est enim idem vocabulum Graecum St^J^u/ot. Porro si jubentur homines emundare manus et purificare corda, nec jubetur quid impossibile: consequens est, eos posse haec praestare. Quod dum faciunt, utique cooperantursuae justificationi, qua corda purificantur a Deo, ac quodam etiam sensu se ipsos justificant; quomodo dictum est a Davide: Ergo sine causa justificavi cor meum, et lavi inter innocentes manus meas, Psalm. 72. Quamquam et illa cooperatio effectus est,gratiae divinae. Quid enim habes, quod non accepisti? 1 Cor. 4.
4:9
9. Miseri estote, et lugete et plorate. Peccatores, quos dixit, hortatur ad opera poenitentiae. Miseri estote, Graece: ra- XanrcopyjoccTS^ Erasmus: affligimini, id est, affligite vos ipsos, opera poenalia subite, quod Hebraea phrasi dicitur: Affligite animas vestras. Id fiebat jejuniis, supplicationibus, item hictu, ploratu, cilicii gestatione, et aliis id genus operibus, quibus Deum iratum sibi placare studebant. Est enim adhortatio persimilis ei, quae est apud Joel Prophetam cap. 2.: Convertimini ad me in toto corde vestro, in jejunio, et in fletu, et in planctu, et scindite corda vestra etc. Eodem pertinet, qucd sequitur:
Risus vester in luctum convertatur, et gaudium in moerorem. Hoc est: Pro risu et gaudio luctum et moerorem assumite. Risum et gaudium intelligit, in quae sese effnderant, iis ex parte potiti bonis, quae male concupierant.
4:10
10. Humiliamini in conspectu Domini, et exaltabit vos. Peccatoribus, praesertim superbis, Deo reconciliandis maxime necessaria est humilitas. Ideo rursus hac velut superiorum clausula ad humilitatem eos revocat; idque addita promissione exaltationis. Quasidicat: Ut concludam, haec una ratio est amicitiae et gratiae Dei recuperandae, et altitudinis, quam quaeritis, adipiscendae, si vos humilietis in conspectu Dei. Sententia eadem est cura illa, quam ex ore Salvatoris toties audierat: Omnis, qui se humiliaty exaltabitur. Nec diversum significat ab illa superiore: Humilibus dat gratiam. Exaltat enim humiles Deus, adjiciendo eis ampliora suae gratiae beneficia, quibus veram consequantur sublimitatem et gloriam. Illud: In conspectu Domini^ dupliciter intelligi potest. Vel ad significandam humilitatis veritatem ac sinceritatem; nam ad veram sublimitatem non nisi per veram humilitatem pervenitur; quidquid autemcoram Deo tale est, id vere tale est: vel potius ad significandum, quod supra dixit: Subditi estote Deo. Ut sensus sit: Cum omni humilitate vos Deo snbmittite. Sic enim et B. Petrus exponit 1 Epist. 5., dum eandem sententiam efiPert his verbis: Humiliamini sub potenti manu Dei, ut vos exaltet in tempore visitationis. Ex quo etiam loco discimus, exaltationem hic promissam, etsi per augmenta beneficiorum Dei inchoetur in hoc saeculo, non tamen perficiendam, nisi in gloria saeculi futuri.
4:11
11. Nolite detrahere alterutrum, fratres. Multi codices addunt: mei. Sed meliores Graecis consentanei non habent. Praeceptum hoc cavendae detractionis superioribus subjungit, quia detractio linguae vitium est aflfine contentionibus, de quibus jam egit, et cum his ex eadem radice surgens, nempe radice superbiae et ambitionis. Nam ideo detractor fratri obloquitur, et famam ejus conveljit et maculat, ut, illo depresso et contempto, ipse melior ac honoratior habeatur. Nec improbabile est, Apostolum hic quoque speciatim ad magistros respicere, qui per aemulationem et arrogantiam mutuo sibi detrahebant, alii aliorum seu doctrinam, seu vitam moresque carpentes. Est autem Graece xaTaXaXslv, id est obloqui; quo verbo non solum obtrectationis vitium, quo fama laeditur absentis (quamquam hoc potissime), verum etiam convicium et calumnia significari solent. Alterutrum, Graece: aXXi^Xa», id est alter alteri; etiamsi non sit detractio reciproca, Nam mali bonis plerumque detrahunt, non contra.
