Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Chapter Two
Synopsis of the Chapter.
He continues to describe the sentiments and morals of the wicked who, devoid of wisdom, virtue, and true life, have made a covenant with folly, vice, and death — namely, that they think all things end with death, and therefore pleasure should be indulged while life lasts; and that any just person opposing them, and above all Christ, must be killed and crucified. Then, from verse 22, he shows their blindness, in that they are ignorant of the future rewards prepared by God for the just, and punishments for the unjust: for God created man immortal, but death entered the world through the envy of the devil by means of sin, which his wicked followers experience, groaning as they feel its bitter stings.
1. For they said, reasoning with themselves, but not rightly: The time of our life is short and tedious, and there is no comfort in the end of man, and no one is known to have returned from the dead: 2. for we were born of nothing, and after this we shall be as though we had not been: because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and speech a spark to move our heart: 3. which being extinguished, our body shall be ashes, and our spirit shall be poured out as soft air, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist that is driven away by the rays of the sun, and weighed down by its heat: 4. and our name shall be forgotten in time, and no one shall have any remembrance of our works. 5. For the time of our life is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return at our end: because it is sealed, and no one comes back. 6. Come therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us use creation as in youth speedily. 7. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments: and let not the flower of time pass us by. 8. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither: let no meadow escape our revelry. 9. Let none of us go without his share of our revelry: let us everywhere leave signs of joy: because this is our portion, and this is our lot. 10. Let us oppress the poor just man, and let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged. 11. But let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is weak is found to be useless. 12. Let us therefore lie in wait for the just man, because he is useless to us, and is contrary to our works, and upbraids us with our offences against the law, and defames us with the sins of our way of life. 13. He professes to have the knowledge of God, and calls himself the Son of God. 14. He has become a reproof of our thoughts. 15. He is grievous to us even to behold, because his life is unlike that of others, and his ways are different. 16. We are esteemed by him as triflers, and he abstains from our ways as from impurities, and prefers the last things of the just, and glories that he has God for his Father. 17. Let us see then if his words are true, and let us test what shall happen to him, and we shall know what the end of him shall be. 18. For if he is the true Son of God, He will take him up, and will deliver him from the hands of his enemies. 19. Let us examine him by insults and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience. 20. Let us condemn him to a most shameful death: for there shall be regard had for him from his words. 21. These things they thought, and were deceived: for their own malice blinded them. 22. And they knew not the mysteries of God, neither did they hope for the wages of justice, nor esteemed the honor of holy souls. 23. For God created man incorruptible, and made him to the image of His own likeness. 24. But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world: 25. and they who are on his side follow him.
1. FOR THEY SAID, REASONING WITH THEMSELVES, BUT NOT RIGHTLY
here the reason for the preceding is given, namely why the wicked brought death upon themselves and entered into a covenant with it — but wickedly, foolishly, and impiously; for 'non' denotes
they had perished, and therefore were worthy to be placed in the lot and company of death. Their reasoning is this: our life, and all its goods and evils, end in death, and after death there will be nothing to cheer or afflict us; therefore while we live, let us live merrily and indulge every desire, and accordingly let us seize the wealth and goods of others, that we may feast and revel with them. The root of this paralogism of theirs is desire and pleasure, to which they wholly devote themselves: for in order to pursue and satisfy this with impunity, they persuade themselves that the soul is mortal, and therefore after death no divine vengeance or punishment is to be feared. The author of this error and heresy was Cain, the murderer of his brother Abel, who denied the divine being and divine vengeance, and therefore killed his brother, as attested by Josephus, Antiquities I, ch. 3, and Philo in his book That the Worse Plots Against the Better, and St. Ambrose, On Cain and Abel, ch. 9: all his descendants followed him, on account of whom God drowned the whole world in the flood. After the flood, Nimrod renewed this perfidy and crime, a tyrant and the builder of the tower of Babel, as if he would ascend through it into heaven and declare war on God, Genesis 11; then the Samaritans, namely the Assyrians who were transplanted from Assyria into Samaria by Shalmaneser, for they believed that all things perish with death, and that there would be no resurrection, as attested by Epiphanius, heresy 9; Philastrius, heresy 7, and others; finally Sadoc and his followers the Sadducees, who lived under Judas Maccabeus, as attested by Josephus, Antiquities XIII, ch. 9. Among the Gentiles the same heresy was taught by Democritus, as attested by Plutarch, On the Opinions of Philosophers IV, ch. 7; and after him Epicurus and his followers the Epicureans, whose axiom was:
Eat, drink, play — after death there is no pleasure,
as attested by Plutarch in the same place. Seneca recounts their sentiments and words in Epistle 123: "Hence," he says, "one arrives at these words: Virtue, philosophy, and justice are a rattling of empty words; the one happiness of a good life is 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 irretrievable life runs its course: do we hesitate? What good is it to be wise, and to impose frugality upon an age that will not always receive pleasures, in the meantime, while it can, while it demands? To anticipate death, and to deny oneself already whatever death is going to take away?"
But this reasoning of theirs is irrational and foolish: their syllogism is a paralogism, for first, it is utterly false that the rational soul dies with the body, since it was created in the image of God and from Him partakes of immortality. Secondly, even if the soul were mortal and all life had to end in death, still one ought to devote it entirely to virtue, not to pleasure: for pleasure is the good of beasts, but virtue, that is, living according to the teaching of reason, is the good of human beings,
as Seneca teaches in the passage already cited. Add that virtue is the one and true pleasure of man, but a spiritual one, which makes man pleasing to God, joyful, healthy, and holy; whereas all carnal pleasure makes man bestial, hateful to God and the angels, sad, sickly, and wicked: whence wisely that young man in the Lives of the Fathers, to the demon who falsely suggested that he was rejected by God, in order to drive him to pass his life in every pleasure of the flesh, wisely replied: "If in the future life it is not given to me to serve and please God, at least I will serve and please Him in this present life: for what is holier, what is better, what more delightful than to please God? For to serve God is to reign. Therefore I will enjoy my God in this life, if it is not permitted in the other."
THE TIME OF OUR LIFE IS SHORT AND TEDIOUS. — I
n Greek, our life is brief and troublesome; for in place of 'with tedium' the Greek has λυπηρός, that is, sad, anxious, burdensome, troublesome, bitter, wretched, to which is opposed μανός, that is, cheerful, pleasant, sweet, delightful. This sentence needs no exposition, because daily experience of anyone clearly explains it to us, indeed sets it before our very eyes: for our life brings a thousand labors, a thousand sufferings, a thousand weariness and loathings. Count the labors and pains you undergo in a single day, and you will find more of them than there are hours or actions, and indeed that every action is sprinkled and filled with them on every side. This is what Jacob said to Pharaoh when asked how old he was, Genesis 47:9: "The days of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years, few and evil," that is, wretched; and David, Psalm 38:6: "You have made my days measurable" (in Hebrew mineu tepachot; the Septuagint, ἀκαύστα; that is, as a hand's breadth, that is, as small as a palm, which is a measure containing only as much as can be grasped by the spread of the fingers, commonly called a span, whence Symmachus translates σπιθαμιαία) "and my substance is as nothing before You." See Job, ch. 14, verse 1 and following.
Seneca himself saw the same thing, Epistle 100: "That which lies between the first day and the last," he says, "is varied and uncertain. If you consider the troubles, it is long even for a boy; if the swiftness, it is narrow even for an old man. Nothing is not slippery and deceptive, and more changeable than any storm. All things are tossed about, and pass into their opposite, and in so great a turning of human affairs nothing is certain to anyone except death." And shortly after: "Set before yourself the vastness of the depths of time, and embrace the whole, then compare with it what we call a human lifetime; you will see universally how small is what we desire and extend: of this how much tears occupy, how much anxieties, how much death before it arrives when desired, how much illness, how much fear, how many years that are tender, or raw, or useless. Half of this is slept away. Add labors, dangers, and you will understand that even in the lon-
AND NO ONE IS KNOWN TO HAVE RETURNED FROM THE DEAD. — M
ore clearly, no one after death has been restored to life again, who would have shown that he lives and that another life remains after death, in which it would be possible to escape the miseries of this life and exchange them for pleasures, as if to say: Uncertain and fabulous are the things narrated by poets and others about the underworld and its punishments, and other things after this life: for all these are old wives' tales and children's bogeymen: such is the descent of Aeneas to the underworld and his return from there guided by the Sibyl, which Virgil describes in Aeneid VI, and that of Thespesius of Soli in Plutarch's On the Delay of Divine Vengeance. The wicked tacitly indicate that the soul with the body
gest life, what is actually lived is very little." And Menander: "Pain and life are born together, and the former grows old along with life." The Emperor Zeno: "Man is a plaything of God." Another: "What is man? A slave of death, a passing traveler." Aristotle: "What is man? An example of weakness, the spoil of time, the sport of fortune, an image of inconstancy, a balance of envy and calamity: the rest is phlegm and bile." So reports Stobaeus, discourse 89, which is entirely on this subject.
AND THERE IS NO COMFORT IN THE END OF MAN. — S
t. Bonaventure, Lyranus, Hugo, and Dionysius explain it as if to say: The wicked after this life proceed, not to the refreshment of heaven, but to the punishment of hell; but in Greek it reads: Οὐκ ἔστιν ἴασις ἐν τελευτῇ ἀνθρώπου, that is, there is no healing or cure in the death of man; Vatablus: nor is there a remedy against death, as if to say: There is no medicine, nor remedy to escape death, according to the saying: "Against the force of death there is no remedy in gardens." Truly Seneca in his Consolation to Marcia, ch. 11: "What," he says, "is man? Any fragile vessel, any breakable thing; not a great storm is needed to shatter you, just a jolt: wherever you are struck, you fall apart. What is man? A weak and fragile body, naked, unarmed by its own nature, dependent on another's help, exposed to every insult of fortune: when he has well exercised his muscles, the food of any beast, the victim of any; woven of weak and flowing elements, and fair only in outward features; impatient of cold, heat, and labor; again, by mere inactivity and idleness wasting away; fearing its own nourishment, by the lack of which now, and now by the excess, it is destroyed." And with a few words interjected: "Smell and taste, and weariness, and wakefulness, and moisture, and food, and those things without which it cannot live — these are all deadly. Wherever it moves, it is immediately aware of its own weakness, unable to bear every climate, sickened by unfamiliar waters and unfamiliar air, and by the slightest causes and offenses made diseased, rotten, infirm — beginning life with weeping: and meanwhile what great commotions this contemptible creature causes! Into what grand thoughts it comes, forgetful of its condition! It revolves in its mind immortal and eternal things, and makes arrangements for grandchildren and great-grandchildren: and meanwhile death overtakes it in the midst of its long endeavors; and that which is called old age is but a few circuits of years."
perishes, and therefore its desires should be given free rein in this life, so that one may live happily, since after this life nothing more is to be expected: thus indeed, just as the immortality of the soul impels man to fear and worship the divine being through a modest and pure life, so the mortality of the soul, once persuaded of by a man, leads him to deny the divine being and all religion, so that man may live freely and follow his lusts. Moreover, this maxim of the wicked is false: because many have returned from the dead, who were raised to life by Elijah, Elisha, and other prophets, apostles, and saints; yet it is true in the sense that in their own age few, and perhaps none, had returned from death and the underworld to life. In a similar way Homer says, Iliad IX:
Cattle and fat sheep are subject to plunder, And tripods can be acquired, and the golden-maned heads of horses; But the soul of man, that it might return, neither by plunder Nor otherwise can be captured, once it has departed from the barrier of the teeth.
And Philetas:
I journeyed to the underworld,
By which no traveler has returned.
And Virgil, Aeneid VI:
Easy is the descent to the underworld;
But to retrace one's steps and escape to the upper air,
This is the task, this is the toil.
Note that the souls of the blessed in heaven have frequently returned to earth and appeared to mortals, as when the Blessed Virgin appeared to the patrician John and to Pope Liberius, and commanded that a basilica be built for her on the Esquiline Hill at the place that was covered with snow on the 5th of August: whence the Feast of Our Lady of the Snows. Likewise she appeared to Blessed John Damascene and, when asked, restored to him the hand that Leo the Isaurian had ordered cut off, leaving a line from the wound on the arm, as John the patriarch of Jerusalem narrates in his Life. Likewise Saints Philip and John appeared to the Emperor Theodosius, as attested by Theodoret, History V, ch. 34; Saints Peter and Paul appeared to the Emperor Constantine, suggesting baptism as a remedy for leprosy, as attested by the Seventh Council, session II. Souls also returned from Limbo, as the soul of Moses appearing with Elijah in the
Transfiguration of Christ; the soul of Samuel appearing to Saul and foretelling his death, 1 Samuel 28; St. Jeremiah and Onias appeared to Judas Maccabeus, foretelling victory over Nicanor, 2 Maccabees 15. Souls have also returned from purgatory, for Paschasius, a deacon of the Apostolic See, after death was found in the baths of Angulanum by Germanus of Capua, paying the penalties for his offenses, as St. Gregory narrates, Dialogues IV, ch. 40. A certain just man endured severe punishment for having retained money: who at last appeared to his brother Commodus, explaining that he had been freed by his holy sacrifices, as attested by St. Gregory, Dialogues IV, ch. 35. There was also a priest who very frequently appeared in the baths at Centumcellae, who rendered gratuitous service to him whenever he bathed. When he had offered sacrifices to God on his behalf, as he had asked, he recognized that it had been a spirit, to whom it had happened by divine mercy to make satisfaction for sins and be helped in this way, as St. Gregory narrates in the same place.
But souls from hell occasionally, though more rarely, return and appear, and this not so much by themselves as through demons: for they, being condemned to the prison and fire of hell, are not allowed to leave; 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 testing of men, to represent to men the punishments of hell and by fear of them restrain men from vice and compel them to worship God: thus Theodoric, the Arian king of Italy, was seen by a certain holy hermit being led in chains between Pope John and the patrician Symmachus, and thrust into the cauldron of Vulcan, as St. Gregory narrates, Dialogues IV, ch. 30. A nun was seen in the Church of St. Lawrence in Rome being cut in half before the altar, as attested by St. Gregory, the same book, ch. 51: the same, ch. 36, narrates that a certain Peter who had died saw the torments of the damned in the fire of hell, and when he too was about to be cast into the same fire, an angel forbade it, saying: "Go back, and attend most carefully to how you ought to live henceforth." He narrates similar things in the same place about a certain Stephen and another soldier. A certain Curma of the municipality of Tullium, after he had lain for several days as if dead, returning to himself and narrating wonderful things about the punishments and rewards of the dead, confirmed the same with certain proofs, as St. Augustine reports, On the Care of the Dead, ch. 11, where he also recounts many more examples of similar apparitions. So Josaphat, converted by Barlaam, in a rapture saw the punishments of hell, and by that vision overcame the temptation of the flesh, as Damascene narrates in his History, ch. 30. See our Peter Thyraeus, On the Apparition of Spirits I, ch. 11, Alexander ab Alexandro, Genial Days V, ch. 23, and II, ch. 9, Marsilio Ficino, On the Immortality of the Soul XVI.
Ciacconius and others judge that the soul of the Emperor Trajan was freed from the punishments of hell by the prayers of St. Gregory, based on John the Deacon, but Baronius, Bellarmine, and others of keener discernment judge this to be a mere fable. But even if no one had returned from the underworld, that is not a reason to deny the underworld, the life of souls, and their torment in hell: for Sacred Scripture itself clearly teaches and threatens this; whence the impious could be answered with what Abraham replied to the rich glutton when he asked that Lazarus be sent to his brothers, to warn them of his own and the underworld's punishments: "They have Moses and the prophets: let them listen to them: for if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe even if someone rises from the dead," Luke 16:31.
2. FOR WE WERE BORN OF NOTHING, AND AFTER THIS WE SHALL BE AS THOUGH WE HAD NOT BEEN (
that is, as if we had not existed, as the Syriac translates; Clarius: as though we had not been): BECAUSE THE BREATH IN OUR NOSTRILS IS SMOKE, AND SPEECH A SPARK TO MOVE OUR HEART. — For 'out of nothing' the Greek has αὐτοσχεδίως, that is, spontaneously, randomly, by chance, impromptu, suddenly, unexpectedly, born without God's counsel, care, command, or providence, and poured into the world and light; the Syriac: we were made instantly; the Royal edition: we were born by ourselves, just as gnats, fleas, mushrooms, etc., are born from the earth by themselves without sowing. The wicked prove there is no underworld, nor life there, as if to say: Chance begot us, chance will destroy and annihilate us like mushrooms and gnats; therefore there is no underworld, nor punishments of the underworld decreed by the certain and just providence of God for the wicked: for as God did not create us, so neither does He care for, govern, judge, reward, or punish anyone according to merits or demerits. Thus Democritus, Chrysippus, Epicurus taught that the spheres and men in them were made and born from a chance concourse of atoms, or a similar accident, not by a definite provision and creation of God. Thus Aristotle, Politics II, ch. 6, speaking from the opinion of the common people, says the ancient lawgivers, whom he criticizes, were born from corrupt seed or from the earth. Diodorus Siculus has similar things, book I, ch. 1 and 2. Likewise 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 a most wise and powerful God, as Philo shows in On the Creation of the World, Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel VII, ch. 7, Justin, in his Exhortation, Lactantius, book II, ch. 12. See Pererius in his Physics, book VIII, ch. 16, and the Conimbricenses, On the Heavens III, Quæst. VI, art. 3.
