Cornelius a Lapide

Wisdom V

Table of Contents

Synopsis of the Chapter

He vividly describes the true but late repentance and lamentation of the impious in hell, namely that seeing the glory of the pious whom they persecuted, and their own punishments, they will accuse the past joys of this life of vanity and transience. On the other hand, from verse 16, he describes the glory and eternal kingdom of the just, and how God on the day of judgment will fight on their behalf against the impious, and will hurl against them all the weapons and thunderbolts of His wrath.

Vulgate Text: Wisdom 5:1-24

1. Then the just will stand in great constancy against those who afflicted them, and who took away their labors. 2. Seeing this, they will be troubled with terrible fear, and will marvel at the suddenness of unexpected salvation, 3. saying within themselves, repenting, and groaning from anguish of spirit: These are they whom we once held in derision and as a byword of reproach. 4. We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honor: 5. behold how they are counted among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints. 6. Therefore we have erred from the way of truth, and the light of justice has not shone upon us, and the sun of understanding has not risen upon us. 7. We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, and we walked difficult paths, but the way of the Lord we did not know. 8. What has pride profited us? or what has the boasting of riches brought us? 9. All those things have passed away like a shadow, and like a messenger running by, 10. and like a ship that passes through the surging water: of which, when it has passed, no trace can be found, nor the path of its keel in the waves: 11. or like a bird that flies through the air, of whose passage no evidence is found, but only the sound of wings beating the light wind, and cutting the air by the force of its flight: with wings set in motion it flew across, and after this no sign of its passage is found: 12. or

like an arrow shot to its destined place, the divided air immediately closed back upon itself, so that its passage is unknown: 13. so we also, as soon as we were born, ceased to exist, and indeed we could show no sign of virtue: but we were consumed in our wickedness. 14. Such things said in hell those who sinned: 15. for the hope of the wicked is like down that is carried away by the wind: and like thin foam that is dispersed by the storm: and like smoke that is scattered by the wind: and like the memory of a guest of one day passing through. 16. But the just will live forever, and their reward is with the Lord, and the care of them is with the Most High. 17. Therefore they will receive the kingdom of glory, and the crown of beauty from the hand of the Lord: for with His right hand He will cover them, and with His holy arm He will defend them. 18. His zeal will take up armor, and He will arm creation for the vengeance of His enemies. 19. He will put on justice as a breastplate, and will take true judgment as a helmet: 20. He will take equity as an invincible shield: 21. and He will sharpen His stern wrath into a lance, and the whole world will fight with Him against the senseless. 22. The shafts of lightning will go forth straight, and as from a well-bent bow of clouds they will be shot out, and will leap to their mark. 23. And from His stony wrath, hailstones will be hurled with full force; the water of the sea will rage against them, and rivers will rush upon them harshly. 24. The spirit of power will stand against them, and like a whirlwind will divide them: and their iniquity will bring all the land to desolation, and wickedness will overthrow the thrones of the mighty.

1. THEN THE JUST WILL STAND IN GREAT CONSTANCY AGAINST THOSE WHO AFFLICTED THEM.

Then, namely on the day of judgment, when the impious will be desolated and condemned, as he said at the end of the preceding chapter. The just will stand in great constancy, that is, with immovable security and unconquerable fortitude, says Dionysius; the Greek has it in the singular, then the just man will stand (namely any just person, that is, all the just: it is a synecdoche) with much parrhesia, that is, freedom of speech, confidence, boldness, against the face of those who afflicted him, namely against the face of the impious who will then be timid and fearful, as he said in chapter IV, verse 24, and therefore will not stand upright, but trembling and bowed, that is, they will not lift their heads nor raise their necks, but as if weighed down by the burden of their crimes they will fall prostrate, according to that passage, Psalm 1:5: 'The impious will not rise in judgment;' whence St. Augustine, book II Against Gaudentius, chapter 37, to the Donatists who boasted of being just and misused this passage, responds: 'Far be it, far be it,' he says, 'that they should stand with great constancy, when they will stand with so evil a conscience.' Hence the Syriac translates, the just will stand with great confidence before those who afflicted him, namely God, of whom the preceding discourse spoke; the Arabic, then the just man will stand with great confidence against the face of those who grieved him.

fruit, about which more shortly. Furthermore, the Arabic translates, who denied the labor (the reward of the labor) of him.

Moreover, this confidence and constancy, says St. Bonaventure, will be brought to the just by the justice of their cause, the evidence prepared, Christ as their advocate, the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Virgin, the impotence of their adversaries, friendship and kinship with the Judge, the goodwill of the apostolic assessors, and familiarity with the angels who are the officials of the Judge.

Note, FIRST, the just will stand, namely as victorious soldiers and triumphers over the impious: for although in the judgment the preeminent just, such as the apostles and religious, and apostolic men, will sit with Christ judging the twelve tribes of Israel, that is, all nations, Matthew 19:28; yet the other ordinary just will stand beside Christ the Judge, both because they will be judged by Him and assigned to heaven; and because it belongs to the victors to stand, and to the vanquished to lie prostrate. 'It befits an emperor to die standing,' said the emperor Vespasian, according to Suetonius; much more does it befit the soldiers of Christ, namely the just and the blessed, to stand. Thus St. Stephen saw Christ standing at the right hand of the power of God, Acts 7:53: for the blessed in heaven stand as glorious triumphers, as I said there. Lazarus among other things lay at the table of the rich man, desiring to be filled with his crumbs, like a dog, Luke 16:21; but in heaven he will stand, and the rich man will lie prostrate.

Note, second, 'against them,' or, as the Greek has it, 'against their face,' means first the same as 'before them': the just will present their glory to be gazed upon by the impious who afflicted and killed them, so that they may see how different is the outcome and end of their life compared to that of the just, and that the just did not perish, but exchanged a miserable life for a blessed and glorious one — which will greatly torment the impious, just as the glory of Lazarus tormented the rich feaster, to which from hell he could not-

emerge, Luke 16:24. Second, properly 'against their face' signifies that on the day of judgment the saints, especially the martyrs, will rise up against the tyrants who tortured and killed them, and will accuse them before Christ and condemn them with Him; whence St. Bonaventure and the Gloss say: 'The just will accuse their persecutors, and the holy martyrs will accuse the tyrants who brought them into distress.' St. Peter and Paul therefore on the day of judgment will charge and condemn Nero for his impiety, St. Sebastian will condemn Diocletian, St. Lawrence will condemn Valerian, St. Cecilia will condemn Almachus (whence St. Valerian, the spouse of St. Cecilia, recited this entire passage of the Wise Man to Almachus and threw it in his face as a threat), St. Vincent will condemn Dacian, etc. Whence our Edmund Campion, truly a Campion, that is, a champion of Christ, when he challenged the heretical ministers in England to a disputation, armed with ten invincible arguments, concluded them thus. For addressing the Queen modestly but freely: 'There will come, Elizabeth,' he said, 'that day which will clearly show you which loved you more, the Society of Jesus or the offspring of Luther.' More bitterly the seven Maccabee brothers, tortured by the tyrant Antiochus, threatened him with the judgment of God and the torments of hell, 2 Maccabees 7:35.

Note third: For 'and who took away their labors,' the Greek has, 'who despised, reviled, frustrated their labors'; which you should understand not only of goods and possessions, but also of labors properly, as if to say: The just at the judgment will convict the impious of having despised, obscured, and hindered their saving labors, by which they were striving to advance both themselves and others to the worship of God and eternal salvation; of having made them vain and fruitless, and thus of having envied and robbed God of honor, others of example, and themselves of salvation, while they mocked and rejected the pious admonitions and conduct of the just. All of which the just will then with great freedom and fortitude cast in the face of the impious, and will say: Do you remember, O Nero, O Decius, O Diocletian, when I stood bound before your tribunal, that I foretold these things to you? But you did not believe me; now therefore believe against your will and experience both our happiness and glory, and your own unhappiness and hell. This is that day which we awaited and warned you would come, when for our passion and martyrdom a perpetual reward, but for your tyranny everlasting fires would be decreed. Were we not true prophets? See and believe, but too late, to your greater confusion and condemnation. You remember that we appealed to this day, that we appealed to this tribunal; you refused to hear our appeal, but mocked it. Christ heard and granted it; then we were the accused, you the judge; now the reverse — you are the accused, we the judges. Hear therefore our sentence, or rather Christ's sentence upon you, irrevocable but most just, and therefore dictated out of zeal for justice, not vengeance. Because you were an enemy of Christ, killed His saints, attacked the Church, over-

threw, go, impious one, go, criminal, go, accursed one, into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.

2. SEEING (Cantacuzenus adds 'him,' namely the just man) THEY WILL BE TROUBLED WITH HORRIBLE FEAR.

Seeing, namely, not the just, but the impious who afflicted the just: for from the just he passes to the impious. In Greek it is the aorist idontes, as if to say: When the impious have seen, or after they have seen such great glory and constancy of the just, they will be struck with extreme terror and anguish: for they will see that all hope for themselves and their salvation is lost and desperate; they will see that their judges are those who once were their defendants, condemned by them to a cruel death: wherefore now expecting a similar, indeed a more atrocious judgment and condemnation from them, they will be terrified to the extreme. 'There the torturer will be gazed upon by the martyrs forever, who gazed upon the martyrs in their torments for a time,' says St. Cyprian to Demetrian. Add that they will see the majesty and wrath of the Judge, the deformity of their own bodies, and the horrible forms of specters assumed by demons; whence in consternation they will say 'to the mountains and rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of Him who sits upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb,' Revelation 6:16.

AND THEY WILL MARVEL AT THE SUDDENNESS (that is, at the sudden attainment, say St. Bonaventure, Hugo, Dionysius, and the Gloss) OF UNEXPECTED SALVATION.

In Greek, they will be astonished at the paradox of salvation, that is, they will be stupefied, and as if beside themselves will be caught up in ecstasy at the paradox, that is, at the extraordinary nature of the salvation, that is, on account of the admirable and unexpected salvation and glory of the just; whom they considered lost and, at death, to have completely perished in both soul and body. For paradoxon means that which is new, admirable, unexpected, unusual, beyond the opinion of men, incredible, such as the paradoxes of Cicero and the philosophers: thus the glory of the just will come upon the impious unexpectedly, and will seem to be some kind of paradox, and as it were a miracle; wherefore it will cast upon them admiration, stupor, terror, and as it were ecstasy. Thus the brothers of Joseph, thinking him sold by them and dead, when they saw him alive and ruler of Egypt, 'could not respond, struck with overwhelming fear,' Genesis 45:3: for nothing so afflicts as a sudden change from the greatest happiness and glory to the greatest unhappiness and degradation. Again, nothing so stings the eyes of an enemy as if he sees himself falling from a height to the lowest place, while his enemy is raised from the lowest to the highest, as happened to Mordecai with Haman. Whence St. Bonaventure, Hugo, and Dionysius interpret this 'suddenness of unexpected salvation' to mean that suddenly, unexpectedly, and all at once the just attain such great salvation and glory.

this man to you;' and Festus to Paul, Acts 26:24: 'You are mad, Paul: much learning is driving you to madness;' and Paul himself, 1 Corinthians 4:10 and 13: 'We are fools for Christ, we are reviled, and we entreat: we have become as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all things even until now.' Indeed Christ Himself because of His cross was foolishness to the Gentiles and a scandal to the Jews, as he says in 1 Corinthians 1:23. And indeed the relatives of Christ, considering Him mad, wanted to bind Him. Mark 3:21. Finally, certain saints in their zeal for humility and mortification pretended to be fools, as did Simon surnamed Salus, that is, the Fool.