Qui detrahit fratri, aut qui judicat fratrem suum. Graece: Detrahens fratri suo et judicans fratrem suum, copulante niminim conjunctione, qua significetur, eundem, qui fratri suo detrahit, fratrem judicare.
Detrahit legi, et judicat legem. Quomodo is, qui fratri detrahit, fratrem judicet, facile est intelligere. Judicat enim fratrem, privato suo judicio talem aut talem eum pronuntians atque condemnans, et hoc suum de eo judicium aliis ingerens. Nam judicium pro condemnatione sumitur more Scripturae. Sed quomodo detrahat; legi, et judicet legem, non satis apparet. Venerabilis Beda duobus modis id explicare conatur. Unus est, eum, qui detrahit fratri, detraheie legi, quasi ipsa non recte fecerit, quae detractionem vetuit, dicens: Non eris criminator et susurro in populis, Lev. 19. Simile quid innuit Oecumenius, citans legem Christi Matth. 7.: Nolite judicare, ut non judicemini, et versiculum Psalm. 100.: Detrahentem secreto proximo suo, hunc persequebar. Nec dissimiliter Aquinas 2. sec. quaest. 74. art. 2. ad 3. ita scribens: Ille, qui detrahit fratri, in tantum videtur detrahere legi, in quantum contemnit praeceptum de dilectione proximi. Alter modus, eum, qui detrahit fratri legis jussa facienti, detrahere legi et judicare legem, quae talia jussa dedit. Sic et Cajetanus, docens, hanc Apostoli sententiam directe verificari de detractione et judicio, quo bonum opus, quod lex probat, vituperatur ac damnatur. Nam eo damnato, damnatur ipsa lex. Eandem reddit sententiam Titelmannus in sua paraphrasi. Igitur juxta hunc intellectum de ea tantum detractione sermo est, qua de proximo cum vituperatione narratur, quod vere bonum est et laudandum. Sed haec videtur nimium restricta ratio praecepti Apostolici, cum illud sensum nabeat generalem. Alii proinde sic explicant: Qui detrahit fratriy detrahit legi, quia, dum fratrem judicat et damnat, legis officium et partes praeoccupat, ac si legislator sive judex (hunc enim legis nomine comprehendunt) in judicando et damnando eo, qui deliquit, tardior esset. Qui sen- Bus etsi probabilis sit, eum ta,men, quom adfert S. Thomas, caeteris anteponendum censeo; tum qua parte legem exponit de praecepto dilectionis proximi; nam de hac lege jam ante locutus est Jacobus cap. 1. et expressius cap. 2.; tum in eo, quod detrahentem fratri interpretatur huic legi detrahere, eamque judicare, quatenusillam contemnit. Quod quidem maxime locum habet in magistris, qui non quomodocumque, sed cum auctoritate et supercilio dicta factaque aliorum sibi judicanda sumunt; quasi ipsorum judicium sit pro lege. Quod non fit sine contemptu quodam legis Dei, qua mutuam caritatem })raecepit. Ratio dicti Apostolici videtur haec esse, quia, qui fratri detrahit, judicium condemnationis in fratrem statuit, contra legem caritatis, quae id vetat. Itaque consequenter ipsam legem judicat et condemnat.
Si autem judicas legem, non es factor legis, sed judex. Ad manifestius incommodum ducit detractorem. Nam ex eo, quod judicat legem, sequitur, eum esse judicem legis, non factorem. Judicem quidem, non vera potestate, sed usurpata quodammodo; sicuti declaratum est. Jam si judex est legis, non ergo factor, id est observator ejus est. Nam judex superior est eo, quem judicat. Quare qui judicem legis se facit, eo facto supra legem se coUocat, et per hoc ad ejus observationem se non teneri declarat. Id autem in Christiano perabsurdum est.
