The vain reasonings of the wicked: their persecuting the just, especially the Son of God.
Such as hope not of life to come, 6. addict themselues to 〈…〉. •• and persecute the iust, especially our Sauiour 〈…〉 their wickednes. 23. Death came vpon man by the 〈…〉.
1For they have said, reasoning with themselves, but not right: The time of our life is short and tedious, and in the end of a man there is no remedy, and no man hath been known to have returned from hell:Imperocchè negli storti loro pensamenti vanno dicendo: Corto, e tedioso è il tempo di nostra vita, e non v'è riparo per l'uomo dopo il suo fine, e non v'ha chi sappiasi esser tornato dall'inferno:FOR they haue said thinking with the 〈…〉 Little, and with tediousnes is the time of 〈…〉 the end of a man there is no recou••••, and 〈…〉 knowne that hath returned from hel:Dixerunt enim cogitantes apud se non recte: / Exiguum et cum tædio est tempus vitæ nostræ, / et non est refrigerium in fine hominis, / et non est qui agnitus sit reversus ab inferis. 2For we are born of nothing, and after this we shall be as if we had not been: for the breath in our nostrils is smoke: and speech a spark to move our heart,Perocché noi siam nati dal nulla, e poscia saremo come se non fossimo stati giammai, perché il fiato delle nostre narici è un fumo: e la loquela è una scintilla veniente dal movimento del nostro cuore:because oe of 〈…〉 were we borne, and after this, we shal be as if 〈…〉 bene: because the breath is a smoke in our nosthrels: & ••••ch a sparke to moue our hart.Quia ex nihilo nati sumus, / et post hoc erimus tamquam non fuerimus. / Quoniam fumus flatus est in naribus nostris, / et sermo scintilla ad commovendum cor nostrum: 3Which being put out, our body shall be ashes, and our spirit shall be poured abroad as soft air, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, which is driven away by the beams of the sun, and overpowered with the heat thereof:Spenta la quale il corpo nostro sarà cenere, e lo spirito si dissiperà come un aere leggero, e la nostra vita passerà come la traccia di una nuvola, e si scioglierà come nebbia battuta dai raggi del sole, e dal calore di esso disciolta:Which being extinguished, our bodie shal be ashes, and the spirit shal be powred abrode as soft ayre, and our life shal passe as the trace of a cloude, and shal be dissolued as a mist, which is driuen away by the beames of the sunne, and oppressed with the heate therof:qua extincta, cinis erit corpus nostrum, / et spiritus diffundetur tamquam mollis aër; / et transibit vita nostra tamquam vestigium nubis, / et sicut nebula dissolvetur quæ fugata est a radiis solis, / et a calore illius aggravata. 4And our name in time shall be forgotten, and no man shall have any remembrance of our works.E il nome nostro sarà dimenticato col tempo, e nissuno avrà memoria delle opere nostre.and our name in time shal be forgotten, and no man shal haue remembrance of our workes.Et nomen nostrum oblivionem accipiet per tempus, / et nemo memoriam habebit operum nostrorum.
5For our time is as the passing of a shadow, and there is no going back of our end: for it is fast sealed, and no man returneth:Perocché il nostro tempo è un'ombra, che passa, e finiti che siamo non si torna da capo, si mette il sigillo, e nissuno non torna indietro.For our time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no returne of our end: because it is sealed, and no man returneth.Umbræ enim transitus est tempus nostrum, / et non est reversio finis nostri: / quoniam consignata est, et nemo revertitur. 6Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth.Su via adunque godiam de' beni presenti, e delle creature facciamo uso frettolosamente, giovani come siamo;Come therfore, and let vs enioy the good thinges that are, and let vs quickly vse the creature as in youth.Venite ergo, et fruamur bonis quæ sunt, / et utamur creatura tamquam in juventute celeriter. 7Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments: and let not the flower of the time pass by us.Empiamoci di prezioso vino, e di unguenti, e non si lasci fuggire il fiore della stagione.Let vs fil ourselues with precious wine, and oyntments: and let not the flowre of the time passe vs.Vino pretioso et unguentis nos impleamus, / et non prætereat nos flos temporis. 8Let us crown ourselves with roses, before they be withered: let no meadow escape our riot.Coroniamoci di rose prima che appassiscano, non siavi prato, per cui non passeggi la nostra cupidità.Let vs crowne ourselues with roses, before they wither: let there be no medow, which our riote shal not passe through.Coronemus nos rosis antequam marcescant; / nullum pratum sit quod non pertranseat luxuria nostra: 9Let none of us go without his part in luxury: let us every where leave tokens of joy: for this is our portion, and this our lot.Nissuno sia di noi, che non partecipi de' nostri sollazzi; lascinsi in ogni luogo i segnali di nostra galloria; perocché questa è la nostra porzione, e la (nostra) sorte.Let none of vs be exempted from our rioteousnes: euerie where let vs leaue signes of ioy: because this is our portion, and this our lot.nemo nostrum exsors sit luxuriæ nostræ. / Ubique relinquamus signa lætitiæ, / quoniam hæc est pars nostra, et hæc est sors. 10Let us oppress the poor just man, and not spare the widow, nor honour the ancient grey hairs of the aged.Si opprima il giusto, che è povero, e non si abbia pietà della vedova, e non si abbia rispetto alla antica canizie dei vecchi.Let vs oppresse the poore iust man, and not spare the widow, nor reuerence the oldmans grey head of long time.Opprimamus pauperem justum, et non parcamus viduæ, / nec veterani revereamur canos multi temporis:
11But let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth.E il (nostro) potere sia nostra legge di giustizia; imperocché quello, che è senza forze si vede, che non è buono, a nulla.But let our strength be the law of iustice: for that which is Weake, is found vnprofitable.sit autem fortitudo nostra lex justitiæ; / quod enim infirmum est, inutile invenitur. 12Let us, therefore, lie in wait for the just, because he is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings, and upbraideth us with transgressions of the law, and divulgeth against us the sins of our way of life.Noi adunque mettiamo in mezzo il giusto, perché egli non è buono per noi, ed è contrario alle opere nostre, rinfaccia a noi i peccati contro la legge, e propala in nostro danno i mancamenti del nostro modo di vivere.Let vs therfore circumuent the iust, because he is vnprofitable to vs, and he is contrarie to our workes, and reprochfully obiecteth vnto vs the sinnes of the law, and defameth in vs the sinnes of our discipline.Circumveniamus ergo justum, quoniam inutilis est nobis, / et contrarius est operibus nostris, / et improperat nobis peccata legis, / et diffamat in nos peccata disciplinæ nostræ. 13He boasteth that he hath the knowledge of God, and calleth himself the son of God.Si vanta di aver la scienza di Dio, e si da il nome di figliuolo di Dio.He boasteth that he hath the knowlege of God, and nameth himselfe the sonne of God.Promittit se scientiam Dei habere, / et filium Dei se nominat. 14He is become a censurer of our thoughts.Egli è diventato il censore dei nostri pensieri.He is made vnto vs to the defaming of our cogitations.Factus est nobis in traductionem cogitationum nostrarum. 15He is grievous unto us, even to behold: for his life is not like other men’s, and his ways are very different.E penosa cosa per noi anche il vederlo, perché la vita di lui non è come quella degli altri, e diverse son le sue vie.He is greuous vnto vs euen to behold, because his life la vnlike to others, and his wayes are changed.Gravis est nobis etiam ad videndum, / quoniam dissimilis est aliis vita illius, / et immutatæ sunt viæ ejus. 16We are esteemed by him as triflers, and he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness, and he preferreth the latter end of the just, and glorieth that he hath God for his father.Siamo stati riputati da lui come gente da nulla, ed egli schiva le nostre costumanze come immondezze, e preferisce la fine de' giusti, e ai gloria di aver per padre Iddio.We are estemed of him as triflers, and he absteyneth from our wayes as from vncleannes, and he preferreth the later ends of the iust, and glorieth that he hath God for his father.Tamquam nugaces æstimati sumus ab illo, / et abstinet se a viis nostris tamquam ab immunditiis, / et præfert novissima justorum, / et gloriatur patrem se habere Deum.
17Let us see then if his words be true, and let us prove what shall happen to him, and we shall know what his end shall be.Vedasi adunque se le sue parole siano veraci, e proviamo quel, ch'abbia da essere di lui, e vedremo dov'egli anderà a finire.Let vs see therfore if his wordes be true, and let vs proue what thinges shal come to him, and we shal know what shal be his later ends.Videamus ergo si sermones illius veri sint, / et tentemus quæ ventura sunt illi, / et sciemus quæ erunt novissima illius. 18For if he be the true son of God, he will defend him, and will deliver him from the hands of his enemies.Perocché se egli o vero figliuolo di Dio, questi il difenderà, e lo salverà dalle mani degli avversarj.For if he be the true sonne of God, he wil defend him, & wil deliuer him from the hands of the aduersaries.Si enim est verus filius Dei, suscipiet illum, / et liberabit eum de manibus contrariorum. 19Let us examine him by outrages and tortures, that we may know his meekness, and try his patience.Proviamolo colle contumelie, e co' tormenti per vedere la sua rassegnazione, e conoscere qual sia la sua pazienza.By contumelie and torment let vs examine him, that we may know his reuerence, and proue his patience.Contumelia et tormento interrogemus eum, / ut sciamus reverentiam ejus, / et probemus patientiam illius. 20Let us condemn him to a most shameful death: for there shall be respect had unto him by his words.Condanniamolo a morte sommamente obbrobriosa; perocché vi sarà chi avrà cura di lui giusta le sue parole.To a most shameful death let vs condemne him: for there shal be respect had vnto him by his wordes.Morte turpissima condemnemus eum; / erit enim ei respectus ex sermonibus illius. 21These things they thought, and were deceived: for their own malice blinded them.Così hanno pensato, e son caduti in errore; perocché la loro malizia gli ha accecati.These thinges haue they thought, and haue erred: for their malice hath blinded them.Hæc cogitaverunt, et erraverunt: / excæcavit enim illos malitia eorum. 22And they knew not the secrets of God, nor hoped for the wages of justice, nor esteemed the honour of holy souls.E non intesero i misteri di Dio, e non isperarono ricompensa della giustizia, e non fecero stima dell'onore serbato alle anime sante.And they haue not knowen the sacraments of God, nor hoped for the reward of iustice, nor estemed the honour of holie soules.Et nescierunt sacramenta Dei: / neque mercedem speraverunt justitiæ, / nec judicaverunt honorem animarum sanctarum. 23For God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his own likeness he made him.Imperocché Dio creò l'uomo per la incorruzione, e lo fece a sua immagine, e somiglianza.For God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his owne likenes he made him.Quoniam Deus creavit hominem inexterminabilem, / et ad imaginem similitudinis suæ fecit illum.
24But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world:Ma per l'invidia del diavolo entrò nel mondo la morte.But by the enuie of the diuel, death entred into the world:Invidia autem diaboli mors introivit in orbem terrarum: 25And they follow him that are of his side.E lui imitano quelli, che a lui appartengono.and they folow him that are of his part.imitantur autem illum qui sunt ex parte illius.
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Calmet
Right. He shews how the wicked brought death into the world, and expresses the sentiments of the epicureans, as in Ecclesiastes. The six first chapters are a sort of paraphrase of the nine first of Proverbs, in which the attractions of virtue and of pleasure are contrasted, etc. (Calmet)
Remedy. Literally, "refreshment." Septuagint, "healing."
Haydock
Hell, or the grave. (Haydock)
Calmet
They reject as fabulous, the accounts of people being raised to life by miracle. (Calmet)
Worthington
They suppose that the soul is mortal, and that there is neither reward nor punishment after death. (Worthington)
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Calmet
Nothing. Septuagint, "by chance." The epicureans imagined that the first man was produced by the conflux of atoms. (Lucret. 1:5.) (Calmet)
Smoke, or vanishes like it.
And speech. Budaeus would substitute "a little spark."
Menochius
Speech may be used for "thing." Our life is something like a spark. (Menochius)
Calmet
Speech is an effect of the rational soul, as a spark comes from fire. (Calmet)
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Calmet
Sealed, like one in the tomb, Matthew 27:66. The epicureans were well convinced of the fragility of our nature: but they drew false inferences from it, pretending that we should enjoy ourselves now, as there will be no future life. This they ought to have proved. (Calmet)
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Worthington
Come. From the disbelief of future rewards and punishments proceeds the epicure's life. (Worthington)
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Haydock
Time. Alexandrian Septuagint, "of spring." (Haydock)
Calmet
Youth is the spring of life. The voluptuous conclude, from the transitory nature of things, that we should make use of them. Would it not be more rational to despise them? (Calmet)
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Calmet
Worth. Strange maxims! which few will dare to proclaim, though they act according to them. (Calmet)
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Worthington
Just. Infidels are not content to live in riot: they also persecute the just. (Worthington)
Worthington
This passage points out the conduct of the Jews towards our Saviour, in so striking a manner, that Grotius would assert it has been altered by some Christian. But the Fathers adduce it as a clear prediction (Calmet) of the Jewish malice, Matthew 27:41., and Mark 14:53. (Worthington)
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Calmet
Words. Or he shall be punished for what he has said. (Syriac, Vat.[Vatable?], etc.) (Matthew 26:61.) (Calmet)
Haydock
We shall hence form a judgment of his real merits, (Menochius) unless this be spoken ironically; as if the just had foolishly flattered himself with the divine protection, Matthew 27:43. (Haydock)
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Worthington
Secrets. The disbelief of mysteries leads to a dissolute life, and to the persecution of the just. (Worthington)
Calmet
The pagans knew not the advantages of suffering, and even the apostles were ignorant of the mystery of the cross, till after the resurrection. (Calmet)
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Cornelius a Lapide
Envy. Lucifer thought that the honour of the hypostatic union (Calmet) belonged to the angelical, rather than to the human nature; and this he was guilty of envy, (Haydock) and strove to become like the most High, Isaias 14:14. (St. Bernard, ser. xvii. in Canticle of Canticles) (Cornelius a Lapide, etc.)
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〈…〉 be 〈…〉, and 〈…〉 be after death, fal to these prophane thoughts and speaches of infidelitie.
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Of infidelitie touching paine or reward after death, procedeth the Epicures life.
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Infidels are not content to liue in riote, but doe also enuie and persecute the iust. vvhose good examples vexe their mindes, sturred therto by the diuel.
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An euident prophecie of the Iewes malice persecuting our Sauiour. Fulfilled by the chief Priestes, Scribes, and Ancientes, recorded dy the Euangelists. Mat. 27. v. 41. Mar, 14. v. 53.
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Concordance Mat. 27. v. 43.
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vvant of beleuing diuine Mysteries, namely the reward of the iust, & punishmēt of the wic ked, is cause of dissolute life, and of hatred against the good.
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St Hippolytus † AD 235 Expository Treatise Against the Jews 9
… for the prophet says, “The ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright,” that is, about Christ, “Let us lie in wait for the righteous, because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings and words, and upbraideth us with our offending the law, and professeth to have knowledge of God; and he calleth himself the Child of God.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On the Holy Trinity 15.10
… But certainly, if we would utter them in words, we can only do so by thinking them. For although there were no words spoken, at any rate, he who thinks speaks in his heart. And hence that passage in the book of Wisdom: “They said within themselves, thinking not aright.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 61.6
6. “Simon Peter therefore beckons, and says to him.” The expression is noteworthy, as indicating that something was said not by any sound of words, but by merely beckoning with the head. “He beckons, and says;” that is, his beckoning is his speech. For if one is said to speak in his thoughts, as Scripture saith, “They said [reasoned] with themselves;”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 53.3
… For after there had gone before the verse, “The unwise man hath said in his heart, There is no God;” as if reasons were required why the unwise man could say this, he hath subjoined, “Corrupted they are, and abominable have become in their iniquities” ( ver. 2 ). Hear ye those corrupted men. “For they have said with themselves, not rightly thinking:”
Early Popes (Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals) The Epistle of Pope Anterus 1
… And our name shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall have our works in remembrance. For our time is a very shadow that passeth away, and after our end there is no returning; for it is fast sealed, and no man shall come again.”
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 53.3
… “A small thing and with tediousness is our life.” From this evil belief followeth that which also the Apostle hath spoken of, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die.” But in the former passage more diffusely luxury itself is described: “Let us crown us with roses, before they be withered; in every place let us leave the tokens of our gladness.”
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 53.3
… “Let us crown us with roses, before they be withered; in every place let us leave the tokens of our gladness.” After the more diffuse description of that luxury, what followeth? “Let us slay the poor just man:”
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St Barnabas † AD 61 The Epistle of Barnabas 6
… For the prophet speaks against Israel, “Woe to their soul, because they have counselled an evil counsel against themselves, saying, Let us bind the just one, because he is displeasing to us.”
Tertullian † AD 220 The Five Books Against Marcion 3.22
… “See how the righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and how merciful men are taken away, and no man considereth. For the righteous man has been removed from the evil person.” Who is this but Christ? “Come, say they, let us take away the righteous, because He is not for our turn, (and He is clean contrary to our doings).”
St Cyprian of Carthage † AD 258 Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews 2.15
… Let us see, then, if His words are true, and let us try what will come to Him. Let us interrogate Him with reproach and torture, that we may know His reverence and prove His patience. Let us condemn Him with a most shameful death. These things they considered, and erred. For their maliciousness hath blinded them, and they knew not the sacraments of God.”
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Festal and Personal Letters of Athanasius 11
… Jews, meditating death against the Life , and devising unreasonable things against the ‘Word of the Father .’ For who that looks upon their dispersion, and the desolation of their city, may not aptly say, ‘Woe unto them, for they have imagined an evil imagination, saying against their own soul, let us bind the righteous man, because he is not pleasing to us
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Festal and Personal Letters of Athanasius 19
… But this wearied them, for they were not anxious to understand, ‘for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory .’ And what their end is, the prophet foretold, crying, ‘Woe unto their soul, for they have devised an evil thought, saying, let us bind the just man, because he is not pleasing to us
St Cyril of Jerusalem † AD 386 The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril 13.12
12. They bound Jesus, and brought Him into the hall of the High-priest. And wouldest thou learn and know that this also is written? Esaias says, Woe unto their soul, for they have taken evil counsel against themselves, saying, Let us bind the Just, for He is troublesome to us
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 City of God 17.20
… Let us put him to the question with contumely and torture, that we may know his reverence, and prove his patience. Let us condemn him to the most shameful death; for by His own sayings He shall be respected. These things did they imagine, and were mistaken; for their own malice hath quite blinded them.”
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St Hippolytus † AD 235 Expository Treatise Against the Jews 9
… Let us see, then, if his words be true, and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him; for if the just man be the Son of God, He will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies. Let us condemn him with a shameful death, for by his own saying he shall be respected.”
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St Hippolytus † AD 235 Expository Treatise Against the Jews 9
… and he calleth himself the Child of God.” And then he says, “He is grievous to us even to behold; for his life is not like other men’s, and his ways are of another fashion. We are esteemed of him as counterfeits, and he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness, and pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed.”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Three Homilies Concerning the Power of Demons 3.1
… and even if they do not abstain from evil, yet nevertheless they dare what they dare with secrecy. And this is no small thing not to have transgression publicly committed. For the life of the others becomes the accuser of the wickedness of these. Hear at least what they say about the righteous man. “He is grievous to us, even when beheld,”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Homilies on Second Corinthians 28
… But, as I said, the light is hateful to the thief, and the mere sight of the just man is odious to sinners; “for he is grievous unto us even to behold.” (
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 37.3.11
“The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him” ( ver. 32 ). For he says, what it was foretold in the book of Wisdom that he should say, “He is grievous unto us, even to behold; for his life is not like other men’s.”
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Reply to Faustus the Manichæan 12.44
… In the book of Wisdom it is prophesied of the Jews: "Let us condemn him to an ignominious death; for he will be proved in his words. If he is truly the Son of God, He will aid him; and deliver him from the hand of his enemies. Thus they thought, and erred; for their wickedness blinded them."
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 53.3
… For when Himself in form of a servant appeared on earth, they that crucified Him said, “He is not God.” Because Son of God He was, truly God He was. But they that are corrupted and have become abominable said what? “He is not God:” let us slay Him, “He is not God.” Thou hast the voice of these very men in the book of Wisdom.
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 49.1.11
… He died for a time, that He might live again for ever: they lived for a time, that they might die for ever. But because they saw Him dying, they saw not death, that is to say, they understood not what was very death. What say they even in Wisdom? “Let us condemn Him with a most shameful death, for by His own sayings He shall be respected;”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 64.3
… The word of these same men we perceive in the wisdom of Solomon: “with death most vile,” say they, “let us condemn Him; let us question Him, for there will be regard in the discourses of Him; for if truly Son of God He is, let Him deliver Him.”
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St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Persecution in Egypt 1
… For they have begun no longer to lay their plots against individuals, in which case they might be able to frame a lie against them; but they have set upon all in a body, so that if they merely choose to invent accusations against them, they must be condemned. Thus their wickedness has blinded their understanding
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St Methodius † AD 311 From the Discourse on the Resurrection, Part I 1
… Now man is said to be composed of soul and body; he cannot then exist without a body, but with a body, unless there be produced another man besides man. For all the orders of immortal beings must be preserved by God, and among these is man. “For,” says the Book of Wisdom , “God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own eternity.”
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 On the Incarnation of the Word 4
… 2. For because of the Word dwelling with them, even their natural corruption did not come near them, as Wisdom also says
St Jerome † AD 420 The Letters of St. Jerome 51.6
… “For all that every man walk eth in the image.” Also after David’s time, in the reign of Solomon his son, we read a somewhat similar reference to the divine likeness. For in the book of Wisdom, which is inscribed with his name, Solomon says: “God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own eternity.”
St John of Damascus † AD 749 An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 4.4
… For the following properties are, so to speak, marks of the divine nature: viz. absence of care and distraction and guile, goodness, wisdom, justice, freedom from all vice. So then, after He had placed man in communion with Himself (for having made him for incorruption
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Pope St Clement I † AD 99 The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians 3
… and peace are now far departed from you, inasmuch as every one abandons the fear of God, and is become blind in His faith, neither walks in the ordinances of His appointment, nor acts a part becoming a Christian, but walks after his own wicked lusts, resuming the practice of an unrighteous and ungodly envy, by which death itself entered into the world.
St Cyprian of Carthage † AD 258 On Jealousy and Envy 4
… Thenceforth envy rages on the earth, in that he who is about to perish by jealousy obeys the author of his ruin, imitating the devil in his jealousy; as it is written, “But through envy of the devil death entered into the world.”
St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 21.18
18. Such was the lot of Job: such at first sight his history. In reality it was a contest between virtue and envy:
St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 45
… but which is not good for those who are still somewhat simple and greedy; just as neither is solid food good for those who are yet tender and have need of milk. But when through the devil’s malice and the woman’s caprice,
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John 48
[1.] Nothing is worse than envy and malice; through these death entered into the world. For when the devil saw man honored, he endured not his prosperity, but used every means to destroy him. (
St Jerome † AD 420 The Letters of St. Jerome 108.18
… as Horace says, it is ever the mountain top that is smitten by the lightning. It is not surprising that I declare this of men and women, when the jealousy of the Pharisees succeeded in crucifying our Lord Himself. All the saints have had illwishers, and even Paradise was not free from the serpent through whose malice death came into the world.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Baptism, Against the Donatists 4.8
… by which he was deceived who was the deceiver! From that time envy stalks upon the earth, when man, about to perish through malignity, submits himself to the teacher of perdition,—when he who envies imitates the devil, as it is written, ‘Through envy of the devil came death into the world, and they that do hold of his side do find it.’"