Worldly people therefore consider the life of the saints to be madness, because to the worldly it seems insane to subdue the flesh with fasts, to afflict it with hairshirts and disciplines, to mortify the senses, and to restrain the appetites. St. Gregory Nazianzen in his Praise of St. Gorgonia: 'O soul retaining a body almost without food, as if free from matter; or, to speak more correctly, O body imposing upon itself the necessity of dying even before death, so that the soul might attain freedom and receive no hindrance from the senses!' And shortly after: 'O tender limbs cast upon the ground and exercising themselves harshly beyond nature! O fountains of tears poured forth in tribulation, so that they might make a harvest in exultation! O nocturnal cry penetrating the clouds and reaching to God!' And St. Paulinus, letter 10 to Severus, on Melania: 'Whose refreshment was in fasting, rest in prayer, and bread in the word, clothing in rags, a bed hard on the ground in a cloak and patchwork, etc., and for a holy soul to watch in the Lord is to rest.' And St. Jerome, letter to Heliodorus: 'To dash limbs wasted by fasting upon the bare ground? But the Lord lies with you. The unkempt hair of your grimy head bristles? But Christ is your head. The infinite vastness of the desert terrifies you? But walk through paradise in your mind.' To this also pertains what Ennodius writes about Blessed Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia, in his Life: 'Such was the warlike right hand of his soul in its combats that it reduced his flesh to such a state that it afterwards needed to be helped out of necessity.' Blessed Peter Damian, sermon 39 On Saints Donatus and Hilary, martyrs: 'He spurned the breadth of a softer life (Blessed Donatus), and trampled the alluring incentives of the flesh with the rigor of abstinence; and before his tongue proclaimed through the dignity of the priestly office, his life was already effectively preaching under honest and disciplined conduct;' and shortly after: 'He plowed his land with the plowshare of discipline, so that an abundant crop might spring forth, and germinate more fruitfully as the ray of heavenly grace dawned upon it,' etc.

4. WE FOOLS ESTEEMED THEIR LIFE MADNESS, AND THEIR END WITHOUT HONOR. — Thus the officials of King Jehu say of the prophet sent to him by Elisha, 4 Kings 9:11: 'Why did this madman come

REPENTING (such was the repentance of Antiochus, 2 Maccabees 9:13, and of Esau, Hebrews 12:17, and of Judas the traitor, Matthew 27:3: for their repentance sprang from hatred and fear not of guilt, but of punishment) AND GROANING FROM ANGUISH OF SPIRIT. — Because, as Cantacuzenus says, the cause of groaning and sighing is the anguish of the spirit and difficulty of breathing: for when the heart is compressed by pain, and thereby a greater force of breath, or panting, is intercepted, which then strives to burst forth all at once, it breaks out into groaning and sighing: to this pertains that passage, Isaiah 65:14: 'You will cry out from pain of heart, and from crushing of spirit you will howl.'

THESE ARE THEY WHOM WE ONCE HELD IN DERISION AND AS A BYWORD OF REPROACH. — St. Cyprian and Lucifer read, 'in mockery, and as a likeness of reproach.' The Greek, Lucifer, and others read all these things more forcefully in the singular about any just man, in this way: this was he whom we once held in derision and as a parable of reproach, that is, as a shameful parable, as an ignominious tale, as an insulting proverb, which people use when they want to reproach or revile someone: for they will say: May you be infamous, may you be mocked, and may you be a tale, a laughingstock, and a disgrace among men, as such a one became who pretended to be just. Thus Psalm 43:15 says: 'You have made us a byword (in Greek, a parable) among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples;' and shortly before, verse 14: 'You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, a mockery and derision to those who are around us.' Thus Job complains, chapter 17:6: 'He has made me, he says, as it were a proverb of the common people, and I am an example before them;' and chapter 30, verse 9: 'Now I have become their song, and I have become a proverb to them,' a tale: similar passages are Jeremiah 48:52; Deuteronomy 28:37; Ezekiel 16:44, and elsewhere. Cantacuzenus refers all these things to Christ, of whom it is written, Revelation 1:7: 'Behold He comes with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, and those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.' But the Wise Man speaks of any just person, as I said, but especially of Christ, who is the Just One par excellence, inasmuch as He is the Holy of Holies.

5. BEHOLD HOW THEY ARE COUNTED AMONG THE CHILDREN OF GOD, AND THEIR LOT IS AMONG THE SAINTS.

The Greek does not have the word 'behold,' and the rest is in the singular, in this way: how is the just man counted, or numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints? They call them children of God, not by grace alone, but by

glory, who as heirs of Christ possess the inheritance of eternal happiness: for this is the hereditary lot, equally blessed and happy, of the saints and the blessed. How great a dignity it is to be a child of God, I showed at length in Hosea 1:10, at the end. Truly 'Your friends are exceedingly honored, O God, their sovereignty is exceedingly strengthened,' Psalm 138:17.

6. THEREFORE WE HAVE ERRED FROM THE WAY OF TRUTH, AND THE LIGHT OF JUSTICE HAS NOT SHONE UPON US, AND THE SUN OF UNDERSTANDING (so the Roman edition, but the Royal edition has 'the sun of justice'; others have simply 'the sun') HAS NOT RISEN UPON US.

Truly St. Jerome says to Laeta: 'Poisons are not given unless coated with honey; and vices do not deceive unless under the appearance and shadow of virtues.' The impious therefore here condemn themselves for a threefold error and foolishness: first, that they strayed from the way of truth, that is, of true virtue, or even of true faith, as heretics, pagans, and atheists stray from the faith; second, that the light of justice, namely the light of reason and prudence, did not shine upon them, because they spurned it, choosing to live in the darkness of pleasure and concupiscence; third, that the sun of understanding, that is, God and Christ, 'who enlightens every man coming into this world,' did not rise upon them, because they themselves closed the windows of their heart, and thus shut out His rays for understanding the things of God and salvation. Of this sun Malachi says, chapter 4, verse 2: 'And the sun of justice will rise upon you who fear My name, and healing in His wings:' where I said more on this matter. Hear St. Ambrose on Psalm 21: 'I think the sun of justice is here designated, that is, Christ the Lord, who upon us, submerged in the darkness of ignorance and the blindness of sins, poured the light of His heavenly teaching, and implanted in us the eyes of the heart which we did not have, and sent His apostles as certain rays, who might free us sinners from most foul death, and gradually, as the darkness of sins was dissolved in us, accustom us to the morning reception, so that, made perfect, we might more easily bear the heat of the sun — that is, first they would instruct us with easier precepts, to make us more capable of heavenly mysteries.' The same, sermon 16 On the Birth of Christ: 'This,' he says, 'is the new sun, who penetrates barriers, opens the underworld, searches hearts. This is the new sun, who by His Spirit gives life to the dead, repairs what is corrupt, raises up those already deceased, or who by His heat purges what is foul, burns away what is fluid, refines what is defective. He Himself, I say, is the one who in all our acts surveys all our works, and does not so much condemn crimes as correct them. This is plainly the just and wise sun, who is not, without discrimination, like this sun of the world, carried around equally for good and evil, but by a certain judgment of truth shines for the holy and sets for the sinner.'

Hear also St. Gregory, book 34 of the Moralia, chapter 12: 'All the impious on the last day of judgment, having learned of their own damnation, will say, Wisdom 5:6: We have strayed from the way of truth, and the light of justice has not shone upon us, and the sun has not risen upon us, as if they were openly saying: The ray of interior light has not shone upon us. Whence also

John says, Revelation 12:1: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet: for in the sun is understood the illumination of truth, and in the moon, which wanes by monthly diminishings, the mutability of temporal things is understood. But the holy Church, which is protected by the splendor of heavenly light, is clothed as it were with the sun; and because she despises all temporal things, she treads the moon under her feet.' This is what Isaiah says, chapter 6, verse 9, and from him Paul in Romans chapter 11, verse 8: 'God gave them a spirit of stupor; eyes, that they might not see; and ears, that they might not hear:' see what I said there.

This late and inconsolable groaning of the damned is vividly expressed by St. Cyril in his oration On the Departure of the Soul and the Second Coming: 'No human mouth,' he says, 'could declare their fear and terror; no human lips have sufficient power to describe their state and weeping: they groan continually and without cease, but there is no one to pity them; they cry aloud from the depths, but there is no one to hear; they lament, but there is no one to deliver; they cry out and weep, but there is no one to be moved. Then where is the boasting of this world? Where is vain glory? Where are the delights? Where is pleasure? Where is wantonness? Where is display? Where is rest? Where is adornment? Where is wealth? Where is nobility? Where then is delight? Where is bodily vigor? Where is that false and useless beauty of women? Where then is shameless and unbridled audacity? Where then is the elegance of clothing? Where is the impure and frivolous pleasure of sinning?' See his whole oration. St. Ephrem has similar things, who, full of the spirit of compunction, groans everywhere like a turtledove: hear him, treatise On the Various Torments of Hell: 'Then with the bitterest tears, wailing they will say: O how in negligence and torpor we spent our time! O how we were deceived! O how, hearing the divine Scripture and mocking it, we mocked ourselves! There God was speaking to us through the Scriptures, and we did not pay attention: here now we cry out, and He turns His face away from us. What will the ends of the world profit us? Where is the father who begot us, where the mother who bore us? Where are our children? Where are our friends? Where are our riches? Where are our estates and possessions? Where are the crowds? Where are the banquets? Where are the various and untimely pursuits? Where are the kings and the powerful? How can we be saved by none of them, nor indeed bring help to ourselves? But we have been utterly forsaken, both by God and by His saints.'

