Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues the invective against idols, and begins it from the example of sailors, who foolishly invoke an idol made of wood viler than the ship, on which occasion he attributes and celebrates the invention of the ship through Noah's ark to God as its author. Then in verse 14, he assigns the beginning and origin, propagation and growth of idols. Finally in verse 23, he recounts the sacrilegious sacrifices of idolaters, indeed their murders, adulteries, thefts, and perjuries, and asserts that idolatry is the fountain of all crimes, indeed their sewer.
Vulgate Text: Wisdom 14:1-31
1. Again another, planning to sail and beginning to make a journey through fierce waves, invokes a piece of wood more fragile than the wood that carries him. 2. For the desire of gain devised it, and the craftsman fashioned it with his skill. 3. But Your providence, O Father, governs: because You have given a way even in the sea, and among the waves a most firm path, 4. showing that You are able to save from all dangers, even if someone should go to sea without skill. 5. But so that the works of Your wisdom might not be idle: for this reason men entrust their lives even to a small piece of wood, and crossing the sea by a raft have been delivered. 6. But also from the beginning when the proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world, fleeing to a raft, bequeathed to the age a seed of new birth, which was governed by Your hand. 7. For blessed is the wood through which justice is done. 8. But the idol made by hands is cursed, both itself and he who made it: because he indeed crafted it, but though it was fragile, it was called a god. 9. For equally hateful to God are the impious man and his impiety. 10. For what was made shall suffer torments together with him who made it. 11. Therefore there shall be no regard even for the idols of the nations: because the creatures of God have been made into an object of hatred, and into a temptation for the souls of men, and into a trap for the feet of the foolish. 12. For the beginning of fornication is the devising of idols: and the invention of them is the corruption of life; 13. for they did not exist from the beginning, nor will they exist forever. 14. For the vain conceit of men brought them into the world: and therefore a swift end has been devised for them. 15. For a father, grieving with bitter sorrow over a son quickly snatched from him, made an image of him: and he whom death had taken as a mere man, he now began to worship as a god, and established sacred rites and sacrifices among his servants. 16. Then as time passed, the wicked custom growing strong, this error was maintained as a law, and idols were worshipped by the command of tyrants. 17. And those whom men could not honor openly, because they lived far away, having brought from a distance the likeness of their appearance, they made a clear image of the king whom they wished to honor: so that by their zeal they might worship the absent one as if he were present. 18. And the exceptional skill of the craftsman advanced even those who did not know him to the worship of these. 19. For he, wishing to please the one who had engaged him, labored with his art to fashion the likeness to greater beauty. 20. And the multitude of men, led astray by the beauty of the work, now regarded as a god the one who shortly before had been honored as a man. 21. And this was the deception of human life: that men, serving either their grief or their kings, imposed the incommunicable name upon stones and wood. 22. And it was not enough for them to err concerning the knowledge of God, but living in a great war of ignorance, they call so many and such great evils peace. 23. For either sacrificing their own children, or performing secret sacrifices, or holding vigils full of madness, 24. they no longer keep either life or marriages pure, but one kills another through envy, or grieves him by adultery: 25. and all things are mixed together — blood, murder, theft and deceit, corruption and unfaithfulness, turmoil and perjury, tumult against the good, 26. forgetfulness of God, defilement of souls, alteration of birth, inconstancy of marriages,
disorder of adultery and shamelessness. 27. For the worship of unspeakable idols is the cause of every evil, and the beginning and the end. 28. For either while they rejoice, they are mad: or else they prophesy falsehoods, or they live unjustly, or they swiftly commit perjury. 29. For trusting in idols, which have no soul, they do not expect to be harmed when they swear falsely. 30. Both punishments therefore shall come upon them deservedly, because they thought wrongly of God by attending to idols, and they swore unjustly, despising justice with deceit. 31. For it is not the power of those by whom they swear, but the punishment of sinners that always pursues the transgression of the unjust.