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Baptism, Against the Donatists 4.9
14. But yet because "by the envy of the devil death entered into the world, and they that do hold of his side do find it,"
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants 1.9
… “Nevertheless through the devil’s envy death entered into the world.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.45
… Whereas it is certain that if the apostle meant this imitation to be here understood, he would have said that sin had entered into the world and passed upon all men, not by one man, but rather by the devil. For of the devil it is written: “They that are on his side do imitate him.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 51.9
… In another place He saith, “Behold there cometh the Prince of the world,” being an acute observer of all sins; “Behold,” He saith, “there cometh the Prince of this world,” with death afflicting sinners, presiding over death: for, “By the malice of the devil death came into the world.”
John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 18.16
… For he slew himself before him of whom he was envious, and destroyed himself before that he poured forth the poison of death against man: for “by the envy of the devil death entered into the world: they therefore who are on his side follow him.”
Pope St Leo I the Great † AD 461 Sermons 49
… is the time when throughout the world the devil waxes furious, and the Christian army has to combat him, and any that have grown lukewarm and slothful, or that are absorbed in worldly cares, must now be furnished with spiritual armour and their ardour kindled for the fray by the heavenly trumpet, inasmuch as he, through whose envy death came into the world
Pope St Leo I the Great † AD 461 Sermons 77
… But because “by the devil’s malice death entered into the world
Pope St Gregory I the Great † AD 604 The Book of Pastoral Rule 3.10
… The envious are therefore to be told that, when they fail to keep themselves from spite, they are being sunk into the old wickedness of the wily foe. For of him it is written, But by envy of the devil death entered into the world (
St John of Damascus † AD 749 An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 3.1
… for by all these means God earnestly strove to emancipate man from the wide-spread and enslaving bonds of sin, which had made life such a mass of iniquity, and to effect man’s return to a life of happiness. For it was sin that brought death like a wild and savage beast into the world
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants 1.9
… “Nevertheless through the devil’s envy death entered into the world.” Now, forasmuch as this death came upon men from the devil, not because they were propagated by him, but because they imitated his example, it is immediately added: “And they that do hold of his side do imitate him.”
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THEY SAID, THINKING WRONGLY WITHIN THEMSELVES. Here the reason for the preceding matters is given, namely why the impious brought death upon themselves, when they made a covenant with it—but in a depraved, foolish and impious manner; for it does not note they perish, and therefore are worthy to be placed in the lot and society of death. Their reasoning is this: our life and all its goods and evils end in death, and after death there will be nothing that may gladden or afflict us; therefore while we live, let us live happily, and indulge every desire, and therefore let us plunder the wealth and goods of others, that we may feast and revel in them. The root of their paralogism is cupidity and pleasure, to which they are wholly devoted: for in order that they may pursue and satisfy this with impunity, they persuade themselves that the soul is mortal, and therefore after death there is to be feared no vengeance and punishment of the divine power. The author of this error and heresy was Cain, the murderer of his brother Abel, who denied the divine power and its vengeance, and therefore killed his brother, as testified by Josephus, I Antiquities, cap. III, and Philo, lib. That the Worse Plots Against the Better, and St. Ambrose, lib. On Cain and Abel, cap. ix: all his descendants followed him, on account of whom God drowned the whole world in the flood. After the flood, Nimrod, the tyrant, author of the tower of Babylon, renewed this perfidy and crime, as if about to ascend to heaven through it and wage war against God, Genesis xi; then the Samaritans, namely the Assyrians, who were brought by Salmanasar from Assyria into Samaria, for they believed that all things perish with death, and that there would be no resurrection, as testified by Epiphanius, heresy 9; Philastrius, heresy 7, and others; finally Sadoc and his followers the Sadducees, who lived under Judas Maccabeus, as testified by Josephus, lib. XIII Antiquities, cap. ix. The same heresy was taught among the gentiles by Democritus, as testified by Plutarch, lib. IV On the Opinions of Philosophers, cap. vii; and after him Epicurus and his followers the Epicureans, whose axiom is: Eat, drink, play; after death there is no pleasure, as testified by Plutarch in the same place. Seneca recounts the sentiments and words of these men, epistle 123: "Hence," he says, "we arrive at these words: Virtue, and philosophy, and justice, are the empty noise of words; the one happiness is, of a good life, to do all things freely (other manuscripts read, to do, to be, to drink), to enjoy one's patrimony; this is to live, this is to remember that one is mortal. Days flow by, and irreparable life runs its course: do we hesitate? What does it profit to be wise; and to impose frugality upon an age that will not always receive pleasures, meanwhile, while it can, while it demands, to offer them? to forestall death of one's own accord, and to forbid oneself already whatever it is about to take away?" But this reasoning of theirs is irrational and foolish: their syllogism here is a paralogism, for first, it is most false that the rational soul dies with the body, since it is created in the image of God and participates in immortality from Him. Second, even if the soul were mortal and all life were to end in death, nevertheless one ought to devote it entirely to virtue, not to pleasure: for pleasure is the good of beasts, but virtue, or living according to the teaching of reason, is the good of men, as Seneca teaches in the place already cited. Add that virtue alone is the true pleasure of man, but spiritual, which makes man pleasing to God, joyful, healthy and holy; whereas all carnal pleasure makes man bestial, hateful to God and angels, sad, sickly and wicked: whence that young man in the Lives of the Fathers wisely answered the demon, who falsely suggested that he was reprobate by God, in order to impel him to live a life in all carnal pleasure: "If in the future life it is not given to me to serve and please God, I shall serve and please at least in this present life: for what is holier, what is better, what is more pleasant than to please God? for to serve God is to reign. Let me therefore enjoy my God in this life, if it is not permitted in the other."
EXIGUUM, — In Greek, our life is exiguous and troublesome; for in place of trouble, in Greek it is λυπηρός, that is, sad, anxious, heavy, troublesome, bitter, miserable, to which is opposed μανός, that is, joyful, pleasant, sweet, delightful. This meaning requires no exposition, because daily experience of each person clearly sets it forth for us, indeed places it before our eyes to be seen: for our life brings a thousand labors, a thousand hardships, a thousand tediums and disgusts. Count the labors and sorrows which you endure in one day, and you will find more of them than there are hours or actions, and so every action is sprinkled throughout and filled with them on all sides. This is what Jacob says to Pharaoh when asked how many years old he was, Genesis xlvii, 9: "The days of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years, few and evil," that is, miserable; and David, Psalm xxxviii, 6: "Thou hast made my days measurable" (in Hebrew mineu tepachot; the Septuagint, ἀκαύστα; that is, palmary, that is, exiguous like a palm, which is a measure containing only as much as can be grasped by the extension of the fingers of the hand, which is commonly called a span, whence Symmachus translated it, σπιθαμιαία;) "and my substance is as nothing before thee." Consult Job, chapter xiv, verse 1 and following. Seneca saw the same thing, who in epistle 100 says: "That which lies between the first day and the last is various and uncertain. If you estimate troubles, even for a boy it is long; if you consider swiftness, even for an old man it is narrow. Nothing is not slippery and deceptive, and more unstable than any weather. All things are tossed about, and pass into their opposite, and in such a rolling of human affairs nothing is certain to anyone except death." And a little later: "Set before yourself the vastness of deep time, and embrace the universe, then compare this which we call human life; universally you will see how exiguous is that which we desire, which we extend: from this how many tears, how many anxieties occupy, how much death before it comes desired, how much ill health, how much fear, how much tender, or rude, or useless years. Half of this is slept away. Add labors, dangers, and you will understand even in the longest life, the minimum is what is lived." And Menander: "Pain and life are congenital, and that grows old with life." The emperor Zeno: "Man is a mockery of God." Another: "What is man? a slave of death, a passing traveler." Aristotle: "What is man? an example of weakness, a spoil of time, a plaything of fortune, an image of inconstancy, a balance of envy and calamity: the rest moreover is phlegm and bile." Thus Stobaeus reports it, sermon 89, which is entirely on this matter.
AND THERE IS NO ONE WHO IS KNOWN TO HAVE RETURNED FROM THE UNDERWORLD. — More clearly, — More clearly, there is no one who after death has been restored to life, who namely has shown himself to be living, and that another life survives after death, in which it is permitted to escape the miseries of this life, and to change them into pleasures, as if to say: Uncertain and fabulous are those things which are narrated by poets and others concerning the underworld and its punishments, and other things after this life: for all these things are old wives' tales, and terrors for children: such is the descent of Aeneas to the underworld, and his return from there under the guidance of the Sibyl, which Virgil describes in the sixth book of the Aeneid, and that of Thespesius of Soli in Plutarch, in the book On the Delayed Vengeance of the Deity. The impious tacitly indicate that the soul perishes with the body
AND THERE IS NO REFRESHMENT AT THE END OF MAN. — St. Bonaventure, — St. Bonaventure, Lyra, Hugo and Dionysius explain it thus: The impious after this life go, not to the refreshment of heaven, but to the torment of hell; but in Greek it is: "There is no healing at the end of man," that is, there is no healing or cure at the death of man; Vatable says, nor is there a remedy against death, meaning: There is no medicine, nor remedy to escape death, according to that saying: "Against the force of death there is no medicine in the gardens." Truly Seneca in his Consolation to Marcia, chapter xi: "What," he says, "is man? any broken vessel, and anything fragile; by being tossed about, not by great tempest that you are scattered, is the work: wherever you have struck, you are loosened. What is man? a weak and fragile body, naked, by its own nature unarmed, needing the help of others, cast down to every insult of fortune: when he has well exercised his arms, the food of any beast, any victim; composed of weak and fluid parts, and bright in external features; intolerant of cold, heat and labor; by its very position and idleness about to waste away, fearing its own nourishment, by the lack of which at one time, by the abundance at another time it bursts." And after a few intervening remarks: "Smell and taste, and weariness, and waking, and moisture, and food, and without which it cannot live, are deadly to it. Wherever it moves, immediately conscious of its infirmity, not bearing every sky, troubled by the newness of waters, and by an air not familiar to its state, and by the slightest causes and offenses diseased, rotten, subject to disease, having begun life with weeping: while meanwhile how many tumults does this so contemptible animal stir up! into how many thoughts, forgetful of its condition, does it come! it turns over in its mind immortal, eternal things, and disposes for grandsons and great-grandsons: while meanwhile long death oppresses him striving; and this, which is called old age, is but a few circuits of years." perish, and therefore he ought to give himself over to his desires in this life, so that he may live happily, since after this life nothing more is to be expected for him: thus indeed, just as the immortality of the soul impels man to fear and worship of the divine through a modest and pure life, so the mortality of the soul, persuaded to man, induces him to deny the divine and all religion, so that man may live freely and follow his lusts. Moreover this opinion of the impious is false: because many have returned from the underworld, who were raised to life by Elijah, Elisha, and other prophets, apostles and saints; yet it is true in this sense, that in that very age of theirs few, and perhaps none, returned from death and the underworld to life. In a similar way Homer says, Iliad IX: Cattle are subject to plunder, and fat flocks, And tripods can be acquired, and horses with golden manes; But the soul of man, so that it may return neither by plunder, Nor otherwise can be taken, once it has departed from the fence of teeth. And Philetas: I made a journey to the underworld, By which no traveler returns backward. And Virgil, VI Aeneid: Easy is the descent to Avernus; But to recall one's step, and to escape to the upper air, This is the work, this is the labor. Note, the souls of the blessed in the heavens have often returned to earth and appeared to mortals, as when the Blessed Virgin appeared to John the Patrician and to Pope Liberius, and commanded that a basilica be built for her on the Esquiline at that place which was covered with snow on the fifth of August: whence the Feast of the Blessed Mary of the Snows. When the same appeared to Blessed John of Damascus, and being asked restored to him his hand, which Leo the Isaurian had ordered to be cut off, a thin line remaining in the arm from the wound, as John the Patriarch of Jerusalem narrates in his Life. When Saints Philip and John appeared to the Emperor Theodosius, as Theodoret testifies, lib. V Hist. cap. xxxiv, Saints Peter and Paul to the Emperor Constantine suggesting baptism as a remedy for leprosy, as testified by the VII Synod, act. II. Souls also returned from limbo, as the soul of Moses appearing with Elijah in transfiguration of Christ; the soul of Samuel appearing to Saul, and foretelling his death, I Kings xxviii; St. Jeremiah and Onias appeared to Judas Maccabeus, foretelling victory against Nicanor, II Maccabees xv. Souls also have returned from purgatory, for Paschasius, a deacon of the apostolic curia, after death was found at the Angulan baths by Germanus of Capua paying the penalties of sins, as St. Gregory relates, IV Dialogues cap. xl. A certain just man suffered severe torment on account of money retained: who finally appearing to his brother Commodus revealed that he had been freed from it by holy sacrifices, as St. Gregory testifies, IV Dial. cap. xxxv. There was also a priest who appeared very frequently at the baths in Centumcellae, who provided free service to himself whenever he bathed. For him, when sacrifices to God had been offered as he had requested, he was known to be a spirit, to whom by divine mercy it happened that he could satisfy and be helped for his sins in this manner, as St. Gregory relates in the same place. Souls indeed from hell sometimes, but rarely return and appear, and that not so much through themselves as through demons: for they themselves, condemned to the prison and fire of hell, are not permitted to depart from there; whence in their place demons appear, who in this air until the day of judgment are permitted by God to act for the temptation and exercise of men, so that they might represent to men the punishments of hell, and by fear of them restrain men from vices, and compel them to worship God: thus to a certain holy hermit appeared Theodoric, king of Italy and an Arian, being led between Pope John and Symmachus the patrician with bound hands, and thrust into the cauldron of Vulcan, as St. Gregory relates, lib. IV Dialogues cap. xxx. A nun was seen in the Church of St. Lawrence in Rome before the altar being cut in two, as St. Gregory testifies, in the same lib. cap. li: the same, cap. xxxvi, relates that a certain Peter, deceased, saw the torments of the damned in the fire of hell, and when he himself was about to be cast into the same, an angel forbade it, saying: "Return, and henceforth attend most carefully to how you ought to live." Similar things he relates in the same place concerning a certain Stephen and another soldier. A certain Curma of the municipality of Tullia, when he had lain as if dead for several days, returning to himself related marvels concerning the punishments and rewards of the dead, confirming the same by certain arguments, as St. Augustine relates, lib. On Care for the Dead, cap. xi, where he also recounts many similar examples of apparitions. Thus Josaphat, converted by Barlaam, in a rapture saw the torments of hell, and by that vision overcame the temptation of the flesh, as Damascenus relates in History cap. xxx. See our Peter Thyræus, lib. I On the Apparitions of Spirits cap. xi, Alexander ab Alexandro, lib. V Genial. cap. xxiii, and lib. II, cap. ix, Marsilio Ficino, lib. XVI On the Immortality of the Soul. The soul of the Emperor Trajan liberated from the punishments of hell by the prayers of St. Gregory, from John the deacon, Ciacconius and others believe, but Baronius, Bellarmine and others of keener judgment believe this to be a mere fable. But even if no one had returned from hell, the infernal regions are not therefore to be denied, nor the life and torment of souls in hell: for Holy Scripture clearly teaches and threatens this very thing; whence the impious could be answered with what Abraham answered to the rich man feasting, asking that Lazarus be sent to his brothers, who might announce to them his own and the punishments of hell: "They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them: for if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead," Luke xvi, 31.
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— For "from nothing" in Greek is αὐτοσχεδίως, that is, of one's own accord, rashly, by chance, extemporaneously, suddenly, unforeseen, born without God's counsel, care, command and providence, and cast forth into the world and light; the Syriac [version says] we were made extemporaneously; the Regia [version says] we were born by ourselves, as gnats, fleas, fungus, etc., are born of themselves from the earth without sowing. The impious prove that there are no infernal regions, nor life in them, as if to say: Chance begot us, chance like fungi and gnats will destroy and annihilate us; therefore there are no infernal regions, nor punishments of the infernal regions, decreed by certain and just divine providence for the impious: for as God did not create us, so neither does He care for, govern, judge, reward or punish each one according to his merits or demerits. Thus Democritus, Chrysippus, and Epicurus taught that the worlds and men made and born in them came from the fortuitous concourse of atoms, or from similar chance, not from certain divine provision and creation. Thus Aristotle, in Politics II, chapter vi, speaking according to the opinion of the common people, says that the ancient legislators, whom he criticizes, were born from corrupt seed or from the earth. Diodorus Siculus has similar things in book I, chapters i and ii. Thus also Ovid and the poets fable that men were born from stones cast by Deucalion. But all these are refuted by the history of the creation of men and the world described in Genesis by Moses, indeed by natural reason itself, which teaches that man, consisting of a rational soul, is the noblest and most perfect animal, and therefore is the work not of fortune, but of the wisest and most powerful God, as Philo shows in his book On the Creation of the World, Eusebius in book VII of the Preparation for the Gospel, chapter vii, Justin in the Exhortation, Lactantius in book II, chapter xii. See Pererius in the Physics, book VIII, chapter xvi, and the Conimbricenses, book III On the Heavens, Question VI, article 3. Tropologically, Blessed Peter Damian, epistle 4, chapter iv, shows that the impious man, even while he exists, seems rather not to be than to be, and pertains more to nothingness than to being, because he recedes and stands far from Him who truly is, and through whom all things are, namely God. For the sinner stands farther from God than non-being stands from being: for the distance and separation of the former is finite, of the latter infinite. St. Gregory adds, who speaks thus of man fallen into sin, in book XI of the Morals, chapter xxvi, on those words of St. Job, chapter xiv: "Who cometh forth like a flower, and is destroyed, etc. For he cometh forth like a flower, because he shineth in the flesh; but he is destroyed, because he is reduced to putrefaction: for what are men born in the world but certain flowers in a field? Let us turn the eyes of our heart to this breadth of the present world, and behold it full, as it were, of as many flowers as there are men. Life indeed in the flesh is a flower in hay; whence well by the Psalmist it is said, Psalm cii, 15: Man's days are as grass: as the flower of the field, so shall he flourish. Isaiah also saith, chapter xl, verse 6: All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field. For man, like a flower, proceedeth from the hidden, and suddenly appeareth in public: he is straightway from the public withdrawn by death to the hidden. The greenness of the flesh showeth us, but the dryness of dust withdraweth us from sight. Like a flower we appeared, who were not: like a flower we wither, who appeared temporally. And because by moments man is daily compelled to death, rightly he addeth: And he fleeth away as a shadow, and never remaineth in the same state." This is what David singeth in mournful voice, Psalm lxxxix, 9: "Our years shall be considered as a spider's web: the days of our years in them are threescore and ten years. But if in the strong, fourscore years: and what more of them is labour and sorrow. For mildness cometh upon us, and we shall be corrected;" Hebrew, because shearing is swift, and we shall fly away; Arias, it is cut down quickly, and we shall fly away; Vatablus, it passeth swiftly, and we fly away. Whence St. Ambrose, epistle 42, asserts that this life is so filled with such evils, that in comparison with it death is thought to be a remedy, not a punishment: for indeed, he saith, God made it brief, so that its troubles, which could not be ended by prosperity, might be ended by the brevity of time." To this pertains that saying of Petronius about the silver mask: Alas, alas, wretched us, how all of little man is nothing! So we shall all be, after Orcus carries us away.
BECAUSE SMOKE IS A BLAST IN OUR NOSTRILS. — Thus it should be read with the Romans: some read incorrectly, smoke and blast; others also read less correctly, as Francis Lucas and the Complutensians, afflatus, although this is almost the same as blast; others worse, for in nostrils read in ears; whence Herodotus thought the soul to dwell in the ears, because by good things heard the body is refreshed, but by evil things heard it is stirred to anger; the Syriac, because as smoke is the spirit in our nostrils; the Arabic, because blast is smoke in our ears. The sense is, as if you were to say: Our soul and life is nothing other than a blast, that is a breathing, by which through the nostrils we draw in air and breathe; but this breathing, as soon as it is made, subsides and fails, and like smoke is scattered, and vanishes thin into the breezes: into those same breezes therefore our soul has gone in death, and consequently after it no life remains for us. Thus Heraclitus thought the soul to be nothing other than a respiration of humours, or a vapour and exhalation, as Aristotle testifies, book I On the Soul, text 32: indeed even the rude common people call breathing the soul, and know no other soul. Moreover because we commonly breathe through the nostrils, hence he calls the blast or breathing of the nostrils the soul. To which likewise Isaiah alludes, chapter ii, verse 22: "Beware," he says, "of man, whose spirit is in his nostrils." But the impious err: for our soul is spiritual, indeed pure and mere spirit like an angel, and therefore cannot be a blast or breathing, inasmuch as that is corporeal, but it itself produces this breathing, so that it may cool the heat of the heart in which it dwells. Moreover breathing is aptly compared to smoke; for just as fire causes smoke, so natural heat causes breathing and respiration; hence our life, which is sustained by respiration, is called, Jacob iv, 15, "a vapour appearing for a little while;" hence also the Psalmist, Psalm ci, 4: "My days," he says, "have failed like smoke."