Tropologically, Blessed Peter Damian, Epistle 4, ch. 4, shows that the wicked man, even while he exists, seems rather not to be than to be, and pertains more to nothingness than to being, because he has receded and is at the greatest distance from Him who truly is and through whom all things are, namely from God. For the sinner is farther from God than non-being is from being: the distance of the latter is finite, that of the former infinite. St. Gregory agrees, who concerning the man
who had fallen into sin speaks thus, Moralia XI, ch. 26, on the words of blessed Job, ch. 14: "Who comes forth like a flower and is crushed, etc. For he comes forth like a flower, because he shines in the flesh; but is crushed, because he is reduced to rottenness: for what are men born into the world but certain flowers in a field? Let us stretch the eyes of our heart over this breadth of the present world, and behold, it is full of as many flowers as of people. Life therefore in the flesh is a flower in the grass; whence it is well said by the Psalmist, Psalm 102:15: Man's days are as grass, and as the flower of the field so shall he flourish. Isaiah also says, ch. 40, verse 6: All flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of the field. For man in the manner of a flower proceeds from concealment and suddenly appears in public: who is immediately withdrawn from public by death back into concealment. The greenness of our flesh shows us, but the dryness of dust withdraws us from sight. Like a flower we appeared, we who were not: like a flower we wither, we who appeared for a time. And because man is driven by moments daily toward death, he rightly adds: And he flees as a shadow, and never remains in the same state."
This is what David sings with mournful voice, Psalm 89:9: "Our years shall be considered as a spider's web: the days of our years in themselves are seventy years. But if in the powerful, eighty years: and beyond that is their labor and sorrow. Because mildness comes upon us, and we shall be corrected;" in Hebrew, because the cutting is swift, and we shall fly away; Arias: it is cut off quickly, and we shall fly away; Vatablus: it passes swiftly, and we fly away. Whence St. Ambrose, Epistle 42, asserts that this life is so filled with evils that, by comparison, death is thought to be a remedy, not a punishment: for, he says, God made it short for this reason, so that its troubles, which could not end by prosperity, might end by the brevity of time."
To this point belongs that verse of Petronius about the silver skeleton:
Alas, alas, wretched us, how all of little man is nothing!
So we shall all be, after Orcus carries us away.
BECAUSE THE BREATH IN OUR NOSTRILS IS SMOKE. — S
o it should be read with the Roman edition: incorrectly some read 'smoke and breath'; also less correctly others, such as Francisco Lucas and the Complutensian edition, read 'exhalation,' although this is almost the same as breath; worse still, others read 'in our ears' instead of 'in our nostrils'; whence Herodotus judged the soul to dwell in the ears, because the body is refreshed by hearing good things, but stimulated to anger by hearing bad things; the Syriac: because as smoke is the spirit in our nostrils; the Arabic: because breath is smoke in our ears.
The meaning is, as if you would say: Our soul and life is nothing other than breath, that is, the exhalation by which we draw in air through the nostrils and breathe; but this exhalation, as soon as it occurs, subsides and fails, and is dissipated like smoke, and vanishes into thin air: therefore our soul departed into the same in death, and accordingly no life remains for us after it. Thus Heraclitus judged the soul to be nothing other than the respiration of the humors, or vapor and exhalation, as attested by Aristotle, On the Soul I, text 32: indeed even the unlettered common people call breath 'the soul,' and know no other soul. Moreover, because we commonly breathe through our nostrils, he therefore calls the breath or exhalation of the nostrils 'the soul.' To which Isaiah likewise alludes, ch. 2, verse 22: "Cease, he says, from man, whose breath is in his nostrils." But the wicked err: for our soul is spiritual, indeed a pure and utter spirit like an angel, and therefore cannot be breath or exhalation, since that is corporeal, but the soul itself produces this exhalation to cool the heat of the heart in which it dwells. Moreover, exhalation is aptly compared to smoke; for just as fire causes smoke, so natural heat causes exhalation and respiration; hence our life, which is sustained by breathing, is called, James 4:15, "a vapor appearing for a little while;" hence also the Psalmist, Psalm 101:4: "My days, he says, have vanished like smoke."
AND SPEECH IS A SPARK TO MOVE OUR HEART. — S
o it should be read with the Roman and Greek editions, not 'a spark,' as some read; see Francisco Lucas, note 200: for the Greek has: ὁ λόγος σπινθήρ, that is, speech is a spark; although Budaeus in his Pandects and Petrus Nannius here prefer another reading, which is rarer, namely ὀλίγος σπινθήρ, that is, a small spark, as if to say: The breath or exhalation by which we breathe and live is like a certain spark, that is, a slight warmth and vapor, which lasts as long as the motion of the heart lasts, or the motion by which our heart moves and lives. For life consists in natural heat and the motion of the heart, which emits breath like a spark of itself into the air: indeed the Stoics judged the soul to be nothing other than a warm spirit, or, as Heraclitus said, a warm exhalation, which they asserted always flows from the heart, as from the workshop of natural heat, in which therefore the vital spirits are generated, through which motion occurs and every action of the senses: so Plutarch, On the Opinions of Philosophers IV, ch. 3. This meaning is convenient and easy. But the more numerous and better manuscripts read not ὀλίγος but ὁ λόγος, that is, speech is a spark. Moreover λόγος can be translated as 'reason,' as if to say: Reason and the mind, in which man excels above other animals, is like a spark that moves the heart and the will to all that it does: so Osorius; but more correctly our translator and others translate λόγος as 'speech.' Therefore the wicked mean that our life is nothing other than a vigorous fire existing in the heart, which by its motion, or as the Greek has it, ἐν κινήσει, that is, in the motion of our heart, emits from itself sparks, namely the speech and words we speak, and smoke, namely respiration and breath, just as fire, when stirred, shoots out sparks and smoke.
Again, just as when fire fails the spark fails and turns into ashes and cinders, so when speech fails, and consequently the soul, the body turns to ashes: what is shorter, what more empty, what more vain, what more fleeting than life? Furthermore, speech moves the heart,
because it now moves to anger, if the speech is harsh; now to gentleness, if it is mild; now to love, now to hatred, etc., and this lightly, suddenly, and variously, just as sparks are roused and fly from a furnace hastily and tumultuously: so Jansenius, a Castro, and others; whence the Syriac translates: and speech like the smallest spark leaping from a flame moves our heart; the Arabic: and speech is a spark in the vapor (evaporation) of our heart. Our Lorinus adds that speech is formed resembling a spark when our heart is moved: and just as the spirit that is in the nostrils, by which we breathe, is like smoke that vanishes, so the same spirit, which is the instrument by which we speak and by whose power the heart is moved, is like a spark that is extinguished: James, ch. 3, verse 5, calls the tongue a small fire on account of speech. It could also be said that, just as a candle when it is extinguished sends out a spark at the end, so it happens to a dying man in his last breath. But this meaning seems more obscure and less fitting.
Others, like Dionysius, understand by 'speech' natural heat; Hugo, the soul which is the producer of speech, but this is more obscure and less fitting. Cervantes approaches it thus: Speech is a spark, he says, is the soul, which is manifested through speech, for it gives life to the body and exhales and breathes out breath from the nostrils, as smoke from a furnace, by the motion of the heart and lungs, as of bellows; it is like a fragile spark, quickly failing, with breath always endangered by its panting; whence fear and trembling and frequent panting. But this too is improperly said. Moreover St. Bonaventure and our Salmeron, volume XI, treatise II, judge that in the word 'speech' there is an allusion to the opinion of Diogenes, who held the soul to be air: for in air and by the striking of air speech is formed in the mouth; in the word 'spark,' an allusion to the opinion of Democritus, who said the mind is fire; in the phrase 'to move the heart,' to the opinion of Melissus, or as others say, Thales, who said the soul is a force moving the body. But this too is obscure, doubtful, and uncertain, and such subtlety of doctrine does not seem to have occurred to the minds of the wicked. Finally, with St. Bernard, treatise On the Interior House, ch. 62, you may understand by speech something fabulous, that is, a story: "Just as a story," he says, "so is my life; I fear lest I myself, by thus spinning tales, should become a tale, if I am found without good works;"
for those who much use their mouth in talking, little use their hand in working — their whole soul is in their mouth and tongue; hence the talkative and garrulous tend to be idle and lazy; whence the Apostle, 2 Thessalonians 3:11: "We hear, he says, that there are some among you who walk restlessly, doing nothing, but being busybodies," in prying into and reporting the words and deeds of others.
The meaning therefore first assigned is the plain and genuine one, where note that speech is aptly compared to a spark, breath to smoke, and the heart to fire or a furnace. First, because just as a furnace shoots out smoke and sparks, so the heart shoots out breath and speech. Secondly, just as a furnace pours out smoke and sparks tumultuously and randomly, so too the heart pours out words. Thirdly, just as a furnace pours out according to the movement of the fire and wood, so too the heart pours out speech according to the movement of the affection of love, anger, or hatred by which it is agitated; whence if it is moved by love, it brings forth friendly and gentle words; if by anger, wrathful and threatening ones; if by hatred, gloomy and deadly ones; if by fear, timid and anxious ones, etc. Fourthly, just as smoke and sparks are sure indicators, as well as effects, of fire, so too breath and words are sure indicators and effects of life, as well as effects of the dominant passion in the heart. Fifthly, just as when smoke and sparks cease, the heat of the furnace ceases, so when respiration and speech cease, life ceases, and the vital passion in the heart; hence to be silent in Scripture is to die, and death itself is called דומה duma, that is, silence: therefore insofar as the power of breathing and speaking diminishes, life decreases and diminishes, whence the old and the dying speak feebly, faintly, and softly, so that they can scarcely be understood, according to Ecclesiastes 12:4: "And they shall shut the doors in the street, when the sound of the grinding is low."
Add sixthly: a spark, though it gleams and flashes with a crackle and turns all eyes toward itself, nevertheless is immediately dissipated: so speech, though it be elegant and magnificent, so as to captivate everyone, nevertheless immediately passes away and is dissipated. Hence against the overconfident and those who love the noise of the world this parable is brought forth: A falling spark, lifted on high by the force of the flame, was exceedingly pleased with itself, and soon thought it would be carried among the stars; but when it ascended to the middle of the chimney's throat, it was extinguished and fell down as ash. Therefore, just as smoke and sparks quickly vanish, so too do breath, speech, and life. If therefore anyone asks, 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 are you? replied: "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness," Isaiah 40:3: see what is said there. Again seventhly, just as a small spark often neglected kindles a great fire, so a slight word, for example an insult hurled at someone, often stirs up great quarrels, brawls, and murders; whence St. James, ch. 3, verse 6: "The tongue," he says, "is a fire, a world of iniquity, etc., and sets on fire the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by hell."
Moreover, to breath or respiration, speech is rightly connected as effect to its cause: for just as breath in pipes and organs produces a sweet melody, so exhalation in the mouth, reflected against teeth, lips, palate, and tongue, produces speech and articulate voice; whence St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, ch. 9: "The human mind," he says, "like a skilled craftsman strikes animated instruments," etc.; and Theodoret, On Providence III, discussing the organ of the human voice, says: "It is very similar to a musical organ which consists of brazen pipes, and inspired by the blast or wind of bellows and moved by the craftsman's fingers, produces a harmonious sound of voice; whence taking a model from this, art made pipes, and composed lyres and harps." Moreover, just as bellows in an organ produce the blast that creates the melody, so too the lungs produce the breath that forms speech; whence the lungs, like the blowing bellows of an organ, are called by Galen, On the Use of Parts IX, storehouses of air: the same, like bellows, sharpen and kindle the vital fire, that is, natural heat. Whence Nyssen, On the Making of Man, ch. 30, having said "the heart is that from which fiery spirits are diffused through the body, and it moves without ceasing, and is therefore similar to fire by nature," adds: "Like bellows that craftsmen use in their workshops, it constantly draws in air from the nearby lung, the receptacle of air; and breathes out what is fiery in it."
at least let them put faith in their prophetess the Sibyl, who says word for word:
And when all things shall have become ashes and fine dust,
That same God will extinguish the fire He had kindled.
And He will restore the bones again, and the buried ashes,
And God Himself will restore the whole race of men (as they were).
Finally, the Romans and other peoples, as attested by Alexander ab Alexandro, Genial Days III, ch. 7, burned the bodies of the dead and turned them to ashes, lest they decompose with foul corruption and putrefy: otherwise the body by itself does not turn to ashes but to dust; therefore by 'ashes' here understand also dust; for in Hebrew the words are close: אפר epher and עפר aphar, that is, ashes and dust.
AND THE SPIRIT SHALL BE POURED OUT AS SOFT AIR. — T
he spirit, that is, the breath and exhalation by which we breathe, are sustained, are warmed, and speak, about which he spoke in the preceding verse, which as it is formed from air, so it returns to air when a man dies. The philosophers by 'spirit' understand the soul of man, which they judge to be a certain thin and subtle body, such as spirit and wind are; hence Democritus judged the soul, like all other things, to be compounded from a chance concourse of atoms, which, since they are in perpetual motion, also agitate and move the body; the Stoics said the soul is a warm spirit; others, indeed the majority, judged the soul to be air. Hence that verse of Lucretius, book V:
Light breezes of the soul, and warm vapors.
And Varro in his Cosmotoryne: "Give the reins to the light soul, while the wind with its fair blast leads us to our sweet homeland." Heraclitus thought the soul was something fiery, others that it was a certain light, Diogenes that it was air, Thales moisture, Critias blood, Empedocles a certain harmony and temperament of the elements; Hippocrates said the soul was a thin spirit dispersed through the whole body, which grows and declines, increases and decreases, is consumed and perishes along with age and the body. So Plutarch, On the Opinions of Philosophers IV, ch. 2 and 3. See St. Justin in his Exhortation, St. Nemesius, On the Nature of Man, ch. 2, and Abulensis, Paradoxes V, ch. 50. But they err: for the rational soul is not corporeal, but a pure spirit, like an angel created by God in His own likeness. Therefore 'spirit' here means not the soul, but the breath, which is corporeal, namely air, which we draw in by breathing, which is dispersed in death.
The wicked therefore seem, partly from the opinion of the philosophers, partly from the speech and common sense of the people, to judge that the soul is nothing other than spirit or breath, by which we breathe and which we exhale in death, and which then vanishes like air and vapor; and accordingly that after death no soul survives that is capable of knowledge, sensation, pain, and punishment; because, just as in death the body turns to ashes, so the spirit and soul departs
and melts away into the breeze and air from which it came: thus the Comic poet calls the soul a breath, saying: "Does the breath smell foul to your wife?"
In which matter they err gravely. First, because not even in brute animals is the soul merely breath, but something nobler and more spiritual, by which they imagine, remember, and desire things convenient and favorable to themselves. Secondly, because in man it is manifest from his works that the soul is something sublime, heavenly, and angelic, endowed with divine powers and gifts, namely intellect, by which he knows not only corporeal things but also angels and God Himself; memory, by which he recalls the same things although absent and long past; will, by which he loves the same things and rules over all other powers, senses, and bodily members, either politically or despotically.
Hear Lactantius, On the Workmanship of God, ch. 17: "But what the soul is, the philosophers have not yet agreed, and perhaps never will: for some said it was blood, others fire, others wind, from which the soul or mind received its name, because wind in Greek is called ἄνεμος; yet none of them seems to have said anything correct." And after inserting many remarks: "Whence it appears that the soul is I know not what, something like God. But those who think it is wind are deceived, because by drawing breath from the air we seem to live. Varro therefore defines: The soul is air taken in by the mouth, heated down in the lungs, warmed in the heart, diffused through the body. These things are most manifestly false: for I do not say the theory of such matters is so obscure to us that we cannot even understand what cannot be true." And after some remarks: "The soul therefore is not air taken in by the mouth, because the soul is born much earlier than air can be taken in by the mouth: for it is not introduced into the body after birth, as it seems to certain philosophers, but after conception
immediately, when divine necessity formed the fetus in the womb, because it is so alive within the mother's womb that it increases in growth and eagerly leaps with frequent pulses." Hear also St. Isidore, Etymologies XI, ch. 1: "The soul received its name from the winds, because it is wind; whence wind in Greek is called ἄνεμος, because by drawing in air through the mouth we seem to live; but this is most manifestly false, because the soul is born much earlier than air is taken in, because it already lives in the mother's womb; therefore the soul is not air, as some thought who were unable to conceive of its incorporeal nature."
AS SOFT AIR. — In Greek χαῦνος, that is, soft, loose, flowing, dissolved, relaxed, yielding, empty, spongy, wandering, fleeting: it alludes to the etymology of 'air,' for as Plato says in the Cratylus: "Whence is 'air' so called? Is it because it αἴρει, that is, lifts up the things that are on the earth? Or because it ἀεὶ ῥεῖ, that is, always flows? Or because from its ever-flowing self there arises spirit or breath? So 'ether' is called, as if ἀεὶ θεῖ, that is, always running around the air." Others prefer that 'air' is derived from ἀήρ, that is, 'I breathe,' for air breathes out wind, and is blown by wind
again, respiration in man takes place through air drawn in by inhalation and exhalation. Our breath therefore is like soft and flowing air; hence the epithet of air is that it is diffused and attenuated, that is, scattered, extended, and thin: whence Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods II: "Next to the sea, the air," he says, "is distinguished by day and night, and now diffused and attenuated it rises on high, now condensed it is gathered into clouds."