He then continues with their further laments: 'What shall we do? There is no longer a place for repentance, prayer and intercession avail no more. There is no longer any use for tears. No longer do the poor and beggars, who might sell us oil, appear: for all commerce has been dissolved. While we had time, and resources were available, and the very sellers of oil were crying out: Buy! — we stopped our ears and were unwilling either to hear or to buy oil; but now we seek,

On the Paths of Life. Consider, is it not difficult for the miser to traverse seas and lands to amass wealth? For the glutton to stuff his belly, so that he suffers headaches, nausea of the stomach, torpor of the limbs, raging fevers, drunkenness and a thousand diseases? For the lustful person to indulge in lust, so that he suffers venereal disease, filth, sores and tumors? For the proud, the wrathful, the envious, to be tossed about by a thousand passions of the mind, fears and pains, while he sees himself despised, his rival admired and preferred over him? Here that saying is true, Psalm 13:3: 'Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known:' for, as our Lorinus rightly says, either the intemperate are defiled with mud, or the avaricious are bruised by stones, or the ambitious are wearied by a steep ascent, or the wrathful are bloodied by thorns, or the envious are blinded by darkness, or flatterers are crushed by the crowd or by bad examples, or the slothful are held back by unevenness and roughness. On the other hand, of the way of the just it is said, Proverbs chapter 4, verse 18: 'But the path of the just, like a shining light, advances and increases until the perfect day;' and ibid. chapter 15, verse 19: 'The way of the sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, the way of the just is without stumbling.' Moreover, the impious, drunk and stupefied as it were by love, often do not feel this difficulty, or do not notice it. The cause is given by the Author of the Imperfect Work in St. Chrysostom, homily 28 on Matthew: for citing this passage of Wisdom, he adds: 'Therefore they labor much and are worn down in the world, but they do not feel the labor, for the spirit who deceives them delights them in evil: for just as those who take up the yoke of Christ are delighted by Christ in spirit, so that they do not grow weary in good works, so also those who take up the yoke of the devil are delighted and deceived by the devil, so that the impious do not depart from evil until their death. Therefore Christ says: For My yoke is sweet, and My burden is light. For even though sinners are not burdened in body, nor do they labor, yet their souls are burdened and labor, as the Prophet says of the burden of sins: For my iniquities are heaped upon my head, like a heavy burden they weigh upon me. And again Zacharias, chapter 5:8, writes that iniquity sits upon a talent of lead.

and we do not find it. No redemption is left for us wretches, no more mercy, for we are not worthy. The judgment of God is just. No longer will we behold the ranks of the saints. No longer will we gaze upon that true light. We are bereft and separated from all.' Finally he describes their last farewell thus movingly: 'What remains to say? Farewell, all you just. Farewell, apostles, prophets, martyrs. Farewell, assembly of patriarchs. Farewell, host of monks. Farewell, beautiful and life-giving Cross. Farewell, kingdom of heaven, without any end. Farewell, heavenly Jerusalem, mother of the firstborn. Farewell, paradise of delight. Farewell also, you, our Lady, Mother of God, mother of God who loves mankind. Farewell, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, for indeed we shall never see any of you again. Then each one will depart to the place of torments prepared for him on account of his wicked deeds, where their worm does not die and the fire is not extinguished.'

7. WE WEARIED OURSELVES IN THE WAY OF INIQUITY AND DESTRUCTION. — In Greek, we were filled or satiated in the ways of iniquity, that is, we walked through wicked ways to the point of satiety, namely to the point of weariness: for satiety in walking is bodily exhaustion, just as satiety in eating is fullness of the belly; whence our translator skillfully translated, 'we wearied ourselves.' Hence the Greeks derive ponerian, that is, wickedness and iniquity, from ponos, that is, labor, and from ponein, that is, to labor, because all iniquity is full of labor and trouble; whence also in Scripture it is called labor and pain, as St. Chrysostom teaches on Psalm 130, and in homily 7 on Acts. Hence love itself is also called labor and pain, because it gives birth to it: for one does not live without pain in love, especially worldly and carnal love; whence that passage about the elders who laid snares for the chastity of Susanna, Daniel 13:10: 'Both therefore were wounded by love of her, nor did they reveal to each other their pain: for they were ashamed to reveal to each other their desire.' Love therefore is pain. To this pertains that passage of Virgil about Dido, wounded by love of Aeneas:

'She feeds the wound in her veins, and is consumed by a hidden fire.'

The same holds true in chaste and holy love; whence the bride says, Song of Songs 2:5: 'Because I languish with love.' Symmachus renders, because I am wounded by love.

BUT THE WAY OF THE LORD WE DID NOT KNOW.

This is the royal way of virtue, smooth and easy for the one who loves, which leads straight to happiness and heaven.

AND WE WALKED DIFFICULT PATHS. — In Greek, we traversed trackless deserts (Lucifer, defending St. Athanasius, reads 'wildernesses'), that is, we passed through inaccessible solitudes and impassable wastelands, beset indeed with a thousand dangers and a thousand troubles: the Syriac reads, we walked in the desert without a guide; the Arabic, we walked paths that could not be walked, or in inextricable wastelands. Thus they call the way of iniquity, pleasure, and concupiscence, both because it is most difficult to traverse; and because it is deserted by God and all good; and because through it there is no way to happiness; and because it leads to eternal desolation. See St. Gregory Nazianzen, treatise

8. WHAT HAS PRIDE PROFITED US (indeed how much has it harmed us)? OR WHAT HAS THE BOASTING OF RICHES BROUGHT US?

nothing but a thousand cares, sicknesses of the mind, crimes, gnawing pangs of conscience, and punishments of body and mind both present and eternal; St. Cyprian and Augustine read, the boasting of riches; Lucifer, riches with exultation; the Greek, what have riches with boasting brought? For riches without boasting contribute much to virtue, namely to almsgiving, through which the rich purchase heaven for themselves; but the boasting or vaunting of wealth does not profit but harms, because it excites pride, wrath, envy, etc., which lead straight

to the underworld. For 'boasting' the Greek has alazoneia, that is, pride, haughtiness, insolence, ostentation, arrogance: all these things riches produce, unless they are governed by virtue; whence we see many such wealthy people. The Syriac reads, what benefit did haughtiness bring, or what benefit did the dwelling of our pride bring us? The Arabic, and what did riches with magnificence bring us?

9. ALL THOSE THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY LIKE A SHADOW (whose analogies with life I reviewed in Ecclesiastes chapter 7:1 and chapter 8:13), AND LIKE A MESSAGE RUNNING BY.

So reads the Roman edition, and this is what the Greek aggelia signifies: therefore less correctly others read, 'a running messenger.' This is not understood in the masculine, as if it meant the same as a man announcing, or a courier, but in the neuter, so that it means the same as 'a message,' for in Greek it is aggelia, that is, an announcement, a message, a rumor, a report; for a message, when it is delivered, endures only so long as it is carried from the mouth of the speaker to the ears of the hearer. Rumors are often false, and whether true or false, they quickly pass and vanish like a dream. When I was at Louvain, every day through the city marvelous but fictitious rumors were spread, and moved many people, but immediately vanished. An investigation was made into the authors, and two were discovered who were spreading abroad in the morning what they had dreamed at night. Such are all the riches and pleasures of this life. Each person sees this clearly at death; whence recently Philip III, the pious King of Spain, on his deathbed said: 'Being a king profits nothing, except that in death it torments one to have been.'

Note FIRST, the impious here, convicted by the evidence of reality and by their own loss and damage, seriously but too late acknowledge the vanity of their riches, honors, and pleasures, namely that they quickly depart and vanish, leaving no trace of themselves; whence they compare them to the most fleeting of things, namely first to a shadow; second to a rumor; third to a ship plowing the water; fourth to a bird flying through the air; fifth to an arrow shot forth. What is more empty than a shadow? What is more vain than a rumor? What is more fleeting than a ship? What is swifter than a flying bird? What is faster and more rapid than the flight of an arrow?

Note second, that here there is a mimesis, or imitation, not so much of the words as of the sentiments of the impious, for the Wise Man imitates and reports not so much their actual words or words to be spoken, as their very feelings: for nothing compels us to say that the impious, lamenting on the day of judgment, will use all of these same similes; it suffices that they use these or similar ones, just as St. Gregory Nazianzen did, oration 10: 'Of this sort,' he says, 'is our life, brothers, we who lead a fleeting life; of this sort is the play on earth, that when we do not exist, we are born; when we have been born, we are dissolved again. We are a dream that does not last, a phantom that cannot be grasped, the flight of a passing bird, a ship having no trace in the sea, dust, vapor, morning dew, a flower born in its season and withering in its season. Man's days are like grass, like a flower of the field so shall he bloom. Beautifully did St. David with these

words philosophize about our weakness, just as also in those: Declare to me the fewness of my days. Indeed he defines human days as the measure of a palm's breadth: for what might someone say about Jeremiah? who in chapter 20 is angry even at his mother for having brought him into the light, grieving, and this on account of the sins of others.'

10. AND LIKE A SHIP THAT PASSES THROUGH THE SURGING WATER: OF WHICH, WHEN IT HAS PASSED, NO TRACE CAN BE FOUND, NOR THE PATH OF ITS KEEL IN THE WAVES.

For 'keel' the Greek has poreias, that is, 'of the voyage' (some incorrectly read tribon, that is, 'of the paths') or entry, or passage through the waves; for the waves immediately cover this as soon as the ship has passed; but corrected copies have tropios instead of poreias, that is, 'keel,' as our translator rendered it. The keel is properly the lowest part of the ship, its bottom and as it were its belly, which enters and plows the water, leaving no path behind, or rather, not wearing a road. The words 'surging' and 'waves' mark the dangers of the ship and its sailors, so that now they seem to be lifted up to heaven by the waves, now plunged into the abyss, according to that passage, Psalm 106:26: 'They mount up to the heavens and descend to the depths: their soul was wasting away in distress;' and that passage of Ovid:

'We are lifted to the sky, now we skim the lowest waves.'

Far greater are the dangers of this life, especially the pleasurable life of the impious.

Fittingly are pleasure and life compared to a ship and navigation, on account of the equal brevity, transience, dangers, and shipwrecks of both: for a ship is a chariot of the sea, in which many are drowned. Well known is the story of Jonah swimming and sailing in the belly of the whale, and sighing to God, chapter 2, verse 6: 'The waters surrounded me,' he says, 'even to my soul, the abyss enclosed me, the sea covered my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains, the bars of the earth shut me in forever.' Hence Sodalis in Stobaeus, sermon 121: 'Death,' he says, 'is the harbor of all mortals.' Hence also the tombs of the ancients were near the sea and harbors: whence Ajax and Cato were buried there, according to Plutarch in their Lives, and Mattathias with his Maccabee sons, as is clear from 1 Maccabees 13:29. Hence that passage of Propertius, book III, elegy 5:

'Alas, curved ships, weave causes of death: The earth was not enough, we have added the waves to fate.'

And that passage of Alexis in Stobaeus, sermon 59: 'Whoever sails the sea,' he says, 'either is mad, or is a beggar, or wishes to die: of these three it cannot happen that at least one is not true;' with which Pliny agrees, book 2, chapter 47, saying: 'Nor does the fury of storms confine the sea; pirates first compelled men to rush at the risk of death into death, etc., now avarice compels the same.' Stobaeus adds from Sophocles:

'Those who sail the sea are plainly wretched men, To whom neither a deity nor any decree has ever Granted the favor of being an instrument of riches; But they are like diving cormorants. Often from ships gazing at the sea We sit facing the shores, while those still from afar Are washed by waves, and a small piece of wood holds back death.'

Pliny adds in the Preface of book 19: 'So many sails are sailed with, so many ways of provoking death.'

So also the body of Adam near, or beside the waters, Genesis 2:7, 'the Lord God formed:' hear St. Gregory, book 6, letter 26: 'Our life is like that of one sailing; the one who sails stands, sits, lies down, goes, because he is carried by the impulse of the ship: so also are we, who whether waking or sleeping, whether silent or speaking, through each moment of time daily tend toward the end.'