AND THE WORD A SPARK TO MOVE OUR HEART. — Thus it should be read with the Romans and Greeks, not spark, as some read it, see Francis Lucas, note 200: for the Greek texts have: ὁ λόγος σπινθήρ, that is, word spark; although Budaeus in the Pandects, and Peter Nannius here prefer another reading, which is found more rarely, namely ὀλίγος σπινθήρ, that is, a small spark, as if to say: The breath or respiration by which we breathe and live is as it were a certain spark, that is, a small heat and vapor, which lasts as long as the motion of the heart lasts, or the motion by which our heart is moved and lives. For life consists in natural heat and the motion of the heart, which emits breath like its spark upward: indeed the Stoics held that the soul is nothing other than a warm spirit, or, as Heraclitus held, a warm exhalation, which they asserted always flows from the heart, as from the workshop of natural heat, in which vital spirits are generated, by which motion occurs and every action of the senses: thus Plutarch, book IV On the Opinions of Philosophers, chapter iii. This sense is convenient and easy. But more numerous and better manuscripts read, not ὀλίγος, but ὁ λόγος, that is, word spark. Moreover λόγος can be translated as reason, as if to say: Reason and mind, by which man excels before other animals, is as it were a spark which moves the heart and will to all things which it does: thus Osorius; but better our author and others translate λόγος as word. They signify therefore that the impious believe our life to be nothing other than a lively fire existing in the heart, which in the motion, or, as it is in Greek, ἐν κινήσει, that is in the motion of our heart, emits from itself sparks, namely the word and words which we speak, and smoke, namely respiration and breath, just as fire, when moved, ejects sparks and smoke. Again, just as when fire fails the spark fails, and passes into ash and cinder, so when speech fails, and consequently the soul, the body passes into ashes: what is briefer, what is emptier, what is more vain, what is more fleeting than life? Furthermore, the word moves the heart, because it now moves it to anger, if it be harsh; now to gentleness, if it be mild; now to love, now to hatred, etc., and this lightly, suddenly and variously, just as sparks are excited and fly forth precipitously and tumultuously from the furnace: thus Jansenius, a Castro and others; whence the Syriac translator renders it, and the word like a very small spark leaping from the flame, moves our heart; the Arabic, and the word a spark in the vapor (evaporation) of our heart. Our Lorinus adds that the word is formed similar to a spark, while our heart is moved: and just as the spirit, which is in the nostrils, and by which we breathe, is like smoke, which vanishes: so that same spirit, which is the instrument by which we speak, and by whose power the heart is moved, is like a spark, which is extinguished: James, chapter iii, verse 5, on account of the word calls the tongue a small fire. Likewise it could be said, that, just as a candle, when extinguished, emits a spark at the end, so it happens to a man dying in his last breath. But this sense appears more obscure and more foreign. Others, as Dionysius, understand by word the natural heat; Hugo, the soul, which is the producer of speech, but more obscurely and more foreignly. Cervantes agrees: The word a spark, he says, is the soul, which is declared by speech, for this animates the body and exhales breath from the nostrils, like smoke from a furnace, and breathes it out by the motion of the heart and lungs, like a bellows, it is like a fragile spark, and quickly failing, always breathing with anxious spirit from peril; whence fear and trepidation, and frequent breathing. But this too is said improperly. Moreover St. Bonaventure and our Salmeron, tome XI, tract. II, hold that in the word there is an allusion to the opinion of Diogenes, who held that the soul is air: for in air, and through the striking of air in the mouth, speech is made; in the word spark, there is an allusion to the opinion of Democritus, saying that the mind is fire; in the word to move the heart, to the opinion of Melissus, or, as others say, Thales, who said the soul is the force moving the body. But this too is obscure, uncertain and doubtful, nor does it appear that such subtle doctrine came into the minds of the impious. Finally with St. Bernard, tract. On the Interior House, chapter lxii, understand by word the fabulous, namely a fable: "Just as a fable, he says, so is my life; I fear lest I myself by fabling become a fable, if I am found without good works;" For indeed those who use their mouth much in speaking use their hand little in laboring, for their whole soul is in their mouth and tongue; hence the talkative and garrulous are wont to be idle and lazy; whence the Apostle, II Thessalonians iii, 11: "We have heard, he says, that some among you walk disorderly, working not at all, but curiously busying themselves," in searching into and recounting the words and deeds of others. The sense therefore assigned in the first place is plain and genuine, where note that speech is aptly compared to a spark, breath to smoke, the heart to fire, or rather to a furnace, first, because just as a furnace ejects smoke and sparks, so the heart ejects breath and speech. Secondly, just as a furnace tumultuously and wanderingly vomits forth smoke and sparks, in the same way the heart also vomits forth words. Thirdly, just as that furnace pours forth according to the motion of fire and wood, so also the heart pours forth speech from the motion of the affection of love, anger or hatred, by which it is stirred; whence if it be moved by love, it brings forth friendly and gentle words; if by anger, angry and threatening words; if by hatred, gloomy and disastrous words; if by fear, fearful and anxious words, etc. Fourthly, just as smoke and sparks are certain signs, equally as effects of fire, so also breath and words are certain signs and effects of life, equally as effects of what dominates in the heart. Fifthly, just as when smoke and spark cease the heat of the furnace ceases, so when breathing and speech cease life ceases, and the vital affection in the heart; hence to be silent in Scripture is to die, and death itself is called דומה duma, that is, silence: wherefore as much as the power of breathing and speaking is diminished, so much is life decreased and diminished, whence the aged and the dying speak thinly, weakly and submissively, so that they can scarcely be understood, according to that in Ecclesiastes xii, 4: "And they shall shut the doors in the street, in the lowness of the voice of her that grindeth." Add sixthly, a spark, although it shines and darts forth with a crackling sound, and turns all eyes toward itself, yet immediately is scattered: so speech, although it be elegant and magnificent, so as to snatch all to itself, yet immediately passes away and is scattered. Hence against those who presume too much and love the noise of the world this apologue is set forth: A falling spark, lifted on high by the force of the flame, pleased itself exceedingly, and soon thought itself to be carried up among the stars; but when it had ascended to the middle of the furnace's throat, it was extinguished and became ashes and fell. Therefore just as smoke and spark quickly vanish, so also breath, speech and life. If therefore anyone should ask, what is the life of man? what is man? you should answer: Man is speech, man is breath, man is smoke, man is a spark: thus John the Baptist, when asked: Who art thou? answered: "I am the voice of one crying in the desert," Isaiah xl, 3: see the sayings there. Again seventhly, just as a small spark often neglected kindles a great fire: so a small speech, for example a reproach cast upon someone, often stirs up great quarrels, brawls and slaughter; whence St. James, chapter iii, verse 6: "The tongue, he says, is a fire, a world of iniquity, etc., and it inflames the wheel of our nativity, inflamed by hell." Furthermore, to breath, or respiration, speech is rightly connected, as an effect to its cause: for just as breath in pipes and organs produces sweet melody, so the breathing in the mouth upon the teeth, lips and palate, reflected by the tongue, produces speech and articulate voice; whence St. Gregory of Nyssa, in the book On the Making of Man, chapter ix: "The human mind, he says, like a skillful craftsman strikes animated organs," etc.; and Theodoret, book III On Providence, treating of the organ of human voice, says: "To a musical organ, which consists of bronze pipes, and is inspired by the breath of bellows, or by air, and moved by the fingers of the craftsman, produces a consonant voice of sound, plainly that is very similar; whence Absam receiving art made pipes, and composed lyres and citharas." Moreover, just as bellows in an organ produce the breath, which produces melody, so also the lungs produce the breathing, which forms speech; whence the lungs, like bellows of the organ blowing, are called by Galen, book IX On the Use of Parts, storehouses of air: these same, like bellows, sharpen and kindle the vital fire, that is, natural heat. Whence Nyssen, in the book On the Making of Man, chapter xxx, when he had said, "the heart is that from which fiery spirits are diffused through the body, and it is moved without intermission, and therefore is by nature similar to fire," he adds: "Like bellows, which craftsmen use in their workshops, it always draws air from the nearby lung, the receptacle of air; and what is fiery in it it breathes out." of the pagans, let them at least have faith in their own Sibyl, who says word for word: And when all things shall be ashes, and thin dust, and the same God shall extinguish the fire which he had kindled, he shall restore the bones again, and the ashes buried, and all mankind (as they were) God himself shall restore. Finally, the Romans and other peoples, as testified by Alexander ab Alexandro, lib. III Genial. cap. vii, cremated the bodies of the dead and turned them into ashes, lest they should flow away in foul decay and putrefy: otherwise a body does not of itself turn into ash, but into dust; by ash therefore understand also dust here; for among the Hebrews דן epher and עפר aphar, that is ash and dust, are closely related. The Romans and other peoples, as testified by Alexander ab Alexandro, lib. III Genial. cap. vii, cremated the bodies of the dead and turned them into ashes, lest they should flow away in foul decay and putrefy: otherwise a body does not of itself turn into ash, but into dust; by ash therefore understand also dust here; for among the Hebrews דן epher and עפר aphar, that is ash and dust, are closely related.
AND THE SPIRIT SHALL BE DIFFUSED AS SOFT AIR. — Spirit, — Spirit, that is the breath and exhalation by which we breathe, are nourished, grow warm, speak, concerning which he spoke in the preceding verse; which, as it is made from air, so it passes into air when man dies. Philosophers understand by spirit the soul of man, which they believe to be a certain thin and subtle body, such as spirit and wind; hence Democritus held that the soul, like all other things, was formed from the chance concourse of atoms, which, being moved by perpetual motion, also move and agitate the body; the Stoics said the soul is warm spirit; others, and indeed more, held the soul to be air. Hence that saying of Lucretius, lib. V: And the light breaths of the air, and warm vapors. And Varro in the Cosmotor.: "You give the reins to the light soul, while the wind with its sweet breath leads us to our native land." Heraclitus thought the soul to be something fiery, others to be a certain light, Diogenes to be air, Thales moisture, Critias blood, Empedocles a certain harmony and temperament of the elements; Hippocrates said the soul is a thin spirit dispersed throughout the whole body, which grows and decreases with age and body, increases and diminishes, is consumed and perishes. Thus Plutarch, De Placit. Philosoph. lib. IV, cap. ii and iii. See St. Justin in the Paranesis, St. Nemesius, lib. De Natura hominis, cap. ii, and the Abulensian, Paradox. V, cap. l. But they err: for the rational soul is not corporeal, but pure spirit, like an angel created by God in his likeness. Spirit therefore here is understood not as soul, but as breath, which is corporeal, namely air, which we draw in by breathing, which is dispersed at death. V: And the light breaths of the air, and warm vapors. And Varro in the Cosmotor.: "You give the reins to the light soul, while the wind with its sweet breath leads us to our native land." Heraclitus thought the soul to be something fiery, others to be a certain light, Diogenes to be air, Thales moisture, Critias blood, Empedocles a certain harmony and temperament of the elements; Hippocrates said the soul is a thin spirit dispersed throughout the whole body, which grows and decreases with age and body, increases and diminishes, is consumed and perishes. Thus Plutarch, De Placit. Philosoph. lib. IV, cap. ii and iii. See St. Justin in the Paranesis, St. Nemesius, lib. De Natura hominis, cap. ii, and the Abulensian, Paradox. V, cap. l. But they err: for the rational soul is not corporeal, but pure spirit, like an angel created by God in his likeness. Spirit therefore here is understood not as soul, but as breath, which is corporeal, namely air, which we draw in by breathing, which is dispersed at death. or.: "You give the reins to the light soul, while the wind with its sweet breath leads us to our native land." Heraclitus thought the soul to be something fiery, others to be a certain light, Diogenes to be air, Thales moisture, Critias blood, Empedocles a certain harmony and temperament of the elements; Hippocrates said the soul is a thin spirit dispersed throughout the whole body, which grows and decreases with age and body, increases and diminishes, is consumed and perishes. Thus Plutarch, De Placit. Philosoph. lib. IV, cap. ii and iii. See St. Justin in the Paranesis, St. Nemesius, lib. De Natura hominis, cap. ii, and the Abulensian, Paradox. V, cap. l. But they err: for the rational soul is not corporeal, but pure spirit, like an angel created by God in his likeness. Spirit therefore here is understood not as soul, but as breath, which is corporeal, namely air, which we draw in by breathing, which is dispersed at death. The impious therefore seem partly from the opinion of philosophers, partly from the speech and sense of the common people to hold that the soul is nothing other than spirit, or the breath by which we breathe, and which we exhale at death, which then vanishes like air and vapor; and consequently after death neither does the soul remain, which is capable of knowledge, sensation, pains and torments; because, just as at death the body passes into ashes, so the spirit and soul passes away and flows into the air and atmosphere from which it came: thus the Comic poet calls the soul a breath, saying: "Does the soul stink to your wife?" In this matter they err gravely, first, because not even in brute beasts is the soul a breath, but something nobler and more spiritual, by which they imagine, remember, and desire things convenient and favorable to themselves; second, because in man it is manifest from his works that the soul is something sublime, heavenly and angelic, equipped with powers and divine gifts, namely intellect, by which he knows not only corporeal things, but also angels and God himself; memory, by which he can recall the same things even when absent and long past; will, by which he loves the same things and commands all other powers, senses, and all members, either politically or despotically. Hear Lactantius, in the book On the Works of God, chapter xvii: "What the soul is, has not yet been agreed upon among philosophers, nor perhaps ever will be: for some have said it is blood, others fire, others wind, whence the soul or mind received its name, because in Greek wind is called ἄνεμος; yet none of them seems to have said anything." And after several intervening remarks: "Whence it appears that the soul is something I know not what, similar to God. But those who think it is wind are deceived in this, that drawing spirit from the air, we are seen to live. Varro therefore defines: The soul is air conceived in the mouth, cooled in the lung, warmed in the heart, diffused through the body. These things are most plainly false: for I do not say that the reason for such things is so obscure to us that we do not even understand this, what cannot be true." And after some remarks: "Therefore the soul is not air conceived in the mouth, because the soul is generated much earlier than air can be conceived in the mouth: for it is not insinuated into the body after birth, as it seems to some philosophers, but immediately after conception, when divine necessity formed the fetus in the womb, because it lives so much within the bowels of the mother that it is increased in growth and eagerly strives to burst forth with frequent pulsations." Hear also St. Isidore, book XI of the Origins, chapter i: "The soul received its name from winds, in that it is wind; whence also wind in Greek is called ἄνεμος, because drawing air through the mouth we are seen to live; but it is most plainly false, because the soul is generated much earlier than air is conceived, because it already lives in the womb of the mother; therefore the soul is not air, as some have thought, who could not conceive its incorporeal nature." AS SOFT AIR. — In Greek χαῦνος, that is soft, loose, flowing, dissolved, remiss, yielding, empty, spongy, wandering, fleeting: it alludes to the etymology of air, for as Plato says in the Cratylus: "Air, whence is it called? Is it because αἴρει, that is, it lifts up those things that are on the earth? Or because ἀεὶ ῥεῖ, that is, it always flows? Or because from itself always flowing there exists spirit or breath? Thus aether is called, as if ἀεὶ θεῖ, that is, always running around the air." Others prefer that air be derived from ἀήρ, that is, I breathe, for air exhales wind, and is blown through by wind: again respiration in man is made through air, drawn in by inspiration and expiration. Our breath therefore is as it were soft and flowing air; hence the epithet of air is that it is spread out and attenuated, that is, scattered, extended and thin: whence Cicero, book II of On the Nature of the Gods: "Then the air bordering on the sea, he says, is distinguished by day and night, and it is sometimes spread out and attenuated and borne aloft, but sometimes condensed it is gathered into clouds."
AND OUR LIFE SHALL PASS AWAY AS THE TRACE (in Greek ἴχνη, — A trace properly is the likeness of a foot, namely impressed on sand or mud by a foot, yet it is transferred to any sign: therefore the trace of a cloud is the remnants, signs and effects of a cloud, such as drops, rain, blackness or darkness appearing in the air, and especially a mist, as follows, which a cloud is accustomed to leave behind itself, whence explaining it he adds:
AND AS A MIST SHALL BE DISSOLVED, — For a cloud, thicker, either by wind, or by the rapture of the heavens, or by the sun, ceases to be and becomes a thinner mist, which is therefore immediately dispersed by the rays of the sun, and thus with the cloud now completely dispersed it is an index of serenity: and since it is cold in itself, it cools the air into which it is dispersed; for which reason dawn is accustomed to be cold, because the rising sun dispersing mists and cold vapors collected through the air at night makes it colder; hence the poets say that dawn is the mother of winds. Somewhat differently Hugo and Holcot: "The trace of a cloud, they say, is a small particle of cloud, as large as the extreme part of a foot, whose traces are accustomed to be impressed in the earth:" thus indeed in III Kings xviii, 44, Elias praying, "a little cloud, as the trace of a man," in Hebrew, as the sole of a foot, was ascending from the sea. The impious compare their brief and fleeting life, first, to smoke, verse 2; second, to an extinguished spark and ash, ibid.; third, to soft air, verse 3; fourth, to a cloud and mist, ibid.; fifth, to a shadow, verse 5. Symbolically, St. Bonaventure considers that in smoke is noted the obscuring of the intellect; in wind or breath, the disturbance of the irascible faculty; in a spark, the inflammation of the concupiscible faculty; in air, the emptiness of intention; in ash, the unfruitfulness of works; in a denser cloud, opposition against grace; in a lighter mist, the elation of the mind; in a shadow, external simulation.
AND BY ITS HEAT WEIGHED DOWN. — Cantacuzenus here sets forth another similitude different from the preceding one, — Cantacuzenus here sets forth another similitude different from the preceding one, as if to say: Our life is changed and dies, just as a cloud is changed when in winter, feeling the rays of the sun but weaker ones, against their heat by antiperistasis contracts itself, weighs down and condenses, so that the cloud ceases to be a cloud and passes into dew or a thicker cloud. Others more aptly judge everywhere that it is the same similitude, as if to say: Our life is scattered, just as a cloud is weighed down by the heat of the sun, that is, is pressed down, is oppressed and is dispersed, so that it is either scattered through the air, or is resolved into drops and rain. Moreover, our life is aptly compared to a cloud and mist, which is nothing other than a moist vapor drawn up from the earth by the heat of the sun, rarefied, and lifted on high, which by its rarity spread through the air, by its magnitude seems to obscure the sun, and thus deceives the eyes of men; but finally by the force of the sun or winds it is dispersed, goes into nothing and vanishes; for in a similar manner our life is dispersed and vanishes, and all its pomp, riches and pleasures, according to that passage, Job, chapter vii, 9: "As a cloud is consumed, and passeth away: so he that shall go down to hell shall not come up;" and Hosea, xiii, 3: "They shall be as the morning cloud, and as the dew that passeth away early, as the dust that is driven with a whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney." Hence Symbolically, clouds are governors and princes, who are elevated by the king from a humble place on earth on high: these indeed are soon cast down by rivals or by some other chance or by death; hence in Hebrew נשיאים nesiim, that is, the elevated, are called both vapors and clouds, and princes. The reason of the analogy, says Cervantes, is that, just as those vapors are elevated from the earth by the sun, and are for the most part dispersed by the same, so earthly princes are raised from the dust of the earth, and from the extremities of the earth by the king, who is as it were the sun, from which they borrow the splendors of riches, honors, and noble lineages, and by the same are cast down and scattered: thus the world elevates its own in order to depress them. Wherefore Hercules, called in Greek Ἡρακλῆς, that is, the glory and illumination of the air, who according to Macrobius, I Saturnalia, chapter xxiv, is the sun, is said to have elevated that giant Antaeus, the son of the earth, of lofty body, that is, a vapor, on high, so that constrained in the embrace of his rays he might kill him. Macrobius proves this from the name: for Hercules, or Ἡρακλῆς, is the same as ἥρας, that is, of the air, κλέος, that is, praise or glory: but what is the glory of the air, if not the illumination of the sun? says Macrobius, book I Saturnalia, chapter xxiv: for others wrongly note chapter xx. The same is said to have accomplished twelve labors, because the sun in its annual course traverses and accomplishes the twelve signs of the zodiac. To these nesiim and clouds he applies what Solomon says, Proverbs, xxv, 14: "Clouds, and wind, and rain not following, a man that boasteth himself of a false gift."
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— Wherefore there is no reason to seek after fame and glory, which will perish almost with us, nor to strive to increase and exalt the family, since it will soon forget us; nor to provide for posterity, since we shall have no sense of it; nor to apply ourselves to virtues and an austere life, since there will be no reward for it, indeed not even memory. Use therefore and enjoy present things, vainly awaiting future ones. This is the teaching of the impious.
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— The Syriac version: the shadow which passes is our sojourn; the Arabic: because our time is a shadow coming, that is to say, The time of our life passes like a shadow, which, as the sun or another body of which it is the shadow passes, goes along and passes away in like manner: thus Pindar said, not shadow, but "shadow is a dream of man;" which Plutarch pressed hard in his Consolation to Apollonius: "What," he says, "is weaker than a shadow? so that even another cannot explain this dream of it clearly: the whole strength of the shadow is the object of the body, thus the whole of life, depending on another, exists as it were as the shadow of that." Hear Philo, in the book On Joseph: "Just as in the visions of dreams, seeing we do not see; hearing, tasting or touching, we neither hear, nor taste, nor touch; speaking we do not speak, wandering we do not wander, but while we seem to use movements and habits, we use none at all, the mind painting emptily for itself images of things not existing as if they existed: In the same way also in this corruptible world the imaginings of those awake are most similar to dreams: they come, they go, they occur, they flee; and, before they are grasped, they fly away." The same in the same place: "All things," he says, "which are under the world are similar to shadows and phantoms; and just as when a procession passes by, each thing in turn passes from sight; likewise in torrents deceiving the eye by swiftness, the waves flow past: so the affairs of the whole of life running and passing away are seen to remain, when they do not remain even for a moment, never ceasing to flow away." And St. Chrysostom, homily 21 to Theodore the Monk: "All things are shadow, dreams, a course. Life is a runner. As if someone holding the peak of a high cliff, might look out over the whole sea, and see many of those sailing there submerged by the frequent waves of the strait, others dashed against the rock of a steep mountain, some hastening to other shores, others defended from death by the help of a single plank found from the fragments of a ship, sometimes using only their hands in place of a rudder and oars, but others see turbid waves carrying corpses of many kinds. So it is with one who serves God, when they separate themselves from the storms and whirlwinds of this life; he stands always in a high and safe place secure: for what can be higher, what safer, than that we finally have one care; how we can please God? You have seen shipwrecks of this kind; avoid the sea and the waves, and seek the high place in such a sea, and occupy the high place, immune from the danger of captivity. The poets said the same. Sophocles calls man a phantom and a shadow. Horace: We are dust and shadow. Horace: We are dust and shadow. I have reviewed more analogies of shadows and life in Ecclesiastes vii, 1.
AND THERE IS NO RETURN OF OUR END. — In Greek ἀμπόδισις, — In Greek ἀμπόδισις, that is, a stepping back, a return, a reversion: for πέδες are feet; the Complutensian translators render it, impediment, for he whose feet are impeded, to him it is not permitted to return, nor to go forward, that is to say, There is none who can impede and ward off the end, or death threatening us; but ἐμπόδισις properly signifies impediment, not ἀναπόδισις, as it is here. For end in Greek is τελευτή, that is, departure, death and the end of life; the sense is, that is to say, When we have died, it will not be permitted to us to step back, or to recall our foot, and to return from death and destruction to life: thus Vatablus. They said the same in verse 1: "And there is no refreshment in the end:" for they inculcate the destruction of man and soul, so that they may freely indulge in the pleasures of this life, without fear of the Godhead and vengeance. The Syriac version renders it, and there is no health in our exit; the Arabic, there is no delay or hindrance to our death.