4:12
12. Unus est legislator et judex, qui potest perdere et liberare. Male quidam codices, addita causali particula: Vnus est enim legislator etc., quae nec in Graeco est, nec in emendatioribus Latinis. Sed nec ad sententiam facit; est enim assumptio potius, quam probatio, quemadmodum mox patebit. Sed nec illud: Et judex, in Graecis invenitur; quamquam Syrus interpres, nisi paraphrasten agit, utrumque legisse videtur. Sic enim habet: Unus est enim ponens legem et judicium. Denique in Graeco et Syriaco conversus est ordo verborum: qui potest salvare et perdere; tametsi id ad sensum parum aut nihil refert. Porro sensus est: Tu, qui detrahis fratri, judicem legis te constituis; atqui unufi est legislator et judex, qui potest unumquemque pro meritis aut salvare aut perdere, Deus videlicet; quem proinde metuere debebas, non ei te aequare, multo minus superponere; quod tamen facis, dum legis ab eo latae judicium usurpas. Nota, dupliciter intelligi posse eam partem: qui potest salvare et per" dere. Vel hoc modo: Qui potest in aeternum salvare et perdere, id est aeternam dare salutem, et aeternas irrogare poenas. Cui sensui congruit illud: Timete eum, qui potest et animam, et corpus perdere in gehennam, Matth. 10. Vel sic: Qui, nullo impediente, potest homines sive in aeternum, sive temporaliter salvare et perdere, id est, qui supremam habet in homines potestatem vitae et mortis, salutis et interitus. Hic sensus generalior est, idemque Scripturis consentaneus, quae potestatem servandi et perdendi in genere passim Deo tribuunt, ut Deut. 32., 1 Reg. 2. et alibi. Patet ex his, B. Jacobum non absolute dicere, unum esse legislatorem et judicem, tamquam nullus sit alius, in quem legislatoris ac judicis nomen vere proprieque competat, quod perspicue falsum est; sed cum restrictione: qui possit salvare etperdere, idque sensu jam explicato. Nam alioqui constat, etiam judices, Deo inferiores, suo modo posse seivare et perdere, dum absolvunt aut comdemnant, et pro meritis aut praemia reddunt, aut supplicia; legislatores quoque, tam ecclesiasticos, quam saeculares, suis legibus et constitutionibus subditorum conscientias obstringere, sic ut peccent ac poenis obnoxii sint coram Deo, qui non oblemperant, juxta Scripturas: Quodcumque ligaveris super terram, erit ligatum in coelis, Matth. 16. Qui vos audit, me audit; et qui vos spernit, me spernit, Luc. 10. Necessitate subditi estote, non solum propter iram, sed etiam propter conscientiam, Rom. 13. Quod annotandum fuit propter Joannem Calvinum, qui hoc loco insurgit, haeretico plane spiritu et ore maledico, adversus legislativam potestatem praelatorum Ecclesiae, dicens, totam Dei majestatem ad se rapere eos, qui sibi jus ferendae legis vendicant; ideoque Papam, qui id faciat, esse Antichristum. Quasi non idem totidem verbis eodem colore dicere potuerit adversus legislativam potestatem regum ac principum terrae, cui tamen nequissimus hypocrita se noUe derogare cum protestatione confitetur; ut intelligas, quo animo feratur, dum haec scribit in Romanum Pontificem, et quam nulla sit illi in verbo Dei explanando sinceritas.
4:13
13. Tu autem, quis es, qui judicas proximum? Graece: Tu quis es, qui judicas alterum sive alium? tov STepov. Sed eo nomine proximus intelligitur; imo quis proximus intelligendus sit, exponitur; scilicet omnis homo alius a te. Quapropter et Syrus proximum vertit. Tta legimus Lev. 20.: Si moechatus quis fuerit cum uxore alterius, et adulterium perpetraverit cum conjugeproximi sui. ITbi clare videmus, alterum et proximum eundem significari. Ita Rom. 13.: Qui diligit proximum, legem implevit. Graeco est: Qui diligit alterum. Argumentum hujus partis est a communi natura hominis. Cum enim omnes homines natam sint pares, non debet alias in alium sibi sumere judicandi potestatem, nisi eam a legislatore, qui sit utroque superior, id est a Deo, acceperit. Similes sunt objurgationes apud Paulum ad Rom. 14.: Tu quis es, qui judicas alienum servum? Domino suo stat aut cadit. Et iterum: Tu autem quid judicas fratrem tuum?