AND OUR LIFE SHALL PASS AWAY AS THE TRACE (
in Greek ἴχνη, that is, traces) OF A CLOUD. — A trace properly is a likeness of a foot, that is, impressed by a foot in sand or mud, but it is transferred to mean any sign: the trace of a cloud therefore is the remnants, signs, and effects of a cloud, such as drops, rain, darkness or dimness appearing in the air, and especially mist, as follows, which a cloud usually leaves behind it; whence explaining he adds:
AND SHALL BE DISPERSED AS A MIST THAT IS DRIVEN AWAY BY THE RAYS OF THE SUN. — F
or a thicker cloud, whether by wind, or by the motion of the heavens, or by the sun, is dissipated and becomes a thinner mist, which is therefore immediately scattered by the rays of the sun, and so when the cloud has been entirely dispersed it is a sign of fair weather: and since it is cold of itself, it cools the air into which it is dispersed; for this reason dawn is usually cold, because the rising sun dispersing the mists and cold vapors collected during the night through the air, makes it colder; hence the poets say that dawn is the mother of the winds. Hugo and Holcot explain it slightly differently: "The trace of a cloud," they say, "is a tiny particle of a cloud, as large as the extremity of a foot, whose prints are usually left impressed on the ground:" for so in 3 Kings 18:44, when Elijah was praying, "a small cloud, like a man's footprint," in Hebrew, like the sole of a foot, was rising from the sea. The wicked compare
their brief and fleeting life: first, to smoke, verse 2; secondly, to an extinguished spark and ashes, ibid.; thirdly, to soft air, verse 3; fourthly, to a cloud and mist, ibid.; fifthly, to a shadow, verse 5.
Symbolically, St. Bonaventure judges that in smoke is signified the darkening of the intellect; in wind or breath, the disturbance of the irascible faculty; in the spark, the inflammation of the concupiscible faculty; in air, the emptiness of intention; in ashes, the fruitlessness of works; in the denser cloud, opposition against grace; in the lighter mist, the elation of the mind; in the shadow, outward pretense.
AND WEIGHED DOWN BY ITS HEAT. — C
antacuzenus places here a different comparison from the preceding one, as if to say: Our life changes and dies, just as mist changes, when in winter, feeling the rays of the sun but weakened, against their heat by antiperistasis it contracts itself, becomes heavier and denser, so that it ceases to be mist and passes into dew or a thicker cloud. Others more commonly judge it to be the same comparison, as if to say: Our life is dispersed, just as mist is weighed down by the heat of the sun, that is, pressed down, oppressed, and dissipated,
so that it is either dispersed through the air or dissolved into droplets and rain. Moreover, our life is aptly compared to a cloud and mist, which is nothing other than a moist vapor extracted from the earth by the heat of the sun, rarefied, and elevated on high, which, spread through the air by its thinness, appears by its size to overshadow the sun, and so deceives the eyes of men; but at last it is dispelled by the force of the sun or winds, vanishes into nothing and disappears; for in a similar way our life is dispersed and vanishes, along with all its pomp, riches, and pleasures, according to Job 7:9: "As the cloud is consumed and passes away, so he who descends to the grave shall not ascend;" and Hosea 13:3: "They shall be as a morning cloud, and as the early dew that passes away, as chaff swept by a whirlwind from the threshing floor, and as smoke from a chimney." Hence
Symbolically, clouds are governors and princes, who are elevated from a lowly place on the earth to a high position by the king: for they are soon cast down by rivals or some other chance or by death; hence in Hebrew נשיאים nesiim, that is, 'elevated,' is the name for both vapors and clouds and princes. The reason for the analogy, says Cervantes, is that just as those vapors are raised from the earth by the sun, and are mostly dispersed by the same, so earthly princes are raised from the dust of the earth and from the ends of the earth by the king, who is like a sun, from whom 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 bring them low. Wherefore Hercules in Greek is called Ἡρακλῆς, that is, the glory and illumination of the air; he, according to Macrobius, Saturnalia I, ch. 24, is the sun, and was said to lift up Antaeus, that giant son of earth with his towering body — that is, a vapor — on high, in order to crush him, constricted between the arms of his rays. Macrobius proves this from the name: for Hercules, or Ἡρακλῆς, is the same as ἥρας, that is, of the air, and κλέος, that is, praise or glory: and what is the glory of the air, if not the illumination of the sun? says Macrobius, Saturnalia I, ch. 24: for others incorrectly note ch. 20. He was also said to have accomplished twelve labors, because the sun in its annual course traverses and completes the twelve signs of the zodiac. To nesiim and these clouds pertains what Solomon says, Proverbs 25:14: "Clouds, and wind, and rain that does not follow — a boastful man who does not fulfill his promises."
4. AND OUR NAME SHALL RECEIVE OBLIVION IN TIME (
in Greek, in time, that is, with the progress and passage of time, or with the years slipping by, or in its own time, and that soon to come, namely in death and after death, for time obliterates and abolishes all things; whence) NO ONE SHALL HAVE REMEMBRANCE OF OUR WORKS. — Therefore there is no reason to pursue fame and glory, which will almost perish with us, nor to strive for the increase and exaltation of our family, since it will quickly forget us; nor to provide for posterity, of which we shall have no sense; nor to devote ourselves to virtues and an austere life, of which no
reward, indeed not even memory, will remain. Therefore use and enjoy the present; it will be in vain to await the future. So say the wicked.
5. FOR THE TIME OF OUR LIFE IS THE PASSING OF A SHADOW. — T
he Syriac: a passing shadow is our sojourning; the Arabic: because our time is a coming shadow, as if to say: The time of our life passes like a shadow, which as the sun or other body of which it is the shadow passes, proceeds and passes away step by step: thus Pindar said, not 'a shadow,' but "man is the dream of a shadow;" pressing which further, Plutarch in his Consolation to Apollonius says: "What is weaker than a shadow? So that another could not even clearly explain the dream of a shadow: the whole strength of a shadow depends on the object of a body; so the whole of life, depending on another, exists as it were as its shadow."
Hear Philo, On Joseph: "Just as in dream-visions we who see do not see; we who hear, taste, or touch neither hear, nor taste, nor touch; speaking we do not speak, walking we do not walk, but though we seem to use motions and habits, we use none at all, our mind vainly painting for itself images of non-existent things as if existing: In the same way also in this corruptible world the imaginations of those who are awake are very similar to dreams: they come, go, appear, flee; and before they can be grasped, fly away." The same in the same place: "All things," he says, "that are under the world are like shadows and specters; and just as when a procession passes by, each thing in succession passes before our eyes; likewise in torrents, with the speed deceiving the sight, the waves flow past: so the affairs of all of life, running and slipping by, seem to remain, when they do not remain even for a moment, always flowing away beneath us." And St. Chrysostom, Homily 21 to Theodore the Monk: "All things are shadow, dreams, a race. Life is a runner. As if someone standing on the summit of a high cliff were to look out upon the whole sea, and from there see many sailors submerged by the frequent waves of the strait, others dashed against the rock of a precipitous mountain, some hastening to reach other shores, others defended from death by the help of a single plank found among the wreckage of a ship, sometimes using only their hands for rudder and oars, and others see turbulent waves carrying corpses of many forms. So it is for one who serves God, when they separate themselves from the storms and whirlwinds of this life; they stand always in a steep and safe, secure place: for what can be higher, what safer, than that we should finally bear one single care — how we may please God? You have seen such shipwrecks; shun the sea and its waves, and seek out a high navigator on such a sea, and occupy a lofty place, free from the danger of captivity.
The poets said the same. Sophocles calls man an image and a shadow. Horace:
We are dust and shadow.
I have recounted many analogies of shadow and life at Ecclesiastes 7:1.
AND THERE IS NO RETURN AT OUR END. — I
n Greek ἀμπόδισις, that is, a stepping back, return, coming back: for πέδες are feet; the Complutensian edition translates 'impediment,' for one whose feet are bound cannot go back or forward, as if to say: There is no one who can impede and ward off the end, that is, the death that threatens us; but ἐμπόδισις properly means impediment, not ἀναπόδισις, as it is here. For 'end' the Greek has τελευτή, that is, decease, death, and the end of life; the meaning is, as if to say: When we have died, it will not be permitted to us to step back, that is, to retrace our steps, and from death and destruction to return to life: so Vatablus. They said the same thing in verse 1: "And there is no comfort at the end:" for they insist upon the destruction of man and soul, so that they may freely indulge in the pleasures of this life, without fear of the Deity and vengeance. The Syriac translates: and there is no healing in our departure; the Arabic: there is no delay or check to our death, and no impediment.
BECAUSE IT IS SEALED, AND NO ONE RETURNS. — "I
t is sealed," namely the return, so that it cannot happen or be possible; or more clearly, "the end." 'Finis' in Latin is of both feminine and masculine gender; whence Virgil, Aeneid II:
This was the end of Priam's fate,
This end carried him off by lot.
Livy: "And what end there would be to such great calamities:" Cicero, On the Laws II: "Nor is it necessary for us to explain what was the end of the accursed family."
Hence the Complutensian and St. Paulinus, Epistle 31 to Alethia, read in the masculine: there is no return of our end, because it 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 none who returns; the Arabic: because the command of dying is marked for each one, and no one will avert it. The meaning is, as if to say: Our end and death is certainly fixed and inevitable, and from it one cannot return to life: for things that are certain are usually sealed: for a seal gives certainty to the thing sealed, indeed sometimes perpetuity and eternity: for so in Revelation 20:3, the devil is said to be sealed in hell, that is, imprisoned for a very long time: "He cast him," it says, "into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, so that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years are completed."
Moreover, the seal by which each person's death, and the day and hour of dying, is sealed, 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 person both the day of birth and of death, according to Job 14:5: "You have appointed his bounds, which cannot be passed:" the pagans called both of these fate, and by both as by two adamantine locks and bars, each person's death is sealed and bolted, and its gates shut, so that it is impossible to rise from it to this life. Less correctly Cantacuzenus takes this sealing
as that which takes place by means of the stone or sepulchral tomb in which the dead person's body is enclosed, according to Psalm 48:12: "Their sepulchres shall be their houses forever:" so too, more or less, Hugh and Lyranus.
6. COME THEREFORE, AND LET US ENJOY THE GOOD THINGS THAT ARE.
as if to say: After death there will be no life, no pleasure, no pain; therefore let us enjoy the goods, 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 opposite, from the vanity and brevity of life the Apostle concludes, 1 Corinthians 7:29: "The time is short," he says: "it remains that those who have wives should be as though they had none, and those who weep as though not weeping, and those who rejoice as though not rejoicing, etc.: for the fashion of this world passes away." Indeed the brevity of life is a sharp spur for the faithful to every virtue, even heroic virtue, because they believe and hope that through such a brief and small effort they may attain eternal glory, whereas conversely for the unfaithful it is a spur to every pleasure, because they do not believe or hope for another life after this one.
COME THEREFORE. — T
he wicked invite each other to feasting and drinking together, 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 in no future goods, nor hope for them, therefore let us enjoy the present.
AND LET US USE CREATION AS IN YOUTH SPEEDILY. — T
he word 'as' can be taken, first, as a note of truth, according to John 1:14: "We saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten," that is, the glory that befitted Him who truly was the Only-begotten. In this sense the meaning 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 actually live, while both youth and pleasure still thrive and can refresh us; for the old are weary of both, as Barzillai said to David, 2 Samuel 19:35. They give the reason through the word 'speedily,' as if to say: Shortly, along with youth, pleasure and the taste of pleasure will pass and fly away, therefore let us use it speedily, in Greek σπουδαίως, that is, hastily, zealously, diligently, eagerly, seriously, attentively, carefully, so that we let no occasions for recreation slip by, nor any moments of time, since it is so fleeting and brief; hence Vatablus translates: let us use created things together with youth; another: let us use creation as adolescence; the Vatican edition: let us use creation as youth, that is, cheerfully and vigorously, as young people usually do on account of their vigorous body and the eagerness of spirit: for youth is vigorous and cheerful, suited and eager for seizing any pleasure.
Therefore the wicked tacitly indicate the brevity
of both their own youth and of created pleasure, namely that both immediately depart and pass away, and accordingly they reveal their own foolishness in pursuing things whose being does not endure but consists in passing away, so that it rather does not exist than exists; while they neither care for nor attend to things that are enduring, solid, lasting, and eternal: for they say the goods of this life must be speedily seized because they are fleeting, flying away, and immediately about to cease to be; therefore they grasp only the shadows of pleasure and the empty images of delights: for the thing itself is found nowhere. For the goods which mortals so greedily crave are so unstable and slippery that before they can be grasped and held by the hands, they slip away and flow out; indeed before a man has barely tasted them with the first touch of his lips, barely received them with his eyes or ears, they vanish; and so they fly past not only the taste of the taster but even the eyes of one gazing most attentively and looking most swiftly, and the ears of one listening most eagerly, and like jugglers they deceive. If you look to honor, that idol which mortals worship most, it cannot be held by the hands without escaping; whence the Royal Psalmist saw that other one exalted and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon, Psalm 36:35: and he passed away, and behold he was not: he saw a man, when he was in honor, compared to beasts and made like them, Psalm 48:21. Daniel saw a lioness with great wings; he looked until the wings were plucked off and it stood upon its feet; and ch. 4, 17, 22: a tree, when it was in the greatest greenness and height, was cut down: a king, stripped of diadem and purple, was cast from his kingdom to feed among beasts, etc. Why do I linger? If you look to life, nothing vanishes more quickly: it is compared to the trace of a cloud or of smoke and waves, so that what Job 15:32 says is true: "Before his days are fulfilled, he shall perish." So our Martin de Roa, Singularia II, ch. 1. The whole evil of man, then, is to enjoy what should be used, and to use what should be enjoyed: this is what the wicked do, who enjoy perishable things and use true and solid things, in order to feed and fill themselves with perishable things. To enjoy is to possess an end, as if a supreme good, in which one rests happily; to use is to employ means to attain the end already mentioned. Hear St. Augustine, Eighty-Three Questions, qu. 30: "Every human perversion therefore, which is also called vice, is to want to enjoy what should be used and to use what should be enjoyed; and conversely all right order, which is also called virtue, is to enjoy what should be enjoyed, and to use what should be used; but what is honorable should be enjoyed, and what is useful should be used;" the same, City of God XI, ch. 25: "Temporal things," he says, "should be used rather than enjoyed, so that we may deserve to enjoy eternal things; not like the perverse who wish to enjoy money but to use God: for they do not spend money for God, but worship God for money."
Secondly, our a Castro takes 'as' properly as a note of comparison; whence 'as in youth' he refers to 'creation,' as if its youth and flower must be seized, as if to say: "Let us use creation as in youth," namely when it exists, or as being in its adolescence, so that we do not let creation pass us by while it flourishes and blooms, while it is in its adolescence, before it withers worn out by old age, without enjoying it. But the adverb σπουδαίως means the same as gravely, zealously, namely that one should devote all zeal and desire to that full enjoyment. And this meaning is preferable, both because the wicked have devoted not only their adolescence but their whole life, even when wretchedly worn out by old age, to seizing pleasure, before they are driven off by death; and because from what follows it will be clear that the wicked rouse and invite themselves to seize with all zeal and desire every created thing while it flourishes and blooms, lest through negligence any pleasure that could be seized should escape their greed, pass by, or slip away unnoticed.
Thirdly, Cervantes explains 'as in youth' differently, and refers it to old men who want to appear young and to revel like the young; hence the wretches simulate the youthful years of their life, and darken their gray hairs — monuments of the ashes into which they are gradually turning — with leaden instruments and dark dyes, as if foreseeing that they will lack the eternity of a happy life and will be wrapped in the dark gloom of hell; who, although aged and decrepit old men, never grow old, but always live boyishly, indeed girlishly, and grow more girlish by the day. The Greek text accommodates all three explanations; I place this third one, as clearer, before the others, as if to say: Let us not allow ourselves to grow old, using the medicine of pleasures, according to that saying of Ovid in the Fasti:
It is wickedness that does not let you be old:
so he himself says. But this meaning is more subtle than solid, and more foreign than genuine: for these are the words either of both, or of the young rather than the old; whence they add: "Let not the flower of time pass us by." Others explain it better, as if the wicked were saying: Let us make ourselves so merry that we remain always cheerful like young people: let us not give ourselves to mourning and a severe life, lest we quickly become old, indeed so that we never grow old, but rather depart from life and its pleasantness before the troublesome and gloomy old age.
This is the foolish inference of the wicked; whence, recognizing the same thing too late, they will at last say what is in ch. 4, verse 6: "Therefore we have erred from the way of truth:" for wise is that conclusion of the Apostle, Galatians 6:10: "While we have time, let us do good;" and that of David, Psalm 36:1: "Do not envy the wicked, nor be jealous of those who do iniquity: for they shall quickly wither like grass." Whence St. Augustine on Psalm 70: "When you had said," he says, "Let us eat and drink, you added, Isaiah 22:13: For tomorrow we shall die: hear the opposite from me: Rather let us fast and pray, for tomorrow we shall die." Hence that wise man, asked why he lived so sparingly and soberly, ans-
wered: "For one about to die, this suffices:" for a traveler a small provision suffices, if the journey is short.
7. LET US FILL OURSELVES WITH COSTLY WINE AND OINTMENTS. — W
ith wine inwardly by drinking, with ointments outwardly by anointing: and also both inwardly, for they used to mix certain savory and fragrant ointments with wine for the sake of pleasure, and so drink them along with the wine, as I have shown elsewhere. Thus it will be a hendiadys: "Wine and ointments," that is, perfumed wine, according to that verse of Virgil, Georgics I:
We pour libations with goblets and gold.
that is, with golden goblets. Moreover, the ancients used to first wash with hot water at banquets, then dine anointed with perfumes, for the sake of pleasure, fragrance, and health, as Athenaeus teaches, book V, Plutarch, Symposiacs III, Clement of Alexandria, Paidagogos II, and others who wrote about the ancient customs of banquets. And the costly wine is Coan wine, which is outstandingly colored, fragrant, and flavorful.
AND LET NOT THE FLOWER OF TIME PASS US BY. — F
irst, "the flower of time," says Holcot, is the flower of youth, as if to say: Let us use the flower of youth for all the pleasures it desires: for in adolescence there is a far more vivid eagerness for pleasure than in maturity or old age; whence Guarinus translates: let us not pass by the flower of life. But the Greek has ἄνθος ἀέρος, that is, the flower of the air; whence
Secondly, Cervantes explains it thus, as if to say: Washed and anointed, let us recline on soft cushions at table, so that we may take care not to be harmed by the bloom of the air, or be penetrated by a delicate breeze blowing on us, and catch a cold or other illness, since the pores of the body have now been opened by washing and anointing; but in Greek and Latin it reads, 'let it not pass us by,' not 'let the bloom of air not penetrate us.'