BECAUSE IT IS SEALED, — "It is sealed," namely the return, so that it may not be made or be able to be made; or more clearly "the end." The end is of both feminine and masculine gender; whence Virgil, II Aeneid: "This is the end of Priam's fates, This fate carried him to this exit." Livy: "And what end would come to such great disasters:" Cicero, book II On Laws: "Nor is it necessary for us to explain what end of the accursed family." Hence the Complutensians and St. Paulinus, epistle 31 to Aleth., read it in the masculine, there is no return of our end, because the end is sealed, namely the end and day of our death, and St. Paulinus refers this to the consolation of the despairing; the Syriac, because it is determined, and there is no one who returns; the Arabic, because the command of dying is signed to each one, and no one will turn it away. The sense is, as if to say, Our end and death is certainly defined and unavoidable, nor is it permitted to return from it to life: for things which are certain are accustomed to be sealed: for a seal of a sealed thing gives certainty, indeed sometimes perpetuity and eternity: thus indeed, Apocalypse xx, 3, the devil in hell is said to be sealed, that is shut up for a very long time: "He sent him, it says, into the abyss, and shut him up, and sealed it over him, that he should seduce the nations no more, till the thousand years be finished." Livy: "And what end would come to such great disasters:" Cicero, book II On Laws: "Nor is it necessary for us to explain what end of the accursed family." Hence the Complutensians and St. Paulinus, epistle 31 to Aleth., read it in the masculine, there is no return of our end, because the end is sealed, namely the end and day of our death, and St. Paulinus refers this to the consolation of the despairing; the Syriac, because it is determined, and there is no one who returns; the Arabic, because the command of dying is signed to each one, and no one will turn it away. The sense is, as if to say, Our end and death is certainly defined and unavoidable, nor is it permitted to return from it to life: for things which are certain are accustomed to be sealed: for a seal of a sealed thing gives certainty, indeed sometimes perpetuity and eternity: thus indeed, Apocalypse xx, 3, the devil in hell is said to be sealed, that is shut up for a very long time: "He sent him, it says, into the abyss, and shut him up, and sealed it over him, that he should seduce the nations no more, till the thousand years be finished." Pauline, epistle 31 to Aleth., read it in the masculine, there is no return of our end, because the end is sealed, namely the end and day of our death, and St. Paulinus refers this to the consolation of the despairing; the Syriac, because it is determined, and there is no one who returns; the Arabic, because the command of dying is signed to each one, and no one will turn it away. The sense is, as if to say, Our end and death is certainly defined and unavoidable, nor is it permitted to return from it to life: for things which are certain are accustomed to be sealed: for a seal of a sealed thing gives certainty, indeed sometimes perpetuity and eternity: thus indeed, Apocalypse xx, 3, the devil in hell is said to be sealed, that is shut up for a very long time: "He sent him, it says, into the abyss, and shut him up, and sealed it over him, that he should seduce the nations no more, till the thousand years be finished." Furthermore, the seal by which the death of each one is sealed, and the day and hour of dying, is partly the defect of nature, and thence the natural necessity of dying, partly the decree of God, by which He has predetermined for each man both the day of being born and of dying, according to that, Job xiv, 5: "Thou hast appointed his bounds which cannot be passed:" both the gentiles called fate, and by both as if by two locks and adamantine bars, the death of each one is sealed and barred, and its doors are shut, so that it is impossible to rise from it to this life. Cantacuzenus less correctly understands this sealing as that which is done by a stone or sepulchral tomb, by which the body of the dead is enclosed, according to that, Psalm xlviii, 12: "Their sepulchres are their houses for ever:" thus also nearly Hugo and Lyra.
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— as if to say, After death there will be no life, no pleasure, no pain; therefore let us enjoy the good things, that is the pleasures of the present life, because after it there will be none: this is the reasoning and paralogism of Epicurus and the Epicureans. Far otherwise, indeed the contrary, from the vanity and brevity of life the Apostle concludes, I Corinthians vii, 29: "The time, he says, is short: it remains that both they that have wives, be as if they had none, and they that weep, as though they wept not, and they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not, etc.: for the fashion of this world passeth away." Indeed the brevity of life is a sharp spur to the faithful toward all virtue, even heroic, because they believe and hope through it so brief and small to attain eternal glory, whereas on the other hand to the unfaithful it is a spur to all pleasure, because after this life they do not believe, nor hope for another.
COME THEREFORE. — The impious invite one another to feasting and carousing, — The impious invite one another to feasting and carousing, etc., because the possession of nothing is pleasant without a companion, says St. Bonaventure: the same holds true in virtue, religion and heavenly glory.
AND LET US ENJOY THE GOOD THINGS THAT ARE. — because we believe none, — because we believe none, nor do we hope for future things, therefore let us enjoy the present.
AND LET US USE CREATURE (the Interpreter reads κτίσιν, that is creature; now they read κτῆσιν, that is possession, that is things possessed, or goods which we possess) AS IN YOUTH SWIFTLY. — The word "as" can be taken, first, as a note of truth, according to that passage, John i, 14: "We saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten," that is, the glory which befitted him who was truly the only begotten. Thus the sense will be: Let us enjoy the pleasures created for our use and taste, while and as long as we are young, as much and as long as youth permits, in which we truly live, since both youth still flourishes and is able to refresh us, and pleasure; for the aged disdain both, as Berzellai says to David, II Kings xix, 35. They give the reason through the word "swiftly," as if to say: Briefly with youth, pleasure and the taste of pleasure will pass away and fly off, therefore let us use it swiftly, in Greek σπουδαίως, that is, hastily, studiously, diligently, cheerfully, seriously, attentively, accurately, so that we allow no occasions of recreation to pass by, nor any moments of time, since they are so fleeting and brief; hence Vatablus translates it, let us use created things together with youth; another, let us use creature as adolescence; the Vatican, let us use creature as youth, that is, cheerfully and vigorously, as young people are accustomed to do on account of a vigorous body and alacrity of spirit: for youth, vigorous and cheerful, is apt for seizing any pleasure whatever and is eager for it. Tacitly therefore the impious signify both the brevity of their youth and of created pleasure, namely that both quickly pass away and are transitory, and accordingly they indicate their own foolishness, in that they pursue things whose being does not consist, but is situated in transit, and therefore rather is not than is; but things that are consistent, solid, enduring, eternal they do not care for and neglect: for this reason they say that the good things of this life are to be seized by them swiftly, because they are fleeting, flying away and immediately ceasing to be; therefore they pursue only shadows of pleasure and empty simulacra of delights: for the thing itself is found nowhere. So fleeting and slippery are the goods which mortals pursue so eagerly, that before they are grasped and held in hand, they slip away and flow off, indeed before a man has scarcely tasted them with his lips, scarcely received them with his eyes, scarcely heard them with his ears, they vanish; and so they not only pass by the taste of the one tasting, but also the eyes of one contemplating most attentively and gazing most swiftly, and the ears of one listening most eagerly, and like jugglers they mock and deceive. If you look to honor, which is the idol mortals most worship, it cannot be held in hand without escaping; whence the Royal Psalmist saw that other one exalted and elevated above the cedars of Lebanon, Psalm xxxvi, 35: and he passed, and behold he was not: he saw a man, when he was in honor, compared to beasts, and made like to them, Psalm xlviii, 21. Daniel saw a lioness with great wings, he beheld until the wings were plucked off, and it stood upon its feet; and cap. iv, 17, 22: a tree, when it was in the highest verdure and height, cut down: a king stripped of his diadem and purple, cast down from his kingdom to pasture among beasts, etc. Why do I delay? If you look to life, it vanishes nothing more swiftly: it is compared to the track of a cloud or smoke and waves, so that it is true what is said in Job cap. xv, 32: "Before his days be full, he shall perish." Thus our Martial of Roa, lib. II Singul. cap. i. The whole evil of man, therefore, is to enjoy things to be used, and to use things to be enjoyed: this is what the impious do, who enjoy perishable things, use true and solid things, so that they feed and fill themselves with perishable things. To enjoy is to possess an end, as it were the highest good, in which one rests happily; to use is to employ means to attain the end already mentioned. Hear St. Augustine, lib. VIII Quæst., Quæst. xxx: "All human perversion, therefore, which is also called a vice, is to wish to use things to be enjoyed and to enjoy things to be used; and again all right order, which is also called virtue, is to enjoy things to be enjoyed and to use things to be used; but things honest are to be enjoyed, while things useful are to be used;" the same, lib. XI De Civit. cap. xxv: "Temporal things," he says, "are to be used rather than enjoyed, so that we may deserve to enjoy eternal things; not as the perverse who wish to enjoy money, but to use God: because they do not spend money for God's sake, but worship God for money's sake." Secondly, our de Castro takes it as properly as a note of similitude; whence "as in youth" he refers to the creature, as if its youth and flower were to be seized, that is to say, "Let us use the creature as in youth," namely, as if existing in adolescence, lest we allow the creature to pass by while it flourishes, blooms, while it is in its adolescence, before worn out by old age it withers, without enjoying it. Moreover the adverb σπουδαίως is the same as gravely, studiously, namely so that in that full enjoyment one applies oneself with all study and desire. And this sense is the stronger one, both because the impious have devoted not only their adolescence, but also their entire life, even worn out miserably by old age, to the seizing of pleasure, before they are driven away by death; and because from what follows it will be clear that the impious stir themselves up and invite themselves to snatch away with all study and desire every creature while it flourishes and blooms, lest through negligence any pleasure which can be seized escape their greed, pass by, or slip away unnoticed. Thirdly, otherwise Cervantes explains "as in youth," and refers it to old men who wish to appear young, and to revel as young men; hence these wretches simulate the youthful years of their life, and their gray hairs, monuments of the ash into which they gradually turn, they darken with leaden instruments and dark pigments, as if foreseeing that they will be deprived of the eternity of happy life and wrapped in the dark gloom of hell, who although aged and decrepit old men, never grow old, but always live childishly, indeed girlishly, and become more girlish day by day. The Greek sentence embraces these three explanations; this third one, as the clearer, I prefer to the others, that is to say, Let us not allow ourselves to grow old through the medicine of pleasures, according to that saying of Ovid in the Fasti: It is wickedness that does not allow you to be old: thus he himself. But this sense is more subtle than solid, and more foreign than native: for these are the words of either both, or rather of young men than of old men; whence they add: "Let not the flower of time pass us by." Others explain it better, as if the impious were to say: Thus let us cheer ourselves, that we may remain always cheerful as young men: let us not give ourselves to sorrow and to a severe life, lest we quickly become old, indeed so that we never grow old, but rather before troublesome and gloomy old age, let us finish with life and its pleasantness. But this sense is more subtle than solid, and more foreign than native: for these are the words of either both, or rather of young men than of old men; whence they add: "Let not the flower of time pass us by." Others explain it better, as if the impious were to say: Thus let us cheer ourselves, that we may remain always cheerful as young men: let us not give ourselves to sorrow and to a severe life, lest we quickly become old, indeed so that we never grow old, but rather before troublesome and gloomy old age, let us finish with life and its pleasantness. But this sense is more subtle than solid, and more foreign than native: for these are the words of either both, or rather of young men than of old men; whence they add: "Let not the flower of time pass us by." Others explain it better, as if the impious were to say: Thus let us cheer ourselves, that we may remain always cheerful as young men: let us not give ourselves to sorrow and to a severe life, lest we quickly become old, indeed so that we never grow old, but rather before troublesome and gloomy old age, let us finish with life and its pleasantness. Foolish is this inference of the impious; whence they themselves, recognizing it too late, will at length say that in cap. iv, vers. 6: "Therefore have we erred from the way of truth:" for wise is that collection of the Apostle, Gal. vi, 10: "Whilst we have time, let us work good;" and that of David, Psalm xxxvi, 1: "Be not emulous of evildoers, neither envy them that work iniquity: for they shall speedily wither away as grass." Whence St. Augustine in Psalm lxx: "When you said, he says, Let us eat and drink, you added, Isa. xxii, 13: For tomorrow we shall die: hear against me: Rather let us fast and pray, for tomorrow we shall die." Hence that wise man, being asked why he lived so sparingly and soberly, answered: "This suffices for one about to die:" for a traveler a small provision suffices, if the journey be short.
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— By drinking wine inwardly, by anointing with ointments outwardly: again both inwardly, for they were accustomed, for the sake of luxury, to mix with wine certain ointments that were savory and fragrant, and thus to drink them together with the wine, as I have shown elsewhere. Thus it will be a hendiadys: "With wine and ointments," that is, with ointmented wine, according to that saying of Virgil, I Georgic: We pour libations from bowls and gold, that is, from golden bowls. Moreover, the ancients were accustomed in banquets first to be washed with warm water, then anointed with ointments to recline at table, both for the sake of luxury, and of fragrance, and of health, as Athenaeus teaches in book V, Plutarch in book III of the Symposium, Clement of Alexandria in book II of the Pedagogue, and others who have written concerning the ancient customs of banquets. Now precious wine is the wine of Cos, which is namely excellently colored, fragrant, and savory. — By drinking wine inwardly, by anointing with ointments outwardly: again both inwardly, for they were accustomed, for the sake of luxury, to mix with wine certain ointments that were savory and fragrant, and thus to drink them together with the wine, as I have shown elsewhere. Thus it will be a hendiadys: "With wine and ointments," that is, with ointmented wine, according to that saying of Virgil, I Georgic: We pour libations from bowls and gold, that is, from golden bowls. Moreover, the ancients were accustomed in banquets first to be washed with warm water, then anointed with ointments to recline at table, both for the sake of luxury, and of fragrance, and of health, as Athenaeus teaches in book V, Plutarch in book III of the Symposium, Clement of Alexandria in book II of the Pedagogue, and others who have written concerning the ancient customs of banquets. Now precious wine is the wine of Cos, which is namely excellently colored, fragrant, and savory. — By drinking wine inwardly, by anointing with ointments outwardly: again both inwardly, for they were accustomed, for the sake of luxury, to mix with wine certain ointments that were savory and fragrant, and thus to drink them together with the wine, as I have shown elsewhere. Thus it will be a hendiadys: "With wine and ointments," that is, with ointmented wine, according to that saying of Virgil, I Georgic: We pour libations from bowls and gold, that is, from golden bowls. Moreover, the ancients were accustomed in banquets first to be washed with warm water, then anointed with ointments to recline at table, both for the sake of luxury, and of fragrance, and of health, as Athenaeus teaches in book V, Plutarch in book III of the Symposium, Clement of Alexandria in book II of the Pedagogue, and others who have written concerning the ancient customs of banquets. Now precious wine is the wine of Cos, which is namely excellently colored, fragrant, and savory.
AND LET NOT THE FLOWER OF TIME PASS US BY. — First, — First, "the flower of time," says Holcot, is the flower of youth, that is to say, let us use the flower of youth for all the pleasures which it desires: for in adolescence there is far more vivid eagerness for pleasure than in manhood or old age; whence Guarinus translates it, let us not pass by the flower of life. But in Greek it is ἄνθος ἀέρος, that is, the flower of air; whence Second, Cervantes thus expounds it, as if to say: Let us recline, anointed and bathed in soft cushions at table, so that we may beware lest we be harmed by the flower of air, or be penetrated by a delicate breeze passing through, and contract a catarrh or some other disease, inasmuch as the pores of the body are already opened by bathing and anointing; but in Greek and Latin it is, and let not, not and let not penetrate us the flower of air. Third, therefore, and genuinely, the flower ἄνθος, that is of air, or, as others read by metathesis, ἔαρος, that is of spring, is the springtime, which is as it were the flower of all the seasons of the year: for in it all things live and flourish, and by the grateful breath and odor which they exhale, they imbue the air, and through it they refresh and restore the nostrils and the whole body; whence the spring air is equally most healthful and most pleasant, according to that saying: Now the most beautiful year; and that: All the beauty and grace of spring in the year; and Ovid, I Metamorphoses: It was eternal spring, and the gentle zephyrs with their warm breezes caressed flowers born without seed; the same, I Fasti: Then all things flourish, then is the new age of time, and a new bud swells from the heavy vine. And now the tree is covered with newly formed leaves, and the herb of the seed comes forth to the surface. Then the mild suns, and the unknown swallow appears, and beneath the lofty beam fashions the yellow work. Then the field endures cultivation, and is renewed by the plow: this newness of the year was rightly called thus. and: All the beauty and grace of spring in the year; and Ovid, I Metamorphoses: It was eternal spring, and the gentle zephyrs with their warm breezes caressed flowers born without seed; the same, I Fasti: Then all things flourish, then is the new age of time, and a new bud swells from the heavy vine. And now the tree is covered with newly formed leaves, and the herb of the seed comes forth to the surface. Then the mild suns, and the unknown swallow appears, and beneath the lofty beam fashions the yellow work. Then the field endures cultivation, and is renewed by the plow: this newness of the year was rightly called thus. and Ovid, I Metamorphoses: It was eternal spring, and the gentle zephyrs with their warm breezes caressed flowers born without seed; the same, I Fasti: Then all things flourish, then is the new age of time, and a new bud swells from the heavy vine. And now the tree is covered with newly formed leaves, and the herb of the seed comes forth to the surface. Then the mild suns, and the unknown swallow appears, and beneath the lofty beam fashions the yellow work. Then the field endures cultivation, and is renewed by the plow: this newness of the year was rightly called thus. without seed; the same, I Fasti: Then all things flourish, then is the new age of time, and a new bud swells from the heavy vine. And now the tree is covered with newly formed leaves, and the herb of the seed comes forth to the surface. Then the mild suns, and the unknown swallow appears, and beneath the lofty beam fashions the yellow work. Then the field endures cultivation, and is renewed by the plow: this newness of the year was rightly called thus. Finally, Pliny, lib. XXI, cap. i: "In gardens," he says, "Cato ordered garlands to be sown, with an inexpressible subtlety of flowers especially; when it cannot be easier for anyone to speak than to paint the works of nature, especially when wanton and in great joy of fertility playing in so varied a manner." Moreover, spring aptly corresponds to youth: for it is as it were the spring of ages; whence Ovid, X Metamorphoses: And beyond youth, the brief spring of age, and to pluck the first flowers. Fourth, more fully, more generally, and more adequately to the Vulgate, the flower of the air is the flower of time and of life, by which air and this breeze we enjoy; whence Vatablus translates it, nor let us pass by the flower of the breeze; hence our Castro takes it through the flower of time or of life as whatever delightful and flourishing thing is found in time, lest namely any occasion be allowed to slip away, no opportunity be passed over, in which it is granted to enjoy pleasure. The flower of time therefore is the common pleasure of any time, in winter fires, in spring flowers, in summer gardens, in autumn fruits, etc., so that the flower of time is called whatever pleasant and delightful thing each season brings forth, to whose pleasures the impious urge themselves. Such persons, however, says Bonaventure: "They care nothing for the fruit of the heavenly soul, but for the flower of the present spring." Furthermore, see here the foolishness of the impious, who pursue the most vain and swiftly fading things, namely flowers, but reject solid fruits: wherefore St. Augustine rightly calls them in the title of Psalm liii, "ziphæos, that is, flourishing ones, who flourish in the world, and wither in judgment, and after withering are sent into eternal fire." Concerning whom it is said in Isaiah xl, 6: "All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field," the Septuagint and St. Peter, I Epistle i, 24, and all the glory thereof as the flower of hay. St. Augustine on that Psalm cii: Man as the flower of the field shall thus flourish: "The whole, he says, splendor of the human race, honors, powers, riches, is the flower of hay: and just as the beauty of the field is scarcely annual, and in a very short time the flowers pass away, which are the beauty of the herbs, so also human prosperity:" but concerning this more presently.