Ecce nunc qui dicitis: Hodie aut crastino ibimus in illam civitatem, Transit ad aliud genus superbiae et praesumptionis, eorum videlicet, qui de suis actionibus ita confidenter statuunt, dicentes, haec et illa sese facturos, ac si futurorum domini essent, et a Dei voluntate ac providentia non penderent; sine qua taroen non modo non actiones suas et actionum eventa, sed nec vitam suam vel ad momentum in potestate habeant. Horum autem verba per mimesim refert, quo acrior sit admonitio. Graece non est: ecce, sed: ays, otge, quod idem ha* betur initio cap. seq., estque adverbium excitantis attentionem. Quodque mox sequitur, in Graeco 6ic habetur: Hodie et cras eamus in hanc civitatem; et ita deinceps caetera verba, quae nos legimus enuntiative: faciemus, mercabimur, lucrum faciemus, subjunctivi modi sunt in Graeco: faciamus, mercemur, lucremur. Verum interpres ad mentem Apostoli respexit, qui non voluit ponere verba mutuae cohortationis ad aliquid faciendum, sed verba propositi firmi et indubitati. Cui significando servit etiam apud Graecos interdum modus subjunctivus. Unde et in editione Syriaca leguntur indicativi modi verba. Est autem Apostoli oratio (quantum apparet) imperfecta, supplenda hoc aut simili modo: Qui haec dicitis, superbe et stulte facitis; nisi, quod mavult Gaignaeus, Graecum participium: XiyovxBQ, dicentes, 'H.ehraeorum more pro verbo positum dicatur: Age nunc, dicitis etc.
Et faciemus ibi quidem annum. Graece: Et faciamus ibi annum unum. Facere anuM/n, ' id!est agere, transigere annum, ut alii vertant.
Et mercabimur, et lucrum faciemus. A mercatoribus exemplum adducit, quod ii non raro cupiditate excaecati, ac suae industriae confisi, postponere soleant cogitationem providentiae divinae, ut et aliarum rerum honestarum. Itaque praeter superbiam etiam avaritiae castigatio est in hac parte. Neque tamen mercaturam seu negotiationem damnat; sed potius approbat, si cum timore Dei exerceatur. Approbat enim, qui docet, a quo successus ejus exspectari debeat: quemadmodum Joannes Baptista publicani et militis officia probavit, ut licita, quando regulam praescripsit ea exercendi. Verba sequentia parenthetice legenda sunt:
4:14
Qui ignoratiSj quid erit in crastino. Sensum expressit interpres; nam Grraece est: t6 TTjQ auptov, guid diei crastinae, id est, quid postera die futurum sit; an etiam victuri. Quo spectat, quod sequitur:
4:15
15. Quae est enim vita vestra? Quae, Giaece Tioia, qualis, cujusmodi, Nam de brevitate vitae sermo est, quam cum vapore comparat, dicens:
Vapor est ad modicum parens, dein" ceps exterminabitur, Grraece: exterminatur, seu potius evanescit, disparet. Est enim in Graeco grata vocum affinitas: cpatvo|jiev7j, dcpavtCofievrj, apparens, disparens. Habent Graeca repetitam in hac etiam parte causalem particulam Yap; Vapor enim est etc.; sed eodem referendam, quo praecedentem; hoc sen- Bu: Bene dico, vos nescire, quid cras fotnrum sit vobis, quum nec illud sciatis, an cras sitis futuri superstites. Nam vita vestra similis est vapori e terra surgenti, qui ad exiguum tempus apparet, et deinde evanescit in auras. Porro sub brevitate incertitudinem comprehendit. Nam et illud breve censetur, quod ita casibus undique expositum es^, ut de ejus diuturnitate nihil sibi polliceri quis possit. Cum ergo vita ipsa, quae basis est omnium humanarum actionum, sit nobis incertissima; an non stulta praesumptio est, de ipsis actionibus earumque successu definitionem absolutam in longum etiam tempus extendere? Huc usque parenthesis. Nam quae sequuntur, respondent prioribus: Ecce nunc, qui dicitis, etc. Quae res ab Oecumenio diligenter enucleata est.