Thirdly, therefore, and genuinely, the flower ἄνθος, that is, of the 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 bloom, and with the pleasant breath and fragrance they exhale, they fill the air, and through it refresh and restore the nostrils and the whole body; whence the spring air is the healthiest as well as the most pleasant, according to the verse:
Now is the year most beautiful;
and:
Spring is all the year's beauty and grace;
and Ovid, Metamorphoses I:
Spring was eternal, and with gentle breezes
The mild zephyrs caressed flowers born without seed;
the same, Fasti I:
All things then bloom, then is the new age of the season,
And a new bud swells from the pregnant vine.
And now the tree is covered with freshly formed leaves,
And the blade of the seed comes forth to the surface of the soil.
Then are pleasant suns, and the unknown swallow appears,
And builds its muddy work under the high beam.
Then the tilled field endures cultivation and is renewed by the plow:
This newness of the year was rightly so called.
Finally, Pliny, Natural History XXI, ch. 1: "In gardens," he says, "Cato ordered garlands to be planted, with the most indescribable subtlety of flowers especially; for it can be easier for no one to speak than for nature to paint, especially when she is playful and sporting so variously in the great joy of her fertility." Moreover, youth aptly corresponds to spring: for it is as it were the spring of the ages of life; whence Ovid, Metamorphoses X:
Short of youth,
The brief spring of life, and to pluck its first flowers.
Fourthly, more fully, more generally, and more adequately to the Vulgate, the flower of the air is the flower of time and life, in which air and breeze we enjoy; whence Vatablus translates: let us not pass by the flower of the breeze; hence our a Castro by the flower of time or life understands whatever delightful and flourishing thing is found in time, so that, namely, no opportunity may be allowed to slip by, no chance may be missed in which one may be permitted to enjoy pleasure. The flower of time therefore is the common pleasure of any season: in winter fires, in spring flowers, in summer gardens, in autumn fruits, etc., so that the flower of time is said to be whatever pleasant and delightful thing each season brings, to whose pleasures the wicked exhort themselves. But such persons, says Bonaventure: "Care nothing for the fruit of the heavenly soul, but for the flower of the present spring."
Moreover, see here the foolishness of the wicked, who pursue the most vain and quickly vanishing things, namely flowers, but reject solid fruits: therefore St. Augustine rightly calls them in the title of Psalm 53 "Ziphites, that is, the flourishing, who flourish in the world and wither at the judgment, and after withering will be cast into eternal fire." Of whom Isaiah 40:6 says: "All flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of the field," the Septuagint and St. Peter, 1 Epistle 1:24, 'and all its glory as the flower of grass.' St. Augustine on Psalm 102: 'Man as the flower of the field so shall he bloom': "The whole splendor," he says, "of the human race, honors, powers, riches, is the flower of grass: and just as the beauty of the field is scarcely a year old, and the flowers that are the beauty of herbs pass in a very short time, so too does human prosperity:" but more on this shortly.
8. LET US CROWN OURSELVES WITH ROSES BEFORE THEY WITHER. — I
n Greek: let us be crowned with rosebuds: for roses that are fully open immediately droop and wither: but the buds, or closed capsules of roses, while they gradually open and unfold their petals, last longer; and because they are enclosed and packed together, they breathe out a denser and sweeter fragrance; but they too soon wither: for the rose, because it has the most intense fragrance, therefore withers most quickly, says Plutarch, Symposiacs II, Quæst. 1; and Pliny, Natural History XXI, ch. 1: "Flowers and fragrances," he says, "the earth produces daily, as a great and manifest warning to men that what blooms most splendidly withers most quickly:" the same, ch. 11: "The last rose," he says, "is the same that first fades among flowers."
Moreover, roses and garlands of roses by the temperate
for roses win love and favor, and are used at banquets both for the sake of their fragrance and so that by their coolness they may resist drunkenness, especially as by their sweet breath they open the pores through which the vapors of wine may be exhaled, lest they weigh down the brain: hear Athenaeus, book V: "First they bound their heads with bands and fillets of linen and wool; then for ornament leaves and flowers were added: for against the discomfort of wine, the exhalations of flowers serve as a defense: if they are warm, by gently opening the pores they cause the wine to transpire; if slightly cool, they repel the vapors by their moderate contact."
Hence the rose garland was sacred to the Muses, as attested by Plutarch, Symposiacs II, Quæst. 1: the same, book III, teaches that roses wonderfully refresh the heart and brain, and have an astringent power and the ability to repress by their fragrance those things that weigh down the head; hence Ovid, Fasti V:
Their temples are adorned, covered with sewn garlands,
And the splendid table is hidden under scattered roses;
and shortly after:
He nodded, and from his shaken hair flowers fell:
They fell upon the tables as a tossed rose usually does.
And Horace:
Let roses not be lacking from the feast,
Nor long-lived parsley, nor 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 appoint a king over the flowers, he would certainly have deemed no other than the rose worthy of such honor:" it is the ornament of the earth, the splendor of plants, the eye of flowers, the purple of the meadow, a flashing beauty; it breathes love, wins grace, luxuriates in beautiful petals, delights with its trembling leaves that smile at the breath of the zephyr; and indeed it is so true that the sovereignty of flowers is attributed to roses, that a garland of roses beyond all else signifies power, sovereignty, empire: hence Virgil also compares, indeed equates, the rose to the dawn:
You would wonder, he says, whether dawn steals its blush from roses,
Or gives it, and the rising day tinges the flowers.
One dew, one color, and one morning for both,
Of star and flower Venus is the one mistress.
Perhaps too one fragrance; but the former is wafted higher through the breezes,
The latter breathes more closely.
Finally, Dracontius in On the Work of the Six Days calls all flowers rosy, and from the rose celebrates God the Creator thus:
Who commands groves to drip with rosy flowers and fields,
Who flavors the sweet fruits of autumn.
But the wicked say "Let us crown ourselves with roses" not for this purpose, but for another, namely so that with their full fragrance and color they may feed and fill their nostrils and eyes and incite them to every pleasure, especially carnal pleasure; hence they add: "Let no meadow escape our revelry:"
for which reason they were formerly dedicated to Venus; whence from Pausanias in the Elean section, Natalis Comes, Mythology IV, ch. 13: "Venus," he says, "used to be distinguished by a rose garland," and Valerius writing to Rufinus to encourage him to take a wife, Epistle 44, volume IX of the Works of St. Jerome: "Delight pleases," he says, "but it stings the beloved; the flower of Venus is the rose, because under its purple many thorns lie hidden." Wherefore some, among whom is Josephus Stephanus, On the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin, ch. 3, explain it thus: Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, or capsules, that is, let us warm ourselves in the embrace of virgins, before they lay aside the beauty and flower of their age: for that the rose is a symbol of modesty and virginity, besides the profane authors who suggest this, St. Jerome affirms in Epistle 8 to Demetrias, ch. 1, and on Joel 10, on the words: "And a fountain from the house of the Lord," in the final words.
But this meaning is symbolic, not literal: "Roses," says Fulgentius, Mythology II, On Venus, "both blush and sting, as does lust: for it blushes with the shame of disgrace, and stings with the sting of sin; and just as a rose delights indeed, but is removed by the swift motion of time, so also lust pleases momentarily and flees perpetually."
Hence Cleopatra too, at her most luxurious banquet, spent a talent on roses, that is, six thousand French crowns, when throughout all the dining rooms of the reclining guests heaps of petals everywhere stood a cubit's measure high on the floors on every side. Hence Martianus Capella, book I, weaves a garland of roses for Venus: "For her," he says, "a garland woven of roses bound crosswise." And courtesans are accustomed to attract their lovers by giving or tossing a rose. Lucretius, book II, on the Idaean Mother, pelted by everyone with a dense shower of roses, thus sings:
And they shower with roses'
Flowers, shading the Mother and her attendant throngs.
Anacreon, the ancient Greek poet, wrote a eulogy of the rose, in which he sings thus:
With spring the father of flowers,
The praise of roses must be joined.
The rose is the flower and fragrance of the gods,
The rose is the pleasure of mortals:
It is the ornament of the Graces,
In the blooming hour of love.
Moreover, Tertullian, On the Soldier's Crown, ch. 9, and following him Martin de Roa, Singularia II, ch. 1, deny that the Hebrews had the custom of garlands at feasts and banquets, because Scripture does not mention them: but Clement of Alexandria, Paidagogos II, ch. 8, suggests the contrary, and this is clear from this passage: for the wicked Hebrews here say: "Let us crown ourselves with roses." Likewise they crowned themselves with ivy in honor of Bacchus, as is clear from 2 Maccabees 6:7; nor is this surprising, since those same people, declining into idols and the rites of the Gentiles, worshipped Venus and her lover Adonis, and with sacred lamentation
mourned him, as is clear from Ezekiel 8:14. Therefore when Tertullian says that the Hebrews did not customarily use banqueting garlands of roses and flowers, understand this of their own custom, not of one borrowed from the pagans.
Morally, the rose is a symbol of vanishing pleasure, and of thorny pleasure, that is, mixed with many thorns of bitterness and pain: the wicked therefore grasp the flower, indeed only the beginning of the flower, namely rosebuds, but the pious prefer the fruit to the flower, according to that saying of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus 24:23: "I as a vine have borne fruit of pleasant fragrance; and my flowers are fruits of honor and riches:" for no tree's fruit is better than that of the vine, for 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, Hexameron Homily XI: "The transitory and brief grace of spring flowers," he says, "fails those who still desire them;" and St. Ambrose, Hexameron III, ch. 11: "Useless man, though you shine with the splendor of nobility, or the height of power, or the brilliance of virtue, a thorn is always near you; always look at what is beneath you; you sprout above thorns, and grace does not last long; each person, having quickly run the flower of age, withers." And to this point belongs that verse of Virgil on the rose:
As long as a single day, so long is the age of roses,
Which budding youth is pressed by adjoining old age.
The one that bright Lucifer saw just being born,
Returning in the late evening he saw an old woman.
And Jerome Angerianus in his Epigrams:
The beautiful rose lasts a brief time, and beauty a brief
Time: thus, O rose, you have a time equal to beauty.
And Horace, Odes II, ode 3:
Hither command wine and ointments and the all too brief
Flowers of the lovely rose to be brought.
Wherefore Clement of Alexandria, Paidagogos II, ch. 8, asserts that the use of flowers is harmful and quickly passes away afflicted with punishment; and adds that from this the brevity of their life is proved, because both wither, namely the flower and beauty. On this point Artemidorus warns that although garlands of roses seen in sleep are good for all, that is, auspicious, yet the sick are excepted: "For these," he says, "they kill," that is, they predict they are about to die, because they easily wither. The rose itself, not only the Locrian kind but any, although it is the specimen of all flowers, nevertheless at almost the same moment it is born it grows old. Virgil on this flower:
I marveled at the swift ravaging of fleeting age,
And that roses grow old while being born.
The same by the Latin Callimachus:
I saw the rose-beds of fragrant Paestum, destined to survive,
Lying scorched under the morning south wind.
For this reason Ausonius in his Epigrams, advising a maiden of her mortality, says:
Gather, maiden, the roses, while the flower is new and youth is new,
And remember that your own age thus hastens on.
It was wittily said by Domitian that nothing is more pleasing than beauty, nor more brief. Hence it is that Paul, naming these floral garlands, calls them corruptible, 1 Corinthians 9: "Everyone who competes in the games," he says, "abstains from all things. And they indeed do it to obtain a corruptible crown: but we an incorruptible one." Finally Statius, Silvae III, asserts that all the gaiety of flowers is ended by death, when he sings thus:
As pale lilies bow their drooping stalks,
And blooming roses die at the first south winds,
Or when the springtime purple expires in fresh meadows,
You arrow-bearing Loves fluttered around the funeral,
And anointed the pyre with maternal balsam.
All of which confirms what Isidore records, namely that 'flowers' (flores) are so called as if 'flowings' (fluores), because they quickly fall and quickly dissolve: so he himself says, Etymologies XVII, ch. 6. Likewise in Greek ῥόδον, that is, rose, is called from ῥοή, that is, flowing, as if 'flowing fragrance,' because it is prodigal of fragrance, as Plutarch says, Symposiacs III, Quæst. 1, ῥεῦμα πολὺ τῆς ὀδμῆς ἀφίησι, that is, it emits a huge flow of fragrance: therefore by this very flowing it itself flows away, melts, and withers, just as a plant by excessive flow of sap, and a man by excessive flow of blood, melts and dies. So Clement of Alexandria, Paidagogos II, ch. 8. Recently Leo XI, the Florentine pontiff of the Medici family, bore a rose in his coat of arms, with this motto: 'Thus I flourished.' He was a true prophet to himself, for he stood and flourished at the summit of the pontificate for only a few days, and immediately, like a rose, he faded, and in dying breathed upon the world the longing for himself, like a sweet fragrance. Finally, Clement of Alexandria, in the passage already cited, teaches that Christians ought not to be crowned with roses, because Christ was crowned with thorns: Tertullian more fully insists on the same, On the Soldier's Crown II, where he also teaches that Christians, in order to follow Christ, shrank from garlands of roses and flowers: St. Louis held the same view, as I said shortly before.
So also Godfrey of Bouillon, capturing Jerusalem in the year of the Lord 1090, on the very day of Good Friday, on which Christ had suffered in the same city, when he was being elected and inaugurated by the nobles by common consent as the first Christian king of Jerusalem, refused to be crowned with the golden crown of kings, because in the same city, on the same day, Christ had borne a crown of thorns; indeed he did not even wish to be called king of Jerusalem or of Judea, but protector of the Holy Sepulchre, because the proper title of Christ crucified had been: King of the Jews: so William of Tyre reports in his history of the Crusade, John Molanus the Louvain doctor in Sacred Warfare, and others. Learn, O Christian, that under a crowned Head, the members ought not to be delicate, nor is it fitting for you to be crowned with roses and delights under a Christ pierced with thorns.
LET NO MEADOW ESCAPE OUR REVELRY. — T
his sentence is not in the Greek, but in the Roman and other Latin editions: pleasant meadows with their herbs, flowers, and groves are suited to pleasure; whence Horace:
Let roses not be lacking from the feast,
Nor long-lived parsley, nor the brief lily.
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Let us revel everywhere, let us take pleasure everywhere, everywhere in meadows let us delight ourselves with the fragrance of flowers, the greenness of herbs, the crystalline beauty of springs and streams, the shade of groves and trees, and there let us indulge our appetite, our belly, and our lust: for 'revelry' (luxuria) here signifies not only lust, but any extravagance of feasting, delights, and pleasures. This is what Jeremiah reproaches to the Israelites for their fornication, both bodily and more especially spiritual, that is, idolatry, ch. 2, verse 20: "Under every leafy tree you prostituted yourself, O harlot." Hence the wicked reveal the root of their evil and wickedness, namely the uncontrollable greed and desire for carnal pleasure and gratification reaching to excess: for luxuria signifies abundance, overflow, and profusion; whence Cicero, First Action against Verres: "What things," he says, "extravagance in debaucheries, cruelty in punishments, avarice in plunderings," etc. "Luxuria," says Festus, "is the dissolution of morals;" and Ovid, Art of Love I:
The mind will be apt to be captured when most glad of things,
As the crop luxuriates in rich soil,
and book II:
Minds run riot, mostly in favorable circumstances.
Thus is named extravagant joy, that is, excessive and profuse. Vines, crops, and trees also run riot when they are too abundant in branches and shoots.
n Greek, let none of us be without a share of ἀγερωχία, that is, insolence, extravagance, high-spiritedness, pride; Vatablus: wantonness; the Complutensian: vigor; others: our ferocity, as if to say: Let each of us display his desire, wantonness, insolence, vigor, pride; let each show himself a man in his lusts and passions; let us vigorously and powerfully indulge our pleasure and our spirit, so that whatever pleases and delights it, the same is permitted, and let us fulfill it freely, wantonly, and vigorously: for as Eustathius says on the Iliad II: "There is an easy pouring out and diffusion into whatever pleases, and by which one glories and grows insolent." They indicate their unbridled spirit for fulfilling all desires, which contains especially two affections and passions, namely the love and burning of pleasure, and pride, anger, and insolence for overthrowing those who stand in the way of the pleasure to be enjoyed: for love of a desired thing sharpens anger against those who object, and ferocity against those whom one wishes to despoil, in order to have
the means to satisfy one's belly and lust, or one's pomp and pride: therefore desire is savage, and the more desire grows, the more anger and cruelty grow alongside it in equal measure.
LET US EVERYWHERE LEAVE SIGNS OF JOY. — T
hese signs are flowers, fragrances, remnants of feasts, branches, leaves, songs, dances, etc.: for 'signs' in Greek is σύμβολα, which means both signs and a pooling of contributions, by which the banqueters would contribute money or food in common to furnish a splendid feast, as if to say: Let us feast everywhere, let every place contain a part of our feast, let every location share in our banquet and joy, so that we may fill all things with our delights and pleasures: for let us be so given over to pleasures that we strive to fill with them not only our bellies and ourselves, but also everyone else, and indeed every meadow and place.
BECAUSE THIS IS OUR PORTION, AND THIS IS OUR LOT. — V
atablus: this is our fruit, as if to say: After death we do not expect another inheritance, another life, another pleasure, but all of that will end with this life; therefore while we live, let us indulge: for this is our portion, this our lot, this our inheritance. The pious say quite the opposite, who, devoted to self-restraint, expect heavenly joys after death, and therefore sing with the Psalmist, Psalm 15:5: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; it is You who will restore my inheritance to me."