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— In Greek, we are crowned with the calyces of roses: for roses that are fully open wither and fade immediately; but the calyces, or closed buds of roses, while they gradually open and unfold their petals, last longer; and because they are enclosed and compressed, they exhale a denser and sweeter fragrance; yet these too soon wither: for the rose, because it has an exceedingly strong fragrance, for this reason withers most quickly, as Plutarch says, book II of the Symposium, Question I; and Pliny, book XXI, chapter i: "The earth, he says, produces flowers and fragrances daily in great abundance, as is evident, with the remarkable observation that those which flower most splendidly wither most quickly:" the same author, chapter xi: "The latest rose, he says, is the first to fail among flowers." Moreover roses and crowns made of roses are approved by the temperate for roses indeed procure love and favor, which are used at banquets, both for the sake of their fragrance, and so that by their coolness they may resist drunkenness, especially while by their sweet breath they open the pores, through which the vapors of wine may be exhaled, lest they burden the brain: hear Athenaeus, book V: "They first bound their heads with bands and ribbons of linen and wool; then ornaments were added, leaves and flowers: for against the inconvenience of wine the exhalations of flowers are a remedy: if they are warm, by gently opening the pores they cause the wine to perspire; if slightly cool, they repel the vapors by their moderate contact." Hence the rose crown was sacred to the Muses, as Plutarch testifies, book II of the Symposium, Question I: the same author, in book III, teaches that roses wonderfully refresh the heart and brain, and have the power of binding, and of repressing by their fragrance those things which burden the head; hence Ovid, in the fifth book of the Fasti: "The temples are painted with slender crowns, And the splendid table lies hidden beneath the scattered rose;" and shortly after: "He nods, and flowers fall from the moving hair: They fall upon the tables as a rose sent down is wont." And Horace: "Let roses not be wanting at the feasts, Let not the long-lived parsley, not the brief lily." For the rose is the queen of flowers; whence Leucippe in Achilles Tatius, book II: "If Jupiter, she says, had wished to establish a king among flowers, he would certainly have honored no other than the rose with such distinction:" this is the ornament of the earth, the splendor of plants, the eye of flowers, the purple of the meadow, the gleaming beauty; this breathes forth love, procures grace, luxuriates in beautiful leaves, and delights with trembling ones, its fronds laugh at the breath of the zephyr; and so true is it that the kingdom of flowers is attributed to roses, that a crown of roses besides other things designates power, kingdom, empire: hence also Virgil compares the rose to the dawn, nay, even equates it: "You might doubt, he says, whether the dawn snatched the blush from the roses, Or gave it, and the rising day tinted the flowers. One dew, one color, and one morning of two, The goddess Venus is the lady of both the star and the flower. Perhaps also one fragrance; but that one is borne higher through the air, The other breathes forth more closely." "He nods, and flowers fall from the moving hair: They fall upon the tables as a rose sent down is wont." And Horace: "Let roses not be wanting at the feasts, Let not the long-lived parsley, not the brief lily." For the rose is the queen of flowers; whence Leucippe in Achilles Tatius, book II: "If Jupiter, she says, had wished to establish a king among flowers, he would certainly have honored no other than the rose with such distinction:" this is the ornament of the earth, the splendor of plants, the eye of flowers, the purple of the meadow, the gleaming beauty; this breathes forth love, procures grace, luxuriates in beautiful leaves, and delights with trembling ones, its fronds laugh at the breath of the zephyr; and so true is it that the kingdom of flowers is attributed to roses, that a crown of roses besides other things designates power, kingdom, empire: hence also Virgil compares the rose to the dawn, nay, even equates it: "You might doubt, he says, whether the dawn snatched the blush from the roses, Or gave it, and the rising day tinted the flowers. One dew, one color, and one morning of two, The goddess Venus is the lady of both the star and the flower. Perhaps also one fragrance; but that one is borne higher through the air, The other breathes forth more closely." Roses are lacking from feasts, not the short-lived bee-flower, not the brief lily. For the rose is the queen of flowers; whence Leucippe in Achilles Tatius, book II: "If Jupiter had wished to establish a king among flowers," he says, "he would certainly have deemed no other than the rose worthy of such honor:" this is the ornament of the earth, the splendor of plants, the eye of flowers, the purple of the meadow, shining beauty; this breathes forth love, brings about grace, luxuriates in beautiful leaves, and delights with trembling ones; its fronds laugh at the breath of the zephyr; and so truly is it the case that the kingdom of flowers is attributed to roses, that a crown of roses beyond other things designates power, kingdom, empire: hence also Virgil compares the rose to the dawn, indeed equates it: "You might doubt," he says, "whether the dawn snatched redness from the roses, or gave it, and the rising day tinged the flowers. One dew, one color, and one morning of two, the star and the flower have one mistress Venus. Perhaps also one scent; but that one is diffused more loftily through the air, this one breathes more closely." II: "If Jupiter had wished to establish a king among flowers," he says, "he would certainly have deemed no other than the rose worthy of such honor:" this is the ornament of the earth, the splendor of plants, the eye of flowers, the purple of the meadow, shining beauty; this breathes forth love, brings about grace, luxuriates in beautiful leaves, and delights with trembling ones; its fronds laugh at the breath of the zephyr; and so truly is it the case that the kingdom of flowers is attributed to roses, that a crown of roses beyond other things designates power, kingdom, empire: hence also Virgil compares the rose to the dawn, indeed equates it: "You might doubt," he says, "whether the dawn snatched redness from the roses, or gave it, and the rising day tinged the flowers. One dew, one color, and one morning of two, the star and the flower have one mistress Venus. Perhaps also one scent; but that one is diffused more loftily through the air, this one breathes more closely." Finally, Dracontius in De Opif. sex dier. calls all flowers rosy, and thus celebrates God the maker from the rose: "He who commands the groves to drip with rosy flowers or the fields with blossoms, he who makes sweet fruits taste of autumn." But the impious say this not for this end, but for another: "Let us crown ourselves with roses," namely so that we may feed and fill our nostrils and eyes with their full scent and color and incite ourselves to every pleasure, especially carnal; hence they add: "Let no meadow be which our luxury does not traverse:" For this reason they were once dedicated to Venus; whence from Pausanias in the Eliacis, Natalis Comes, book IV Mythol. cap. xiii: "Venus," he says, "was accustomed to be distinguished by a rosy crown," and Valerius writing to Rufinus about taking a wife, epist. 44, tom. IX of the Works of St. Jerome: "Pleasure pleases," he says, "but it wounds the beloved; the flower of Venus is the rose, because beneath its purple many thorns lie hidden." For which reason some, among whom is Josephus Stephanus, lib. De Rosario B. Virg., cap. iii, thus expound it: Let us crown ourselves with the calyces or vessels of roses, that is, let us be cherished in the embrace of virgins, before they lay down the grace of their age and the flower of youth: for that the rose is a symbol of modesty and virginity, besides the profane who insinuate this, St. Jerome affirms, in epist. 8 to Demetrias, cap. i, and Joel. 10, in those words: "And a fountain from the house of the Lord," in the final words. But this sense is symbolic, not literal: "Roses," says Fulgentius, lib. II Mythol., in Vener., "both blush and prick, as also lust does: for it blushes with the reproach of shame, it also pricks with the thorn of sin; and just as the rose delights indeed, but is taken away by the swift motion of time, so also lust pleases momentarily, and flees eternally." II Mythol., in Vener., "both blush and prick, as also lust does: for it blushes with the reproach of shame, it also pricks with the thorn of sin; and just as the rose delights indeed, but is taken away by the swift motion of time, so also lust pleases momentarily, and flees eternally." Hence also Cleopatra, in her most luxurious banquet, spent a talent on roses, that is, six thousand French crowns, when throughout all the dining couches of the reclining guests heaps of petals, a cubit's measure, stood everywhere on the pavements. Hence Martianus Capella, lib. I, weaves a crown of roses for Venus: "For her," he says, "a woven context bound with roses interlaced crosswise." And harlots are accustomed to draw lovers to themselves by giving or throwing a rose. Lucretius, lib. II, De Idæa matre, sought by all with a dense casting of roses, thus sings: "They shower with flowers of roses, shading the mother and the bands of her companions." The ancient Greek poet Anacreon wrote an encomium of the rose, in which he thus sings: "When spring, father of flowers, is to be joined with the praise of roses. Rose, flower and scent of the gods, the rose is the pleasure of men: the grace of the Graces, in the flowering hour of love." Moreover Tertullian, in the book On the Military Crown, chapter ix, and from him Martin of Roa, book II of Singularities, chapter i, deny that there was a custom of crowns among the Hebrews at feasts and banquets, because Scripture makes no mention of them: but the contrary is suggested by Clement of Alexandria, book II, chapter viii, and this is evident from this passage: for the impious Hebrews here say: "Let us crown ourselves with roses." Thus the same people were crowned with ivy in honor of Bacchus, as is evident from II Maccabees vi, 7; nor is this surprising, since those very people, declining into idols and the rites of the gentiles, worshipped Venus and her lover Adonis, and honored them with sacred lamentation, as is evident from Ezekiel viii, 14. What therefore Tertullian says, that it was not the custom of the Hebrews to wear rose and flower crowns at banquets, understand this as referring to their own proper custom, not one taken from the pagans. Morally, the rose is a symbol of fleeting pleasure, and thorny pleasure, that is, mixed with many thorns of bitterness and pain: the impious therefore seize upon the flower, or rather merely the beginning of the flower, namely the calyxes of roses, but the pious prefer fruit to the flower, according to that passage of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus xxiv, 23: "I have brought forth as the vine a pleasant odor; and my flowers are the fruit of honor and riches:" for no tree's fruit is better than the vine's, since it produces grapes and wines; hence St. Louis, king of France, forbade the wearing of roses on Friday, in honor of the crown of thorns of Christ the Lord. Whence Basil, homily XI on the Hexaemeron: "The grace, he says, of the flowers of spring, transitory and of brief moment, has left those still desiring it destitute;" and St. Ambrose, book III of the Hexaemeron, chapter xi: "A man is useless, he says, though resplendent in the splendor of nobility, or in the height of power, or in the brightness of virtue, the thorn is always near you, always look upon what is beneath you, you germinate over thorns, nor does grace remain long; soon each one, having run through the brief flower of age, withers." And to this belongs that passage of Virgil concerning the rose: As long as one day, so long is the age of roses, Which pubescent old age joined together presses. Whom the ruddy Eous beheld being born, This same returning in the late evening he saw as an old woman. And Jerome Angerianus in an Epigram: The fair rose lasts a brief time, beauty a brief time: thus beauty's equal, rose, you have time. And Horace, book II of the Odes, ode 3: Hither wines and ointments, and too brief flowers of the pleasant rose bid to be brought. And Jerome Angerianus in an Epigram: The fair rose lasts a brief time, beauty a brief time: thus beauty's equal, rose, you have time. And Horace, book II of the Odes, ode 3: Hither wines and ointments, and too brief flowers of the pleasant rose bid to be brought. Book II of the Odes, ode 3: Hither wines and ointments, and too brief flowers of the pleasant rose bid to be brought. Wherefore Clement of Alexandria, book II of the Pedagogue, chapter viii, asserts that the use of flowers is harmful, and quickly passes away with punishment inflicted; and he adds that from this is proved the brevity of their life, because both wither, namely the flower and beauty. Behold, Artemidorus warns that, although crowns made of roses seen in sleep are good for all, that is, auspicious, yet the sick are excepted: "For these, he says, kill," that is, they predict those about to die, because they easily wither. The rose itself, not only the Locrian, but any rose whatever, since it is a specimen of all flowers, yet in almost the same moment in which it is born, grows old. Virgil concerning this flower: I marveled at the swift plunder by fleeting age, And while roses are being born they have grown old. The same thing Callimachus the Latin poet: I saw the rose gardens of fragrant Paestum, Baked under the morning south wind, lying dead. Having grown old. The same thing Callimachus the Latin poet: I saw the rose gardens of fragrant Paestum, Baked under the morning south wind, lying dead. For this reason Ausonius in an Epigram, admonishing a maiden of mortality, says: Gather, maiden, roses, while the flower is new and youth is new, And remember that your age thus hastens away. It was said wittily by Domitian, nor is anything more becoming, nor briefer. Hence it is that Paul, naming these floral crowns, calls them corruptible in I Corinthians ix: "He who contends in the contest, he says, abstains from all things. And they indeed, that they may receive a corruptible crown: but we an incorruptible one." Finally Statius, book III of the Silvae, asserts that all the gladness of flowers is ended in death, while he thus sings: Such as the pale lilies bend their stalks, And the blushing roses die at the first south winds, Or where the spring purple expires in the new meadows, Around them you flew, loves of the arrow-bearer, And anointed the pyres with maternal perfume. it was said, nor is anything more pleasing than propriety, nor more concise. Hence it is that Paul, naming these flowery crowns, calls them corruptible in I Corinthians ix: "He that striveth for the mastery," says he, "abstaineth from all things. And they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one." Finally, Statius, book III of the Silvae, asserts that all the cheerfulness of flowers is ended by death, while he thus sings: As pale lilies bend their stems, And blushing roses die at the first south winds, Or when the spring purple expires in the new meadows, Around those funerals you flew, arrows of love, And anointed the pyres with maternal myrrh. All which things confirm that which is handed down by Isidore, namely that flowers are called as it were fluores, because they quickly fall and quickly dissolve: thus he himself in book XVII of the Origins, chapter vi. So also in Greek ῥόδον, that is rose, is said from ῥοῆ, that is flux, as if to say flowing odor, because it is lavish of odor, as Plutarch says, book III of the Symposium, Question I, ῥεῦμα πολὺ τῆς ὀδμῆς ἀφίησι, that is it emits a great flux of odor: by this flux therefore it itself flows away, dissolves, withers, just as a plant by excessive flux of moisture, a man by blood, flows away and dies. Thus Clement of Alexandria, II Paedagogus, chapter viii. Recently Pope Leo XI, a Florentine of the Medici family, bore in his insignia a rose with this motto: Thus I flourished. He was a true prophet to himself, for he stood and flourished at the height of the pontificate for but a few days, and straightway like a rose he faded, and dying breathed forth to his world a longing for him, as a sweet odor. Finally, Clement of Alexandria in the place already cited teaches that Christians ought not to be crowned with roses, because Christ was crowned with thorns: the same thing Tertullian inculcates more fully, book II of On the Military Crown, where he also teaches that Christians, in order to follow Christ, shrank from crowns of roses and flowers: the same was the sentiment of St. Louis, as I said a little before. So also Godfrey of Bouillon, when he conquered Jerusalem in the year of the Lord 1090, on the very day of Good Friday, on which Christ had suffered in that same place, when he was created and inaugurated by common consent of the nobles as the first Christian king of Jerusalem, refused to be crowned with a golden crown of kings, because in that same city, on that same day, Christ had borne a crown of thorns; indeed he did not wish to be called king of Jerusalem or of Judea, but protector of the Holy Sepulcher, because the proper title of the crucified Christ was: King of the Jews: thus William of Tyre relates in the history of the Holy War, John Molanus, a doctor of Louvain, in the Sacred Militia, and others. Learn, O Christian, that under a crowned head, the members ought not to be delicate, nor under Christ fixed with thorns, should it befit you to be crowned with roses and delights.
LET THERE BE NO MEADOW, — This sentence is not in the Greek, but in the Romans and other Latin texts: pleasant meadows are suited to pleasure by herbs, flowers, and groves; whence Horace: Let not roses be wanting from feasts, nor living parsley, nor brief lily. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Let us revel everywhere, let us take pleasure everywhere, everywhere in meadows, in the fragrance of flowers, in the verdure of herbs, in the crystalline beauty of fountains and streams, in the shade of groves and trees, let us delight ourselves, and there indulge the palate, the belly and lust: for luxury here signifies not only lust, but any excess of feasting, delights and pleasures. This is what Jeremiah reproaches the Jews fornicating, both corporally and rather spiritually, namely idolaters, cap. ii, vers. 20: "Under every leafy tree thou didst prostrate thyself, O harlot." Hence the impious indicate the root of their evil and malice, namely an uncontrolled greed and desire for lust and pleasure unto luxury: for luxury signifies abundance, redundance and effusion; whence Cicero, act. 1 in Verrem: "What things, he says, luxury in crimes, cruelty in punishments, avarice in plunderings," etc. "Luxury, says Festus, is the dissolution of morals;" and Ovid, lib. I De Arte: The mind will be apt to be captured then when most joyful of things As a crop in rich soil will luxuriate in the soil, and lib. II: Minds luxuriate in things for the most part prosperous. Thus is called luxurious joy, that is excessive and profuse. Vines also, crops and trees luxuriate, when they abound excessively in branches and buds. Let us revel everywhere, let us take pleasure everywhere, everywhere in meadows, in the fragrance of flowers, in the verdure of herbs, in the crystalline beauty of fountains and streams, in the shade of groves and trees, let us delight ourselves, and there indulge the palate, the belly and lust: for luxury here signifies not only lust, but any excess of feasting, delights and pleasures. This is what Jeremiah reproaches the Jews fornicating, both corporally and rather spiritually, namely idolaters, cap. ii, vers. 20: "Under every leafy tree thou didst prostrate thyself, O harlot." Hence the impious indicate the root of their evil and malice, namely an uncontrolled greed and desire for lust and pleasure unto luxury: for luxury signifies abundance, redundance and effusion; whence Cicero, act. 1 in Verrem: "What things, he says, luxury in crimes, cruelty in punishments, avarice in plunderings," etc. "Luxury, says Festus, is the dissolution of morals;" and Ovid, lib. I De Arte: The mind will be apt to be captured then when most joyful of things As a crop in rich soil will luxuriate in the soil, and lib. II: Minds luxuriate in things for the most part prosperous. Thus is called luxurious joy, that is excessive and profuse. Vines also, crops and trees luxuriate, when they abound excessively in branches and buds. II: Minds luxuriate in things for the most part prosperous. Thus is called luxurious joy, that is excessive and profuse. Vines also, crops and trees luxuriate, when they abound excessively in branches and buds. II: Minds luxuriate in things for the most part prosperous. Thus is called luxurious joy, that is excessive and profuse. Vines also, crops and trees luxuriate, when they abound excessively in branches and buds. Vines also, crops and trees luxuriate, when they abound excessively in branches and buds.
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— In Greek, let none of us be deprived of ἀγερωχίας, that is insolence, luxury, magnanimity, pride; Vatablus, petulance; the Complutensians, vigor; others, our ferocity, as if to say: Let each of us display his cupidity, petulance, insolence, vigor, pride; let each show himself a man in his lusts and passions; let us powerfully and mightily indulge our pleasure and our will, so that whatever pleases it and is agreeable to it, the same may be permitted, and let us fulfill it freely, petulantly and vigorously: for as Eustathius says in Iliad. II: "An easy pouring forth and spreading into that which pleases, and in which one glories, becomes insolent." They note their unbridled spirit toward the fulfillment of all desires, which contains two especially great affections and passions, namely the love and ardor of pleasure, and pride, anger and insolence toward prostrating those who resist the enjoyment of pleasure: for love of the desired thing sharpens anger against those who object, and ferocity against those whom one wishes to despoil, so that he may have whence to his belly and lust, or to pomp and arrogance he will satisfy himself: wherefore desire is cruel, and the more desire increases, the more anger and cruelty grow with it as if at an equal pace.
LET US EVERYWHERE LEAVE SIGNS OF JOY. — These signs are flowers, — These signs are flowers, fragrances, remnants of feasts, branches, foliage, songs, dances, etc.: for signs in Greek is σύμβολα, which signifies both signs and a contribution, by which namely the guests would contribute in common money, or food to furnish a sumptuous feast, as if to say: Let us feast everywhere, let our feast exist everywhere, let each place partake of our feast and joy, so that we fill all things with our delights and joys: so much so are we to be poured out in pleasures, that we strive to fill not only our belly and ourselves, but also others, indeed even meadows and any place whatsoever with them.
SINCE THIS IS OUR PORTION, — Vatablus, this is our fruit, that is to say, After death we do not expect another inheritance, another life, another pleasure, but all that life will be ended; therefore while we live, let us indulge in it: for this is our portion, this our lot, this our inheritance. The pious speak quite differently, who, devoted to continence, expect heavenly joys after death, and therefore sing with the Psalmist, Psalm xv, 5: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup, thou art he that wilt restore my inheritance to me."
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— Cruelty and tyranny are the companions, nay the daughters, of pleasure; hence pleasure is cruel, for those who have squandered their wealth and exhausted it in gluttony and lusts, like famished wolves, nay wolves maddened with hunger, rage against the poor, widows and the aged, so that they may seize and plunder their goods as if they were weak and powerless. Hence some translate it, let us exercise tyranny over the poor, or through tyranny let us subject the needy to ourselves, and let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the grey hair of the aged; Jansenius, nor let us reverence the grey and aged hairs of the old man: for the Greek καταδυναστεύσωμεν signifies to oppress someone through tyranny and to subject him to oneself. See here how roses turn into thorns, and gluttony into cruelty: hear St. Augustine in Psalm III, in the explanation of the title, where he says: "After that luxury described at length, let us crown ourselves with roses, etc., what follows? Let us kill the just man, etc. The soft-spoken were already saying for a long time: Let us crown ourselves with roses. What could be softer? what more delicate? from this softness would you expect crosses and swords? Do not marvel, the soft-spoken are the roots of thorns: if anyone touches them, he is not pricked; but from where you are pricked, from there thorns are born." This was also the sense and syllogism of Epicurus and the Epicureans, which Lactantius graphically depicts and refutes, lib. III, cap. xvii: "But he, he says, promised himself impunity for his vices; for he was the most shameful advocate of pleasure, for the sake of obtaining which he thought man was born. Who, when he hears this affirmed, would abstain from vices and crimes? For if souls are to perish, let us seek riches, so that we may be able to enjoy all delights. If these are lacking to us, let us take them from those who have them secretly, by deceit, by force. How therefore can we serve pleasures? For in a short time we shall be nothing at all. Therefore let us not allow any day, nor indeed any moment of time to pass without pleasure, lest, since we ourselves shall sometime perish, that which we have lived should perish. Although he does not say this in words, yet in fact he teaches it." He adds a clear reason: "For when he disputes that the wise man does everything for his own sake, he refers all that he does to his own advantage. And so whoever hears these crimes will think that nothing good is to be done, because doing good looks to the advantage of another; nor is crime to be abstained from, because crime is joined with plunder. Any pirate or leader of robbers, if he were to exhort his men to plunder, what other speech could he use than to say the same things that Epicurus says? That the gods care for nothing, are not touched by anger or gratitude; that the punishments of the underworld are not to be feared, because souls die after death and there is no underworld at all; that pleasure is the greatest good; that there is no human society, each one consulting himself; that there is no one who loves another except for his own sake." plunder, such as the poor, widows, the aged, and this seems to conform to nature: for what is stronger naturally dominates the weaker, as is seen in beasts; hence larger fish devour smaller ones, wolves seize sheep, lions wolves, tigers hunt all kinds of animals. Therefore this ought to have a place in men too, so that the wealth of the weak should fall to the strong and powerful: this is the principle of tyrants and atheists, which Machiavelli renewed in this age, who thought that religion, virtue, justice ought to serve power and the lust for dominion, so that you use them as much as they help to extend your dominions, and do not use them as much as they hinder it. Hence the pagans once objected to Christians that they, being humble, meek, tolerant, quiet, inactive, were useless to the commonwealth in defending it with arms, as Tertullian testifies, Apolog. for Christians. But this principle is not human, but bestial; not Christian, but atheistic; not divine, but diabolical. Beasts are driven by their bestial appetite, but man is driven by reason and human equity, which God has given him as the light and guide of life; he ought therefore to follow that. This is what Habakkuk laments, cap. 1, vers. 3 and 4: "It has come to pass, he says, that judgment and contradiction prevail, because the impious prevails against the just:" see Job, cap. xx and xxi.