Pro eo, ut dicatis. Id est: Loco ejus, quod dicere debuistis. Vcl: Cum ita potius dicendum vobis sit. Corrigit enim sermonem superius reprehensum admonens loquendum, ut sequitur:
Si Dominus voluerit; et: 8i vixerimus, faciemus hoc aut illud. Graece: Si Dominus voluerit et vixerimus, et faciamus hoc aut illud. Sed posterius et redundat, ideoque ab interpretibus omissum; aut faciamus pro faciemus est positum, id est subjunctivus indicativi loco; sicut annotatum est supra. Quamquam etiam sic verti posset: Si Dominus voluerit, et vivemus, et faciemus hoc aut illud; ut intelligas, nec victuros, nec facturos aliquid, nisi Dominus voluerit. Sed Apostolum id velle, quod interpretes dederunt, verisimilius est; ut duplex sit conditio nominata ab Apostolo, et ita quidem, ut utramque conjunctam exigere videatur. Si Dominus voluerit, et vixerimus, sicut in Graeco dictum est haberi. Verum non ita accipiendum est hoc Apostoli praeceptum, ut semper lingua dicamus utrumque, vel aliquid istorum; neque enim sancti leguntur tale quid expresse semper adjecisse; sed in primis, ut divinae providentiae, nostraeque mortalitatis cogitationem animo semper geramus. Deinde ut ejusmodi conditionem interdum etiam voce exprimere, prout opportunitas tulerit, haud negligamus. Id enim nobis valde expedit, pietatis ac modestiae causa. Nam cum dicimus: Si Dominus voluerit, profitemur, omnes nostras actiones Dei nutu ac providentia gubernari. Cum autem dicimus: Si vixerimus, nos ipsos commonefacimus nostrae mortalitatis, quae tanta est, ut nihil prorsus de futuro, quantulumcumque illud sit, certum habeamus. Etenim ex quo peccatum intravit in hominis naturam, fecit eam omni hora atque momento morti obnoxiam, ut nuUus habeat, quod conqneratnr, cur nainus diu vixerit. Unde qui de suis actionibus in futurum sine Deo statuunt, perinde faciunt, atque si quis, post acceptam mortis sententiam, vellet absque voluntate judicis de quibusdam adhuc in posterum agendis disponere. Quam vero sanctis usitate faerint istae loquendi formulae, quas Jacobus praescribit, autsimiles, unius Pauli nos exemplum docet, qui Act. 18. sic loquitur: Iterum revertar ad vos, Deo volente, et Cor. 4.: Veniam ad vos cifo, si Dominus voluerit, et 16.: Spero, me aliquantulum temporis manere apud vos, si Dominus permiserit; item Hebr. 6.: Et hoc faciemus, siquidem permiserit Deus. Tale est et illud Rom. 1.: Si quo modo tandem aliquando prosperum iter habeam in voluntate Dei veniendi ad vos, et Phil. 2.: Confido autem in Do' mino, quoniam et ipse veniam ad vos cito. Sed Paulum quid refero? cum et Socrates philosophus, a Christo alienus, ita suum Alcibiadem dicere jusserit: Eav ^BO^Z IMXt^, si Deus voluerit.
4:16
16. Nunc autem exsultatis in superbiis vestris. Quum, inquit, haec vita tam brevis et evanida sit, et tam incertae providentiae vestrae, nt merito de vobis ipsis humiliter sentire, deque futuris actionibus vestris cunctanter, et modeste loqui debeatis: tamen perinde, quasi sitis immortales, et certi de futuris, animos erigitis, stulte exsultantes ac vobis placentes in superbiis vestris, id est in his, quae superbe facitis ac dicitis. Nam superbia est, quum servus agit aut loquitur, ut Dominus.
Omnis exsultatio talis maligna est. Si malum est, superbe quidquam agere aut dicere, multo certe pejus, in hnjnsmodi factis ant dictis exultare, sibique placere. Addit Apostolus:
4:17
17. Scienti igitur bonum facere, et non facienti, peccatum est illi. Scienti bonum facere, id est: ecienti, bonum sibi faciendum; nam de bono practico, eoque debito, sententia loquitur. Quae quidem dupliciter connecti potest superioribus. Priore modo, ut ad eos referatur, de quibus proxime egit. Nam dicere poterant: Scimus, nos sine Dei nutu ac voluntate nihil posse; fideles enim sumus, ideoque Dei voluntatem in sermonibus et cogitationibus nostris semper praesupponimns. Atqui, inquit Apostolus, hoc scire non sufficit, nisi et facto praestetis id est, eam, quam dixi, loquendi formulam vobis familiarem reddatis, opportuno tempore ea utentes. Alioqui nihil proderit scire aut credere, quod dicitis. Nam fides sine operibus otiosa et mortua est. Imo vero scire illud vestrum magis in peccatum vobis imputabitur. Alter modus est, isque maxime probabilis, ut Apoetolus hac sententia, velut epiphonemate, totam claudat hujus ac praecedentis capitis exhortatiunem; ac si dicat: Jam de his omnibus satis vos admonui, nec deinceps poteritis ignorantiam praetexere; proinde, si non pareatis, peccabitis. Nam scienti, et non facienti, peccatum est. Peccatum, intellige gravius ac majus, juxta illud Luc. 12.: Servus, qui cognovit voluntatem Domini sui, et non fecit secundum voluntatem ejus, vapulabit multis. Qui autem non cognovit, et fecit digna plagis, vapulabit paucis. Ad hanc enim Domini sui sententiam videtur Apostolus alludere. Igitur quod ait: peccatum est tUi, emphasim habet; quemadmodum et illa Domini verba Joan. 15.: Si non venissem et locutus fuissem eis, peccatum non haberent. Ubi magnum illud incredulitatis peccatum significatur. Non ergo sentit B. Jacobus, com peccato non teneri, qui non facit, quod faciendum nescit; sed eum multo gravioris peccati reum fieri, qui sciens, quid faciendum sit, non tamen facit. Nam illius culpam ignorantia elevat, hujus scientia gravat.