10. LET US OPPRESS THE POOR JUST MAN, AND LET US NOT SPARE THE WIDOW, NOR REVERENCE THE ANCIENT GRAY HAIRS OF THE AGED. — T
he companion, indeed the daughter, of pleasure is cruelty and tyranny; hence pleasure is cruel, for those who have squandered their wealth and exhausted it on gluttony and lusts, like starving wolves, indeed mad with hunger, rage against the poor, widows, and the aged, in order to invade and plunder their goods as if they were weak and powerless. Hence some translate: let us exercise tyranny over the poor, or let us subject the needy to ourselves by tyranny, and let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the long gray hairs of the old man; Jansenius: nor let us reverence the aged gray hairs of the old man: for the Greek καταδυναστεύσωμεν means to oppress someone by tyranny and subject him to oneself.
See here how roses turn into thorns, and gluttony into cruelty: hear St. Augustine on Psalm 3, in his explanation of the title, where he says: "After that description of extravagance at greater length — 'Let us crown ourselves with roses,' etc. — what follows? 'Let us kill the just man,' etc. They were speaking gently before: 'Let us crown ourselves with roses.' What is more charming? What more delicate? From this gentleness would you have expected crosses and swords? Do not be surprised: the roots of thorns are also smooth: if anyone handles them, he is not pricked; but that which pricks you is born from there."
The same was the logic and syllogism of Epicurus and the Epicureans, which Lactantius vividly depicts and refutes, book III, ch. 17: "But he," he says, "promised impunity for his vices; for he was the champion of the most disgraceful pleasure, for the sake of seizing which he thought man was born. Who, when he hears this af-
firmed, would abstain from vices and crimes? For if souls are destined to perish, let us seek riches so that we may seize all pleasures. And if we lack them, let us take them from those who have them — by stealth, by fraud, by force. Therefore let us serve pleasures however we can. 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 are destined to perish someday, that very time which we have lived should also perish. This he teaches, even if he does not say it in so many words, yet by the thing itself." He adds a clear reason: "For when he argues that the wise man does everything for his own sake and refers everything he does to his own advantage, the person who hears this will not think that any good deed should be done, since doing good looks to another's benefit; nor that one should abstain from crime, since plunder is joined to wrongdoing. Could any pirate chief, or leader of bandits, if he were exhorting his men to maraud, use any other speech than to say the same things that Epicurus says? That the gods care for nothing, that they are moved neither by anger nor by favor; that the punishments of the underworld are not to be feared, because souls perish after death, and there is no underworld at all; that pleasure is the highest good; that there is no human society, that each person looks out for himself; that there is no one who loves another except for his own sake."
plunder, such as the poor, widows, and the aged are, and this seems in conformity with nature: for what is stronger naturally dominates the weak, as can be seen in beasts; hence larger fish devour smaller ones, wolves seize sheep, lions seize wolves, tigers hunt all manner of animals. Therefore this must also hold among men, so that the wealth of the weak yields to the strong and powerful: this is the principle of tyrants and atheists, which Machiavelli renewed in this century, who judged that religion, virtue, and justice ought to serve the ends of power and the lust for domination, so that you use them insofar as they help to extend your dominions, and do not use them insofar as they hinder it. Hence of old the pagans objected against Christians that they, being humble, meek, patient, quiet, were sluggish and useless for defending the state by arms, as Tertullian attests in his Apology for the Christians.
But this principle is not human, but bestial; not Christian, but atheistic; not divine, but diabolical. Beasts are driven by their animal appetite, but man is guided by reason and human equity, which God has given him as the light and guide of life; therefore he ought to follow it. This is what Habakkuk laments, ch. 1, verses 3 and 4: "Judgment has come about," he says, "and opposition more powerful, because the wicked man prevails against the just:" see Job, chapters 20 and 21.
11. BUT LET OUR STRENGTH BE THE LAW OF JUSTICE. — S
o read the Roman and Greek editions; therefore the Complutensian and others wrongly read 'the law of justice,' as if to say: Let our strength be our law and standard — not of justice, but of injustice — so that according to it we perpetrate not what is just but what is unjust, despoiling and oppressing the poor, widows, and the aged. But the correct reading is 'the law of justice,' as the Arabic says: 'let our strength be swift for justice': the meaning is, as if to say: Let that be considered just and lawful by us, and as it were the law of justice, not what justice itself and right reason dictate, not what the aged venerable with gray hairs say, but what our force and strength can achieve and seize; which is commonly said: his sword is his justice, he carries his right in his arms, as Callicles says in Plato's Gorgias. This is the axiom of tyrants, indeed of lions and wild beasts, who have no other justice than claws, teeth, force, and plunder, and therefore injustice is for them in place of justice and the rule of life, according to that saying of Juvenal, Satire 6:
Thus I will, thus I command; let my will stand in place of reason;
such was Nimrod, a mighty hunter, not so much of beasts as of men, Genesis 10:8. They add the reason:
FOR WHAT IS WEAK IS FOUND TO BE USELESS. — T
he Arabic: because weak virtue appears useless: for 'is found' in Greek is ἐλέγχεται, that is, it is convicted, proved, since weakness lies open to all injuries, as if to say: He who prevails by 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 another's spoil and
12. LET US THEREFORE LIE IN WAIT FOR THE JUST MAN, BECAUSE HE IS USELESS TO US, AND IS CONTRARY TO OUR WORKS, AND UPBRAIDS US WITH OUR SINS AGAINST THE LAW, AND REPROACHES US WITH THE SINS OF OUR TRAINING. — T
he Arabic takes τὸ justum (the just) in the neuter gender, whence it translates: let us establish, contrive, fabricate justice, as if to say: The law of true justice is opposed to us and our desire, so let us fashion another law of justice, conformable not to right reason but to our concupiscence, so that whatever pleases us is just; but the Hebrew, the Septuagint, the Vulgate, the Chaldean, the Syriac, and all the rest take 'the just' in the masculine gender, and the following words require this. From the preceding and following context it is clear, first, that this is the voice of the wicked against any outstandingly just and pious man who rebukes their wickedness by his words and life, whom therefore they persecute unto death as hateful to them, as has happened in every age: for thus Cain persecuted the just Abel, the Sodomites persecuted Lot, Esau persecuted Jacob, the brothers persecuted Joseph, Pharaoh persecuted Moses and the Hebrews, Saul persecuted David, Jezebel persecuted Elijah, Manasseh persecuted 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 (hyperapistes) of justice, that is, a fierce defender, propagator, and avenger, whom therefore the wicked hate most bitterly and persecute unto death. So judge Hugh, Lyranus, Osorius, Jansenius here, and St. Chrysostom, Homily 5 On the Words of Isaiah 'I saw the Lord,' and St. Ambrose, On Duties II, ch. 6 and 7. Hence Simeon Metaphrastes in the Life of St. Auxentius says that in him was fulfilled that verse of Wisdom 2:12:
"Let us destroy the just one, because he is useless to us."
But secondly, that this is a prophecy about Christ and His passion, whom the wicked priests and Jews, as the castigator of their crimes, persecuted all the way to 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, especially that passage in Matthew XXVII, 43: "He trusted in God: let Him deliver Him now, if He wills Him: for He said: Because I am the Son of God," to which correspond here those words of verse 13: "He calls Himself the Son of God," and those of verse 16: "He boasts that He has God for His Father," and those of verse 18: "For if He is the true Son of God, He will receive Him:" again those of verse 20: "Let us condemn Him to a most shameful death (namely of the cross);" all of which properly apply to Christ alone. Moreover, Christ is called the Just One par excellence, 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 LI, 5; XLI, 2 and 10; XLV, 8; LXII, 2, and Zechariah IX, 9. Secondly, the Fathers everywhere teach the same thing: St. Augustine, XVII City of God, ch. XX and book XII Against Faustus ch. XLIV, asserts that in this passage the passion of Christ is most aptly prophesied; so also St. Cyril on Isaiah ch. LIX, St. Cyprian, treatise On Sion and Sinai, St. Ambrose, II Offices ch. VI and VII; the Author of the Imperfect Work on St. Matthew, hom. 43, Clement of Alexandria, V Stromata ch. VI, Tertullian, book III Against Marcion ch. XXII, and St. Athanasius in the Synopsis. Lactantius, book IV, ch. XVI, from this passage refutes the Jews and demonstrates that Christ, killed by them, was the just one and the Son of God: "Solomon, he says, in the books of Wisdom used these words in ch. II, verse 12: Let us ensnare the Just One, because he is useless to us, and he reproaches us for sins against the law; he professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself the Son of God, etc. Did he not thus describe that wicked counsel undertaken by the impious against God, so that he seems to have been present at it? And yet from Solomon, who sang these things, until the time when the event occurred, a thousand and ten years passed. We invent nothing, we add nothing." The reason is given by St. Chrysostom, that is, the Author of the Imperfect Work attributed to St. Chrysostom, hom. on Matthew: "From the vice of pride, he says, it arises that no one wishes to have anyone better than himself, as the Jews felt about Christ: for they did not kill the Son of God out of ignorance, but because they could not endure having Him as such, just as Solomon also prophesies about them: Come, let us ensnare Him," etc. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The wicked will persecute outstanding just men, by whom their wickedness is eclipsed and reproved, but especially the wicked Jews will persecute Christ, who is the Just One of the just, and the Holy One of the holy ones, inasmuch as He most sharply censured their vices, and especially those of the priests and scribes, as He everywhere censures them in the Gospels.
In a similar way Moses prophesies about Christ, Deuteronomy XVIII, 18, speaking from the mouth of God: "I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brethren like you," a prophet, that is, various prophets, but one among 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 on the title of Psalm XXXV: "The Lord, he says, reproaches the Jews: I for your sake was poor, I for you was grieving, and you laid wicked hands upon me, saying, Wisdom II, 12, and Jeremiah XI, 19: Let us remove the Just One, because he is useless to us; let us cast wood upon his bread. He rightly said bread, meaning his flesh: he brought nourishment, they returned punishment for his benefit; no wonder then if they hunger, who denied themselves the sustenance of eternal life." Furthermore, the author of Wisdom alludes to Isaiah III, 10, where the Septuagint, instead of imru, that is, 'say to the Just One well,' reading isru, that is, 'bind,' translate thus: they devised an evil plan against themselves saying: Let us bind the Just One, because he is useless (St. Jerome there translates, unpleasant: for the word signifies both) to us. So they shall eat the fruits of their 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 useless to us; the Syriac, let us hinder or impede the just one; Tertullian, book III Against Marcion ch. XXII, let us take away the just one, namely Christ; Clement of Alexandria, book V Stromata, let us remove the just one from us. The Greek means let us lie in ambush, that is, let us ambush the just one, let us capture him by treachery, bind him, kill him, oppress him. Thus the Jews posed insidious questions to Christ, to catch Him in His speech, as when they asked Him, Matthew XXII, 15 and 16: "Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, or not?" Again through the treacherous betrayal of Judas they seized Him in the garden. They call Him just, not so much from their own judgment, as from the common estimation and designation of the people.
Furthermore, the wicked man by persecuting the pious man harms himself more than the pious man: for, as St. Augustine says on Psalm XXXVI: "Adversity presses your body, but iniquity rots his soul: for whatever he brings forth against you, returns upon him, for his purging makes you purified, but him guilty; whom then does it harm more?" Indeed, the wicked man's persecution benefits the pious man, not harms him. Hear St. Augustine on Psalm CXXVIII: "They exercised me, they did not crush me. They availed me as fire avails gold, not as fire avails hay: for fire approaching gold removes the dross, approaching hay, it turns it to ashes." The flame passes and pure gold remains; persecution passes like a dream, and the soul remains bright and splendid by the merit of patience: for it is written, Psalm LXXII, 20: "As a dream of those awakening, O Lord, in Your city You shall reduce their image to nothing," and Isaiah XXIX, 7: "And it shall be as a dream of a night vision, the multitude of all the 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 its fortitude.
BECAUSE HE IS USELESS TO US. - T
his is a meiosis, for useless means noxious; the Greek is dyschistos, that is, first, useless; second, difficult, inconvenient, troublesome, intractable, one who does not know how to accommodate himself to us and connive at our vices and overlook them; whence the Syriac has, because he is not kind to us. Such Christ appeared to the Jews, since He was constantly reproving their avarice, plundering, lusts, and superstitions both by word and by His life. They allude to the name of Christ by antiphrasis, as if to say: He is not christos, that is, pleasant, kind, humane, easy to gratify, accommodating, merciful, but achristos, that is, useless, indeed dyschistos, that is, difficult, offended, harsh, inflexible, rebellious, pernicious, abhorring our way of life, indeed constantly blaming and biting at it; therefore let us remove Him from our midst. They speak partly the truth, because Christ to the scribes and Pharisees, being criminal, impenitent, and obstinate in evil, was a perpetual enemy, censor, and reproacher, and this by office: for He was sent by the Father to the Jews for this purpose, that He might lead them back from their degeneration from the patriarchs to ancestral faith and probity. But to all other good people, indeed even to sinners who did not spurn 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 cast this as a reproach against Christ, that He associated with prostitutes and sinners; whence He Himself gently inviting them to Himself, Matthew XI, 28: "Come, He said, to Me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart: and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is sweet, and My burden is light." Thus Christ is praised for His humanity and sweetness by Isaiah, ch. XLII, verse 2, and ch. LXI, verse 1; Zechariah, ch. IX, verse 9, and the other prophets, as well as the apostles, as St. Peter, Acts X, 38: "Who, he says, went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him." For it belongs to God to do good to all and to communicate, indeed to pour out, His goodness to all. Thus Christ healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons, fed the crowds, calmed storms, indeed gave His body, life, soul, and divinity for us, even for His enemies and sinners, and daily gives the same to each person in the Eucharist: likewise daily by His grace He anticipates sinners and calls them to salvation; what then is more useful, sweeter, more kind than Christ? Hence in Hebrew He is called Messiah, in Greek Christos, in Latin Christus, that is, anointed, namely by God as king, prophet, lawgiver, redeemer, and high priest of the new law; by the gentiles He is called chrestos, that is, useful, sweet, kind, beneficent; whence Christians were called Chrestians, that is, gentle, sweet, accommodating people; because just as in Christ there was nothing that was not useful, sweet, and beneficial to the salvation of men, so it ought to be in Christians: on which I have spoken more at length 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 is 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 HE IS CONTRARY (
the Syriac has, opposes, obstructs) TO OUR WORKS. - For our works are wicked, unjust, criminal, harmful; but the works of the just man, and especially of Christ, are pious, just, holy, salutary. Here they explain why Christ seems to them dyschistos, that is, useless, troublesome, and pernicious, namely because He censured the wicked morals of the scribes, and threatened them with woe, that is, the thunderbolt of eternal damnation, as is evident from Matthew XXIII, 13-29. So today religious men, because they rebuke the morals of the wicked either by word or by example, are hated by them; whence the Apostle, I Timothy III, 12: "All, he says, who wish to live piously in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution:" one cause among many is given by St. Augustine on Psalm CXXVII: "If the devil is dead, he says, persecutions are dead; but if that adversary of ours lives, why does he not suggest temptations? why does he not rage? does he not procure threats or scandals?"
AND HE REPROACHES US WITH SINS AGAINST THE LAW,
that is, sins against the law given by God through Moses, committed by us.
AND HE PUBLISHES ABROAD AGAINST US THE SINS OF OUR DISCIPLINE. - T
he Greek is epiphemizei, that is, he spreads abroad with infamy to us, makes public, proclaims; whence St. Augustine, XVII City of God XX, reads: he defames, reproaches, cries out against us our sins, which we commit against the discipline and law given to us by God, and especially because we corrupt it with perverse interpretation through pharisaical traditions, as when we teach children not to honor or support their parents, but to offer their wealth to the temple for the priests' profit; when we teach that enemies are to be hated; when we excuse sinners as long as they give us gifts, etc.: which Christ enumerates and censures, Matthew V, 20; and when we clean cups and dishes on the outside, while inside we are full of robbery and uncleanness, Matthew XXIII, 25. Again John, chapter VII, verse 19: "Did not, he says, Moses give you the law: and none of you keeps the law?" See Luke chapter XI, verse 39 and following; whence in verse 45, a certain one of the lawyers said to Him: "Teacher, in saying these things, You insult us." Moreover, Christ did this justly and holily: for it was His role, as one sent by God for this purpose, to freely censure the public crimes of the scribes and Pharisees, lest the people esteem them as lawful and holy, and follow and imitate them, even though He knew that by this He would provoke them to inflict death and the cross upon Himself, as indeed happened. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the other prophets without exception did the same, as forerunners and types of Christ.
Here stands Jesus Christ;" and ibid. chapter VIII, 21: "If you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sin."
AND HE CALLS HIMSELF THE SON OF GOD. - T
he Greek has paida Kyriou, that is, the child of the Lord: child, meaning son or servant; that son is meant here is clear from what follows in verse 16: "And he boasts that he has God for his father:" for the entire contention of Christ with the Jews was that He said He was the true Son of God, and proved it by miracles and the Scriptures; but they denied the very same thing, as is evident from John chapter V and following, where there is a continuous dispute of Christ with the scribes on this matter. Hence it is clear that these words, although they pertain to any just person who is an adopted son of God through grace, nevertheless properly refer to Christ, who is the natural Son of God by essence. Moreover, this was the chief cause of the hatred of the wicked Jews against Christ, that He said He was the Son of God, both because they were proud, and therefore bore it with indignation that Christ placed Himself above the scribes and priests, indeed above Moses, as I said above from St. Chrysostom; and because the reproof of Christ fell upon them all the more heavily, the greater the person from whom it came, namely from the Son of God; and because from the fact that He was the Son of God, it followed that His adversaries the Jews were sons of the devil, according to that saying of Christ, John VIII, 44: "You are of your father the devil;" and this is still the cause of the persistent hatred of all the Jews against Christ, namely that they cannot bear to hear and accept that they are the sons and heirs of those who killed their own Messiah, the Son of God: for they cannot endure having the infamy of so great a sacrilege, indeed of deicide, cast upon them.