11. OR LIKE A BIRD THAT FLIES THROUGH THE AIR, OF WHOSE PASSAGE NO EVIDENCE IS FOUND, BUT ONLY THE SOUND OF WINGS BEATING THE LIGHT WIND, AND CUTTING THE AIR BY THE FORCE OF ITS FLIGHT: WITH WINGS SET IN MOTION IT FLEW ACROSS, AND AFTER THIS NO SIGN OF ITS PASSAGE IS FOUND. — The Greek, instead of 'but only the sound,' more clearly has: but the stroke, or blow disturbing the beaten light air, and with wings moved cut by the force of the whirring, passed through, and after this no sign of its passage was found in it. Many manuscripts with the Vatican have plegen in the dative case, which is translated as 'by a stroke or blow,' so that the bird is the subject of the verb 'passed through'; but, as it reads in the Complutensian and Royal editions, in the nominative plege, 'stroke' or 'blow': the Vulgate correctly explained the sense: likewise for mastiga, that is, 'blow,' he translated 'sound,' because a bird striking the air with its wings excites a sound in flying. It is a metonymy: 'Cutting the air by the force of its flight,' that is, cutting by force, or violence, the air which it cleaves in making its way, or cutting the air by the force which it exerts in traveling, namely in flying. Likewise

therefore all the joys of this world pass away immediately, indeed they fly past, like a bird flying through the air.

12. OR LIKE AN ARROW SHOT TO ITS DESTINED PLACE (in Greek, to the target which is set up for archers to hit), THE DIVIDED AIR IMMEDIATELY CLOSED BACK UPON ITSELF, SO THAT ITS PASSAGE IS UNKNOWN. — The word 'arrow shot' is not in the nominative but in the ablative case, as is clear from the Greek. Our translator seems to have read anekleisthe, that is, 'was closed again': for the air, when it returns to itself, is as it were closed, united, and comes together; but now they read anelythe, that is, 'was resolved,' for the air divided by the arrow is compressed and condensed, and after the arrow passes is loosened, relaxed, and returns to itself as if released. The meaning is, as if to say: Just as after an arrow has been shot at its destined target, immediately the air divided by it rolls back and returns to itself, so that its trajectory or passage is unknown: so exactly our life, when it reaches the goal of death, leaves behind no trace of itself, but all things return to themselves, and wealth passes to heirs, houses are inhabited by others, fields and vineyards are cultivated by others, just as if their master who has now died had never possessed them, but had only passed through them most swiftly like an arrow, or rather had flown past them. Again, just as the air divided by an arrow immediately after it comes back together: so when a factious man who divides and cuts the commonwealth into schisms is removed, it immediately comes together, is reconciled, and grows calm. St. Gregory, book 16 of the Moralia, chapter 5, with almost the same similes represents the vanity of temporal things: 'The car-

Moreover, St. Gregory Nazianzen rightly teaches the method of sailing through this life, oration 3 On Peace: 'Do not imitate,' he says, 'merchants, who by loading the ship too heavily with goods would sooner burst its belly and sink the ship in the water than capture profit from their insatiable greed, and while seeking small gains suffer the gravest losses; therefore one must take care lest hearts be weighed down,' etc., as Luke 21:34 warns. And the martyr St. Chrysogonus, writing to St. Anastasia, who had been cast into chains by the grace of Christ, says: 'We all sailed the same sea, and our bodies plow its waves like ships, which souls govern just as helmsmen do; but of these vessels, some are so strong, so well built, that they very easily cut through the waves by the force of the sea, and pass through the midst of the waves without damage to their desired port; others are so fragile that they are everywhere in danger of their safety. Rejoice therefore, Anastasia: for although your navigation is not carried on without the greatest storms and dangers, shortly and happily the course of your voyage will end, and you will arrive at the desired port, to enjoy Christ with the palm of martyrdom.' See Blessed Peter Chrysologus, sermon 8 On Fasting, and St. Chrysostom's oration On Philogonius, and St. Maximus, homily 2 On St. Eusebius.

Moreover, Pliny, book 32, chapter 4, says: 'Although it is incredible to say, some report that ships travel more slowly when carrying the right foot of a tortoise;' but this seems fabulous and superstitious, if you take it literally; yet it is true if you understand it tropologically: for the foot of the tortoise is the affect of sloth, slow and lazy, which by its inertia greatly delays and retards the ship and its navigation to the port of happiness. Therefore it is clear that human life is most similar to navigation, both from the structure of the human body examined as a whole and in its individual parts; and first from the place where it was built by God, for almost all other generations follow this pattern; second from the variety of things of which it consists; third from the blasts of winds by which it is moved; fourth from the spine, head, tongue, navel, and other such things, which have a singular analogy with the keel, stern, rudder, and anchor. A ship is usually constructed and assembled at the bays and banks of waters, into the nearest of which it can easily be launched when completed; but in such a way that machines are needed, as for ships that have been hauled up onto the shore because of a break in navigation, and are descending into the sea when winter has passed — naming the whole from the part, the Lyric Poet sings thus, Odes, book 4:

'Harsh winter is dissolved by the welcome change of spring and the West Wind, The machines haul the dry keels.'

nal glory,' he says, 'while it shines, falls; while it exalts itself, it is terminated by a sudden end that cuts it short. Thus smoke rises to the clouds, but suddenly is dispersed to nothing by its own swelling. Thus fog, thickening from the lowest places, lifts itself up, but the rising ray of the sun wipes it away as if it had never been. Thus the moisture of nocturnal dew is sprinkled on the surface of plants, but is quickly dried by the sudden heat of daylight. Thus the foamy bubbles of water, stirred up from the depths as rains begin, emerge in competition, but the more quickly they burst and perish, the faster they expand when inflated. And when they swell to appear, by swelling they hasten not to endure.'

Note here a gradation: for first the impious compare the transience of their pleasures to a shadow, which flees, but slowly and gradually; for it follows its body at an even pace. Second, to a message, which is faster than a shadow, for messages are carried by runners. Whence Virgil depicts a message or fame thus, Aeneid book 4, verse 174:

'Fame, an evil than which nothing is swifter, Thrives on motion and gains strength as it goes; Small at first from fear, soon it lifts itself into the breezes, Walks on the ground and hides its head among the clouds. The parent earth, provoked by the wrath of the gods, Bore her as a last sister, so they say, to Coeus and Enceladus, Swift of foot and with rapid wings.'

Third, they compare it to a ship, which driven by the winds is faster than a runner and a message: for a ship is like a chariot of the sea, winged and driven by the winds, according to that passage of Tibullus:

'She herself made a chariot flying on the light stream.'

Fourth, to a bird, which by its flight surpasses the speed of both ship and runner. Fifth, to an arrow, which is the swiftest of all, for it is carried with the greatest force. Job uses a similar gradation in chapter 9, verses 25 and 26: 'My days,' he says, 'were swifter than a runner, they fled and did not see good: they passed by like ships carrying fruit (which sail faster than others, lest the fruit spoil), like an eagle flying to its food.' Therefore, on deeper reflection, there is no arrow that so swiftly leaps from the bow to its target; no bird that flies across so quickly; no ship that, driven by the north wind, so swiftly races through the sea; no shadow so suddenly appearing and disappearing; no wind so rapidly flowing across the earth; no thunderbolt so swiftly falling from the heavens to the earth, as swiftly we are snatched from birth to death, from life to death, from the cradle to the tomb; nor do we enter the world more for living than for dying — equal is the progress of life and death; by being born we die, we are dust, and soon to return to dust. Whoever therefore you are as a mortal, and condemned to death, think constantly about death and prepare yourself for death. Time therefore, swifter than all swift things, is what our life and all its pleasure runs through, both because time is the measure of the motion of the first mover, which is the swiftest;

for any star of the eighth heaven, or the firmament, placed on the equinoctial, covers in each hour 43 million miles; far more distance is covered by the ninth heaven, and more by the tenth, and much more by the eleventh, if there is one: for some modern mathematicians assert that they have discovered more than ten heavens; think therefore how swift time is: see what was said at Genesis 1:14; also because of time nothing is present except now, that is, an instant or moment of time, for past time does not exist but has existed, future time does not exist but will exist; but the now endures through only a single instant, wherefore it exists in an instant and ceases to exist in an instant; in an instant therefore, that is, most swiftly, it passes and flies away: whence there follows:

13. SO WE ALSO, AS SOON AS WE WERE BORN, CEASED TO EXIST (Vatablus: we failed): AND INDEED WE COULD SHOW NO SIGN OF VIRTUE: BUT WE WERE CONSUMED IN OUR WICKEDNESS. — The word 'immediately' is not in the Greek, but is understood, as is clear from what has already been said and from the similes adduced: for the motion of a shadow, a message, a ship, a bird, and an arrow continuously pass and cease; therefore our life also, which is most similar to them, continuously passes and ceases. 'We die daily,' says Seneca, letter 24, 'for each day some part of life is taken away; and even when we are growing, life is diminishing. We lost infancy, then childhood, then adolescence; up to yesterday, whatever time has passed has perished; this very day which we are living we share with death. Just as it is not the last drop that empties a water clock, but all that flowed before: so the last hour, in which we cease to exist, does not alone cause death, but alone completes it. Then we arrive at it, but we have long been coming:

'Death does not come as one; but the last that seizes is death.'

Hence St. Augustine, book 13 of the City of God, chapters 10 and 11, teaches that our life is nothing other than a continuous course toward death.

AND INDEED WE COULD SHOW NO SIGN OF VIRTUE. (We could not, because we did not will it: for we so occupied our will with pleasures that it neither wished nor was able to devote itself to virtue, for we exhausted all its powers in the taste and sensation of pleasures: therefore we could produce no act of full and perfect virtue, especially eminent and heroic virtue, and above all of divine grace and charity, although we may have produced some acts of human virtue, such as almsgiving; but) IN OUR WICKEDNESS (in Greek, en kakia, that is, in malice) (that is, first, on account of our malice; second, by our own fault we fell into ruin; third, with all our cunning and prudence we did not know how to take counsel for ourselves; but) WE WERE CONSUMED

in Greek, katedapanethemen, that is, we were exhausted in expense and outlay, as if to say: Every expense, every expenditure, every price, every outlay of both time and wealth and

their down, which flutters through the air and is driven by the lightest wind, especially in autumn, when it is blown away by a gentle breeze. Foam is made from the waves of the sea or river dashing against each other, similar to the saying, 'man is a bubble'; whence it signifies a man puffed up and swollen with riches, strength, knowledge, and honor, whose inflation and pride is dispersed like foam by a light storm of adversity. Smoke rises from fire, and signifies ambition or the impulse of anger, which like smoke the higher it rises, the more quickly it vanishes, according to that passage, Psalm 72:18: 'You cast them down while they were being lifted up;' and that passage, Psalm 36:20: 'The failing shall fail like smoke.' The memory of a guest of one day passing through: it ends with the day itself: so also our life ends with its own days, and indeed with its last day. We are therefore guests here, pilgrims and strangers of one day, just as all our fathers were.