1 and 2. Again another, planning to sail and beginning to make a journey through fierce waves, invokes a piece of wood more fragile than the wood that carries him. For the desire of gain devised it, and the craftsman fashioned it with his skill. — In the Greek: again one preparing himself to sail, and about to cross fierce waves, while the vessel carries him, calls upon a more rotten piece of wood. For the desire for profit indeed devised that, but the craftsman's skill constructed it: but Your providence, O Father, governs. For in the Greek there is not "his skill," but only "the craftsman's skill," which is said to have fashioned the ship, which God's providence governs on the sea. In the Latin it has "his skill," as if to say: The craftsman, that is, the carpenter, fashioned the ship by his skill. The meaning is, as if to say: See and learn here the new madness of idolaters: behold, sailors construct a ship from solid pieces of wood, skillfully joined together, so that it may withstand the savage waves, winds, and storms of the sea; but they invoke for a safe voyage an idol made of viler wood, as I showed in the preceding chapter, verses 43 and following. For the god and idol of sailors is Neptune, likewise Castor and Pollux (Acts 28:11), just as for Christians endangered at sea, not gods, but advocates before God are the Blessed Virgin, St. Paul, St. Clement, St. Nicholas, St. Elmo, St. Francis Xavier, as I said on Acts 28:11. Why then do they worship Neptune, fashioned from cheap and rotten wood? Why do they not rather invoke their own ship, properly built from strong and beautiful wood? For the desire for profit through the transport of merchandise, which is done by ship, cleverly devised it, and the craftsman, that is the carpenter, through his skill, that is his talent and art, industriously and skillfully fashioned it, and therefore made it both sturdier and more elegant than any idols. Hence Propertius, in Book III, On the Ship and the Shipwreck: Therefore you, money, are the cause of an anxious life: Through you we approach the premature path of death. Nature, lying in ambush, spread the sea beneath the greedy.
The Gentiles attribute the invention of the ship to Jason and the Argonauts, who sailed to Colchis to seize the golden fleece, as the most ancient: so Pliny, Book III, chapter 26. Tertullian, in his book On the Soldier's Crown, chapter 8, attributes it to Minerva; Clement of Alexandria, in Stromata I, to Atlas; others to Danaus, others to Neptune, others to Prometheus, who was a contemporary of Moses, as I said above from St. Augustine; others to the Phoenicians, others to the Cretans: for in different places different people could have been the authors of the same thing. But more ancient than all of these was the ark of Noah, Genesis 6. This therefore was, as far as we know, the first ship of the world; although it is likely that before it men had sailed on rafts, hollowed-out tree trunks, as the Indians still do, and in skiffs: see Pliny, Book VII, chapter 56, and Polydore Vergil, Book III, On Inventions, chapter 15. Above all others he sets forth the example of sailors, because they, on account of the continual dangers of life, are inclined to invoke the gods: for, as the Psalmist says, Psalm 107:26: "They mount up to the heavens, and go down to the depths: their soul melted away in their misery. They reeled and staggered like a drunken man, and all their wisdom was swallowed up. And they cried out to the Lord in their trouble." Hence the common saying: "He who does not know how to pray, let him sail the sea." See Jonah, chapter 1. Hence Cato, as Plutarch testifies, regretted three things: first, that in this life so uncertain and brief, even one day had passed for him without profit; second, that he had entrusted his secret to a woman; third, that he had made by ship a journey he could have made by land. Antonius in the Melissa, Part I, Sermon 17, attributes these same three wishes to Aristotle, and Stobaeus to Alexander the Great; but in place of the first they put that he had remained one day without making a will.
3 and 4. But Your providence, O Father (many add "all things," but the Roman and Greek editions delete it) governs (namely the wood, that is, the ship just mentioned): because You have given a way even in the sea, and among the waves a most firm path: showing that You are able to save from all dangers, even if someone should go to sea without skill. — For "without skill," as the Roman and Greek editions read, others erroneously read "without a raft," although the meaning comes to the same thing: for by "skill" he means the nautical art, in which rafts were the first vessels. Our author Castro restricts this providence of God to the Hebrews, whom God led with dry feet through the Red Sea, which He divided without a ship. Others more correctly apply it to the ship, about which the discussion preceded, as if to say: In vain do sailors invoke their idols, such as Neptune and the Castors: for Your providence, O Lord, who are the Father of all, governs and directs the ship amidst the waves, just as all other things; which providence is so great and so powerful that it even opened a way for the Hebrews in the Red Sea without ships, so that they might pass unharmed through its highest waters and waves along a most firm path — in Greek, asphale, that is, safe, secure — namely through the dry bed of the sea. By which miracle You showed that You can save men from all the dangers of the sea, and through it provide a passage
accessible whenever You will, even if someone should approach it without skill or raft. Hence St. Chrysostom, in Homily 11 on Genesis, marvels at God's wisdom and providence, which teaches sailors and helmsmen the time, route, and byways in the vast ocean, so that they may know in what region of the world they are, which course to take, and which byways to follow.