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— Thus the Roman and Greek texts; therefore the Complutensians and others read incorrectly "law of justice," as if to say: Let strength be to us a law and norm, not of justice, but of injustice, so that according to it we may perpetrate not just but unjust deeds, despoiling and oppressing the poor, widows and the aged. But it should be read "law of justice," as the Arabic version says, and let our strength be swift to justice: the sense is, as if to say: Let that be held as just and lawful to us, and as it were a law of justice, not what justice itself and right reason dictate, not what the aged venerable with gray hair say, but what our force and strength can effect and seize; which is commonly said: to them justice itself is the sword, they carry their right in arms, as Callicles says in Plato's Gorgias. This is the axiom of tyrants, nay of lions and wild beasts, who have no other justice than claws, teeth, force and rapine, and therefore injustice itself is to them in place of justice, and the norm of life, according to that saying of Juvenal, Satyr. 6: Thus I will, thus I command, let will serve in place of reason; such was Nemrod the mighty hunter, not so much of beasts as of men, Gen. x, 8. They add the reason: — Thus the Roman and Greek texts; therefore the Complutensians and others read incorrectly "law of justice," as if to say: Let strength be to us a law and norm, not of justice, but of injustice, so that according to it we may perpetrate not just but unjust deeds, despoiling and oppressing the poor, widows and the aged. But it should be read "law of justice," as the Arabic version says, and let our strength be swift to justice: the sense is, as if to say: Let that be held as just and lawful to us, and as it were a law of justice, not what justice itself and right reason dictate, not what the aged venerable with gray hair say, but what our force and strength can effect and seize; which is commonly said: to them justice itself is the sword, they carry their right in arms, as Callicles says in Plato's Gorgias. This is the axiom of tyrants, nay of lions and wild beasts, who have no other justice than claws, teeth, force and rapine, and therefore injustice itself is to them in place of justice, and the norm of life, according to that saying of Juvenal, Satyr. 6: Thus I will, thus I command, let will serve in place of reason; such was Nemrod the mighty hunter, not so much of beasts as of men, Gen. x, 8. They add the reason: — Thus the Roman and Greek texts; therefore the Complutensians and others read incorrectly "law of justice," as if to say: Let strength be to us a law and norm, not of justice, but of injustice, so that according to it we may perpetrate not just but unjust deeds, despoiling and oppressing the poor, widows and the aged. But it should be read "law of justice," as the Arabic version says, and let our strength be swift to justice: the sense is, as if to say: Let that be held as just and lawful to us, and as it were a law of justice, not what justice itself and right reason dictate, not what the aged venerable with gray hair say, but what our force and strength can effect and seize; which is commonly said: to them justice itself is the sword, they carry their right in arms, as Callicles says in Plato's Gorgias. This is the axiom of tyrants, nay of lions and wild beasts, who have no other justice than claws, teeth, force and rapine, and therefore injustice itself is to them in place of justice, and the norm of life, according to that saying of Juvenal, Satyr. 6: Thus I will, thus I command, let will serve in place of reason; such was Nemrod the mighty hunter, not so much of beasts as of men, Gen. x, 8. They add the reason:
FOR THAT WHICH IS WEAK, — The Arabic version: because weak strength appears useless: for "is found" in Greek is ἐλέγχεται, that is, is argued against, is convicted, while the weakness of all is exposed to injuries, as if to say: He who prevails in strength, he is strong, powerful and rich; he who is weak and powerless cannot resist the stronger but succumbs, he is useful for nothing except to be the spoil of another and
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— Arabicus takes the just in the neuter gender, whence he translates, let us establish, let us devise, let us fabricate the just, as if to say, The law of true justice is opposed to us and to our desire; let us therefore form another law of justice, conformable not to right reason, but to our concupiscence, so that whatever pleases us may be just; but the Hebrew, Septuagint, Vulgate, Chaldean, Syriac, and all others take the just in the masculine gender, and this the following words require. From the preceding and following passages, therefore, it is clear first that this is the utterance of the impious against any notably just and pious man, who reproves their impiety by word and life, whom they therefore pursue as hateful to them unto death, as has happened in every age: for thus Cain persecuted the just Abel, the Sodomites Lot, Esau Jacob, the brothers Joseph, Pharaoh Moses and the Hebrews, Saul David, Jezabel Elijah, Manasseh Isaiah, etc. For he who is fully and perfectly just is not just for himself alone, but also for the whole commonwealth; and therefore he is a champion of justice, that is, an ardent defender, propagator and avenger, whom the impious therefore hate exceedingly and pursue unto death. Thus think Hugo, Lyra, Osorius, Jansenius here, and St. Chrysostom, homily 5 On the Words of Isaiah, I saw the Lord, and St. Ambrose, book II On Duties, chapters vi and vii. Hence Simeon Metaphrastes in the Life of St. Auxentius says that this passage from Wisdom ii, 12 was fulfilled in him: "Let us condemn the just one, because he is useless to us." But, secondly, that this is a prophecy concerning Christ and his passion, whom the impious chief priests and Jews, as the castigator of their crimes, persecuted even unto the cross, is clear first from the very words which here are plainly the same as those with which the Jews mocked Christ hanging on the cross, as is evident to anyone comparing both passages, especially that in Matthew XXVII, 43: "He trusted in God: let him now deliver him, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God," to which correspond here those words in verse 13: "He nameth himself the Son of God," and those in verse 16: "He glorieth that God is his father," and those in verse 18: "For if he be the true Son of God, he will help him:" again those in verse 20: "Let us condemn him to a most shameful death (namely the cross);" all which things belong properly to Christ alone. Add that Christ is called by antonomasia the Just, because he is most just, indeed not only the head but also the father and author of all the just, as is evident from Jeremiah XXIII, 6; Isaiah chapters LI, 5; XLI, 2 and 10; XLV, 8; LXII, 2, and Zechariah IX, 9. Secondly, the same is taught throughout by the Fathers: St. Augustine, XVII On the City of God, chapter XX and book XII Against Faustus, chapter XLIV, asserts that in this place the passion of Christ is prophesied most aptly: so also St. Cyril on Isaiah chapter LIX, St. Cyprian, treatise On Sion and Sinai, St. Ambrose, II On Duties, chapters VI and VII; the Author of the Imperfect Commentary on St. Matthew, homily 43, Clement of Alexandria, V Stromata, chapter VI, Tertullian, book III Against Marcion, chapter XXII, and St. Athanasius in the Synopsis. Lactantius, book IV, chapter XVI, from this passage convicts the Jews and demonstrates that Christ was slain by them as a just man and the Son of God: "Solomon," he says, "in the books of Wisdom used these words in chapter II, verse 12: Let us circumvent the Just, because he is useless to us, and he reproaches us with the sins of the law; he promises that he has the knowledge of God, and he names himself the Son of God, etc. Did he not thus describe that wicked counsel undertaken by the impious against God, so that he seems plainly to have been present? But from Solomon, who sang these things, to the time when the deed was done, there were a thousand and ten years. We add nothing, we invent nothing." St. Chrysostom gives the cause, namely the Author of the Imperfect Commentary in St. Chrysostom, homily on Matthew: "From the vice of pride," he says, "it arises that no one wishes to have a better man before him, as the Jews did with Christ: for they did not kill him in ignorance that he was the Son of God, but not enduring to have him as such, just as Solomon also prophesies of them: Come, let us circumvent," etc. The sense is therefore, as if to say, The impious will persecute notable just men, by whom their impiety is eclipsed and reproved, but especially the impious Jews will persecute Christ, who is the Just of the just, and the Holy of the holy, inasmuch as he most sharply reproved their vices, and especially those of the chief priests and scribes, as he reproves them throughout in the Gospels. In a similar manner Moses prophesies concerning Christ, Deut. XVIII, 18, speaking from the mouth of God: "I will raise up unto them a prophet from the midst of their brethren like unto thee," a prophet, that is, various prophets, but one of them outstanding and the chief of the rest, namely the Messiah, or Christ, for he was similar to Moses, indeed far superior to him: thus St. Ambrose in the title of Psalm XXXV: "The Lord," he says, "reproaches the Jews: I was poor for you, I was sorrowful for you, and you laid impious hands upon me, saying, Wisdom II, 12, and Jer. XI, 19: Let us take away the Just One, because he is unprofitable to us; let us put wood into his bread. He well said bread, for his flesh: he brought nourishment, they in return for a benefit brought punishment; it is no wonder therefore if they hunger, who have denied themselves the nourishment of eternal life." Moreover the Author of Wisdom alludes to that passage, Isa. cap. III, 10, where the Septuagint for imru, that is, say well to the Just One, reading isru, that is, bind, thus translate, they have taken counsel an evil counsel against themselves saying: Let us bind the Just One, because he is unprofitable (St. Jerome in the same place translates, unpleasant: for both meanings apply) to us. Thus they shall eat the fruit of their own works: which words plainly apply to the Jews, seizing and binding Christ praying in the garden; hence also St. Justin, Dialogue against Trypho, reads, let us bind the just one, because he is unprofitable to us; the Syrian, let us hinder or impede the just one; Tertullian, lib. III Against Marcion, cap. XXII, let us take away the just one, namely Christ; Clement of Alexandria, lib. V Strom., let us take away the just one from us. In Greek it is let us lay snares, that is, let us lay snares for the just one, let us capture him by snares, bind him, kill him, oppress him. Thus the Jews proposed insidious questions to Christ, that they might catch him in his speech, as when they asked him, Matt. XXII, 15 and 16: "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?" Again by the insidious betrayal of Judas they seized him in the garden. They call him Just, not so much from their own sense, as from the common estimation and designation of the common people. Moreover the impious man in persecuting the pious harms himself more than the pious: for, as St. Augustine says in Psalm XXXVI: "Adversity presses thy body, iniquity putrefies his soul: for whatever it brings forth in thee, returns upon him, for his purification makes thee purified, him guilty; to whom therefore does it do more harm?" Indeed the impious man by his persecution profits the pious, does not harm him. Hear St. Augustine in Psalm CXXVIII: "They have exercised me, they have not oppressed me. They have availed for me as fire for gold, not as fire for hay: for fire coming to gold takes away dross, coming to hay, turns it to ashes." The flame passes and pure gold remains; persecution passes like a dream, and the soul remains bright and splendid by merit of patience: for it is written, Psalm LXXII, 20: "As the dream of them that awake, O Lord, in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing," and Isa. XXIX, 7: "And it shall be as the dream of a vision by night the multitude of all nations that have fought against Ariel," that is, against the Church and her faithful, which is called Ariel, that is, the lion of God, from strength.
BECAUSE IT IS UNPROFITABLE TO US. - It is a lessening, - It is a lessening, unprofitable indeed, that is to say harmful, in Greek dyschistos, that is first, unprofitable; second, difficult, inconvenient, troublesome, intractable, one who does not know how to accommodate himself to us, and to connive at our vices, and to dissemble them; whence the Syriac, because it is not kind to us. Such did Christ appear to the Jews, inasmuch as He continually rebuked their avarice, rapines, lusts, superstitions by word and life. They allude to the name of Christ by antiphrase, as if to say, He is not christos, that is comely, kind, humane, easy to gratify, convenient, merciful, but achristos, that is unprofitable, nay dyschistos, that is difficult, offended, harsh, inflexible, rebellious, pernicious, abhorring our conversation and life, nay continually blaming and biting it; therefore let us take Him away from among us. But they speak truly in part, because Christ was to the scribes and Pharisees, as wicked, impenitent and obstinate in evil, a perpetual enemy, censor and reprover, and that by office: for to this end was He sent by the Father to the Jews, that He might bring them back from degenerating from the patriarchs to the ancestral faith and probity. But to others virtuous, nay to sinners not rejecting His faith and repentance, He was most sweet and most merciful, as He was to St. Mary Magdalene, St. Paul, St. Matthew, Zacchaeus, St. Peter and many others, so much so that the scribes objected this to Christ as a calumny, that He conversed with harlots and sinners; whence He Himself inviting them to Himself gently, Matt. XI, 28: "Come, He says, to me all you that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light." Thus do Isaiah, cap. XLII, vers. 2, and cap. LXI, vers. 1, and Zacharias, cap. IX, vers. 9, and the other prophets praise Christ for His humanity and sweetness, as also the apostles, as St. Peter, Acts X, 38: "Who, He says, went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him." For it is God's to do good to all and to communicate His goodness to all, nay to pour it forth. Thus did Christ heal the sick, raise the dead, drive out demons, feed the multitudes, calm storms, nay He gave His body, life, soul, divinity for us, and for those very enemies and sinners, and daily gives the same to each in the Eucharist: the same daily His grace prevents sinners and calls them to salvation; what therefore is more profitable, sweeter, kinder than Christ? hence in Hebrew He is called Messias, in Greek Christus, in Latin Christus, that is anointed, namely by God as king, prophet, legislator, redeemer and pontiff of the new law; by the gentiles He is called chrestos, that is profitable, sweet, kind, beneficent; whence Christians were called chrestians, that is bland, sweet, convenient; because as in Christ there was nothing that was not profitable, sweet, convenient for the salvation of men, so also it ought to be in Christians: of which I have said more elsewhere. Truly St. Thomas sings of Christ: Being born He gave Himself as companion, Dining together as food, Dying as ransom, Reigning He gives Himself as reward. And St. Bernard: "Jesus honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, jubilation in the heart. Taste therefore and see, that the Lord is sweet," Psalm. XXXIII, 9.
AND IS CONTRARY TO (Syriac, - For our works are impious, unjust, wicked, harmful; but His works are just, and especially Christ's, are pious, just, holy, salutary. Behold here they explain why Christ seemed to them dyschistos, that is unprofitable, troublesome and pernicious, namely because He rebuked the wicked manners of the scribes, and threatened them with woe, that is with the thunderbolt of eternal damnation, as is evident Matt. XXIII, 13-29. Thus today religious men, because they rebuke the manners of the wicked either by word or by example, are hated by them; whence the Apostle, I Tim. III, 12: "All, he says, who will live piously in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution:" St. Augustine gives one cause among various in Psalm. CXXVII: "If the devil is dead, he says, persecutions are dead; but if that adversary of ours lives, whence does he not suggest temptations? whence does he not rage? does he not procure threats or scandals?"
AND REPROACHES US WITH THE SINS OF THE LAW, namely sins against the law, given by God through Moses, committed by us.
AND HE DEFAMES IN US THE SINS OF OUR DISCIPLINE. - In Greek epiphemizei, - In Greek epiphemizei, that is, he spreads with infamy, divulges, makes known; whence St. Augustine, XVII On the City of God XX, reads defames, reproaches, cries out against us the sins which we commit against the discipline and law given to us by God, and especially that we corrupt it by perverse interpretation through Pharisaic traditions, so that we teach sons not to honor or support their parents, but to offer their wealth to the temple for the gain of priests; that we teach enemies are to be hated; that we excuse sinners, when they give us gifts, etc.: which Christ recounts and censures, Matthew V, 20; and that we cleanse cups and dishes, while within we are full of rapine and uncleanness, Matthew XXIII, 25. Again John, chapter VII, verse 19: "Did not," he says, "Moses give you the law: and none of you keepeth the law?" See Luke chapter XI, verse 39 and following; whence verse 45, one of the lawyers says to him: "Master, in saying these things thou dost affront us." Moreover, Christ did this justly and holily: for it was his, as a legate sent by God for this purpose, to freely censure the public crimes of the scribes and Pharisees, lest the people should esteem them as lawful and holy, and follow and imitate them, even if he knew he would thereby stir them up to death and the cross to be inflicted upon him, as indeed came to pass. The same did Isaiah, Jeremiah and all the other prophets without exception, as forerunners and types of Christ. Here Christ is set forth; and ibid. chapter VIII, 21: "If you believe not that I am, you shall die in your sin."
AND HE NAMES HIMSELF SON OF GOD. - In Greek, - In Greek, paida Kyriou, that is, the boy or servant of the Lord; boy, that is, son or servant; but that here son is meant is evident from what follows verse 16: "And he glorieth that he hath God for his father:" for the whole contention of Christ with the Jews was that he said himself to be the true Son of God, and proved this by miracles and Scriptures; they on the other hand denied this very thing, as appears in John chapter V and following, where there is continuous disputation of Christ with the scribes on this matter. Hence it is clear that these things, although they pertain to any just man who is an adoptive son of God through grace, yet properly regard Christ, who is the natural Son of God by essence. Moreover, this was the chief cause of the hatred of the impious Jews toward Christ, that he said himself to be the Son of God, both because they themselves were proud, and therefore bore it ill that Christ preferred himself to the scribes and pontiffs, indeed even to Moses, as I said above from St. Chrysostom; and because the reproof of Christ was the more grievous to them, the more it proceeded from a greater person, namely from the Son of God; and because from this, that he was the Son of God, it followed that his adversaries the Jews were children of the devil, according to that saying of Christ, John VIII, 44: "You are of your father the devil;" and this even now is the cause of the persistent hatred of all Jews toward Christ, namely that they cannot bear to hear and digest that they are sons and heirs of those who killed their Messiah the Son of God: for they cannot bear that this infamy of so great a sacrilege, indeed of deicide, should be cast upon them.
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In Greek epangeletai, that is, he announces, preaches, makes public and solemnly known, just as when something is proclaimed by a herald and promulgated: for Christ was the herald of the Gospel, who brought it from heaven to earth. St. Bonaventure from the Gloss explains it, as if to say, He firmly asserts that he knows all things, as God; but the true sense is, that Christ publicly and everywhere preaches and proclaims himself God, and the true faith of God and religion, that is, the manner of rightly and piously worshipping God, and serving and pleasing him, to know, teach and preach; and therefore he disapproves of our Jewish rites and traditions, as if they were secondary matters and displeasing to God. This is what Christ says, John VII, 28: "I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom you know not. But I know him: because I am from him, and he sent me;" and ibid. verse 16: "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me;" and Matt. XI, 17: "All things are delivered to me by my Father. And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him;" and John XVII, 3: "Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent;" and ibid. cap. VIII, 21. 15. GRIEVOUS (burdensome, troublesome, hateful, intolerable) IS HE ALSO TO BEHOLD. In Greek blaberenos, that is, to the sight, as if to say, So just, especially Christ, is he hated by us, that not only his preaching and reproof, but even his mere presence is grievous and troublesome to us, so that we cannot look upon and see him without weariness and offense: for hatred and envy cause it that one cannot bear to look upon him whom he hates: indeed, John III, 20: "He that doth evil hateth the light." Darkness is opposed to the clear light of the sun, and therefore it offends those who are blind: "to diseased eyes the light is hateful," says St. Augustine, lib. VII Confess. cap. XVI: thus "Saul did not look upon David with right eyes," I Kings XVIII, 9: so Tertullian, lib. De Patientia, cap. V: "How did they lay hands on the prophets," he says, "except through impatience of hearing; but on the Lord himself, through impatience even of seeing;" whence he teaches that all sin is to be ascribed to impatience. And St. Chrysostom, hom. 5 De Verb. Isai. Vidi Dominum: "No one," he says, "of mortals do those who sin so turn away from and hate, as him who prepares to reprove them; and they seek occasions to escape, desiring to flee reproof: for the reprover is not only grievous to the sinner when he utters his voice, but also when he is seen. Grievous is he," they say, "to us, even in aspect;" to which reading Vatable adhered, reading, grievous also to our sight; hence those words, John XIX, 15: "Away with him, away with him, crucify him." It is added, that the modesty, chastity, holiness of Christ struck the immodest, incestuous, impure eyes of the Jews; finally, the splendor of divinity flashed forth from the face of Christ, says St. Jerome, which struck the gaze of the impious; but ravished the pious into love of him, reverence and admiration. Thus Nero could not bear the venerable appearance of the senator Thrasea, and therefore killed him, says Tacitus, lib. XVI Annal.: for, as St. Chrysostom wisely says, homil. 3 ad Popul. Antioch.: "The words of the saints are not only full of spiritual grace, but also their very aspect, so that by their aspect alone they can extinguish anger in another, and soften hearts." Note, the impious here heap together twelve reasons by which they assert that they hate Christ and persecute him; the first is, verse 12, because he is useless to them, that is, troublesome and harmful. The second, because he is contrary to their works. The third, that he reproaches them for sins committed against the law. The fourth, verse 13, that he says he is the Son of God, and teaches divine knowledge and doctrine, as if he were greater than Moses, and brings another and holier religion than his law. The fifth, verse 14, that he exposes and censures their secret wicked thoughts. The sixth, verse 15, that his presence, gravity, modesty, holiness offend their eyes. The seventh, that his life is unlike that of others. The eighth, that his ways, that is, his actions, are unchanged. The ninth, verse 16, that they are held by him as vile, fabulous and trifling. The tenth, that he abstains from their ways, as if from uncleanness. The eleventh, that he prefers the latter end of the just. The twelfth, that he glories in having God as his Father. These are the twelve heads of accusation which the impious bring against the just, especially Christ, by which they exhort and sharpen one another to bring death upon him: for the wicked love and praise depraved men of every kind, and incite them to crimes, because they have minds and morals like themselves; and while wickedness numbers more followers for itself, it takes authority from this, and in some way washes away and purges the infamy congenital to it. Whence it follows:
BECAUSE HIS LIFE IS UNLIKE THAT OF OTHERS. - For Christ preached that the poor are blessed, - For Christ preached that the poor are blessed, the humble, the meek, those who mourn, those who endure persecution, whereas the Jews and other worldly men preach that the rich are blessed, the arrogant, the imperious, those who rejoice and dominate others: Christ preached the mortification of the flesh, the restraint of concupiscence, chastity, abstinence, the cross, the love of enemies, the hatred of one's life, which seemed paradoxical to the Jews, inasmuch as they were carnal and sought nothing but flesh, wealth and feasting, as well as honors and vengeance upon their enemies. This therefore is the root of all the hatred and envy of the impious toward the just, especially Christ, namely the discord of morals and life: for, as Aristotle and other ethicists teach, just as the similarity and harmony of morals is the cause of love and friendship, so the dissimilarity and discord of morals is the cause of hatred; hence Seneca, epistle 7: "Whoever lives, he says, in the multitude, is either like many, or hated by them;" and it was the precept of Pythagoras: "Do not walk along the public way," that is, do not follow the ways of the crowd, even if you incur his hatred on that account: "for it is a mark of rectitude, he says, to displease the wicked," says Seneca. Christ himself assigns this root of hatred, saying and foretelling to the apostles, John XV, 19: "If you had been of the world, the world would love what is its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you;" and therefore "if they have persecuted me, he says, they will persecute you also." "I see a great consolation of pious men, says a certain doctor, to be established in this reason: for the elect, removed from the midst of the world and separated from the multitude of the lost, are made hateful by the dissimilarity of morals: for they hate that which they are unwilling to be; and from hatred of that thing, which they vehemently disapprove, they rage and press on persecuting. Iniquity cannot have peace with justice, drunkenness hates temperance, falsehood has no concord with truth, pride does not love meekness, petulance does not love modesty, avarice does not love generosity. If the world persecuted the very head on account of this adversity of morals, assuredly it will persecute all the pious, who live by the same spirit." The impious Jews therefore could by no means bear Christ, because dissimilar affection made contrary pursuits of life, and the one life was the manifest condemnation of the other, and therefore also to his own brothers, since they themselves did not believe in him, he said, John VII, 7: "The world cannot hate you," namely you who are his worshippers and lovers; "but me it hateth: because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil." Hence it is that the good have always been burdensome to the wicked: this is what St. Prosper sings, epigram 32: The impious part of the world is hostile to the part of the pious, Nor can it bear dissimilar minds. Laughing at those unwilling to use present riches, And hoping that what is entrusted can be given to them. For, as it is in the Wise Man, Proverbs XXIX, 27: "The wicked abhor those who are in the right way. But their earthly city does not wish to correct them, but to destroy them, nor is it the concern of the city to remove their vices, but to demolish and oppress what is ungrateful and hateful to itself, and to oppress the truth: for this is the judgment: because light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light: for their works were evil," John III, 19. "For by diabolical envy, says St. Augustine, book XV On the City of God, chapter V, by which the wicked envy the good, there is no other cause than that those are good and these are evil: for vices are always hostile to virtues, and the very best are regarded by the wicked as if reproaching them." And rightly that saying of Cicero, book On Friendship: "Dissimilar morals will follow dissimilar pursuits, whose dissimilarity dissolves friendships." Nor for any other reason whatsoever can the good be friends with the wicked, nor the wicked with the good, except that there is between them as great a distance as can possibly exist in the distance of morals and pursuits. Therefore, just as there cannot be peace between Christ and Belial, so neither can those two cities, one of which belongs to the pious and the other to the impious, be joined by true concord: Christ is the founder of the holy city, the devil is the founder and ruler of the city of the impious: the former is established by the love of God even unto contempt of self: the latter, on the other hand, by the love of self even unto contempt of God, for being pleased with itself and puffed up, and thinking all things worthy of pursuit are contained in itself alone, it speaks through the Prophet and says, Isaiah XLVII, 8: "I am, and there is none else beside me: I shall not sit a widow, and I shall not know barrenness." The former uses the world in order to enjoy God: the latter, on the contrary, uses God in order to enjoy the world fully; the former sojourns here, and not having a city fixed and abiding on earth, seeks the one to come, as the prayer of a certain most holy citizen declares, when he says, Psalm XXXVIII, 13: "I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were:" the latter, however, enticed by the delights of this world, rests entirely in earthly happiness. It comes to pass that whatever it perceives to be adverse to itself, it strives to remove, and on account of this desire of its own, it even pursues and persecutes truth with hatred. "All thy commandments are truth," says he, "therefore the wicked have persecuted me, help me," Psalm CXVIII, 86. Furthermore, since this hatred is so great, it is necessary that it immediately break forth into war and persecution: for just as fire and water cannot exist together unless they fight with each other, so it is necessary that those two cities continually conflict with each other in mutual adversity; and just as in the same man the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so in the same commonwealth the wicked cannot have peace with the good. Therefore the good hate not men, but the vices of men, and if ever any persecution is stirred up by them, it must be believed to proceed not from hatred, but from charity, by which either the wicked are consulted for their correction, or certainly the good and upright for their protection; whence that passage, Psalm C, 3: "I did not set before my eyes any unjust thing: I hated the workers of iniquity. My heart did not cleave to the wicked: the malignant that departed from me I would not know: the man that in secret slandered his neighbour, him did I persecute." Behold, a good persecutor persecutes not the man, but the sin: "for," says St. Ambrose, sermon 11 on Psalm CXVIII, "there is also a just persecution, if we hate the obscene, if we are hostile to the unjust, if we wish to crush the wicked lest they harm more, if we strip the avaricious man of the gains of his fraud, if we execrate the insolence of the proud."
AND HIS WAYS HAVE BEEN CHANGED. - Hugo and others add, in truth; but the Greek and Roman texts have nothing of the sort; Vatable, and it differs from his institutions; Guarinus, and his paths are different; the Gloss and St. Bonaventure, his doctrines and deeds are dissimilar, namely his teaching and life; another, foreign, unusual, unaccustomed, unheard of and abhorrent from the common norm and form are the paths by which he walks, that is his words and works. The sense therefore is, as if to say, Ways, that is the actions of the just man, especially of Christ, and his manner of acting and living, namely his teaching, conversation, religion, a sect plainly at variance with ours, has been changed and is diverse: for ours, whether Pharisaic justice and religion, is situated in external appearance, purification, brightness, pomp, ostentation of alms; but Christ's evangelical justice is situated in internal purity, piety, charity, etc., as Christ teaches, Matt. V, 1. Again, by hypallage, "his ways have been changed," that is our ways through his ways, as if to say, Christ through his gospel changes and abolishes our law, our sacraments, and our ceremonies and rites, when he substitutes baptism for circumcision, the Eucharist for manna, penance for washings, etc.; finally he himself wishes to destroy our Judaism and convert it into Christianity. For this was the cause of the supreme hatred of the Jews toward Christ and Paul; whence the Jews, about to stone St. Stephen, brought this charge against him, Acts VI, 14: "We have heard," they say, "him saying: For Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the traditions which Moses delivered unto us"; and to St. Paul when they seized him in the temple: "Men of Israel," they say, "help: this is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place; and moreover hath brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath violated this holy place," Acts XXI, 28. In like manner at this time, indeed in every age, religious and zealous men, who wished to reform the fallen morals of religious, priests, and Christians, and to restore them to ancestral purity, stirred up the hatred of many against themselves: but they consoled themselves by the example of Christ, and strengthened by it acted constantly, and by their constancy accomplished what they were attempting. The same is felt by those who withdraw themselves from their companions, that they may be free for a stricter life, prayer, study: for soon their companions assail them with tongues and laughter, calling them hypocrites, Jesuits, saints: because they bear ill that they are abandoned by them, surpassed, and tacitly censured and rebuked; but let these also hear consolation from Christ, Matt. V, 10: "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Let these say: "Friends, my companions, but Christ is more a friend, holiness is more a friend, and the salvation of the soul." Plato used to say: "Socrates is a friend, but truth is more a friend."