14. HE HAS BECOME FOR US A REPROVER OF OUR THOUGHTS. - T
he Greek is eis elegchon, that is, for refutation and reproof, as if to say: Christ exposes, that is, brings into public view, reveals, and proposes our thoughts for everyone to censure, that is, our intentions, our pursuits, our endeavors; whence others translate: he has set himself up as judge of our thoughts; St. Bonaventure says, he brings our thoughts into the light; another, he has become for us one to refute our thoughts: for Christ knew, and revealed and reproved the wicked thoughts of the scribes, even their secret plans about reproving Him, capturing Him, and killing Him, as is evident from Matthew IX, 4: "Why, He said, do you think evil in your hearts?" and Luke VI, 7: "The scribes and Pharisees were watching whether He would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find something with which to accuse Him. But He Himself knew their thoughts," etc. And from this revelation of their secret thoughts He showed the Jews that He was God, and the Son of God: for, as Tertullian says, Apologeticum ch. XX: "The testimony of divinity is the truth of divination."
This therefore is the true cause of the hatred of the wicked against the pious, that their wickedness is convicted and brought to shame by the piety of the latter. This cause is assigned and amplified by Lactantius, book V of the Institutes ch. IX: "Of this great, he says, and so persistent a hatred, what shall we say is the chief cause? Is it that truth begets hatred, as the poet says, as if inspired by a divine spirit? Or do they blush to be wicked in the presence of the just and good? Or rather both? For truth is therefore always hated because he who sins wants to have free license to sin, nor does he think he can more securely enjoy the pleasure of his evil deeds than if there is no one to whom his offenses are displeasing. Therefore they strive to utterly uproot and remove, as if witnesses to their crimes and malice, and they consider them burdensome, as though their life convicted them." He then adds the reasoning of the wicked: "For why should there be some who are inconveniently good, who, when public morals are corrupt, cast reproach by living well? Why are not all equally wicked, rapacious, shameless, adulterous, perjured, greedy, fraudulent? Why not rather let those be removed in whose presence it is shameful to live badly, who strike and lash the brow of sinners, not with words, for they are silent, but by their very different manner of life? For whoever dissents seems to castigate. Nor is it greatly to be wondered at if these things are done against men, since against God Himself for the same cause even the people established in hope, and not ignorant of God, has risen up; and the same necessity follows the just as violated the very author of justice."
13. HE PROFESSES TO HAVE KNOWLEDGE (V
atablus reads, acquaintance) OF GOD. - The Greek is epangeletai, that is, he announces, preaches, publishes publicly and solemnly, as when something is proclaimed through 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 genuine sense is, as if to say: Christ publicly and everywhere preaches and proclaims that He is God, and that He knows, teaches, and preaches the true faith and religion of God, that is, the way of rightly and piously worshipping God, serving Him, and pleasing Him, and accordingly He disapproves our Jewish rites and traditions as trivial and displeasing to God. This is what Christ says, John VII, 28: "I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know: I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me;" and ibid. verse 16: "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me;" and Matthew XI, 17: "All things have been delivered to Me by My Father. And no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him;" and John XVII, 3: "And this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent;" and ibid. chapter VIII, 21.
15. HE IS GRIEVOUS (burdensome, troublesome, hostile, intolerable) TO US EVEN TO BEHOLD. - The Greek is blaberenos, meaning in appearance, as if to say: The just man, and especially Christ, is so hateful to us that not only His preaching and reproof, but even His mere presence is heavy and troublesome to us, so that we cannot look upon Him and see Him without weariness and offense: for hatred and envy make it so that one cannot bear to look upon the one whom one hates: indeed, John III, 20: "He who does evil hates the light." The bright light of the sun is hostile to darkness, and therefore offends those with weak eyes: "to sick eyes the light is hateful," says St. Augustine, book VII Confessions ch. XVI: thus "Saul did not look upon David with right eyes," I Kings XVIII, 9: so Tertullian, book On Patience, ch. V: "How, he says, did they lay hands on the prophets, except through impatience of hearing; and on the Lord Himself, through impatience even of seeing;" whence in the same place he teaches that every sin is to be ascribed to impatience." And St. Chrysostom, homily 5 On the Words of Isaiah "I saw the Lord": "No mortal, he says, do sinners so abhor and hate as the one who prepares to reprove them; and they seize occasions to escape, desiring to avoid reproof: for one who rebukes is grievous to the sinner not only when he utters his voice, but even when he is merely seen: He is grievous, they say, to us, even in appearance;" to which reading Vatablus adhered, reading: he is grievous even to our sight; hence those cries, John XIX, 15: "Away, away, crucify Him." To this add that the modesty, chastity, and holiness of Christ struck the immodest, unchaste, impure eyes of the Jews; finally, a radiance of divinity shone forth from the face of Christ, says St. Jerome, which smote the gaze of the wicked; but drew the pious into love, reverence, and admiration of Him. Thus Nero could not bear the venerable appearance of Thrasea, the best of senators, and therefore killed him, says Tacitus, book XVI of the Annals: for, as St. Chrysostom wisely says, homily 3 to the People of Antioch: "The words of the saints are not alone, but even their appearance is full of spiritual grace, so that by their mere appearance alone they can extinguish another's anger and soften hearts."
Note, the wicked here pile up twelve reasons by which they assert they hate and persecute Christ; the first is, in verse 12, because He is useless to them, that is, troublesome and harmful. Second, because He is contrary to their works. Third, because He reproaches them for sins committed against the law. Fourth, verse 13, because He says He is the Son of God, and teaches divine knowledge and doctrine, as if He were greater than Moses, and brings another religion holier than his law and religion. Fifth, verse 14, because He reveals and censures their secret wicked thoughts. Sixth, verse 15, because His presence, gravity, modesty, and holiness offends their eyes. Seventh, because His life is dissimilar from others. Eighth, because His ways, that is, His actions, are changed. Ninth, verse 16, because they are regarded by Him as worthless, fantastical, and trifling. Tenth, because He abstains from their ways, as from uncleanness. Eleventh, because He praises the last things of the just. Twelfth, because He boasts that He has God for His Father. These are the twelve charges of the accusation which the wicked bring against the just man, especially against Christ, by which they mutually exhort and sharpen each other to inflict death upon Him: for the wicked love, praise, and incite to crimes all who are depraved, because they have minds and morals similar to their own; and when wickedness counts more followers for itself, it takes authority from that, and in some way washes off and purges its innate infamy. Whence follows:
BECAUSE HIS LIFE IS UNLIKE THAT OF OTHERS. - F
or Christ preached that the poor, the humble, the meek, those who mourn, and those who suffer persecution are blessed, while the Jews and other worldly people proclaim as blessed the rich, the arrogant, the domineering, the joyful, and those who rule over others: Christ preached mortification of the flesh, restraint of concupiscence, chastity, abstinence, the cross, love of enemies, hatred of one's own life, which seemed paradoxical to the Jews, since being carnal they sought nothing but carnal things, riches and feasts, as well as honors and vengeance against enemies. This therefore is the root of all the hatred and envy of the wicked against the just man, especially against Christ, namely the dissonance of morals and life: for, as Aristotle and the other ethicists teach, just as the cause of love and friendship is the similarity and harmony of morals, so the cause of hatred is the dissimilarity and disharmony of morals; hence Seneca, epistle 7: "He who lives, he says, among the multitude, is either similar to many, or hated by them;" and it was a precept of Pythagoras: "Do not walk on the public road," that is, do not follow the morals of the crowd, even if you incur their hatred for this reason: "for it is a proof of right conduct to displease the wicked," says Seneca.
Christ Himself assigns this root of hatred when He says and foretells to the apostles, John XV, 19: "If you were 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 hates you;" and therefore "if they persecuted Me, He said, they will also persecute you." "I see, a certain doctor says, a great consolation for pious men established in this reasoning: for those chosen from the world and separated from the mass of the lost are made hated by the dissimilarity of their morals: for they hate this very thing, what they are unwilling to be; and from their hatred of that which they vehemently disapprove, they rage and press on in persecution. Iniquity cannot have peace with justice, drunkenness hates temperance, falsehood has no concord with truth, pride does not love meekness, impudence does not love modesty, avarice does not love generosity. If the world persecuted the Head Himself on account of this contrariety of morals, then certainly it will also persecute all the pious who live by the same spirit." Therefore the wicked Jews could in no way endure Christ, because dissimilar affections produced contrary pursuits in life, and one life was the manifest condemnation of the other, and therefore to His own brethren also, since even they did not believe in Him, He said, John VII, 7: "The world cannot hate you," namely its own worshippers and lovers; "but Me it hates, because I testify of it that its works are evil." Hence it is that the good have always been burdensome to the wicked: this is what St. Prosper sings, epigram 32:
The wicked part of the world is hostile to the part of the pious,
Nor can it tolerate dissimilar minds.
Laughing at those unwilling to use present riches,
And hoping that what is entrusted to them can be given to themselves.
For, as is found in the Wise Man, Proverbs XXIX, 27: "The wicked abominate those who walk in the right way. But their earthly city does not desire to correct, but to destroy, nor does it care to remove vices, but to demolish and crush the truth that is ungrateful and hateful to it: for this is the judgment: because the light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light: for their works were evil," John III, 19. "For of the diabolical envy, says St. Augustine, book XV 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 wicked: for vices are always hostile to virtues, and all the best are looked upon by the wicked as though they were reproaching them." And rightly that saying of Cicero, in the book On Friendship: "Dissimilar characters will follow dissimilar pursuits, whose unlikeness dissolves friendships." Nor for any other reason can the good not be friends with the wicked, or the wicked with the good, except that the distance between them in morals and pursuits is as great as it possibly can be.
Therefore, just as there can be no peace between Christ and Belial, so neither can those two cities, of which one belongs to the pious and the other to the wicked, be joined in true concord: Christ is the founder of the holy city, the devil is the founder and ruler of the wicked city: the former was established by the love of God even unto contempt of self; the latter on the contrary by the love of self even unto contempt of God, for it, pleasing and puffing itself up, and thinking that all things worthy of pursuit are placed in itself alone, speaks through the Prophet and says, Isaiah XLVII, 8: "I am, and there is none besides me: I shall not sit as a widow, and I shall not know barrenness." The former uses the world to enjoy God: the latter uses God to enjoy the world; the former is a pilgrim here, and not having a permanent and fixed city on earth, seeks the one to come, as the prayer of a certain most holy citizen declares, who says, Psalm XXXVIII, 13: "I am a stranger with you, and a pilgrim, as all my fathers were:" but the latter, enticed by the delights of this world, entirely rests in earthly happiness. Hence it comes about that whatever it perceives to be contrary to itself, it tries to remove, and on account of this cupidity, it even pursues and persecutes the truth with hatred. "All your commandments, he says, are truth: therefore the wicked have persecuted me, help me," Psalm CXVIII, 86.
Moreover, since this hatred is so great, it is necessary that it immediately erupts into war and persecution: for just as fire and water cannot coexist unless they fight each other, so it is necessary that those two cities clash with each other in constant adversity; and just as in the same person 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. The good therefore do not hate men, but the vices of men, and if any persecution is ever set in motion by them, it should be believed to proceed not from hatred, but from charity, by which either the wicked are advised toward correction, or certainly the good and upright are protected; whence Psalm C, 3: "I did not set before my eyes an unjust thing: I hated those who commit transgression. A perverse heart did not cleave to me: I did not know the wicked one who turned away from me: the one who secretly slandered his neighbor, him I pursued." Behold, a good persecutor, not of the person, but of 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 suppress the wicked lest they harm many, if we strip the avaricious man of his fraudulent gains, if we abhor the insolence of the proud.
AND HIS WAYS ARE CHANGED. - H
ugo and others add: in truth; but the Greek and Roman texts have nothing of the sort; Vatablus reads: and he differs in his customs; Guarinus: and his paths are different; the Gloss and St. Bonaventure: his teachings and deeds are dissimilar, namely his doctrine and life; another: foreign, unusual, unprecedented, unheard-of, and abhorrent to the common standard and form are the paths by which he walks, that is, his words and works. The sense therefore is, as if to say: The ways, that is, the actions of the just man, especially of Christ, and His manner of acting and living, namely His doctrine, conduct, and religion, plainly differs from ours, is changed and diverse: for our justice, that is, the Pharisaical justice and religion, is situated in external appearance, purification, splendor, pomp, and display of almsgiving; but Christ's evangelical justice is situated in internal purity, piety, charity, etc., as Christ teaches, Matthew V, 1.
Again, by hypallage, "his ways are 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, substituting baptism for circumcision, the Eucharist for manna, penance for ritual washings, etc.; in short He wants to destroy our Judaism and convert it into Christianity. For this was the cause of the supreme hatred of the Jews against Christ and Paul; whence the Jews, about to stone St. Stephen, charged him with this crime, Acts VI, 14: "We have heard him, they said, saying: that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, and will change the traditions which Moses delivered to us;" and concerning St. Paul when they seized him in the temple: "Men of Israel, they said, help: this is the man who, teaching everyone everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place, has moreover brought gentiles into the temple, and has violated this holy place," Acts XXI, 28.
In a similar way in our 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 their ancestral purity, stirred up the hatred of many against themselves: but they consoled themselves with the example of Christ, and strengthened by it, they acted firmly, and by their constancy accomplished what they had undertaken. The same experience befalls those who withdraw from their companions to devote themselves to a more austere life, to prayer, to study: for soon their companions attack them with sharp tongues and mockery, calling them hypocrites, Jesuits, holy men: because they bear it ill that they are abandoned, surpassed, and tacitly censured and reproved by them; but let these also hear consolation from Christ, Matthew V, 10: "Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Let them say: "Friends are companions, but Christ is a greater friend, holiness is a greater friend, and the salvation of the soul." Plato used to say: "Socrates is a friend, but truth is a greater friend."
16. WE ARE REGARDED BY HIM AS TRIFLING, AND HE ABSTAINS FROM OUR WAYS AS FROM UNCLEANNESS. - F
or the words "as trifling," the Greek has eis kibbdelon, that is, as spurious or as dross, or as rust we are esteemed by him, namely as though we were illegitimate, or as refuse, trifles, and things of no value: for kibbdelos properly signifies gold, silver, or bronze that is not pure and genuine, but has dross mixed in with it, and is therefore counterfeited, vitiated, and adulterated: thus Christ censured the Jews for adulterating and corrupting the law with their human and superstitious traditions; whence He called them "a wicked and adulterous generation," Matthew XII, 39; "liars, whitewashed sepulchres," serpents and "offspring of vipers," John VIII, 55: for they preferred their own trifles, and their trifling washings of hands and body, to the law of God and of Christ. Hence St. Bonaventure explains, as if to say: We are esteemed by him as doing and saying vain things; Dionysius, just as foolish and mendacious persons; Clarius, as counterfeit; Vatablus, we are regarded as spurious; the Complutensians, we are reputed as dross. They allude to John VIII, 39, where when the Jews boasted: "Our father is Abraham," Christ responded: "If you are the children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God: Abraham did not do this. You do the works of your father. They therefore said to Him: We were not born of fornication: we have one father, God," as if to say: You, O Christ, deny that we are legitimate children of Abraham, and therefore You seem to assert that we are illegitimate and adulterous, born of fornication, in which You inflict a notable injury and stigma upon us, because You charge us with having another father than Abraham, namely the devil, as those whose works we follow; but You falsely slander us, because not some other adulterer, but our true father on earth is Abraham, in heaven God, and we worship one God the Father, just as Abraham did: therefore You falsely accuse us of not following God, and the piety and works of Abraham, as though we were illegitimate. Christ replied: "If God were your father, you would certainly love Me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; for I did not come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you wish to do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and did not stand in the truth." By which words He shows, and confirms that they are not children of Abraham, but illegitimate offspring of the devil.
AND HE ABSTAINS FROM OUR WAYS AS FROM UNCLEANNESS,
as from filth, pollutions, impurities, as if to say: He shuns and detests our way of living, as unclean, depraved, criminal. Thus Christ, Luke XII, 1: "Beware (take heed), He said, of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy," etc. The sense is, as if to say: Christ is a sectarian: for from our religion, as though it were unclean, he leads men to his own sect, as though it were clean. They speak partly the truth, because Christ refuted the superstitions and wicked morals of the Pharisees; partly falsehood, because Christ on appointed days frequented the temple, and there prayed and taught and kept the law, and taught that it should be kept. Wisely St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his Oration in praise of St. Basil, warns against the company of the wicked: "Let us not, he says, keep company with the most shameful of companions, but with the best and most honorable; not with the most quarrelsome, but with the most peaceful, and those whose company bears great fruit: knowing for certain that vice is much more easily contracted than virtue communicated, just as disease is also more easily contracted than health imparted."
AND HE PRAISES THE LAST THINGS OF THE JUST. - I
n St. Augustine, XVII City of God XX, the reading is nobilissima (most noble things), but this is erroneous, it seems. First Hugh explains, as if to say: He prefers the last 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 who are rich: blessed are the poor in spirit;" and chapter XII, 41: "The men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment with this generation, and will condemn it: because they did penance at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, something greater than Jonah is here."