Morally, learn here how great and how singular is God's providence, which governs each ship and each sailor in the midst of the sea, and in the same way rules and governs each individual person, animal, plant, and other creature, and thus the whole world: for the world is like a small ship, whose helmsman is God, as Aristotle (or whoever the author is) teaches in his book On the World. St. Paulinus narrates in his epistle to Macarius a wonderful example of a certain old shipwrecked man, whose name was Valgius or Victor, who, having lost his companions and the ship's rigging, was tossed about by the waves of the sea through various regions, and was preserved by God's wonderful providence. In a similar way, in other sailors crossing the vast, dark, and stormy sea in a ship so small and frail, the singular care and providence of God shines forth: for sailors are barely three hand-breadths (by which the ship rises above the sea) distant from death. Hence Juvenal, Satire 14:
Go now, he says, and commit your soul to the winds, trusting In hewn wood, separated from death by four Fingers, or seven, if the pine be very wide,
that is, the pine from which the ship is made. And Ovid, Book II of Letters from Pontus:
For he sees death nearly as close as he sees the water.
So also Anacharsis, according to Laertius, says that sailors are separated from death by the four fingers' width of the ship's hull.
Therefore they erred, first, Epicurus, Heraclitus, and Democritus, who granted the existence of God but denied Him providence, because they thought all things happened by necessity of nature, as Lactantius testifies, Book I of On the Wrath of God, chapters 9 and 10. Second, Cicero erred, who took the same away from God, but for a different reason — namely, that he denied God knowledge of future contingent events, thinking these were incompatible with man's free will, as St. Augustine testifies, Book V of the City of God, chapter 9. Third, others erred who held that individual things depend on their own causes, not on God's providence: for God moves the first mover, and the rest are moved by it, as Aristotle says, Book XII of the Metaphysics, chapter 2, text 37. Hence Nazianzen, Oration 1 on Theology; Clement, Stromata VIII; Ambrose, Book I of On Duties, chapter 13, and others attribute this error to Aristotle: for it seemed to Aristotle unworthy of God to care for individual and even the smallest things, such as gnats, fleas, etc. Fourth, those erred who said God cares for universal and incorruptible things by Himself, but cares for particular and corruptible things through intermediate spirits or angels: which error Nyssen, Book VIII of Philosophy, chapters 3 and 4, attributes to Plato. Plato, however,
in Book X of the Laws, extensively shows that God cares for the smallest things: for the most perfect craftsman, he says (such as God is), has knowledge and care even of the smallest things in his art. These errors are reviewed and refuted by St. Chrysostom in six books, and by Salvian in eight books On Providence; St. Ambrose, Book I of On Duties, chapter 13; St. Augustine, Book V of the City of God, chapters 9 and 10; St. Thomas, Book III of Against the Gentiles, chapter 71 and following, and the Wise Man in this passage.
Moreover, the opinions of all the Fathers and of approved philosophers agree with this maxim of the Wise Man. St. Basil in Hexaemeron, Homily 7: "There is absolutely nothing," he says, "that does not fall under God's providence: there is nothing at all that is neglected by God; that ever-watchful eye examines all things, sees all things; He is present to all, and provides the means of salvation to each one." St. Jerome on Jeremiah, chapter 9: "All things," he says, "are governed by God's providence and justice;" and on Matthew 7: "If small and lowly animals do not perish without God as their author, and His providence is in all things, and those things in them that are destined to perish do not perish without God's will, you who are eternal ought not to fear that you live without God's providence." St. Ambrose, Book I of On Duties, chapter 13: "Some think," he says, "that God's providence descends only as far as the moon. And what craftsman would neglect the care of his work? Who would abandon and forsake what he himself thought should be built? If it is an injury to rule, is it not a greater injury to have made? Since not to have made something is no injustice; but not to care for what you have made is the height of cruelty. Indeed, if in God we live, move, and have our being, and they say He travels through the lands, through the expanses of the sea, and the deep heavens; why do they think His best dignity, namely providence, should be taken from Him?" St. Augustine, Book III of the Confessions, chapter 12: "O You, good Omnipotent One," he says, "who so care for each one of us, as if You cared for him alone,
He will do something excellent, says Cicero; but nothing is more excellent than the administration of the world; therefore the world was both established by God and is governed by God's administration. Hence at the end of Book I of On the Nature of the Gods: "If God is truly such," he says, "that He is not bound by any favor or any love for men, farewell to Him: since He can do nothing favorable for man." Foolishly therefore was it said by Lucretius:
He is neither won over by good deeds, nor touched by anger.