In a similar manner and pattern the Fathers compare the pleasures of this life to winds, the sea, storms, and dreams on account of their similar inconstancy and transience. Hear Gregory Nazianzen, oration On Loving the Poor: 'Nothing in human affairs is stable by nature, nothing equable, nothing sufficient, nothing remaining in the same state; but all things are turned about as by a kind of wheel, bringing diverse changes often in single days, even in hours; so that in unstable winds, in the tracks of a ship cutting the sea, in the deceptive dreams of night — whose charm is brief — and in things which children shape in play in the sand, more trust should be placed than in the present prosperity of men. Wherefore they act wisely who, because they do not trust in present things, take counsel for themselves for the future; and because of the unstable condition of human happiness, embrace benevolence and mercy, which never fail.' Hear St. Basil, most intimate with Nazianzen, at the beginning of Proverbs: 'Just as the sea cannot remain in the same state for long; but what you see tranquil, shortly after you will see disturbed by the force of the winds; and what is rough and seething and swollen with waves, you will soon see settled in great calm: so are human affairs easily turned in either direction.' Hear also Origen, homily 5 on Psalm 56: 'If you sail, placed in a ship you see lands, and headlands, and mountains passing by, not because they are continually moving, but because you, with the wind blowing favorably, pass by, and they seem to recede and be carried away: so also in this world, if with the Holy Spirit blowing upon and inspiring your mind, you sail on a favorable and prosperous course, you will pass beyond in your perception all these things that are seen, because they are temporal, and gazing upon those things that are eternal, you will undoubtedly say: Because all these things that are seen, already are not, because they will not be in the future either.'

14. SUCH THINGS SAID IN HELL THOSE WHO SINNED.

These words do not appear in the Greek, but are understood: for from what has been said it is clear that the impious have been speaking up to this point. By 'hell' understand first, not Gehenna, but the lower place in the Valley of Josaphat, into which the impious will be cast like defendants on the day of judgment, to receive the sentence of damnation from Christ, and from there be hurled down into the hell of Gehenna: for this disputation of the impious with the pious is to take place on the day of judgment, not in Gehenna, as is clear from what has been said, although their lamentation will last in Gehenna for all eternity: so Dionysius and our own a Castro. Whence second, 'hell' here can be taken for Gehenna, so that the impious who are to be condemned on the day of judgment may be said to be in hell, because having been sentenced to hell they will shortly go to hell, so that they may seem to already have one foot in hell, even though they are not yet actually in it, nor feel its torments, whence they do not yet remember them; but when they feel those torments in it, they will continue and increase these laments with a thousand wailings. Just as therefore a criminal to be hanged for his crimes preaches from the gallows, so that by his example he may deter others from thefts and crimes: so here the impious preach from hell, and by their lamentation cry out to all that passage of Virgil, Aeneid book 6, verse 620:

'Learn justice, being warned, and not to despise the gods.'

15. FOR THE HOPE OF THE WICKED IS LIKE DOWN THAT IS CARRIED AWAY BY THE WIND: AND LIKE THIN FOAM THAT IS DISPERSED BY THE STORM: AND LIKE SMOKE THAT IS SCATTERED BY THE WIND: AND LIKE THE MEMORY OF A GUEST OF ONE DAY PASSING THROUGH.

The Wise Man confirms the words of the impious, namely that pleasures pass away immediately like a shadow, a message, a ship, a bird, and an arrow, with four other similes, namely of down, foam, smoke, and a guest. Our translator read lachne, that is, down; but now they read koniortos, that is, dust. Down is soft wool; also the first hairs of the cheeks and beard, also feathers, thistledown, fleece, which have a resemblance to wool; whence Pliny, book 25, chapter 13: The herb Senecio is so called because it is clothed, he says, as if with an old man's down and white hairs, because it goes to seed-puffs and has a down similar to the flowers of thistles: thus the hairs and tufts of herbs, grasses, and plants are called their

of health, and of strength whether of body or soul, we laid out and expended on our wicked and depraved pleasures: wherefore in these we were in every respect exhausted and consumed. O what fools we are! For if we had spent these in the service of God, as we ought, we would not have been consumed, but brought to perfection in life, grace, and glory. But now we have spent our riches, our reputation, our body, our soul, and everything that was ours, and have made them the price of our ruin: for with them as a most costly price we have purchased and procured for ourselves the torments of hell — O what stupidity, O what madness of ours, to be lamented with eternal and burning tears!

16. BUT THE JUST WILL LIVE FOREVER, AND WITH THE LORD (in Greek, 'in the Lord,' that is, 'with the Lord,' or properly, as if to say: In the vision and possession of the Lord God lies the blessedness of the just) IS THEIR REWARD, AND THE CARE OF THEM IS WITH THE MOST HIGH.

He returns to the antithesis, and teaches how much the happy lot of the just surpasses the unhappy lot of the impious; the just therefore will live forever a happy and blessed life, but the impious, even though they will live in hell, yet because they will live in perpetual torments, their life should rather be called death than life. 'With the Lord is their reward,' namely decreed and stored up for their labor and patience, so that He may bestow it upon them after death. Again, 'with the Lord,' as if to say: Not man, but God will bestow this reward upon the just, namely a divine, heavenly, immense, perpetual reward, indeed Himself, according to that passage to Abraham, Genesis 15:1: 'I am your protector, and your reward exceedingly great.' The word 'reward' proves that the just merit eternal glory by good works: for reward is the correlative of merit; the reward of merit is reward, and conversely the merit of reward is merit: to this pertains that saying of Christ, Revelation 22:12: 'My reward is with Me, to render to each according to his works.'

AND THE CARE OF THEM IS WITH THE MOST HIGH.

In Greek, phrontisma, that is, thought, care, which can be taken both actively and passively: actively, as if to say: God is the reward of the just, because they direct all their thoughts and cares toward God: for they think of nothing else than how they may please Him more, and love and worship Him more. Again, the just do not think about, nor care for, nor are anxious about themselves, but cast all their anxiety upon God, as St. Peter says, for they know that they are God's care, and say with the Psalmist, Psalm 22:1: 'The Lord rules me (in Hebrew, the Lord is my shepherd, who feeds and rules me like His own sheep) and (therefore) I shall want for nothing: in a place of pasture He has placed me.' So say St. Bonaventure, Hugo, Dionysius, and Holcot.

Passively, as if to say: 'The thought of them,' namely of the just, that is, the concern and care for the just, is with the Most High: for not a king, not a pontiff, but God Himself cares for the affairs of the just, and thinks about how to adorn them with grace and glory, and how to guard and protect them against all enemies and all evils, and to bestow upon them a fitting, indeed a superabundant reward for their labors and afflictions: so Cantacuzenus, Osorius, Lyranus, and others. This sense better corresponds to what preceded: 'And with the Lord is their reward;' yet both senses are connected, for God thinks about the just and cares for them, because the just have renounced all their own thoughts, hopes, and cares, and cast them upon God, according to that saying of Christ to St. Catherine of Siena: 'Daughter, think constantly about Me, and I will think about you.' It marks the security and perpetuity of the reward of the just, because God has taken it into His thought and care, according to that saying of Christ, John 10:27: 'My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them from My hand.' He explains this reward when He adds: 'Therefore they will receive the kingdom of glory and the crown of beauty from the hand of the Lord.' And He explains the thought or care of the Most High for them when He adds: 'For with His right hand He will cover them.'

Tropologically, our Alvarez de Paz, treatise On the Nature of Contemplation, book 5, part 2, chapter 3, applies these words to perfect and contemplative men: for others who are imperfect, since they sometimes devote themselves to fruitless works, in part die morally and in part live; but of those who live a perfect life suspended in God, and direct everything they do toward Him, it is rightly said that 'they always live, and with the Lord is their reward,' because for their labors they seek nothing from the world; 'and the care of them is with the Most High,' because from that most simple and most pure contemplation of God, they are so immersed in divine things that day and night they have no desire to think of anything other than God.

17. THEREFORE THEY WILL RECEIVE THE KINGDOM OF GLORY (Vatablus, a splendid kingdom) AND THE CROWN OF BEAUTY (in Greek, kallous, that is, of beauty: wherefore some incorrectly read 'of hope' for 'of beauty') FROM THE HAND OF THE LORD: FOR WITH HIS RIGHT HAND HE WILL COVER THEM, AND WITH HIS HOLY ARM HE WILL DEFEND THEM.

The Syriac reads, therefore they will receive a glorious kingdom, and a crown of beauties from the hand of the Lord; the Arabic, therefore they will be girded with a kingdom of glory from the hand of God, and a crown of the beauty of glory, as if to say: Because the reward of the just is with the Lord, from Him they will receive a 'kingdom' — not just any kingdom, but of glory, that is, the most seemly, the most opulent, and the most adorned; and a crown of beauty, that is, the most beautiful, the most fair, the most elegant. A diadem is a royal headband and a royal emblem, namely a white band with which kings bound their heads, to which the Romans added a laurel wreath, that is, a crown woven from laurel leaves; in place of both, later as the Roman Empire declined and the Constantinopolitan flourished, there succeeded a woven crown of gold and gems, with which kings and emperors used to crown their heads, according to Curopalata, book On Officials. Diadem is a Greek word, derived from deo, that is, I bind around, I gird, I crown. Therefore there will not be a laurel band or golden crown for the blessed in heaven, but another far nobler emblem of kingship will be given to them. Therefore the diadem signifies that the just will be kings in heaven, because they will obtain the heavenly kingdom of Christ and all His glory as victors over the world, the flesh, and the devil: for a diadem is the emblem both of a king and of a victor; and the blessed are both victors and kings most glorious, for they have dominion over all heaven and all the earth. The diadem therefore here signifies the regal glory of the head and of the whole body and soul of the saints. It alludes to that passage, Isaiah 62:3: 'And you will be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a diadem of the kingdom in the hand of God.' See what was said there, and Revelation 2:10, and 4:10, and 5:10.

Moreover, St. Augustine vividly describes this kingdom and glory of the blessed, sermon 1 On the Words of the Apostle: 'What the future glory will be like, and with what riches blooming we can praise, we can expli-

cate, because we read: Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him. Who then is God Himself, who has prepared such great things? What but inestimable, ineffable, incomprehensible, beyond all, outside all, besides all? If you seek greatness, He is greater; if beauty, more beautiful; if sweetness, sweeter; if splendor, more resplendent; if justice, more just; if strength, stronger; if piety, more merciful.' In heaven therefore, as Isaiah says, chapter 60, verse 19: 'The Lord will be for you an everlasting light, and your God will be your glory;' and, as the Psalmist says, Psalm 144:11: 'They will speak of the glory of Your kingdom, etc., and of the glory of the magnificence of Your kingdom;' and Psalm 29:4: 'You have set on his head a crown of precious stone.' To this pertains that passage, Song of Songs 3:4: 'In the diadem with which his mother crowned him;' and chapter 4, verse 8: 'Come, you will be crowned.' The blessed therefore possess a kingdom of glory and beauty, that is, the most beautiful, the most opulent, the most splendid, the most peaceful, the most happy; whereas kings on earth possess a kingdom that is most troublesome, most wretched, most unhappy, in which they are tormented and burned by continual cares, troubles, and dangers.