But the Greek is, makarizei ta eschata dikaion, that is, he calls blessed the last things of the just, that is, he proclaims blessed the end of the just; the Complutensians and Vatablus read: he proclaims blessed the last things of the just; the Gloss and Bonaventure: he prefers eternal life to pleasure, as if to say: Christ proclaims blessed from their end the poverty, compunction, humility, tears, mortification, and cross of the just, namely because it leads them to heavenly happiness and glory: and by this very fact He condemns us, who place all our happiness in riches, joys, laughter, feasts, lusts, pomp, and the other pleasures of this life: for upon these He threatens woe and the thunderbolt of eternal damnation: this is clear from the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Luke XVI, 20. So also Ecclesiasticus, celebrating glorious men, chapter XLIV, verse 14, says: "Their bodies were buried in peace, and their name lives from generation to generation;" and Psalm CXV, 13: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints;" and Revelation XIV, 13: "I heard a voice from heaven saying to me: Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; henceforth now, says the Spirit, let them rest from their labors: for their works follow them."
Nazianzen gives the reason, in his Oration at the funeral of his father: "Because death, which not only delivers us from present evils, but also often leads us to the life above, I know not, he says, whether it can properly be called death, being more formidable in name than in reality: there is one life, keep your eyes fixed on life; there is one death, sin; for it is the destruction of the soul."
AND HE BOASTS THAT HE HAS GOD FOR HIS FATHER,
and consequently assigns us as His adversaries to the devil, as sons to their father: for boasts the Greek is anastrephei, that is, he proclaims with arrogance, boasting, and ostentation. Another reading: as if to say, He falsely imagines, lies, claims, and like a boastful impostor, insolent and puffed up beyond measure, parades God as His Father: for Christ had said, John VIII, 54: "It is My Father who glorifies Me, whom you say is your God, and yet you have not known Him:" therefore you, O Jews, who deny Me as the Son, deny also the Father, and consequently deny your own God. The scribes and priests felt themselves sharply stung by this goad of Christ, and therefore plotted His death: for as great as is the honor and glory of having God as one's father, and in Him all good things, so great is the disgrace and infamy of having the devil as one's father, and in him all evils, both of guilt and of punishment.
17. LET US SEE THEREFORE WHETHER HIS WORDS ARE TRUE,
namely, those 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, law, and worship of God: for if He is the Son of God, God will certainly protect Him and deliver Him from our hands; or at least will raise Him from the dead after we have killed Him, as He Himself asserts and boasts.
AND LET US TEST WHAT WILL COME UPON HIM. - L
et us see how his affairs will turn out; the Greek has: and let us experience what will happen at his departure; St. Prosper, part I of the Predictions ch. XXVI, reads: whether those things which are to come upon him will succeed, that is, whether God, whom he boasts is his father, will deliver him from our hands, or raise him from the dead. Whence, explaining further they add: "for if he is the true Son of God, He will receive him, and will deliver him from the hands of his adversaries." Others translate: let us make trial of his outcomes, that is, what 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 up in smoke, indeed into infamy.
AND WE SHALL KNOW WHAT HIS LAST END WILL BE. - T
hese words are absent in the Greek, in Lactantius, and in St. Cyprian, book II Testimonies XIV; however, they are read in the Roman text and by St. Augustine, XVII City of God XX. This seems to be an epanalepsis, saying the same thing in different words: for "let us test what will come upon him" seems to be explained by what follows, "and we shall know what his last end will be," as if to say: Christ prefers the last things of the just, whose head and chief He says He is, to us and to our present desire and happiness: let us see therefore what His own last end will be, and from that we shall deduce what the last end of His just ones will be. Let us kill Him, and let us see whether He Himself rises from the dead: and thus it will appear that the last things, namely the joys of eternal life, which He vainly promises to His just ones, are empty. So reason the wicked and the atheists.
18. FOR IF HE IS THE TRUE SON OF GOD, HE WILL RECEIVE HIM. - T
he Greek and Syriac have: for if the just man is the Son of God; the just man, both any just person, and par excellence, namely Christ, as if to say: If Christ, who calls Himself just par excellence, is truly the Son of God, then God as a father will certainly receive Him, that is, will seize Him with outstretched hand as He falls into death, will support, strengthen, and protect Him lest He fall: for to receive in the Scriptures means to come to the aid of one who is falling, to bring help, 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, since He wills him;" with which the wicked Jews reproached Christ on the cross, for having said He was the Son of God, as is evident from Matthew XXVII, 40.
AND HE WILL 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 (the Greek is hybris, that is, injury, disgrace, outrage, cruelty, violence inflicted) AND TORTURE (Lactantius, book IV, ch. XVI, reads in the plural, with insults and tortures; St. Bonaventure says, insult of words, and torture, that is, torment of blows) LET US EXAMINE HIM (the Greek is etasomen, that is, let us test, exercise, inquire from him the truth: for thus a judge seeks out the crime from the accused by interrogations and torments, which are called judicial questions; the Arabic has: let us investigate him with calumny and torture: the torments which the Jews inflicted on Christ were very many, very great, and most ignominious: the Jews say this, here declaring that they would inflict these on Christ), THAT WE MAY KNOW (they say) HIS REVERENCE. - The Greek is epieikeia, that is, equanimity, modesty, meekness, tranquility, composure of soul, by which the just man, especially Christ, when unjustly beaten, shrinks from and abhors not only avenging Himself, but even giving the least sign of indignation or impatience. Let us therefore test his justice through reproaches and tortures, because if his justice is true, he will show it through patience; but if it is feigned and simulated, he will betray himself through impatience: for it is impossible that a proud man, a hypocrite and pretender, if harassed and beaten, will not burst out into curses, threats, and impatient gestures. Whence St. Gregory, I Dialogues ch. V: "What sort of person, he says, anyone is within himself, an insult inflicted reveals." Hence also the Greek basanos, that is, torment, torture, judicial examination, signifies also a touchstone, an indicator or Lydian stone...
...Herculean stone, of which Pliny speaks, book XXXIII, ch. VIII, in that such torment manifests, as that stone reveals the excellence of gold, the excellence of virtue; hence also to examine by torment is to interrogate, because just as the one examined by a judge under questioning responds and does not conceal the truth which tortures extract, similarly that examination made by wicked judges through insult and torture will show the truth of the divinity and doctrine of Christ, and also of a 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, equally with Isaiah chapter LIII, is not so much a prophet of the passion of Christ as a historian and evangelist.
This reverence of the just man, especially of Christ, was therefore both active and passive: the active reverence was a certain sacred modesty and holy reserve, by which Christ even in His most atrocious passion and on the cross, out of regard and reverence, both for the virtue of patience and modesty itself, and for God, the angels, and men, in whose presence He was living and suffering, was careful not to do or say anything, I will not say impatiently, but less than worthily or becomingly, anything that 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 a certain pagan writer, considering, exclaimed: "O man of unbroken spirit, who shed neither a prayer nor a tear;" hence the Syriac translates: that we may know the diligence, or the solicitude of His humility, and let us test Him; the Arabic: that we may know His obedience, or His submission, and let us test purely His patience." The passive reverence was the effect of the active, namely that the active reverence, which shone forth in Christ's composed, pious, reverent and revered countenance, and in all His words, deeds, and gestures, made Him venerable and revered by all, and aroused in onlookers 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 Your hands I commend My spirit," exclaimed, Matthew XXVII, 54: "Truly this man was the Son of God." Moreover, one of the thieves on the very cross, moved and pierced by Christ's holy patience, rebuked his companion who was blaspheming, and turning to Christ before the Jews and scribes, said, Luke XXIII, 42: "Remember me, Lord, when You come into Your kingdom." The same was done by the Jews and the rest, of whom Luke says, chapter XXIII, verse 48: "And the whole crowd of those who were present together at this spectacle (at 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 sacred death of their Creator), and saw what was happening, returned striking their breasts." Hence also Christ, by such obedience and patience, inspired in God the Father such reverence toward Himself, that He obtained from Him whatever He asked: for "offering up with a loud cry and tears, He was heard because of His reverence," Hebrews V, 7.
In a similar way, the martyrs in their martyrdoms displayed in their countenance and words such equanimity, constancy, piety, holiness, and cheerfulness that they compelled their torturers to reverence them, and made them Christians, indeed martyrs: as St. Lawrence by the joy and eagerness of his torments converted St. Romanus and Hippolytus with his whole household, so that every single one of them nobly underwent martyrdom. So St. Cecilia by her cheerfulness in suffering converted Maximus and four hundred others. So St. Polycarp by his venerable old age, courtesy, readiness, and holiness, inspired such shame and fear in the soldiers sent to arrest him that they hardly dared to touch him, as Eusebius testifies, book IV of his History ch. XV. So St. Thecla, thrown to the lions, remained unharmed through her virginal modesty and a reverence that made her revered even by those beasts, of whom St. Ambrose, book III, epistle 25 to the Church of Vercelli: "By which gift, he says, Thecla was venerable even to lions, so that starving beasts, stretched out at the feet of their prey, deferred with a sacred fast, and violated the virgin neither with a wanton eye nor with a rough claw: because even by the very sight of it the sanctity of virginity is violated." The same author more fully and more elegantly, book II On Virgins, near the beginning: "Thecla, he says, changed even the nature of beasts by the veneration of her virginity; for being prepared for the wild animals, since she turned away even from the gaze of men, and offered her very vitals to the savage lion, she caused those who had brought unchaste eyes to carry back chaste ones." Then painting vividly the reverent behavior of the lions, he adds: "One could see a beast licking her feet, lying on the ground, testifying by a mute sound that it could not violate the sacred body of a virgin. Therefore the beast adored its prey, and forgetting its own nature, had put on the nature which men had abandoned. You could see by a certain transfusion of nature, men clothed in ferocity, commanding cruelty upon the beast; the beast kissing the feet of the virgin, teaching what men ought to do." Whence by emphatic amplification he concludes: "So great is the admiration that virginity inspires, that even lions wonder at it. Hunger did not move the unfed beasts, their rush did not seize the swift, anger did not provoke the aroused, habit did not deceive the accustomed, nature did not possess the wild. They taught religion, when they adored the martyr; they taught also chastity, when they kissed nothing of the virgin but her soles, with eyes cast down to the ground, as if ashamed, lest any male, whether man or beast, should see the virgin naked.
Learn here how reverence-worthy are modesty, meekness, piety, and patience, and how they make their followers venerable and revered: therefore whoever seeks for himself authority and reverence, let him seek it not in the display of gravity, not in the pomp of carriages and attendants, but in meekness, beneficence, and virtue.
AND LET US TEST HIS PATIENCE. - S
o also read St. Cyprian, Lactantius, and St. Augustine; some manuscripts instead of dokimasomen, that is, let us test, read dikasomen, that is, let us judge. Rightly the wicked, in order to test the justice of the just man, especially of Christ, test his patience: for patience is the touchstone by which true justice and holiness are tested: for "touch the mountains (that is, the proud and impatient) and they shall smoke," Psalm CIII, 31: for they will breathe out the smoke of anger, quarrels, cursing, and vengeance. This is what Paul says, Romans V, 3: "We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience works proof, and proof works hope;" and St. James, ch. I, verse 4: "The testing of faith works patience. And patience has a perfect work," to show that the virtue of the patient one has risen to the summit of holiness and perfection; moreover in Christ, above all other saints and martyrs, such great and divine patience, constancy, and charity shone forth amid so many blasphemies, injuries, and most atrocious and immense torments, inasmuch as they were cast upon God Himself, by which He prayed to God even for the very Jews who were killing Him, and obtained for them pardon and salvation, that this alone would have sufficed to prove that He was the Messiah and Prophet, indeed God and the Son of God, especially because this was employed by Christ precisely to demonstrate this: for virtue is the sister of truth, and therefore alien to all pretense, so it cannot be a witness to falsehood; but it must be the indicator of truth alone.
20. LET US CONDEMN HIM TO A MOST SHAMEFUL DEATH (
the Greek is aschemon, that is, indecorous, foul, deformed, so that there is no beauty in him nor comeliness, Isaiah LIII, 2, disgraceful, infamous, and therefore shameful par excellence, that is, most shameful, namely of the cross). - The Syriac has: let us consign him to a public and infamous death: for the punishment of the cross, especially when nailed to it, was an atrocious and prolonged death; whence from the cross the word cruciatus (torment) is derived; and it was most ignominious, both among the Jews and the gentiles: among the Jews by the law, Deuteronomy XXI, 23: "Cursed, it says, by God is he who hangs upon a tree:" on which account the crucified person is there commanded to be buried the same day before evening, lest he contaminate the land; whence the Apostle, Galatians III, 13: "Christ, he says, redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: because it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree." Similarly among the Romans and the gentiles the cross was an infamous and dreadful punishment for thieves and criminals. See Lipsius and Gretser On the Cross.
The cause therefore why Christ was crucified, on the part of the Jews who crucified Him, was their enormous hatred of Christ, by which they drove Him to the cross, as to a supremely infamous and atrocious death. On the part of Adam and of men, the cause was that Adam sinned through a tree, namely by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, and therefore it was fitting and necessary that this crime of his disobedience be expiated by Christ on the wood of the cross, so that the devil "who conquered through wood, might also be conquered through wood" by Christ. On the part of God offended, the cause was the love of justice, so that through the cross the gravity of the offense of Adam and of men against God might be shown, namely that through it they had made themselves guilty of eternal malediction, and thus had become a curse; Christ therefore took upon Himself this curse of Adam and of ours, to bear it and atone for it, and therefore He was fastened to the cross, because among the Jews one who hung on a cross was, by the law already cited, considered cursed and a curse: the atrocity of the guilt, as if by proportionate justice, demanded an atrocity of punishment, so that it might be condignly satisfied; and such is the punishment of the cross. On the part of Christ, the cause was the immensity of His love, so that through the cross Christ might show how much He loved us, since He suffered such dire and harsh things for us, and so that He might give us an example of mortification for constantly crucifying the motions of concupiscence; and of martyrdom for willingly undergoing any death, however horrible and shameful, for His sake and for virtue, as the martyrs underwent, that they might, as far as they could, render to Christ like for like, namely pain for pain, and love for love. Whence St. Augustine on Psalm CXL: "The cross, he says, than which nothing seemed more execrable, the Lord Himself took up, so that His disciples should not only not fear death, but not even shudder at the manner of death:" the same, homily 32 On the Saints: "The entire life of a Christian, if lived according to the Gospel, is a cross and a martyrdom." See more in Gretser, book I On the Cross, ch. XLI, XLII and following, and book IV, ch. I and following, and St. Thomas, Suarez, and the scholastics, III part, question XLVIII, art. 4, and Cassian, book IV On the Institutes of Renunciants ch. XXXIV and XXXV.
FOR THERE WILL BE AN EXAMINATION OF HIM FROM HIS WORDS. - F
or respectus (regard), the Greek is episkope, that is, observation, visitation, consideration, inspection: here there can be a threefold sense. The first is that of Clarius, who translates: from his words and deeds let us inspect what he is; and of the Syriac: let there be an interrogation against him from his words, as if to say: While he is afflicted by us, we will consider and observe from his words what sort of person he is, says Jansenius; or as if to say: If on the cross we are able to destroy him, we will know he was lying when he called himself the Son of God, who is immortal: so St. Bonaventure, Dionysius, Lyra, and others; or, as Osorius and Lorinus say: Let us crucify him, so that from his words, which intense pain will have drawn out, we may determine the man's mind: for the Jews wanted by the atrocity of the cross and tortures to extract the truth from the mouth of Christ, as if terrified or tormented He would say something that He had been unwilling to say before; or would openly say what He had been dissimulating. This sense corresponds well enough to the Greek episkope, not equally to the Latin respectus. The second is that of Vatablus, who translates: he will be dealt with according to his words, as if to say: Because He blasphemed by saying that God was His Father, and that He was His Son, He will pay the fitting penalties for this blasphemy on the cross; and Hugh: "There will be, he says, our regard, that is, defense and excuse, so that if we are asked why we killed Him, we may respond:
Because He made Himself the Son of God." The third and more genuine sense is that it is irony, as if to say: God will look upon Him and deliver Him from the cross, or raise Him from the dead: for He Himself boasted of this in frequent speeches; whence Guarinus translates: for his account will be reckoned according to his own words; hence also the scribes sealed the tomb of Christ, and set guards over it, lest anyone should steal the body, and pretend that He had risen: all of which things condemned the very Jews themselves, and demonstrated that Christ was the true Messiah and Son of God, when He Himself rose through the sealed tomb, in the presence of the guards, Matthew chapter XXVII, verse 64. Otherwise our Castro explains, as if to say: He will be visited and tested by us through the cross and tortures, so that we may see whether His patience and constancy correspond to His words: for He Himself preaches love of the cross, patience, constancy; let us test whether He Himself in practice on the cross exhibits the same; for many preach fasting while well fed, continence while adulterous, humility while proud, meekness while irascible, the cross while living in comfort and luxury: this is to preach with the mouth, but to contradict by one's deeds.
21. THESE THINGS THEY THOUGHT, AND THEY ERRED: FOR THEIR OWN MALICE BLINDED THEM. - S
t. Gaudentius, sermon 19, reads: the wickedness of their heart; Lactantius, book IV, ch. XVI: their folly. Up to this point the words of the wicked, which the Wise Man now castigates with sharp reproof: "They erred," he says, and were blinded by their own malice, for an evil affection in the will draws to itself the reason and judgment of the intellect, and vitiates and corrupts it: for it causes reason, on account of the appearance of a pleasurable good that presents itself, to judge that to be chosen as better, which is to be detested as worse. Moreover, this error and blindness of the wicked is manifold: first, that they prefer pleasure to reason, vice to truth, perishable goods to eternal ones. Second, that by these things they bring death and hell upon themselves. Third, that they believe man, like a beast, utterly perishes in death, and that no other life remains, because the soul of man is mortal and perishes with the body. Fourth, that the just man, namely Christ, whom from the holiness of His life, from prophecies, and from miracles they could and should have recognized as the Son of God, they hated and crucified as the castigator of their crimes. These late, in hell, acknowledge their error; whence they say in chapter V, verse 6: "Therefore we have erred from the way of truth."