Lactantius, Book I, chapter 2: Democritus said all things are ruled by chance and fate; whose opinion is confirmed by Epicurus. But before him Protagoras, who called the gods into question, and later Diagoras, and certain others, who did not believe in the gods — whom however the other philosophers, and especially the Stoics, refuted, saying that the world could neither have been made without divine reason, nor could it stand unless it were governed by supreme reason. Euripides, in his letter to Sophocles, attributed his not perishing in a storm to God's providence. Virgil, in Aeneid VI, celebrates the Elysian fields. Phocylides says: "If you have judged wrongly, God will afterward judge you." Hippocrates decreed sacred rites to the gods of many nations and instituted various supplications. Theophrastus in the Metaphysics attributed all things to divine providence; he says God is the divine principle, through whom all things exist and endure. Ammonius, about to expound the book On Interpretation, prayed for divine provision. Aristotle, in Ethics I, says that happiness should be attributed as a gift of the gods; in Ethics V, he held that prayers should be offered so that what is simply good might also be good for those who desire it; that part of justice, which comes from the law, is to offer sacrifices. Hence shortly after, he decreed divine decrees to be superior to human ones; in Ethics X he says that the man who cultivates the mind is most beloved by God.
5. But so that the works of Your wisdom might not be idle, for this reason men entrust their lives even to a small piece of wood, and crossing the sea by a raft have been delivered. — He gives the reason why God, who could have transferred men across the waters without a ship, as He transferred the Hebrews, willed to introduce the use of ships and sailing: namely, so that island dwellers might have familiar commerce with other people. First, in the Greek there is an elegant paronomasia: so that the works of Your Wisdom might not be aoka eoka, that is, idle affairs and useless works — namely those which You created, formed, and placed in islands and overseas regions. For this reason You inspired in men the use of ships and sailing, so that the precious things on the islands, where they lie hidden as it were, might be brought to us by ships, and in turn we might convey our own goods, which the islanders lack, to them, and thus there might be mutual exchange of merchandise and goods. For this purpose and for this reason, men entrust their lives, that is their souls, to a small piece of wood, that is a vessel, hoping that under the guidance of Your providence they will sail safely and overcome the dangers of the sea. Hence through the same means, most people crossing the sea have been delivered from these perils by a raft, and are delivered daily: so Lyra, Holcot, Dionysius, and others. Second, Osorius, Jansenius, and Castro more truly and more consistently with what follows explain it of the art of sailing and building ships, in which divine wisdom most clearly shines forth, as if to say: You willed, O Lord, that this be done through navigation, so that Your works might not be idle, and men might not languish in idleness, but rather labor and apply their industry in building ships, in the science of navigation, in observing the stars, and in exploring seas, shores, islands, and overseas regions. Relevant here is that passage of Seneca in Medea, Act II: Too daring was he who first Broke through the treacherous seas on so frail a raft; And seeing his own lands behind him, Entrusted his life to the light breezes; And cutting the waters on a doubtful course, Could trust in so thin a piece of wood. Between the paths of life and death, Too slender a boundary was drawn.
Pittacus, when asked what is trustworthy, replied: the land. What is untrustworthy? The sea. Plato constantly warned that the sea must be avoided, as a teacher of wickedness. That Homeric Laodamas said nothing was more wretched than a brave man being tossed about by the sea. Anacharsis doubted whether sailors should be counted among the living or the dead, as Laertius testifies, Book I, chapter 6. Callimachus said the sea was most delightful, but only if one contemplated it from land; imitating whom Horace says:
Watch Neptune raging from afar on land.
The same may be said mystically of the world, which is a great sea having a thousand waves of temptations, tribulations, dangers, and calamities, sandbars and tides. Crossing the sea (in the Greek, klydon, that is, a storm, waves, tempest — that is, the sea surging with waves and storms) by a raft. — For "raft," in the Greek it is schedia, that is, a ship made on the spot, put together in a hasty and improvised manner, as the first ships were — which were nothing other than rafts, that is, trees, poles, or beams tied together. Cantacuzenus takes this to mean a small boat which, after a shipwreck, is hastily put together by the shipwrecked from the remaining parts of the ship, so that through it they may escape danger and swim free, as it were.
at least public ones. Hence Josephus, Book I of the Antiquities, chapter 3, calls the ark a ship: for Noah long preceded Jason, the Argonauts, Danaus, Neptune, and all the others to whom the Gentiles attribute the invention of the ship and the nautical art. Moreover, Noah is called the hope of the world, because when all others had been submerged by the waters of the flood, he alone with his sons was preserved in the ark, so that after the flood he might propagate the human race by begetting, lest it be cut off and perish. Thus Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, is called by Virgil in Aeneid XII "the second hope of Rome," and a father calls his only son "the hope and staff of his old age" (Tobit 5:23). Noah therefore "bequeathed to the age a seed of new birth" — in Greek, he left to the world sperma geneseos, that is, generative seed, or seed of generation: for his three sons were like three seeds, from which the entire progeny and posterity of mankind grew. Noah therefore was a two-faced Janus, and a parent of the new age, as well as the first inventor of the ship and the nautical art: see what was said on Genesis 6.