Whence King Antigonus, seeing his son behaving arrogantly because of the kingdom: 'Do you not know, son,' he said, 'that our kingdom is a noble servitude?' The witness is Aelian, book 2 of the Miscellaneous History. Similar was the saying of Cardinal Bellarmine: 'You do not know,' he said, 'what thorns lie beneath this purple.' Wherefore Antiochus the Great, when by L. Scipio the boundaries of his empire had been pushed back beyond Mount Taurus, and he had lost Asia and the neighboring peoples, 'gave thanks to the Roman people, because he had been freed from a great share of cares through them.' How foolish therefore are those who are always striving to extend the right of ruling! For what else do they draw upon themselves but intolerable cares for the mind and immense dangers for the conscience? For the mind of one man, however vigilant, cannot be equal to so many affairs. Hadrian used to say 'that the condition of emperors is wretched, since they are not believed regarding the disposition of tyranny unless they are killed:' so says Volcatius in his Life of Avidius. The emperor Otho was accustomed to say to his people: 'You do not know, friends, what it is to govern the Roman Empire; believe me who have already experienced it, who now prefer to die rather than to rule.' Saturninus, when the soldiers urged him to take up the empire, said: 'You do not know, O soldiers, how great an evil it is to rule; swords hang over our necks as if suspended, spears are everywhere, javelins — the very guards are feared, the very companions are dreaded; food is not at one's pleasure, travel is not at one's authority, wars are not at one's judgment, arms are not at one's choosing:' so the Annals of the Empire. Finally, we see that small empires and kingdoms are more enduring than great ones: for the latter collapse under their own mass and overwhelm themselves; whence Paul Paruta in his Political Discourses assigns the reason why the Venetian Republic lasted so long, namely that it strove more to preserve its domain than to expand it.

FOR WITH HIS RIGHT HAND HE WILL COVER THEM, AND WITH HIS HOLY ARM HE WILL DEFEND THEM.

The words 'His holy' are no longer in the Greek. The word 'for' is causal, giving the reason first, why the kingdom to be given to the just by God will be glorious and beautiful, namely because God, placing them at His right hand on the day of judgment, will cover them so that no enemy or evil may assail them; indeed God will attack their enemies, namely the impious, and will strike and lay them low with all the weapons of His wrath, as follows, with the result that the just will peacefully and joyfully enjoy their kingdom of glory forever without any fear of enemies or evils, indeed they will rejoice and exult in the just vengeance upon their enemies, according to that passage, Psalm 57:11: 'The just man will rejoice when he sees the vengeance, he will wash his hands in the blood of the sinner.' Second, the word 'for' pertains to 'and the care of them is with the Most High,' and explains the cause through the effect, as if to say: The just fixed all their thoughts on God; hence God in turn received them into the thought and care of His providence. Wherefore, to show this care, with His right hand He will cover them against all assaults of enemies and adversities, just as a hen or an eagle covers its chicks with its wings, according to that passage, Deuteronomy 32:11: 'As an eagle provoking its young to fly (where the Septuagint has the same verb that is here, namely skepasei: As an eagle, they say, covers its nest) and hovering over them, He spread His wings and took him up and carried him on His shoulders.' And as the pillar of cloud overshadowing the camp of the Hebrews in the desert protected them from the heat of the sun and every injury of the air, Exodus 13, and Numbers 9.

For 'will defend,' the Greek has hyperaspiei, that is, He will strongly defend, protect, and fight for them, as with a shield placed in front; whence he adds: 'His zeal will take up armor, etc., He will take up equity as an invincible shield;' for aspis means a buckler, shield, or target; aspistes means a warrior, shield-bearer; hyperaspistes means one who covers and defends another with his shield, like a bodyguard, attendant, soldier, or champion. Thus God says to Abraham, Genesis chapter 15, verse 1: 'I am your protector,' in Greek, 'I shield you'; and David says to God, Psalm 30:5: 'For You are my protector (in Greek, hyperaspistes)'; and Psalm 83:10: 'Our protector (in Greek, hyperaspista), look upon us, O God'; and Psalm 17:3: 'My protector (in Hebrew, magen, that is, shield; Septuagint, hyperaspistes) and the horn of my salvation.' Thus throughout the Psalms David calls upon and invokes God as his magen, that is, his shield and buckler; where the Septuagint always translates hyperaspistes. But our translator translates 'protector,' as in Psalm 27:9, and 32:20, and 58:12, and 113:17, 18, 19, and 143:2, or according to others, 3.

The word 'will defend' therefore signifies God's war against the impious as not merely defensive but also offensive, as is clear from what follows. He will defend therefore, that is, He will avenge, lay low, and severely punish: thus Nebuchadnezzar 'swore that he would defend,' that is, avenge 'himself upon all these regions,' Judith 1:12: thus

the Apostle says, Romans 12:19: 'Not defending ourselves,' that is, not avenging ourselves: see what was said there.

18. HIS ZEAL WILL TAKE UP ARMOR, AND HE WILL ARM CREATION FOR THE VENGEANCE OF HIS ENEMIES.

He declares how God, splendidly armed, will be on the day of judgment the defender and shield-bearer of the just: for provoked by the sharp offense of the impious and the injury inflicted by them on the just, He will arm Himself with the zeal of vengeance and will put on every kind of weapon, indeed He will incite and spur all creation to exact vengeance upon the impious. In Greek it reads, He will take up as full armor His zeal; Vatablus, for all armor He will bring forth His indignation: for this will serve Him in place of every kind of weapon, and with the same He will arm all creatures. According to this reading the panoply, or full armor of God, is His very zeal, that is, His indignation and desire for just vengeance upon them: for this is the same as justice, certain judgment, and equity, in which all God's panoply consists, as follows; and this very thing spurs God's mind and power, so that He devises every kind of torment and powerfully pours them out upon the impious, according to that passage, Proverbs 6:34: 'The zeal and fury of a man will not spare on the day of vengeance;' and that passage, Psalm 34:2: 'Take up arms and shield, and rise up to help me. Draw forth the sword,' etc.; and that passage, Psalm 7:13: 'He has brandished His sword, He has bent His bow, and has made it ready.'

But more correctly our translator reads zelos in the nominative instead of zelon in the accusative: for the zeal of justice and of just vengeance to be taken on the impious for the sake of the pious is not the panoply of God, but excites God to put on the panoply and arm Himself with it to take vengeance on the impious: for the panoply of God is described in what follows, when he says: 'He will put on justice as a breastplate,' etc., as if to say: God will put on justice instead of an iron breastplate, or coat of mail; certain judgment instead of a helmet; equity instead of a shield; wrath instead of a lance; shafts of lightning instead of a bow; hurling of hailstones instead of a catapult. Moreover, 'zeal' denotes the highest degree of God's indignation: for there are three degrees of anger, namely anger, fury, and zeal, as I showed in Proverbs 27:4. He here describes God anthropopathically, that is, in human fashion, like a most powerful king equipped with every kind of weapon, who marches with his army to avenge himself upon his enemies, by whom he has been greatly injured.

AND HE WILL ARM CREATION. — God Himself will not go forth armed to battle, says Cantacuzenus, for that would be unworthy of God, namely that He should need weapons to rout His enemies; therefore instead of weapons He will use creatures. Inwardly therefore, that is, in His mind, God will put on the panoply of virtues that spur to vengeance, such as justice, equity, certain judgment, etc.; but outwardly He will use every kind of creature to execute this vengeance in deed. The reason is that which St. Jerome gives on Matthew chapter 8: 'All creatures,' he says, 'perceive their Creator — not by the error of the heretics who think all things are sentient, but by the majesty of the Creator, because what are insensible to us are sensible to Him.' Every created thing therefore by a natural sense perceives its Creator, and therefore by the same sense desires to avenge His injury, and would do the same by rational appetite if it had one; whence to do this, with God permitting, indeed commanding and inciting, on the day of judgment it will bring forth all its powers against the impious. Isaiah gives God a similar panoply, chapter 59, verse 17: 'He put on justice as a breastplate,' he says, 'and the helmet of salvation on His head: He put on the garment of vengeance and was covered as with a cloak of zeal.' St. Paul gives a fuller panoply to the Christian soldier, Ephesians 6:14 and following, so that armed from head to toe he may resist all the battalions of demons: namely on the head for a helmet he gives him hope; on the breast for a breastplate or coat of mail he gives him justice; on the loins for a belt or girdle he gives truth, that is, integrity; on the feet for greaves he gives eagerness to enter upon and spread the way of the gospel; in the right hand for a sword he gives him the word of God; in the left hand for a shield he assigns faith. See what was said there.

Tropologically, St. Bernard wisely says, sermon 1 for the Feast of All Saints: 'If the soul desires to reign over its members, it must be itself subject to its superior, because it will find its inferior to be such as it has shown itself to its superior: for creation is armed to avenge the injury done to its Creator; and therefore let the soul know, which finds its own flesh rebellious against it, that it too has been less subject than it ought to higher powers.'

19. HE WILL PUT ON JUSTICE AS A BREASTPLATE, AND WILL TAKE CERTAIN JUDGMENT AS A HELMET. — For 'certain' some incorrectly read 'right': for in Greek it is anypokriton, that is, sincere, not feigned, not hypocritical, lacking all pretense and dissimulation, as well as respect of persons, so that He allows Himself to be corrupted by no one's prayer or bribe, and turns aside from just judgment at no one's favor, fear, or regard. The Greek therefore reads, He will put on the breastplate of justice, and will place around Him the helmet, sincere judgment. St. Chrysostom on Psalm 44 reads, He will put on the breastplate of justice, and adds: 'He does not receive His operation from elsewhere (God), but He Himself suffices for Himself.'

The breastplate, or coat of mail, of God is rightly given as justice, by which God will justly avenge the injuries inflicted on the just by the impious, and will chastise and punish their crimes according to their deserts, so that thus its proper beauty may be restored to justice, and the justice of God and His just vengeance may be feared, worshiped, and adored by all angels and men throughout the whole world. The reason is that a breastplate covers the chest and belly; but there is the heart and the bowels, in which is the seat of compassion and mercy. Therefore, lest God be swayed by any compassion, seeing such horrible punishments inflicted on the impious, He arms His chest, heart, and bowels with the breastplate of justice, which admits no feeling of mercy and allows nothing to be decreed and done except what is just. In this life God tempers justice with mercy, whence it is said of Him, Habakkuk 3:2: 'When You are angry, You will remember mercy,' and Psalm 76:10: 'Will God forget to show mercy? Or will He withhold in His anger His mercies?' But in the future life He will rebuke the impious in fury and judgment, Psalm 6:2: for there will be judgment without mercy, James 2:13.

And fittingly for the head, in place of a helmet, certain judgment is given, that is, simple, sincere, and complete: for since the judgment of the head is easily corrupted by gifts, by favors, by friendships, by fears, by human considerations, therefore to exclude these He arms Himself with sincerity, integrity, and incorruptibility, so that in pronouncing the sentence of punishment against the impious He considers nothing but the quantity of their demerits, and justly proportions the punishment to them. For 'certain,' according to Sipontinus, comes from cerno, that is, 'I see,' and means the same as 'clear and indubitable,' so that the very truth of the matter is manifest and seems to be seen as it were before the eyes without any pretense, veil, or covering, because the things we discern are clear and indubitable and have nothing of fiction or pretense: hence 'certain' is opposed to simulation and hypocrisy, as 'certain love' is called love that is not feigned; 'certain faith' is that which is not pretended; a 'certain friend' is one who does not pretend, but truly shows himself a friend.