Hence it is clear, first, that this blindness is grievous, not only as a punishment but also as a fault, inasmuch as it proceeds from voluntary malice, as St. Thomas teaches, II II, question XV, art. 1. Second, that the sinner properly and directly blinds and hardens himself; but God only improperly and indirectly, for God, as far as it depends on Him, 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, and therefore deprive and blind themselves of the true light: just as the sun scatters its rays everywhere, but the one who closes the window is the cause of the darkness in the house, not the sun itself: so St. Thomas, I II, question LXXIX, art. 3. This is what Christ reproaches the Jews with, John III, 19: "The light, He says, came into the world, and men loved darkness more than the light: for their works were evil." See what was said on Exodus VII, 3, where I treated at length the cause of blindness and hardening.
22. AND THEY DID NOT KNOW THE MYSTERIES OF GOD, NOR DID THEY HOPE FOR THE REWARD OF JUSTICE, NOR DID THEY JUDGE THE HONOR OF HOLY SOULS. - B
ehold here is the error and blindness of the wicked, and it is twofold: first, that "they did not know the mysteries of God;" second, which follows from the first, that "they did not hope for the reward of justice," nor for the honor "of holy souls:" the first he pursues in this place, the second in the following chapter. First therefore, the mysteries, or as the Greek has it, mysteria of God, in this place are what he proceeds to say, namely that God created man immortal and in His own likeness; but man, deceived by the envy of the devil, clung to sin and made himself mortal and miserable; and that the just, whom God permits to be killed and harassed by the wicked, He rewards with eternal glory, as the next chapter will say. In the cross therefore glory is hidden, and in death immortality; whence the Apostle, Galatians VI, 14: "Far be it from me, he says, to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ," because in it "is our salvation, life, and resurrection," as the Church sings; but the wicked are ignorant of these mysteries of the cross, and therefore they despise the cross and Christ crucified. Secondly, others understand by mysteries any holier things; others, the prophecies and oracles of God; others, sacrifices, as if to say: The wicked do not know that the just whom they have killed are God's mysteries, 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 after his fall through the incarnation and passion of Christ: for this is the greatest and highest of God's works: so Cantacuzenus. For a long discourse about Christ's birth and passion preceded, and another follows again in chapter XVIII, verse 14: for great mysteries are hidden in the passion and cross of Christ, such as Christ's resurrection and exaltation, the institution and sanctification of the Church, the consolation of the faithful, virtue, grace, glory, happiness, and every good thing, which the wicked Jews did not know.
Mystically, by mysteries you may understand the sacraments of the new law, instituted by Christ, especially the Eucharist, whose type was the manna, as will be evident in chapter XVI, verse 20: for the Eucharist is called par excellence the venerable sacrament, indeed sacraments, because it contains many and wondrous secrets 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, indeed an exhibition of the incarnation and passion of Christ, which has been discussed up to this point: for just as the other sacraments actually exhibit and confer the grace which they signify, namely ablution from sins, so also the Eucharist actually exhibits the body of Christ which it signifies; but heretics do not know and do not understand these mysteries of God, who want them to be merely bare symbols of bread, which do not contain but only represent the body of Christ; but in that case a painter's image far better represents Christ than dry and meager bread and wine. And what, I ask, would be the profound, divine, and inexplicable mystery there, which the Fathers so celebrate? For to represent one thing through another is very easy for God, indeed even for man: therefore the Church and the Fathers truly judge that this sacrament is the symbol of a reality, namely of the flesh of Christ once crucified, but present, not absent and existing in heaven: for this is a wonderful, ineffable work and sacrament worthy of God.
Hear Tertullian, book IV Against Marcion, near the end: "Taking the bread He made it His body: This is My body, by saying, that is, the figure of My body: but it would not have been a figure, unless there were a true body;" which passage I explained in John chapter VI, 19. And Theodoret, Dialogue 3, which is entitled Apathes, that is, The Impassible: "If, he says, the flesh was changed into the nature of the divinity, as the heretics (Eutychians) said, why do they partake of the antitypes of the body? For the type is superfluous when the reality is denied:" in the same way the type is superfluous, indeed false, when the reality of the real presence of the body of Christ is denied. And Hilary, cited in Gratian, On Consecration dist. 2: "The body of Christ, which is received from the altar, is a figure, as long as bread and wine are seen; but it is reality, since the body and blood of Christ are truly believed to be present within." St. Chrysostom, homily 83 on Matthew, explaining this sacrament: "He reduces us with Himself, he says, into one mass, so to speak, and not by faith alone, but in reality He makes us His body;" and St. Cyril on the passage "I am the vine": "The Savior says, John VI, 57: He who eats My flesh, remains in Me, and I in him; whence it must be considered that it is not merely by disposition, which is understood through charity, that Christ is in us, but also by natural participation." St. Ambrose, book On the Mysteries, and cited in On Consecration dist. 2: "In that sacrament is Christ, because it is the body of Christ, therefore not bodily food, but spiritual; whence the Apostle says of its type, 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 Melchizedek: "Melchizedek, he says, set forth loaves and enigmas of mysteries, prefiguring and exemplifying:" for, as St. Jerome says to Marcella: "when he offered bread and wine, he dedicated the Christian mystery in the body and blood of the Savior:" the same on Matthew XXVI: "After the typical Passover he passes to the true sacrament of the Passover, so that just as Melchizedek, the priest of the most high God, had done by offering bread and wine in its prefiguration, He too might represent the reality of His body and blood." And St. Macarius, homily 27, says: "That bread and wine are offered in the Church, the antitype (that is, representing the present, not the absent) of the flesh and blood of the Lord, and that those who partake of that which appears to be bread, spiritually eat the flesh of the Lord." The Eucharist therefore is the mystery of mysteries, because Christ, whom it sensibly represents under the species of bread as food of the soul, it spiritually, that is, insensibly, as an angel hidden under the species of bread, truly, really, and substantially exhibits.
NOR DID THEY HOPE FOR THE REWARD OF JUSTICE (
the Greek is hosiotetos, that is, of holiness: for justice is the sum of all the virtues, and holiness itself) NOR DID THEY JUDGE THE HONOR OF HOLY SOULS, - here the Greek is amomon, that is, blameless: for holy souls are those which can be reproved in nothing: for honor the Greek is geras, that is, glory, dignity, reward, honor, gift, endowment, remuneration. The sense is, as if to say: The wicked did not consider and esteem within themselves, as was fitting, how great are the honors, what crowns, what dignities, what rewards are prepared by God for holy souls, who in this life served Him in continence, purity, patience, and persecution, and consequently, judging their lot to be miserable and unhappy, they gave themselves over to pleasures and lusts, and even persecuted them, and stripped them of their goods and life; but they will experience and acknowledge their error too late, when holy souls sitting beside Christ in judgment will be their judges, and will condemn them to the punishments of eternal hell, as he will explain in chapters III, IV, and V. Otherwise Angelus de Paz explains it, in his Exposition on the Symbol ch. XXIII, namely, that by the honor of holy souls should be understood all the saints, whom the wicked, in judging and condemning Christ, tacitly judged and condemned.
23. BECAUSE GOD CREATED MAN INDESTRUCTIBLE. - T
he Greek is en aphtharsia, that is, in incorruption, meaning for incorruption, immortal, indestructible, that is, one who could not die and be destroyed from life, as long as he persisted in obedience and grace toward God; the Syriac has: without corruption, that is, incorruptible; so also the Arabic; the Complutensians translate: in integrity, that is, whole as to body and soul; or rather toward integrity, that is, toward immortality, and toward a state that would never perish. It can also be translated: God created man for incorruption, or for immortality, or toward immortality, if namely he wished to obey God; whence St. Athanasius, treatise On the Incarnation of the Word, reads: God created man for immortality and in the image of His own eternity; but through the envy of the devil it came about that death entered.
After a long digression on the persecution of the just man and of Christ, he returns to what he said in chapter I, verse 13: "Because God did not make death, etc., there is in them no remedy of destruction: but the wicked with their hands and words have summoned it," namely death: he then explained this very thing in a long digression, showing that the wicked, enticed by excessive desire for pleasure, raged against the just, especially Christ: for by this means they brought upon themselves present and eternal death; to this point therefore he now returns. He further signifies that souls do not perish with the body, as though after this life no punishment or glory remained for them according to their merits, as the wicked and atheists maintain, since God created man immortal, in this sense, that he could not die if he persisted in his righteousness; therefore that he now dies proceeded not from God, but from the envy of the devil.
AND HE MADE HIM IN THE IMAGE OF HIS OWN LIKENESS. - E
piphanius reads homoioseos, that is, of likeness, for which Cantacuzenus and Clement of Alexandria, VI Stromata, read idiotetos, that is, of his proper nature, 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 endowments, which are proper to God; whence Guarinus translates: and he made him an image of his own likeness; Vatablus: and he fashioned him after his own image; others read isotetos, that is, of equality; others, aidiotetos, that is, of eternity, as if to say: Man, made after the pattern of the immortal and eternal God, is likewise immortal and eternal; whence Nicetas on Oration 42 of Nazianzen reads: and he made him an image of his own eternity: so also read St. Epiphanius and St. Athanasius, book On the Incarnation of the Word. Some distinguish image from likeness, in that image belongs to nature, likeness to grace and holiness, so that man is in the image of God because he possesses natural intellect, will, and freedom, as God possesses them; and man is in the likeness of God because he was created in wisdom, grace, and holiness which are endowments proper to God. But more correctly St. Augustine in Deuteronomy question IV, and others judge that the likeness is the same as the image, but with added amplification, as if to say: God created man in the image of His likeness, that is, in an image very similar to Himself. This image is found incipiently in nature, but is fully perfected in grace: in nature, because the rational soul in the use of reason, will, and free choice, and also in incorruption and immortality, is similar to 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 in man is found, 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: so the Fathers commonly teach, who accordingly, against Origen, teach that this image of God in man remained and remains even after sin; but since this image was originally adorned by God, and made most similar to God through grace, wisdom, justice, and other virtues, which were lost through sin, hence from time to time St. Augustine, St. Basil, and St. Cyril say that this image, or rather the likeness of God in man, perished through sin; meaning not just any image, but the exceedingly and fully similar one: see what was said on Genesis I, 26, and chapter V, 1.
24. BUT BY THE ENVY OF THE DEVIL (L
ucifer, who tempted Eve and Adam) DEATH ENTERED INTO THE WORLD. - Here is assigned the cause of sin and of the death consequent upon it, namely the envy of the devil: for because the devil, expelled from heaven and blessed immortality on account of pride, saw that man was being substituted by God for himself and his companions on the heavenly thrones, he envied man this glory as much as he envied God, and therefore by temptation led him to eat the forbidden fruit, and cast him down into death, both of body and of soul: so St. Ambrose, book On Paradise ch. XII, and others. Therefore the devil's envy consisted in this: that having himself fallen into sin and the death of hell, and therefore envying grace, life, and glory to man, who was created to repair his fall and fill his place, he solicited and impelled him to sin, and thereby to death. The envy of the devil therefore became the malice of men; whence St. Ambrose, book On the Faith of the Resurrection, reads: the malice of men, death entered into the world; and adds: "Even if you examine it well, this death is not of nature but of malice: for nature remains, malice dies. What was rises again, and would that, as it is now free from sinning, so it were free from prior guilt, etc. For the same nature will rise, now more honored by the wages of death:" for death and the miseries of this life patiently endured by the saints merit blessed immortality and the life of everlasting glory.
Hence the Fathers call envy the diabolical sin, as St. Augustine, epistle 28, St. Gregory XXXI Moralia ch. XXXIV, Cassian, Collation XVIII, ch. XVII, and others. Moreover, some Fathers judge that the first sin of Lucifer was envy, by which he envied man the image of God: so St. Cyprian, treatise On Zeal and Envy; St. Basil, homily 11 On Envy; Tertullian, book On Patience, ch. V; Irenaeus, book IV, ch. LXXVIII. But more correctly others judge that the first sin of Lucifer was pride, by which he, being excessively pleased with himself, wished to be more than he was, and to stand out above and dominate all other creatures as a kind of god, from which envy followed: unless you say that the pride of Lucifer consisted in this, that he envied the humanity of Christ the hypostatic union with the Word, and desired it for himself: for he could not properly desire any other equality with God: so St. Bernard, sermon 17 on the Canticle; Rupert, book VIII on John, on the words: He was a murderer from the beginning; Alexander of Hales, III part, question II, number 13; and the same view is held in our time by several scholastic doctors, such as Catharinus, Viguerius, Naclantus, Ruardus, Dionysius Molina, Martinengus, and others whom Gabriel Vasquez cites, I part, question LXIII, dist. 233, ch. I, and Francis Suarez, book VII On the Angels, ch. XIII, where he strongly approves this opinion.
Caesarius of Arles, homily 23, asserts that a person is occupied by as many demons as he has vices. "Whoever is proud, he says, is full of the devil; and that whoever is envious cannot be without a demon, Scripture says, Wisdom II, 24: By the envy of the devil death entered into the world; and they imitate him who are of his party." St. Chrysostom indeed, homily 22 and 47 on Genesis, calls envy an invention of the devil, a most pernicious plague, the foulest of vices, an evil beast destroying our salvation above all things."
Whence St. Basil wisely concludes, homily On Envy: "Let us therefore flee, brethren, this intolerable evil; it is the precept of the serpent, the invention of the devil, the satisfaction of the enemy, the pledge of punishment, the impediment to piety, the road to hell, the deprivation of the kingdom of heaven: for the envious confess this vice even with their own mouth; their appearance is dry and dark, their cheek is gloomy, etc., their soul is suffused with the very disease, having no capacity for discerning truth or managing affairs." And St. Chrysostom, homily 45 to the People: "Let us, I pray, flee the plague of this vice, for of all vices this is the most pernicious, 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 entered into the world." And Nyssen above: "Envy is the chief of evils, the mother of death, the first gate of sin, the root of vices," etc. And Cyprian, book On Zeal: "What sort of evil is it, brethren, by which the angel fell, by which that lofty and illustrious sublimity could be ensnared and overthrown, by which the deceiver himself was deceived?" Finally St. Augustine, sermon 83 On the Seasons: "And therefore, he says, let us guard, brethren, against the attack of this vice, lest perhaps we be found partakers of the devil's work, and be condemned with 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 party. This evil harms somewhat even those against whom it is directed; but it afflicts more gravely and perniciously those first from whom it proceeds: for as rust consumes iron, so envy destroys and consumes that very soul in which it dwells; and as they say vipers are born by tearing and rending that maternal womb in which they were conceived, so the nature of envy consumes and destroys that very soul from which it was conceived. What sort of moth of the soul is this? What decay of thoughts in the breast? What great rust it is to be jealous of the gift of God in a man, and to turn the good things of others into wicked reproach, to make the glory of others one's own punishment, as if to apply executioners to one's own breast, to employ torturers upon one's own thoughts and senses, who tear one with internal torments?"
25. AND THEY IMITATE HIM WHO ARE OF HIS PARTY,
as if to say: First, the wicked imitate the devil as their parent, so that the death which he by his envy brought into the world, they propagate upon themselves and others by sinning and envying, when they consent to his wicked suggestions, as Adam consented; they die therefore because they follow the promptings of the devil, who is the author of death. But the just, because they follow God and the inspirations of God, are granted by Him eternal life and happiness; whence follows: "The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them." For imitate the Greek is peirazousin, that is, they test: for he who imitates, tests and experiences that thing which he wishes to imitate, says Jansenius.
Hence secondly, very aptly, with St. Basil, homily On Envy, St. Augustine, book IV On Baptism against the Donatists, ch. VIII, and Christopher a Castro, you may explain it thus: They test him, or imitate, or strive to imitate him, who are of his party; that is, the devil moved by envy brought death into the world, and destroyed our first parents, and all who follow his faction strive to imitate him by killing the children of God, just as he killed Adam, God's most beloved son; but in vain will they attempt or strive for this, because "the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them." This sense pleased the Fathers: Tertullian, book On the Good of Peace, ch. V: "For what, he says, had plunged Adam and Eve themselves into death, taught their son also to begin with murder;" Cyprian in the epistle On Zeal and Envy, when he says: "From that time envy has been raging on earth, while the one about to perish through envy obeys the master of perdition, while he imitates the devil who is jealous, as it is written, Wisdom II, 23: By the envy of the devil death entered into the world; they therefore imitate him who are of his party. Hence at last the first hatreds of the new brotherhood, hence nefarious parricides began, when unjust Cain was jealous of the just Abel; and that Esau became an enemy to his brother Jacob was jealousy; and the cause for which the brothers of Joseph sold him came from rivalry. And what provoked King Saul to hate David, if not the spur of jealousy? And not to prolong matters by reviewing each one, did not the Jews perish from this very thing, preferring to envy Christ rather than to believe in Him?" This is what Christ says to the Jews, John VIII, 44: "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you wish to do. He was a murderer from the beginning," as if to say: Just as the devil killed Adam, so you, his children, wish to kill Me.
Others translate the Greek peirazousin properly as they experience, as if to say: The wicked experience death (for thanatos, that is, death, in Greek is of the masculine gender) who are of the party and lot of the devil, who namely imitate the pride, envy, and crimes of the devil, by whom death was introduced; and thus the sense comes to almost the same thing: so Osorius, Jansenius, Vatablus. Whence the end of the chapter is aptly connected to the beginning of the next: for it follows by antithesis: "But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them."
To this Cantacuzenus adds: "For no one, he says, shares more in the malice of death than he who has made himself entirely worthy to be on its side." This author, as also others, refers the phrase 'of his party' to death: for it can be referred thus from the Greek; but it is better referred to the devil.
Both are true, for the wicked belong as much to the party and lot of the devil as to that of death: for in the kingdom of death the devil is king and rules; hence St. Bonaventure explains, as if to say: "They imitate the devil, who are of the party of death," that is, those destined for death, namely those who are the share and food of death.