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In Greek, eis elegchon, that is, for refutation and reproof, as if to say Christ brings forth, that is, brings into public, reveals and exposes to all our thoughts for censure, that is, our intentions, our studies, our endeavors; whence others translate, here he becomes a judge of our thoughts; St. Bonaventure, he brings our thoughts into light; another, he was made for us to refute our thoughts: for Christ knew and revealed and refuted the wicked thoughts of the scribes, even the secret ones about himself, refuting, seizing, killing, as is evident from Matthew IX, 4: "Why do you think evil in your hearts?" and Luke VI, 7: "And the scribes and Pharisees watched if he would heal on the sabbath: that they might find how to accuse him. But he knew their thoughts," etc. And from this revelation of secret thoughts he showed to the Jews that he was God and the Son of God: for, as Tertullian says, Apology cap. XX: "The testimony of divinity is the truth of divination." This therefore is the true cause of the hatred of the impious toward the pious, that their impiety is refuted and disgraced by the piety of these. Lactantius assigns and emphasizes this cause, lib. V Instit. cap. IX: "What then shall we say is the principal cause of such great and so persistent hatred? Is it that Truth begets hatred, as the poet says, as if inspired by divine spirit? Or do they blush before the just and good to be wicked? Or rather both? For truth is always hated for this reason, that he who sins wishes to have a free place for sinning, nor does he think he can enjoy the pleasure of wrongdoing more securely in any other way than if there be no one to whom misdeeds are displeasing. Therefore, as witnesses to their crimes and malice, they strive to root out and remove them utterly, and they regard them as grievous, as if their life were refuted." He then adds the reasoning of the impious: "Why indeed should there be some inopportunely good, who, with public morals corrupted, make a reproach by living well? Why should not all be equally wicked, rapacious, shameless, adulterers, perjurers, covetous, fraudulent? Why rather should they not be removed, before whom it is shameful to live badly, who strike and beat the brow of sinners, if not with words, because they are silent, yet by the very dissimilar manner of life? For whoever dissents seems to rebuke. Nor is it greatly to be wondered at if these things are done against men, when against God himself for the same reason the people, even those established in hope and not ignorant of God, have risen up; and the same necessity follows the just which violated the author of justice itself."
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For as trifles, in Greek it is eis kibbdelon, that is, into spurious or dross, or verdigris we are esteemed by him, namely as if spurious, or as if rubbish, trifles and things of no account: for kibbdelos properly signifies gold, silver, or bronze not pure and sincere, but to which dross is mixed, and therefore adulterated, corrupted and counterfeit: thus Christ censured the Jews, in that they adulterated and corrupted the law with their human and superstitious traditions; whence he called them "an evil and adulterous generation," Matthew XII, 39; "liars, whited sepulchres," serpents and "generation of vipers," John VIII, 55: for they preferred their trifles and the trifling washings of hands and body to the law of God and Christ. Hence St. Bonaventure explains it, as if to say, We are esteemed by him as doing and saying vain things; Dionysius, just as fools and liars; Clarius, as counterfeit; Vatablus, we are held for counterfeits; the Complutensians, we are reckoned as spurious. They allude to that passage, John VIII, 39, where the Jews boasting: "Our father is Abraham," Christ answered: "If you were the children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who have spoken to you the truth which I have heard of God: this Abraham did not do. You do the works of your father. They said therefore unto him: We are not born of fornication: we have one Father, even God," as if to say: You, O Christ, deny that we are the legitimate children of Abraham, and therefore you seem to assert that we are spurious and adulterous, born of fornication, in which matter you inflict upon us a signal injury and mark, because you object to us another father than Abraham, namely the devil, as though we follow his works; but you falsely calumniate us, because there is no other adulterer, but Abraham is our true father on earth, God in heaven, and we worship one God the Father, just as Abraham does: you therefore falsely accuse us of not following God and the piety and works of Abraham, as if we were spurious. Christ answered: "If God were your Father, you would indeed love me: for from God I proceeded, and came: for I came not of myself, but he sent me. Why do you not know my speech? Because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth," By which words he showed and confirmed that they were not children of Abraham, but spurious children of the devil.
AND HE ABSTAINS FROM OUR WAYS AS FROM UNCLEANNESSES, as from filth, defilements, obscenities, that is to say, he flees and abhors our manner of living as unclean, depraved, wicked. Thus Christ, Luke XII, 1: "Beware," he says, "of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy," etc. The sense is, that is to say, Christ is a sectarian: for from our religion, as from something unclean, he draws men to his sect, as to something clean. They speak partly truly, because Christ refuted the superstitions and depraved customs of the Pharisees; partly falsely, because Christ frequently attended the temple on appointed days, and there prayed and taught and kept the law, and taught that it should be kept. Wisely St. Gregory of Nazianzus, in his Oration in Praise of St. Basil, warns that the company of the wicked is to be avoided: "Let us not," he says, "have familiarity with the most shameless of companions, but with the best and most honorable; nor with the most quarrelsome, but with the most peaceful, and those whose company brings great fruit: holding this as established, that vice is contracted much more easily than virtue is communicated, just as disease is also contracted more easily than health is imparted."
AND HE PREFERS THE LAST THINGS OF THE JUST. - In St. Augustine, In St. Augustine, XVII of the City of God XX, it is read, most noble, but incorrectly, as it seems. First, Hugo expounds it, that is to say, he prefers the last things of the just to us, saying, Matthew XX, 16: "The last shall be first, and the first last;" and ibid. V, 6: "Woe to you that are rich: blessed are the poor in spirit;" and chapter XII, 41: "The men of Ninive shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas. And behold a greater than Jonas here." But in Greek it is, makaridzei ta eschata dikaion, that is, he beatifies the last things of the just, that is, he proclaims blessed the end of the just; the Complutensian editors and Vatablus, he proclaims the last things of the just blessed; the Gloss and Bonaventure, he prefers eternal life to pleasure, that is to say, Christ proclaims blessed the poverty, compunction, humility, tears, mortification, cross of the just on account of their end, namely that it leads them to happiness and heavenly glory: and by this very thing he condemns us, who place all happiness in riches, joys, laughter, feasts, lusts, pride, and other pleasures of this life: for upon these he himself pronounces woe and the thunderbolt of eternal damnation: this is evident from the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Luke XVI, 20. Thus also Ecclesiasticus, celebrating glorious men, chapter XLIV, verse 14, says: "Their bodies are buried in peace, and their name liveth unto generation and generation;" and Psalm CXV, 13: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints;" and Apocalypse XIV, 13: "I heard a voice from heaven saying to me: Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors: for their works follow them." Nazianzenus gives the reason, in his Oration at the Funeral of his Father: "Because death, which not only vindicates us from present evils, but often also leads us to the life above, I know not," he says, "whether it can properly be called death, inasmuch as it is formidable in name rather than in reality: there is one life, keep your eyes fixed on life; one death is sin; for it is the destruction of the soul."
AND HE GLORIETH THAT HE HATH GOD FOR HIS FATHER, and consequently he assigns us as his adversaries to the devil, as children to a father: for glorieth in Greek is anastrephei, that is, he boasts with pride, glorying and ostentation. Another interpretation: he falsely feigns for himself, lies, arrogates, and like an impostor boastfully, insolently, and excessively elevated displays God as his father: for Christ had said, John VIII, 54: "It is my Father that glorifieth me, whom you say that he is your God, and you have not known him:" wherefore you, O Jews, who deny me as the Son, deny also the Father, and consequently deny your God. By this goad of Christ the scribes and Pharisees felt themselves sharply pricked, and therefore they plotted his death: for as much as it is honor and glory to have God as father, and in him all goods, so much is it dishonor and infamy to have the devil as father, and in him all evils, both of guilt and of punishment.
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namely, by which he boasts that he is the Son of God, and that he has God as his father, and that he teaches the true faith of God, the law, the worship: for if he is the Son of God, God will surely protect him, and deliver him from our hands; or certainly, if killed by us, he will raise him up, as he himself asserts and boasts.
AND LET US TRY WHAT SHALL HAPPEN TO HIM. - Let us see how his affairs will turn out; in Greek, - Let us see how his affairs will turn out; in Greek, and let us experience what in his end, namely, will be; St. Prosper, part I On Predictions cap. XXVI, reads, whether what is to come to him shall succeed, namely whether God whom he glories to have as his father will deliver him from our hands, or raise him from the dead. Whence explaining they add, "for if he is a true son of God, he will receive him, and will deliver him from the hands of his adversaries." Others translate it, let us make trial of the outcome of his affairs, what namely will finally happen to him, what end he will have, to what conclusion and catastrophe the tragedy of his life and sect will come: for it will go into smoke, nay into infamy.
AND WE SHALL KNOW WHAT SHALL BE THE LAST THINGS OF HIM. - These are wanting in the Greek, - These are wanting in the Greek, in Lactantius and St. Cyprian, lib. II Testim. XIV; yet the Roman and St. Augustine read them, XVII On the City of God XX. It appears to be an epanalepsis, and the same thing said in other words: for let us try what shall happen to him seems to be explained by what is added, "and we shall know what shall be the last things of him," as if to say, Christ prefers to us, to our will and present happiness, the last things of the just, of whom he says he is the head and prince: let us therefore see what shall be the last things of him, and from this we shall gather what the last things of his just ones shall be. Let us kill him, and see whether he himself shall rise from the dead: and thus it will appear that the last things are vain, namely the joys of eternal life, which he falsely promises to his just ones. Thus also the impious and atheists.
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- In Greek and Syriac, if he be a just one, son of God, just, both in any sense, and by excellence, namely Christ, as if to say, If Christ, who calls himself just by eminence, is truly the Son of God, God will surely as a father receive him, that is, will seize him falling toward death with outstretched hand, will support him, strengthen him, protect him lest he fall: for to receive in the Scriptures means to succor one falling, to bring aid, to preserve, to protect. These words are taken from Psalm XXI, verse 9: "He hoped in the Lord, let him deliver him: let him save him, seeing he delighteth in him;" with which words the impious Jews reproached Christ on the cross, because he had said he was the Son of God, as appears Matthew XXVII, 40.
AND HE SHALL DELIVER HIM FROM THE HANDS OF HIS ADVERSARIES, namely from the hands of the scribes and priests opposing him, and driving him to the cross and to death. 19. WITH INSULT (in Greek, hybrei, that is, injury, dishonor, insult, cruelty, ferocity, violence inflicted) AND TORTURE (Lactantius, book IV, chapter XVI, reads in the plural, with insults and tortures; St. Bonaventure, he says, with insult of words and torture, or the torment of blows) LET US QUESTION HIM (in Greek, etasomen, that is, let us test, exercise, examine him to extract the truth from him: for thus a judge extracts the crime from the accused through interrogations and tortures, which are called judicial torments; the Arabic version, let us investigate him with calumny and torture: the tortures which the Jews inflicted upon Christ were very many, very great, most ignominious: these the Jews say, thus they inflict upon Christ), THAT WE MAY KNOW (they say) HIS REVERENCE. - In Greek, epieikian, that is, equanimity, modesty, gentleness, tranquility, composure of mind, by which the just man, especially Christ, unjustly beaten, fears and dreads not only to avenge himself, but even to show the least sign of indignation or impatience. Let us therefore test his justice through insults and tortures, because if his justice be true, he will show it through patience; but if it be false and simulated, he will reveal it through impatience: for it is impossible that a proud man, a hypocrite and a deceiver, if vexed and beaten, should not burst forth into cursing words, threats, and impatient gestures. Whence St. Gregory, in the first Dialogue, chapter V: "What sort of person each one is hidden within himself," he says, "insult inflicted proves." Hence also the Greek word basanos, that is, torture, torment, judicial examination, signifies also a stone, a test or touchstone... ...and a Herculean stone, concerning which Pliny, book XXXIII, chapter VIII, says that such tortures, like that stone, make manifest, as the excellence and superiority of gold; hence also to examine by torture is to interrogate, because just as one examined by a judge in torture responds and does not hide the truth which torments extort, similarly that examination made by wicked judges with insult and torture will show forth the truth of the divinity and doctrine of Christ, and also the holiness worthy of the true God. Compare these things with the passion of Christ, described in the gospels, and you will say that the Wise Man here is as much a historian and evangelist as Isaiah in chapter LIII concerning the passion of Christ, rather than a prophet. This reverence of the just man, especially of Christ, was therefore both active and passive: it was active as a certain sacred shame and holy modesty, by which Christ even in the most atrocious passion and on the cross, out of respect and reverence, both for his own virtue of patience and modesty, and for God, angels and men, in whose presence he was and suffered, feared to do or say anything, I do not say impatiently, but less worthily or decorously, namely what would be less fitting for a patient, modest, constant, perfect, heavenly, divine man; whence he gave no groan, no sign of pain, weakness, or fear; which considering, a certain pagan writer exclaimed: "O man unbroken in spirit, who neither uttered prayer nor shed tears;" hence the Syriac version translates it, that we may know the diligence or solicitude of his humility, and test him; the Arabic version, that we may know his obedience or submission, and test the purity of his patience." It was passive as the effect of the active, namely by which the active reverence, which shone forth in Christ's composed, pious, reverent and venerable countenance, and in all his words, deeds and gestures, made him venerable and worthy of reverence to all, and in those beholding him stirred up reverence, love and admiration of him: as it did in the centurion, who seeing him die with such constancy, resignation and piety, when he cried out, Luke XXIII, 46: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," exclaimed, Matthew XXVII, 54: "Indeed this was the Son of God." Nay, even one thief on the very cross, moved and pierced by Christ's holy patience, rebuked his companion blaspheming, and turning to Christ before the Jews and scribes, John XV, 20: "Remember me," he said, "Lord, when thou shalt come into thy kingdom." The Jews and the rest did the same, of whom Luke says, chapter XXIII, verse 48: "And all the multitude of them that were come together to that sight (in which at Christ's death the sun was darkened, the whole earth trembled, the rocks were split, etc., as if mourning and indignant at the holy death of their Creator), and saw the things that were done, striking their breasts returned." Hence also Christ by such obedience and patience toward God the Father, as it were inspired reverence of himself in him, so that he obtained from him whatever he asked: for "with a loud cry and tears offering up prayers was heard for his reverence," Hebrews V, 7. In like manner the martyrs in their martyrdoms displayed such equity, constancy, piety, holiness, and cheerfulness in their countenance and words, that they compelled their torturers to reverence them, and made them Christians, nay, martyrs themselves; thus St. Lawrence by the joy and alacrity of his torments converted St. Romanus and Hippolytus with his whole family, so that all to a man generously underwent martyrdom. Thus St. Cecilia by her cheerfulness in suffering converted Maximus and four hundred others. Thus St. Polycarp by his venerable age, courtesy, readiness and holiness, inspired such shame and fear in the soldiers sent to apprehend him, that they scarcely dared to touch him, as Eusebius testifies, lib. IV Hist. cap. XV. Thus St. Thecla, when thrown to the lions, remained unharmed by her virginal modesty and reverence, which was reverenced even by the beasts, concerning whom St. Ambrose, lib. III, epist. 25 to the Church of Vercelli, says: "By what a gift, he says, was the venerable Thecla even to the lions, so that the beasts lay at the feet of their prey unfed, and with sacred fasting deferred to her, nor violated the virgin with wanton eye, nor with rough claw: for even by the very sight of virginity is holiness violated." The same more fully and elegantly, lib. II De Virg. after the beginning: "Thecla, he says, changed even the nature of beasts by the reverence of her virginity; for when prepared for the wild beasts, since even her gaze declined from men, and she offered her very life to the savage lion, she made those who had borne unchaste eyes bring back chaste ones." Then depicting the gestures of the lions reverencing her graphically, he adds: "You could see the beast licking her feet, lying on the ground, testifying by mute sound that it could not violate the sacred body of the virgin. Therefore the beast adored its prey, and forgetting its own nature, had taken on the nature which men had abandoned. You would see by a certain transfusion of nature men putting on wildness, commanding savagery to the beast; the beast kissing the feet of the virgin, teaching what men ought to do." Whence by an exclamation he concludes with exaggeration: "So much does virginity have of admiration, that even lions marvel at it. Hunger did not bend the unfed, impulse did not seize the swift, anger did not exasperate the provoked, custom did not deceive the accustomed, nature did not possess the fierce. They taught religion while adoring the martyr; they taught also chastity, while kissing nothing of the virgin except her feet, with eyes cast down to the earth, as if ashamed, lest any male, whether man or beast, should see the virgin naked. Learn here how worthy of reverence are modesty, gentleness, piety and patience, and how it makes its followers venerable and reverend: whoever therefore seeks authority and reverence for himself, let him seek it not by the display of gravity, not by the pomp of carriages and attendants, but by gentleness, beneficence and virtue.
AND LET US PROVE HIS PATIENCE. - Thus also read St. Cyprian, Lactantius and St. Augustine; some codices read dikasomen, that is, let us judge, instead of dokimasomen, that is, let us prove. Rightly do the impious, in order to test the justice of the just man, especially of Christ, prove his patience: for patience is the touchstone by which true justice and holiness are proved: for "touch the mountains, (that is, the proud and impatient) and they shall smoke," Psalm CIII, 31: for they shall exhale the smoke of wrath, quarreling, cursing and vengeance. This is what Paul says, Rom. V, 3: "We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience: and patience worketh proof: and proof worketh hope;" and St. James, cap. I, vers. 4: "The proof of your faith worketh patience. And patience hath a perfect work," so as to show that the virtue of the patient one has reached the summit of holiness and perfection; moreover in Christ beyond all other saints and martyrs, such and so divine a patience, constancy, and charity shone forth amid so many blasphemies, injuries, and most atrocious and immense torments, as were hurled against God himself, by which he even prayed to God for the very Jews who were killing him, and obtained for them pardon and salvation, so that this alone would suffice to prove him to be the Messiah and Prophet, nay, God and the Son of God, especially because this was employed by Christ himself to demonstrate it: for virtue is the sister of truth, and therefore alien from all falsehood, wherefore it cannot be a witness of falsehood; but it must be the index of truth alone.
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LIII, 2, contumelious, infamous, and therefore base in the highest degree, that is most base, namely the cross) LET US CONDEMN HIM. - The Syrian version: let us adjudge him to public and infamous death: for the punishment of the cross, especially with nails fixed to it, was a cruel and prolonged death; whence from the cross the word torture is derived; and it was the most ignominious, both among the Jews and among the gentiles: among the Jews from the law, Deuteronomy XXI, 23: "Cursed, he says, by God is he that hangeth on a tree:" wherefore the crucified one is commanded there to be buried the same day before evening, lest he contaminate the land; whence the Apostle, Galatians III, 13: "Christ, he says, hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: because it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Similarly among the Romans and gentiles the cross was an infamous and horrible punishment for robbers and the wicked. See Lipsius and Gretser On the Cross. The cause therefore why Christ was crucified, on the part of the Jews crucifying him, was their savage hatred toward Christ, by which they drove him to the cross, as to a supremely infamous and cruel death. But on the part of Adam and men it was, that Adam sinned on a tree, namely by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, wherefore on the tree of the cross, this crime of his disobedience ought to be and was fitting to be expiated by Christ, so that the devil "who conquered on a tree, should also be conquered on a tree" by Christ. But on the part of God offended the cause was love of justice, so that through the cross the gravity of the offense of Adam and men against God might be shown, namely that through it they made themselves liable to eternal curse, and thus became accursed; Christ therefore took upon himself this curse of Adam and ours to be paid and expiated, and therefore was affixed to the cross, because hanging on the cross among the Jews from the law already cited, he was reckoned accursed and a curse: the atrocity therefore of the guilt, as it were from equal justice demanded the atrocity of the punishment, so that it might satisfy him condignly; such however is the punishment of the cross. On the part of Christ, the cause was the immensity of love, so that through the cross Christ might show how much he loved us, inasmuch as he suffered so dire and hard a passion for us, and so that he might give us an example of mortification to continually crucify the motions of concupiscence; and of martyrdom to undergo willingly any death whatsoever, however horrible and shameful, for him and for virtue, as the martyrs underwent it, so that they might render to Christ as far as they could like for like, namely pain for pain, and love for love. Whence St. Augustine in Psalm CXL: "The cross, he says, than which nothing appeared more accursed, the Lord himself took up, lest his disciples should fear even death, and not only should not fear it, but should not even shudder at the kind of death:" the same, homily 32 On the Saints: "The whole life of a Christian man, if he live according to the Gospel, is a cross and a martyrdom." See more in Gretser, book I On the Cross, chapters XLI, XLII and following, and book IV, chapters I and following, and St. Thomas, Suarez and the scholastics, III part, Question XLVIII, article 4, and Cassian, book IV On the Institutes of Renunciation, chapters XXXIV and XXXV.
FOR THERE SHALL BE RESPECT UNTO HIM FROM HIS WORDS. - For respect, in Greek it is episkope, that is, observation, visitation, consideration, inspection: there can be a threefold sense here. The first is Clarius's, who translates it, from his words and deeds we inspect what he is; and the Syrians', let there be an interrogation against him from his words, that is to say, while he is afflicted by us, we shall consider and perceive from his words what sort he is, as Jansenius says; or that is to say, if we are able to extinguish him on the cross, we shall know he lied, when he called himself the Son of God, who is immortal: thus St. Bonaventure, Dionysius, Lyra and others; or, as Osorius and Lorinus, that is to say, let us crucify him, so that from his words, which severe pain shall have expressed, we may judge concerning the mind of the man: for the Jews wished, by the atrocity of the cross and torments, to elicit truth from the mouth of Christ, as if terrified or tortured he would say something which he had not yet wished to say; or openly declare what he had feigned. This sense corresponds sufficiently to the Greek episkope, not equally to the Latin respect. The second is Vatable's, who translates it, he shall be treated moreover according to his sayings, that is to say, because he blasphemed by saying God was his father, and that he was his son, he shall pay the fitting penalties of this blasphemy on the cross; and Hugo: "There shall be," he says, "our respect, that is, our defense and excuse, so that if we are asked why we killed him, we may answer: Because he made himself the Son of God." The third and more genuine sense is, that it be irony, that is to say, God shall regard him and deliver him from the cross, or shall raise him from the dead: for he himself boasted of this in frequent words; whence Guarinus translates it, his account shall be held according to his own words; hence also the scribes sealed the sepulcher of Christ, and set guards upon it, lest anyone steal the body and feign that he had risen: which things all condemned the Jews themselves, and demonstrated that Christ was the true Messiah and the Son of God, when he himself rose through the sealed sepulcher, in the presence of the guards, Matt. cap. XXVII, vers. 64. Otherwise our Castro, that is to say, he shall be visited and examined by us through the cross and torments, so that we may see whether his patience and constancy correspond to his word: for he himself preaches the love of the cross, of patience, of constancy, let us experience whether he himself on the cross provides the same in deed; for many preach fasting while well fed, continence while adulterers, humility while proud, gentleness while wrathful, the cross while luxurious and delicate: this is to preach with the mouth, but to contradict in deed.