20. HE WILL TAKE UP EQUITY AS AN INVINCIBLE SHIELD — in Greek, hosioteta, that is, first, holiness; second, equity, right, divine law; third, religion and the observance and worship of the deity; fourth, expiation: for God on the day of judgment will purge the earth and the world, and therefore He will sweep away the impious who contaminated it with their crimes, as if sweeping filth from it, and will swallow them up as scapegoats and expiatory offerings when the earth opens, and thrust them back into the underworld, as into the lowest and foulest sewer. Holiness therefore, that is, full innocence and purity, here arms the left hand of God, as an invincible shield, so that clad in it He cannot be accused by anyone of savagery or cruelty toward the impious: for the impious and the damned will hurl curses at God out of desperation and fury like rabid dogs, and will call Him cruel, a torturer, and a tyrant, because He torments them so dreadfully; but God will receive and repel all these charges and curses with the shield of holiness: for He will show that He is moved not by passion but by holiness to this fierce vengeance upon the impious, and that He conducts the case of each one in a holy and religious manner: so much so that those who look upon this vengeance of God with the right eye of reason will clearly see that it is holy and proceeds from the holiness of a holy God. Thus the holiness of Christ in rebuking and chastising sinners, especially the scribes and Pharisees, was so great that He offered Himself and His deeds to be judged by His enemies: 'Which of you,' He said, 'will convict Me of sin?' John 8:46. Great indeed and impenetrable is the shield that is drawn from innocence and holiness of life. Less correctly Dionysius the Carthusian takes 'equity' as epieikeia, or moderation, by which God moderates the punish-

ment, and punishes the reprobate less than they deserve: for everything here breathes severity, wrath, and the fierce vengeance of God against the impious.

21. AND HE WILL SHARPEN HIS STERN WRATH INTO A LANCE — in Greek, into a romphaea, that is, into a sword, or into a lance that strikes sharply and wounds severely; wrath therefore will serve God in place of a lance and sword, with which He may strike, wound, pierce, and penetrate the impious to the bone. 'Stern wrath' means stern vengeance, a severe punishment sent by God: for the actual passion of anger does not befall God, but its effect, namely vengeance. Therefore God is said to be angry when He avenges and punishes, says St. Augustine, and He does this from a most tranquil love of justice, not from a disturbance of irascibility. Up to this point he has assigned the defensive weapons of God, namely the breastplate, helmet, and shield; now he brings forth the offensive ones, namely the lance, bow, catapult, etc. For 'stern,' as the Romans read, others read 'dire'; both are signified by the Greek apotomos. 'Dire' is said to be derived, as it were, from 'born of God's wrath,' says Festus, and Sipontinus: 'There are those,' he says, 'who think dire is derived from God,' that is, cruel, hostile, and as it were sent by the wrath of the gods. Hence that passage of Livy, book 10: 'By dire funerals he incurred the wrath of the gods.' Hence also 'dire pestilence,' 'dire grief,' 'dire fury,' 'dire battle': the Furies are also called 'dirae.' Therefore the dire wrath of God will torment the impious, so that they may seem to be devoted to curses and delivered over to the cruel torments and execrations of all the Furies, that is, of demons.

Tropologically, all these things can easily be applied to the just who generously fight against senseless and foolish vices, for whom God fights with every kind of weapon, so as to secure for them victory and triumph.

AND THE WHOLE WORLD WILL FIGHT WITH HIM AGAINST THE SENSELESS.

When 'the hostility of the elements will fight for the punishment of the guilty,' says St. Gregory, book 6 of the Moralia, chapter 6. The Syriac reads, God will make war with the world itself against despisers; the Arabic, and the world will fight with Him, and He will show the torches of lightning against the senseless. These words pertain to verse 18: and He will arm creation for the vengeance of His enemies: for he here explains that, and shows that all and each of the elements will rise up against the impious and fight against them, because the impious have abused all and each of them for the offense and injury of the Creator, and therefore then all creation will fight for Him. St. Gregory gives this reason, homily 35 on the Gospels: 'Because therefore,' he says, 'all things are to be brought to consummation, before the consummation all things are thrown into confusion; and because we have sinned in all things, we are struck in all things, that what is said may be fulfilled: And the whole world will fight for Him against the senseless. For all the things that we received for the use of life, we turned to the use of sin; but all the things that we bent to the use of depravity are turned against us for vengeance: for we turned the tranquility of human peace to the use of human security; the pilgrimage of the earthly way

we chose for the dwelling of our homeland; the health of our bodies we reduced to the use of vices; the abundance of plenty we bent not to the need of the flesh, but to the perversity of pleasure; the very serene blandishments of the air we forced to serve our love of earthly delight. Rightly therefore it remains that all things together should strike us, which all together served our vices having been badly subjected, so that as many joys as we had while safe in the world, so many torments we are compelled to feel from it afterwards.' Were not therefore the impious mad and senseless, who for a paltry pleasure, money, honor, anger, and revenge drew upon themselves such great wrath of God and all creatures? who preferred a moment to eternity, hell to heaven, the devil to God.

The Wise Man therefore here produces an army arrayed in a manifold battle line of all creatures, which God will send against the impious around the day of judgment, and this partly a little before the judgment, partly in the judgment itself, or a little after the judgment: for before the judgment all creatures will afflict the impious followers and forerunners of the Antichrist, as is clear from Revelation throughout chapter 8, and 16, and chapter 9, verse 4, where the last plagues of the world are described, most grievous ones at that, and flowing from all the elements; but at the judgment, namely as soon as it has been completed (for that it is this time that is treated here is clear from verse 1, and from the immediately preceding verses 16 and 17: for the impious will not see the glory of the just and envy it except on the day of judgment), God will thunder horribly against the impious through all creatures. Therefore once the sentence of damnation has been given by Christ against the reprobate, immediately, as is gathered from this passage, all the elements and heavens will rise up for vengeance upon them, like the lictors and ministers of Christ the Lord and their Creator, namely the heavens, fire, and air, hurling upon them fire, lightning, winds, and hail; the sea, boiling and flooding over, to overwhelm them with the earth; the earth, opening beneath their feet and gaping into hell.

Moreover, the Wise Man divides this army of creatures fighting against the impious into four squadrons, or battle lines. The first is of the heavens and angels, who will hurl thunderbolts at the reprobate. The second is of the air, which will hurl hailstones like rocks at the impious. The third, of the sea and rivers, which will submerge and overwhelm the wicked with a flood of waters. The fourth, of the earth, which will send winds, whirlwinds, and storms against them.

St. Anselm gives the a priori reason, book On Similitudes, chapter 101: 'For if a servant,' he says, 'should withdraw from his master and attach himself to his master's enemy, he would not only embitter the master himself, but would most justly provoke his entire household. Since therefore we have offended the Lord, the Creator of all things, we have moved all creation to anger against us, insofar as our desert is concerned. The earth therefore can rightly say to us: I ought not to sustain you but rather to swallow you up, since you did not fear to withdraw by sinning from my Creator and to the enemy

of his, the devil, to serve and adhere. Food and drink can also say: You did not deserve that we should feed you, but rather that we should prepare confusion and death for you: for by sinning you departed from Him through whom no bird goes hungry. The sun too: I ought not to shine upon you for salvation, but to be utterly restrained for the vengeance of my Lord, who is the light of light and the fountain of light. And so each creature in turn can rise against us with irrefutable reason.' St. Cyril gives another reason, book 2 on Isaiah, chapter 13: 'Always,' he says, 'when God is angry, the servant creation is simultaneously sharpened to anger, perpetually stirred to this by Him who commands all things. For He was angry with the Egyptians: and creation could not remain idle. For the water turned into blood, the earth swarmed with frogs, the sky sent down hail, deep darkness was spread throughout their entire region for the space of three days, as it is written. And so,' he says, 'heaven itself will be angry, and the earth will be shaken as from its foundations because of the fury of the Lord's wrath. Creation itself will also fight together against the foolish, and when the Lord is moved, it too is virtually prepared for this. For all things conspire and concur with the supreme will, and there is nothing in the nature of things that does not fall under the divine nod and counsel.'

Thus in the Passion of Christ the heavens and elements, as if indignant that their Creator was being killed, were moved and shaken; and had God not restrained them, they would have blasted the God-killing Jews with their weapons and thunderbolts; whence St. Dionysius, as he himself reports in his letter to Demophilus, seeing the miraculous eclipse of the sun, exclaimed: 'Either the God of nature suffers, or the machine of the world will be dissolved.' Thus again God, by sending ten plagues upon Pharaoh and Egypt through Moses, armed in them all creation against the Egyptians; whence St. Augustine (or whoever is the author: for many things indicate it is not St. Augustine's), book 1 On the Wonders of Scripture, chapter 9: 'The manner of these plagues,' he says, 'came together from earth, waters, animals, air, fire, clouds, heaven, and angels, so that it might be shown that the entire world was equally arming itself against those who were rebels and contumacious against God.'

22. THE SHAFTS OF LIGHTNING WILL GO FORTH STRAIGHT, AND AS FROM A WELL- (Hugo incorrectly reads habene, and explains it as if they were guided by reins) BENT BOW OF CLOUDS THEY WILL BE SHOT OUT, AND WILL LEAP TO THEIR MARK.

In Greek, straight (Vatablus, well-aimed) darts of lightning will be carried, and as from a most taut bow of clouds they will leap to their target. Straight, says a Castro, he calls those directly thrown and aimed, which do not miss. Darts, belides, are missiles or hurled javelins, which because they are sent by God, the Vulgate called 'shafts.' 'Most taut bow' he calls one drawn and violently bent, so that when released it may hurl and strike with greater force. Such darts therefore will leap upon the senseless, to destroy them, as if

His, hail, and coals of fire: and He sent His arrows, and scattered them, He multiplied lightning, and threw them into confusion;' and Job 37:5: 'God will thunder with His voice wonderfully, who does great and unsearchable things.' Our Lorinus plausibly thinks that from these thunderbolts will be kindled the fire of the conflagration, by which the whole world will burn, which will burn the reprobate then living with great torment and pain, and kill them, and soon, having been raised again and judged and condemned by Christ, will roll them into the underworld. Moreover, the speed, force, and efficacy of thunderbolts is wonderful and unsearchable, so much so that the pagans thought God thundered and sent lightning in His wrath, to avenge Himself on the impious, especially perjurers and sacrilegious persons, and consequently that what was struck by lightning was accursed and of bad omen, according to Pliny, book 14, chapter 19; Livy, book 2, decade 3; Julius Obsequens, book On Prodigies, chapters 71, 83, 87. Thus the heretical emperor Anastasius perished, struck by lightning. Hence lightning bolts are called arrows of God, Psalm 7:17, 17:15 and 119:4, and the flashing spear of God, Habakkuk 3:11. To this pertains that passage in the victory song of Deborah on account of the victory over Sisera, Judges 5:20: 'From heaven they fought against them: the stars remaining in their order and course fought against Sisera.'

at their target, and they will not miss. The Vulgate added 'they will be destroyed'; namely the darts, although that word is not read in the Greek, to signify the force of the darts that will be hurled from the bow of the clouds beyond the boundaries of the clouds against the impious.