4:1
… The Jewish people too had its militias, and Sacred Scripture refers to military service as an image of man's life on earth, in struggle with his own passions and with the seductions of the external world (Job 7:1; 14:17; II Cor. 10:4; I Tim. 1:18; Jas. 4:1; I Pet. 2:11), and compares the heavenly hierarchies to armed hosts (Deut. 17:3; II Par. 33:3; Isa. 24:21; Jer. 8:7; Luke 3:13; Acts 7:42).
4:7
… performing the "works of the d." (Acts 13:10) which are summed up in imposture or seduction (Jn. 8:44; 1 Tim. 4:2; Rev. 12:9; 20:9; cf. Acts 5:3-4), by which truth and justice are replaced by sin (Rom. 1:25-27; Jas. 5:19). The Christian must "resist the d." (Jas. 4:7; 1 Pt. 5:8) with "the whole armor" (Eph. 6:11), for the d. is "the prince of this world" (Jn. 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), he is "the god of this age" (2 Cor. 4:4).
… Against his seductions (II Cor. 2:11) and violence, against the "synagogues" of the followers of S. (Apoc. 2:9-13; 3:9), against the apostates who return to S. (I Tim. 5:15), the Christian must resist, fight with the weapons of the spirit (I Pt. 5:9; Iac. 4:7; Eph. 6:10-17). Christ has defeated him on the cross and he will be annihilated (Col. 2:15; II Cor. 10:5). God will crush the "ancient serpent" (Gen. 3:15) under the feet of the faithful …
4:12
… But let your speech be yes yes, no no; for what is more comes from evil") and to Jas. 4:12 (where the same concept is repeated). …
4:13
… Lk. 12, 35-40), since after the "night" no one can work any longer (cf. Jn. 9, 4). The same thought and the same exhortations are found in the Apostles (cf. Gal. 6, 9-10; I Cor. 9, 24 ff.; II Cor. 5, 1-10; I Thess. 5, 2-3; I Pt. 1, 3-8; II Pt. 3, 10; Jas. 4, 13-15; Apoc. 11, 10-11; 16, 15). Especially St. Paul teaches clearly (I Cor. 15, 24-28) that with the judgment the economy of salvation is closed for all, without any possibility of an "eternal …
4:17
All the angels will be judged (I Cor. 6, 3; II Pt. 2, 4; Jude 6) and all men (Mt. 25, 32; Rom. 14, 10; II Cor. 5, 10; Rev. 1, 7) concerning their thoughts (I Cor. 4, 5), their words (Mt. 12, 36), their deeds (Rom. 2, 6) and their omissions (Jas. 4, 17; Eccles. 12, 14).
4:21
… A. is the representative of the economy of the promise (ἐπικτωσία) — opposed to the bilateral Mosaic covenant — which has its full realization in the New Testament (Gal. 3, 16-18). The exaltation of A.'s faith (Rom. ch. 4; Gal. 3, 6-9; Heb. 11, 8-19; Jas. 4, 21-23) and the demonstration of the superiority of Christ's priesthood over the Aaronic one on the basis of what took place between A. and Melchizedek (Heb. ch. 7) are two classic chapters …
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · Vulgata Clementina · original Douay-Rheims (Rheims 1582), transcription by EEBO-TCP (CC0) · La Sacra Bibbia, tradotta dalla Volgata da Antonio Martini (1769-1781) (LaParola (laparola.net), Martini OSIS text, Public domain (LaParola's electronic edition marks it 'Dominio pubblico')). Public domain.