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- St. Gaudentius, serm. 19, reads, the wickedness of their heart; Lactantius, lib. IV, cap. XVI, their folly. Thus far the words of the impious, which now the Wise One corrects with sharp reproof: "They erred," he says, and blinded by their malice, for an evil affection in the will draws reason and the judgment of the intellect to itself, and vitiates and corrupts it: for it causes reason, on account of the appearance of a delightful good, to judge that to be chosen as better which is to be detested as worse. Moreover, this error and blindness of the impious is manifold: first, that they prefer pleasure to reason, vice to truth, fleeting goods to eternal ones. Second, that through these they bring death and hell upon themselves. Third, that they believe man, like a beast, perishes entirely in death, nor does any other life remain, because the soul of men is mortal, and perishes with the body. Fourth, that they hated and crucified the just man, namely Christ, whom from the holiness of his life, from prophecies and miracles they could and ought to have recognized as the Son of God, as a castigator of their crimes. These late in hell recognize their error; whence they say cap. V, vers. 6: "Therefore we have erred from the way of truth." Hence it is clear first, that this blindness is grave, not only a punishment, but also a fault, inasmuch as it proceeds from voluntary malice, as St. Thomas teaches, II II, Quaest. XV, art. 1. Second, that the sinner properly and directly blinds and hardens himself; God truly improperly and indirectly, for God, as far as concerns himself, illuminates every man coming into this world; but sinners are unwilling to receive this light, and they close their eyes to it, and open them to their pleasures and desires, wherefore they truly deprive themselves of light and blind themselves: just as the sun scatters its rays everywhere, but he who closes the window to it is the cause of darkness in the house, not the sun itself: thus St. Thomas, I II, Quaest. LXXIX, art. 3. This is what Christ reproaches the Jews with, John III, 19: "Light," he says, "has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light: for their works were evil." See the sayings at Exod. VII, 3, where I have dealt at length with the cause of blindness and hardening.
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- Behold here is the error and blindness of the impious, and it is twofold: the first, that "they knew not the sacraments of God;" the second, which follows from the first, is that "they hoped not for the reward of justice," nor for the honor "of holy souls:" he pursues the first point here, the second in the following chapter. First therefore, the sacraments, or, as it is in Greek, the mysteries of God, in this place are those which he subjoins, namely that God created man immortal and in His likeness; but man, deceived by the envy of the devil, through sin adhered to him, and made himself mortal and miserable; and that the just, whom God allows to be killed and vexed by the impious, He will reward with eternal glory, as he will say in the following chapter. In the cross therefore lies hidden glory, and in death immortality; whence the Apostle, Gal. VI, 14: "For me," says he, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ," because in it "is our salvation, life and resurrection," as the Church sings; but the impious are ignorant of these sacraments of the cross, and therefore they spurn the cross and Christ crucified. Secondly, others understand by sacraments any holier things; others, the prophecies and oracles of God; others, sacrifices, that is to say, The impious know not that the just slain by them are the sacraments of God, that is, sacrifices and holocausts; others more aptly understand the counsels, judgments and works of God, by which He governs the world, and especially by which He created man, and decreed to redeem him fallen through the incarnation and passion of Christ: for this is the highest and greatest of God's works: thus Cantacuzenus. For a long discourse on the nativity and passion of Christ preceded, and again follows in cap. XVIII, vers. 14: for great mysteries are hidden in the passion and cross of Christ, such as the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, the institution and sanctification of the Church, the consolation, virtue, grace, glory, happiness and every good of the faithful, which the impious Jews knew not. Mystically, by sacraments understand the sacraments of the new law, instituted by Christ, especially the Eucharist, of which the type was manna, as will be evident in cap. XVI, vers. 20: for the Eucharist is called by antonomasia the venerable sacrament, nay sacraments, because it contains many and wonderful mysteries of God, whence it is called by the Fathers a sacrament, a mystery, a type, an antitype: because under the species of bread and wine it veils and contains the real body, soul, blood, divinity and person of Christ, and therefore it is itself a living representation, nay an exhibition of the incarnation and passion of Christ, of which we have been treating hitherto: for as the other sacraments exhibit and confer the grace which they signify, namely the washing away of sins, so also the Eucharist exhibits the body of Christ which it signifies; but the heretics know not and understand not these sacraments of God, who wish them to be merely naked symbols of bread, which do not contain, but only represent the body of Christ; but thus far better does the image of a painter represent Christ than dry and scanty bread and wine. And what, I pray, would there be in it that is a profound, divine and inexplicable mystery, which the Fathers so celebrate? for to represent one thing by another to God, nay even to man, is most easy: wherefore truly the Church and the Fathers hold this sacrament to be a symbol of a thing, namely of the flesh of Christ once crucified, but present, not absent and existing in heaven: for this is the wonderful, ineffable, and work and sacrament worthy of God. Hear Tertullian, book IV Against Marcion, near the end: "He made that bread his body: This is my body, saying, that is, the figure of my body: but it would not have been a figure unless it were the body of truth;" which passage I explained at John, chapter VI, 19. And Theodoretus, Dialogue 3, which is entitled Apathes, that is, the Impassible: "But if the flesh, he says, has been changed into the nature of divinity, which the heretics (the Eutychians) said, why do they partake of the antitypes of the body? for a type is superfluous when truth is denied:" in like manner a type is superfluous, nay false, when the truth of the real presence of the body of Christ is denied. And Hilarius in Gratian, On Consecration, distinction 2: "The body of Christ, which is taken from the altar, is a figure, while bread and wine are seen; but it is truth, while the body and blood of Christ in truth is believed inwardly." St. Chrysostom, homily 83 on Matthew, explaining this sacrament: "He unites us with himself, he says, into one, so to speak, mass, and not by faith alone, but in reality makes us his body;" and St. Cyril on that passage, I am the vine: "The Saviour says, John VI, 57: He that eateth my flesh, abideth in me, and I in him; whence it is to be considered, not by relation alone, which is understood through charity, that Christ is in us, but also by his natural participation." St. Ambrose, book On Mysteries, and is cited On Consecration, distinction 2: "In that sacrament Christ is, because it is the body of Christ, not therefore a carnal food, but a spiritual one; whence also the Apostle concerning its type says, I Corinthians X, 13: Because our fathers ate the same spiritual food: for the body of God is a spiritual body: the body of Christ is the body of the divine spirit." St. Epiphanius, Against Melchisedech: "Melchisedech, he says, set forth bread and the enigmas of mysteries, prefiguring and examples:" for, as St. Jerome says to Marcella: "while he offered bread and wine, he dedicated the Christian mystery in the body and blood of the Saviour:" the same in Matthew XXVI: "After the typical Passover it passes to the true sacrament of the Passover, so that just as in its prefiguration Melchisedech, priest of the most high God, offering bread and wine had done so, he himself also might represent the truth of his body and blood." And St. Macarius, homily 27, says: "That in the Church bread and wine are offered, the antitype (that is, representing the present, not the absent) of the flesh and blood of the Lord, and that those who partake of him, who appears, bread, spiritually eat the flesh of the Lord." The Eucharist therefore is the mystery of mysteries, because Christ, whom it represents sensibly under the species of bread, as food of the soul, it exhibits spiritually, that is, insensibly, as an angel hidden under the species of bread, truly, really and substantially.
NEITHER DID THEY LOOK FOR THE REWARD OF JUSTICE (in Greek, hosiotetos, that is, of holiness: for justice is the complex of all virtues, and holiness itself) NOR DID THEY JUDGE THE HONOUR OF HOLY SOULS, - here in Greek amomon, that is, of the irreproachable: for holy souls are those which cannot be reproached in any way: for honour in Greek is geras, that is, glory, dignity, reward, honour, gift, donation, recompense. The sense is, as if to say, The impious did not reckon with themselves, did not esteem, as was fitting, how great honours, what crowns, what dignities, how great rewards are prepared by God for holy souls, which in this life they themselves served in continence, purity, patience, persecution, and therefore judging their lot miserable and unhappy, they gave themselves over to pleasures and lusts, and thus persecuted them, and despoiled them of goods and life; but they shall experience late and shall know their error, when holy souls sitting with Christ in judgment shall be their judges, and shall condemn them to the torments of eternal hell, as will be explained in chapters III, IV and V. Otherwise explains the Angel of Peace, Exposition on the Symbol, chapter XXIII, namely, that by the honour of holy souls are understood all the saints, whom the impious tacitly judged and condemned in Christ, whom they judged and condemned.
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In Greek, en aphtharsia, that is, in incorruption, that is, into incorruptibility, immortal, inextinguishable, which namely could not die and be destroyed from life, so long as it should persist in the obedience and grace of God; the Syriac, without corruption, that is, incorruptible; thus also the Arabic; the Complutensians translate it, in integrity, that is, whole as to body and soul; or rather unto integrity, that is, unto immortality, and unto a state never to perish. It can also be translated, God created man unto incorruption, or unto immortality, or unto immortality, if namely he should wish to obey God; whence St. Athanasius, in the tract On the Incarnation of the Word, reads, God fashioned man unto immortality and unto the image of his eternity; but by the envy of the devil it came to pass that death entered in. After a long digression concerning the persecution of the just and of Christ, he returns to what he said in cap. I, vers. 13: "Because God made not death, etc. there is not in them a medicine of destruction: but the wicked by their hands and words have called it upon themselves," namely death: he then explained the same thing by a long digression, showing that the wicked, enticed by excessive desire of pleasure, raged against the just, especially Christ: for by this reason they called upon themselves death present and eternal; therefore he returns here. Again he signifies that souls do not perish with the body, as though there should remain for them after this life no punishment or glory according to their merits, as the wicked and atheists wish, because God created man immortal, in this sense, that he could not die, if he should persist in his righteousness; that therefore he now dies, this proceeded not from God, but from the envy of the devil.
AND TO THE IMAGE OF HIS LIKENESS HE MADE HIM. - Epiphanius reads, Epiphanius reads, that is, of likeness, for which Cantacuzenus and Clement of Alexandria, VI Strom., read idiotetos, that is, of property, as if to say, Man is the image of the divine nature, which is proper to God; or man is the image of the divine properties, attributes and gifts, which are proper to God; whence Guarinus translates, and made him to the image of his own likeness; Vatable, and fashioned him to his own image; others read isotetos, that is, of equality; others, aidiotetos, that is, of eternity, as if to say, Man made to the exemplar of God immortal and eternal, is likewise immortal and eternal; whence Nicetas in Oration 42 of Nazianzen reads, and made him to the image of his eternity: thus also St. Epiphanius and St. Athanasius read it, in the book On the Incarnation of the Word. Some distinguish image from likeness, in that image is of nature, likeness of grace and holiness, so that man is to the image of God, because he is endowed with natural intellect, will and freedom, as God is endowed; the same is to the likeness of God, because he was created in wisdom, grace and holiness which are gifts proper to God. But more truly St. Augustine in Deuter. Quaest. IV, and others hold that likeness is the same as image, but they added an increase, as if to say, God created man to the image of his likeness, that is, to an image very like to himself. This image is situated inchoately in nature, but is fully perfected in grace: in nature, because the rational soul in the use of reason, will, free choice, and likewise in incorruptibility and immortality, is like the divine nature; in grace, because Adam created in grace and original justice, represented the justice and holiness of God. Therefore the image of God is found in man, first, in reason and intellect; then in the freedom of choice, which flows from reason as from a root, on account of which two things man is capable of all dominion: thus the Fathers everywhere, who therefore teach against Origen that this image of God in man remained and remains even after sin; but, because this image was originally adorned by God, and made most like to God through grace, wisdom, justice and other virtues, which were lost by sin, hence St. Augustine, St. Basil and St. Cyril sometimes say that this image, or rather the likeness of God in man perished through sin; understanding the image not in any way, but as most truly and plainly like: see what is said at Genesis I, 26, and cap. V, 1.
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Here the cause of sin and the death consequent upon it is assigned, namely the envy of the devil: for because the devil was cast out of heaven and blessed immortality on account of pride, he saw that man was appointed by God to take his place and that of his companions in the heavenly thrones, and he envied him this glory equally as he envied God; therefore he induced him by temptation to eat the forbidden fruit, and cast him down into death, both of body and of soul: thus St. Ambrose, book On Paradise, chapter XII, and others. Therefore the envy of the devil was this: that he himself, having fallen into sin and the death of hell, and therefore envying man, who was created to repair his fall and his place, the grace, life and glory of man, he solicited and impelled him to sin, and thence to death. The envy of the devil therefore became the malice of men; whence St. Ambrose, in the book On the Faith of the Resurrection, reads, the malice of men death entered into the world; and he adds: "Even if you examine it well, this death is not of nature, but of malice: for nature remains, malice dies. That which was rises again, and would that, as now it is free from sinning, so it were empty of former guilt, etc. For nature itself shall rise again now more honored by the stipends of death:" for death and the miseries of this life patiently borne by the Saints merit blessed immortality and life of eternal glory. Hence the Fathers call envy the sin of the devil, as St. Augustine, epistle 28, St. Gregory, XXXI Morals, chapter XXXIV, Cassian, Collation XVIII, chapter XVII, and others. Moreover some of the Fathers hold that the first sin of Lucifer was envy, by which he envied man the image of God: thus St. Cyprian, tract. On Zeal and Malice; St. Basil, homily 11 On Envy; Tertullian, book On Patience, chapter V; Irenaeus, book IV, chapter LXXVIII. But others more rightly hold that the first sin of Lucifer was pride, by which, being too pleased with himself, he wished to be more than he was, and as it were to stand out and rule over other creatures like some god, from which envy followed: unless you say that the pride of Lucifer consisted in this, that he envied the hypostatic union of Christ's humanity with the Word, and desired it for himself: for he could not properly desire any other equality with God: thus St. Bernard, sermon 17 in the Song of Songs; Rupert, book VIII on John at those words: He was a murderer from the beginning; Alexander of Hales, III part., Question II, number 13; and the same is held at this time by some scholastic doctors, such as Catharinus, Viguerius, Naclantus, Ruardus, Dionysius Molina, Martinengus and others whom Gabriel Vasquez cites, I part. Question LXIII, distinction 233, chapter I, and Francis Suarez, book VII On Angels, chapter XIII, where he greatly approves this opinion. Caesarius of Arles, homily 23, asserts that man is occupied by as many demons as he has vices. "He who is proud," he says, "is full of the devil; but that he who is envious cannot be without a demon, Scripture says, Wisdom II, 24: But by the envy of the devil death entered into the world; and they imitate him who are of his part." St. Chrysostom, however, homily 22 and 47 on Genesis, says that envy is an invention of the devil, a most pernicious plague, the foulest of vices, an evil beast laying waste above all things our salvation." Whence St. Basil wisely concludes, hom. On Envy: "Let us flee therefore, brethren, this intolerable evil; it is the precept of the serpent, the invention of the devil, the sowing of the enemy, the pledge of punishment, the impediment of piety, the way to hell, the deprivation of the kingdom of heaven: for the envious themselves confess this vice by their own mouth; their appearance is dry and dark, their cheek somewhat sad, etc., their soul suffused with this very disease, having no providence in discerning truth and in conducting affairs." And St. Chrysostom, homil. 45 to the People: "I beseech you, let us flee the plague of this vice, for this is the most pernicious of all vices, and it devastates our very salvation above all things: for it is the invention of the wicked devil; and therefore the Wise man said, Wisdom II, 24: By the envy of the devil, death came into the world. " And Nyssenus above: "Envy the prince of evils, the mother of death, the first gate of sin, the root of vices," etc. And Cyprian, lib. On Zeal: "What an evil is this, brethren, by which an angel fell, by which that high and excellent sublimity could be circumvented and subverted, by which he who deceives was deceived?" Finally St. Augustine, serm. 83 On the Seasons: "And therefore, he says, let us observe, brethren, the onset of this vice, lest perchance we be found partakers of the work of the devil, and be condemned by the same sentence as he, as it is written, Wisdom II, 24 and 25: By the envy of the devil death entered into the world: and they imitate him who are of his part. This evil harms somewhat even those against whom it is directed; yet more gravely and perniciously it afflicts those from whom it proceeds: for as rust consumes iron, so envy destroys and consumes that very soul in which it is; and as they say vipers, having torn and burst that maternal womb in which they were conceived, are born: so also the nature of envy consumes and destroys that very soul from which it was conceived. What is this worm of the soul? what is this corruption of the thoughts of the breast? how great a rust is it to envy in man the gift of God, and to turn the goods of others into evil reproach, to make the glory of others one's own punishment, as if to bring certain executioners to one's breast, to employ torturers in one's thoughts and senses, who lacerate themselves with internal torments?"
2:25
that is to say, First, the wicked imitate the devil as their parent, so that death, which he himself brought into the world by his envy, they propagate into themselves and others by sinning and envying, while they consent to his wicked suggestions, as Adam consented; they die therefore, because they follow the instinct of the devil, who is the author of death. Hence secondly, very appropriately thus with St. Basil, hom. On Envy, St. Augustine, lib. IV On Baptism against the Donatists, cap. viii, and Christopher a Castro you may expound: They attempt him, or imitate, or endeavor to imitate him, who are of his part; that is, the devil moved by envy brought death into the world, and destroyed our first parents, and all as many as follow his faction endeavor to imitate him by killing the sons of God, as he killed Adam most beloved of God; but they will attempt or endeavor this in vain, because "the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them." Others translate the Greek παράζουσι properly, they experience, as if he said: The wicked experience death (for θάνατος, that is death, is masculine in Greek) who are of the part and lot of him, namely the devil, who indeed the devil, from whom death was introduced, imitate in pride, envy and crimes; and thus the sense returns almost the same: so Osorius, Jansenius, Vatablus. To this is added Cantacuzenus: "For no one, he says, participates more in the malice of death, than he who has made himself altogether worthy to be in his parts." This author, as also others, refer to ex parte illius to death: for it can be referred from the Greek in that way; yet it is better referred to the devil. Both are true, for the wicked are both of the part and lot of the devil, and of death: for in the kingdom of death the devil is king and rules; hence St. Bonaventure explains, that is to say "They imitate the devil, who are of the part of death," that is, destined to death, namely who are the part and food of death.
Machine translation from the Latin, not reviewed.
2:1
… Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃᵉ, q. 34, a. 4; and qq. 31-35). Sacred Scripture too openly condemns this theory (Wis. 2:1-9; Is. 22:13; 56:10 ff.; I Cor. 15:32; Lk. 12:15-21; 16:19 ff.).
… It was the world of all the dead (at least until the resurrection: so the Pharisees) in II Mach. 6:23; Enoch 22:1-14; 51:1; 102:5; 103:7; IV Esd. 4:41; 7:32; Bar. syr. 11:6; 21:23. It was the prison of the wicked and sinners alone in Wis. 2:1; 17:14 (21); Enoch 63:10; Jubil. 7:29; 22:22; Filonc. …
2:21
… in the book of Wisdom, which speaks of immortality (Sap. 3, 4; 4, 1; 8, 17; 15, 3), of incorruptibility (ibid. 2, 23; 6, 18 ff.) and of the different lot that awaits the just (ibid. 3, 1 ff. 7, 9; 4, 4-17; 5, 15) and the wicked (ibid. 1, 16; 2, 21-25; 5, 6-13), always in messianic or eschatological contexts. …
2:22
… In the Old Testament the term appears with both meanings: religiously it designates "the secrets of God," that is, the designs of his providence unknown to us (Wis. 2:22) or a hidden divine reality such as "Wisdom" (Wis. 6:22). In the New Testament the term is found 28 times, 21 of which in St. Paul. …
2:23
… Death was threatened to the first parents as the penalty for the transgression of a divine precept, and since the transgression occurred, the threat had its effect (Gen. 2:17; 3:3). Thus death entered the world because of sin (Wis. 2:23-24; Jn. 8:44; Rom. 5:12; I Cor. 15:21-22; Heb. 9:27). Not that death is not natural to man, a creature complex in his bodily organism, naturally subject to corruption; but he would have …
The whole teaching of the Old and New Testaments echoes it (Apoc. 2:7; Prov. 3:18; 11:30; etc.; Wis. 2:23 ff.; Io. 8:44; Rom. 5:12, 14; I Cor. 15:21 ff., etc.). …
The hope for the future is expressed clearly in Ps. 16, 11; 49, 16; 73, 23 ff. and often in the book of Wisdom, which speaks of immortality (Sap. 3, 4; 4, 1; 8, 17; 15, 3), of incorruptibility (ibid. 2, 23; 6, 18 ff.) and of the different lot that awaits the just (ibid. 3, 1 ff. 7, 9; 4, 4-17; 5, 15) and the wicked (ibid. 1, 16; 2, 21-25; 5, 6-13), always in messianic or eschatological contexts. …
… beginning of sin, and through her we all die» (Eccl. 25, 23); «God created man for immortality...; but by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are of his party experience it. But the souls of the just are in the hands of God...» (Wis. 2, 23 ff.). …
… it, you shall certainly die." Likewise after the disobedience it is read in Gen. 3:19: "You shall eat your bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the earth... for you are dust and to dust you shall return." The same doctrine is found in Wis. 2:23-24 and in St. Paul Rom. 5:12-17, in tradition and in many conciliar definitions (Denz-U, 101, 175, 788). St. Thomas (Sum. …
6. Man's superiority over the animals in the Old Testament is not derived from the possession of a spiritual and immortal soul, but is expressed through the idea of likeness to God (Gen. 1:26; 5:1-3; 9:6; Ps. 8:6 ff.; Eccli. 17:3; Wis. 2:23). Nevertheless, since this likeness consists in man's being endowed with intelligence and free will, implicitly resembling God coincides with having a spiritual soul, essentially superior …
2:24
I. SACRED SCRIPTURE. - From the very beginnings of humanity, the spirits of evil intervene as the cause of our fall: "Death entered the world through the envy of the devil" (Wis. 2:24). In the biblical text of Gen. 3 neither a d. nor Satan is named; the being who speaks and acts through the serpent is an evil spirit. …
… ἐπίβουλος "plotter." Διάβολος translates šār and šōrēr ("enemy": Haman) in Esth. 7:4 and 8:1. While the Vulgate of the Old Testament transliterates satan 5 times, the Septuagint admits oṇrā only in 1 Kings 11:14, 23. Διάβολος also occurs in Wis. 2:24 (origin of "death in the world") and 1 Macc. 1:36.
I. TRUTH OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. - I. Scripture. - In the Old Testament the revelation of this truth was progressive, in harmony with slow divine preparations (Yahweh, God of life: Gen. 5:24; Deut. 32:39; I Kings 17; II Kings 2:3, 11-12; 4:33-36; 13:21; Ps. 9:2; Wis. 2:24; 16:13) and with deep aspirations of the human heart (permanent familiarity with God: Gen. 3:8; Is. 38:18; Ps. 6:5-6; 73:25; otherworldly justice as the work of Yahweh: Jer. …
2:28
… Sedrach 5), out of envy (Wis. 2:28; Sanhedhrin 59), according to Sōrā 9 and Gen. rabbā 18 out of concupiscence; Gen. rabbā 24 and 42 attributes Cain and many demons to S.'s commerce with Eve. S. is "the serpent of the …
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · Vulgata Clementina · original Douay-Rheims (Douay 1609-10), 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.