From a well-bent bow — as if to say: Just as when an archer deeply bends his bow, so that returning with great force to its position it may hurl the arrow with great power and strike the target more forcefully: so God will vehemently bend and stretch the bow of His wrath and vengeance, to hurl the mighty arrows of lightning at the impious. He alludes to the celestial bow, or the rainbow: for this is the mother and cause of rains, and their accompanying thunder and lightning. Whence Seneca, book 1 of Natural Questions, chapter 6: 'A rainbow,' he says, 'rising from the south carries a great volume of water; if it shines near the west, it will sprinkle dew.' Pliny, book 18, chapter 35: 'Rainbows,' he says, 'when they are double, announce rain;' Virgil, Georgics 1: 'Or the great bow drinks;' Ovid, Metamorphoses 1:

'The messenger of Juno, clad in various colors, Iris gathers waters and brings nourishment to the clouds.'

Moreover, Pliny, book 2, chapters 36 and 55, says that some thunderbolts are brute and purposeless, and come by no reason of nature: mountains are struck by them, seas are struck, and all the shots are wasted; others are prophetic, coming from on high and from fixed causes and from their own stars. This distinction, however, smells more of superstition than of philosophy: for all thunderbolts have a physical cause, and those that strike mountains as well as those that strike other places or men must be referred to the influence of stars that evoke exhalations as their cause: and none of them is prophetic, if fate is taken to mean the texture and series of human events succeeding by unbending and inevitable necessity, as the Stoics thought: otherwise it is certain that thunderbolts proceed from the certain and directed, as the Wise Man says here, providence of God; see our Coimbra commentators on the Meteorology, tract. 2, chapters 5 and 6.

This is the first battle line and phalanx of God's army, forged from all creatures: the battle line, I say, of the heavens and angels, who from on high will discharge and hurl thunderclaps and lightning bolts, like booming fiery cannons, at the impious and reprobate before the day, and on the very day of judgment, by which they will drive those condemned by Christ into the underworld, just as they struck the Sodomites with the same, Genesis 19. This therefore will be the thundering legion, similar to that legion of Christians which under the Emperor Marcus Antoninus by their prayers obtained from God rain for the afflicted army, and at the same time stones and lightning hurled at the enemies, according to Eusebius, book 5 of the History, chapter 5, and Tertullian, Apology, chapter 5. The Psalmist vividly depicts this battle line of God, Psalm 17:9: 'Smoke rose in His wrath,' he says, 'and fire blazed forth from His face, coals were kindled by Him;' and verse 14: 'And the Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High gave forth His voice

AND THEY WILL LEAP TO THEIR MARK — which God has designated for the strike of His thunderbolt. Hence a thunderbolt, as if it were animate and could distinguish one person from another, strikes this one and not that one, though they are neighbors; it blasts the sword, leaving the sheath unharmed; it melts bronze, leaving the purse untouched; it kills the embryo, saving the mother; it consumes the wine, the cask remaining intact; it sucks out the egg, leaving the shell untouched. Thus the lightning bolts and plagues sent by Moses struck Pharaoh and the Egyptians while the Hebrews were unharmed, Exodus 2:26: thus on the day of judgment God's lightning will leap upon the reprobate, not upon the elect, though they be their neighbors. St. John teaches that this plague will come near the end of the world, Revelation 16:17: 'And the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a great voice came out of the temple from the throne saying: It is done. And there were lightning flashes, and voices, and thunderclaps, and there was a great earthquake, such as had never been since men were upon the earth, so great was the earthquake. And the great city was split into three parts; and the cities of the nations fell, and Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fury of His wrath. And every island fled, and mountains were not found.'

Trinius and Lipsius in the Poliorcetica. This is the second battle line of God, from the air, by which He will hurl numerous and huge hailstones, like rocks and boulders, at the reprobate, just as He hurled the same at the Egyptians, Exodus chapter 9:18 and following, and at the Canaanites, Joshua 10:11, and Ecclesiasticus 46:6. Whence St. John, Revelation 16:21, describes this hailstorm to be hurled by God at the impious near the end of the world thus: 'And great hail like a talent descended from heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of hail, because it was exceedingly great:' see what was said there. This is what Job says, chapter 38, verse 22: 'Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail: which I have prepared for the time of the enemy, for the day of battle and war?'

THE WATER OF THE SEA WILL RAGE AGAINST THEM, AND RIVERS WILL RUSH UPON THEM HARSHLY. — Some incorrectly read 'will glow white,' and explain it as if it were ejecting white foam or hissing like white-hot iron. The word 'will rage' signifies that the sea will seethe against the impious with great heat, force, and fury, will roar and overflow. This is the third battle line of God, from the sea, which will stir up terrible storms in the sea and rivers, collisions of waves, crashes of waters, swells, tempests, roarings, and floods, both to strike the impious with terror and to submerge and swallow them, of which Christ says, Luke 21:25, that there will be 'upon the earth distress of nations from the confusion of the sound of the sea and waves, men withering from fear and expectation of what will come upon the whole world;' and St. John, Revelation 8:8: 'And the second angel sounded the trumpet: and something like a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood, and a third of the creatures in the sea that had life died, and a third of the ships perished. And the third angel sounded the trumpet: and a great star fell from heaven burning like a torch, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water: and the name of the star is called Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood: and many people died from the waters, because they had become bitter.' And chapter 16, verse 3: 'And the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea: and it became blood, like that of a dead man, and every living soul died in the sea;' and verse 12: 'And the sixth angel poured out his bowl on that great river Euphrates: and its water dried up, so that the way might be prepared for the kings from the rising of the sun.'

Among the fifteen signs preceding the judgment, which St. Bonaventure, Holcot, and others cite from St. Jerome (but it is not found in his works), the first is that the sea will rise fifteen cubits above all the mountains. The same is confirmed from the Jewish tradition (on whose authority faith may rest) by Eusebius of Emesa (or rather St. Eucherius, as Baronius holds; or Faustus of Riez, as Bellarmine holds; or, as others think, St. Maximus, or Caesarius: for it is established from the homilies themselves that their author was not Greek or Syrian, as Eusebius of Emesa was, but Latin, indeed a Gaul promoted from the monastery of Lerins to the episcopate), homily 2 On the Advent: 'These things,' he says, 'seem to agree with certain things that are reported written in the annals of the Jews, in which it is narrated that the sea will be raised fifteen cubits higher than all the mountains, the waters standing still and flowing in no direction. And then it will be plunged so deep into the abyss that it can scarcely be seen by onlookers. But afterwards it will return to its place, and then perhaps that confusion of the sound of the sea and waves will occur, of which he speaks here: for so great a disturbance of the sea and waves could not happen without great confusion and noise.'

Fittingly, this fervor and fury of the sea will punish the fervor and fury of the impious, with which they burned to fulfill their concupiscences and lusts, according to that passage, Isaiah 57:20: 'But the impious are like a raging sea that cannot rest, and its waves overflow into trampling and mud.'

THE RIVERS WILL RUSH TOGETHER (in Greek synklysousin, that is, they will flood, submerge, overwhelm: whence kataklysmos means a flood and deluge, such as was the universal cataclysm in the time of Noah) HARSHLY — in Greek apotomos, that is, rigidly, fiercely, stubbornly, precipitously; whence Vatablus translates, and the rivers will rush together headlong, namely sweeping and scraping from the earth the filth of the earth, that is, the impious, who stained the earth with their crimes.

24. THE SPIRIT OF POWER WILL STAND AGAINST THEM, AND LIKE A WHIRLWIND WILL DIVIDE THEM: AND THEIR INIQUITY WILL BRING ALL THE LAND TO DESOLATION (so the Roman and Greek editions; incorrectly therefore some read 'of iniquity'), AND WICKEDNESS WILL OVERTHROW THE THRONES OF THE MIGHTY.

The spirit of power is a wind of might, that is, powerful, strong, and violent, such as a whirlwind, which drives and whirls everything in a circle, a storm, a typhoon, and a fire-whirl: which are so powerful that they uproot ships, houses, and mountains, and transfer them to another place. For 'will divide,' the Greek has eklikmesei, that is, will winnow, will toss: for just as chaff is winnowed by a fan so that only the grains of wheat remain, so God will winnow the reprobate with this wind, so that only the just may remain. For 'will bring to desolation,' the Greek has eremose, that is, will desolate, will make the land a desert and desolation. Of these winds Ecclesiasticus says, chapter 39, verse 33: 'There are spirits that have been created for vengeance, and in their fury they have confirmed their torments.' This is the fourth battle line of God, of winds and storms, raging both above the earth and below: for above the earth they will lay low men, crops, trees, fruits, etc.; below the earth they will stir up earthquakes, and indeed, as some think, on the day of judgment will wrench the whole earth from its center, to strike the impious with terror and overwhelm them. It is well known from history what great destruction earthquakes have wrought at Constantinople, in Asia, Bithynia, and other provinces: but these same will be far

greater ones will be produced around the day of judgment, to such an extent that they will shake, overthrow, and lay flat all houses, citadels, walls, cities, etc., so that they will seem to desolate the whole earth and reduce it to a wilderness or solitude, according to that passage, Nahum 1:3: 'God is in the storm and whirlwind of His ways;' and Jeremiah 23:18: 'Behold the whirlwind of the Lord's indignation will go forth, and the storm bursting forth will come upon the heads of the impious.' All these whirlwinds and storms will be brought about by angels: for they are the ministers of divine providence and vengeance.

WILL BRING ALL THE LAND TO DESOLATION (that is, to extreme solitude and desolation). — For this is what eremose means, according to that passage, Isaiah 13:9: 'Behold the day of the Lord will come, cruel, full of indignation and wrath and fury, to lay the land in solitude and to destroy its sinners from it:' therefore the interpretation of many who understand 'desolation' as hell is irrelevant, as if to say: Iniquity will lead the land, that is, the inhabitants of the land, to hell, where there will be the greatest desolation.

AND WICKEDNESS (that is, sin, not only an act of malice, as Holcot holds, but any kind: for in Greek it is kakopraxia, that is, wicked deed, sin, crime, malice, as Vatablus translates, especially fraud and deceit) WILL OVERTHROW THE THRONES OF THE MIGHTY — namely the palaces, royal citadels, splendid and magnificent cities of kings and princes. It is an epiphonema, as if to say: Sin is the bane and destruction of men and of the whole world: for it will overthrow on the day of judgment all the citadels and cities of the earth, because on account of sin the angels will destroy all these things. Moreover, the ruin and destruction of any city and kingdom, as well as of the world, is customarily brought about by God on account of two sins especially, namely injustice and the violation of religion, especially through fraud and hypocrisy: on account of both the world perished by the flood in the time of Noah, and will perish by fire around the day of judgment.

To this pertains what Eusebius of Emesa writes, homily 2 On the Advent: 'The earth too will give its signs, because earthquakes so great will occur that nearly all things made by hand will collapse, and all stones, even small ones, will be split apart; and beasts descending from the mountains will remain among men and will harm no one; men themselves too, as if mad and withering from fear, running here and there will waste away, and indeed the words of the Gospel seem to fit these things, where the Lord says, Luke 21:26: Men withering from fear and expectation of what will come upon the whole world.'