7. For blessed (Vatablus: happy) is the wood through which justice is done. — The Syriac: blessed is the wood from which the just man appears or is seen. The Arabic: because blessed is the beam through which justice is done. First, some according to Jansenius understand by "wood" the gallows and scaffold, by which justice is done upon the guilty: for thieves and robbers are publicly hanged on it, so that whoever sees them may restrain themselves from thefts and robberies through fear of a similar hanging — which is a great good and blessing for the commonwealth. Second, others apply these words to any ship which one rightly uses for just commerce and the benefit of the commonwealth. For the whole discourse here is about a ship. Through the ship therefore justice is done, that is, just commerce is carried on. Third and genuinely, by "wood" understand Noah's ark, as if to say: Blessed be the ark, through which the wicked giants were justly condemned, along with the whole world, and the just and pious Noah was saved. For the impious, excluded from the ark and as it were overthrown, perished in the flood, from which pious Noah escaped by means of the ark. He contrasts the wooden ark with wooden idols, because these delivered no one from the flood or any other evil, nor could they save anyone; yet the ark delivered Noah and the whole hope and seed of posterity. Let it therefore be blessed, and idols cursed, as follows. Hence St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, Sermon 8, reads: blessed is the wood that is made through justice; but cursed is the wood that is made by the hands of men, such as an idol. But the Romans rightly corrected the edition of St. Ambrose, so that it reads: blessed is the wood through which justice is done, as the Vulgate and Greek editions have. For it is clear from the words which St. Ambrose adds that he read it thus. Some add that justice was accomplished through the ark because Shem was the same as Melchizedek, who by etymology was the king of justice, and escaping from the flood was a public leader and teacher of justice. But Melchizedek was different from Shem, and much later, as is shown in Genesis 14.
Mystically, "blessed is the wood through which justice was done," and just satisfaction for the sin of Adam and the sins of the whole world, is the cross of Christ, which Noah's ark accordingly prefigured. For this cross destroyed idols and idolatry; hence it is here contrasted with them, and it conferred grace, justice, and salvation upon all who rightly believe in Christ crucified. Hence St. Chrysostom, in the oration On the Feast of the Cross, reads: bless the wood through which justice is done. St. Germanus, On the Exaltation of the Cross, reads: bless the wood through which salvation is done. Leontius, who flourished in the year of Christ 620, in the oration On the Cross of Christ: "But Solomon says, Wisdom 14:7: Blessed is the wood through which salvation is obtained." An anonymous author in Gretser, Volume II On the Cross, reads: blessed be the wood through which salvation was accomplished in the midst of the earth. So also St. Bonaventure, Holcot, Hugh, and Dionysius here understand by "wood" the cross of Christ, as do St. Augustine, Book XV of the City of God, chapter 26; Clement of Alexandria, Book VI of the Stromata, chapter 4; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 19, and many others. Christ therefore on the cross took upon Himself our curse and expiated it, and converted it into a blessing, according to Galatians 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us: because it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree: so that in the Gentiles the blessing of Abraham might come in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." See what was said there. Moreover, St. Ambrose in the passage already cited, acutely takes "justice" to mean mercy: Blessed, he says, is the wood through which justice is done, that is, mercy: for Christ exercised this on the cross when He washed us with His blood and obtained pardon for us. He adds that mercy is called justice because God, "knowing that man is exposed to corruption according to the frailty of the body, as if just, pardoned the offenses of frail and slippery nature," especially in the descendants of Adam, who did not commit the sin but only contracted it by being born from Adam: "Against him (Adam)," he says, "the sentence of just severity went forth, because he wished to know what it was not profitable to know; but for us, who are held bound by a hereditary chain, who are in this flesh which by the judgment of our forebears was already worn down and accustomed to sins, from which it could not emerge, He pardoned as if just: for He justly forgave the heir who labored under the prejudice of the author. There is therefore a just mercy." Finally, through the wood of the cross justice was done, that is, a just sacrifice for sin, which by the equality of justice, on account of the dignity of the victim offered, namely Christ crucified, the Son of God, would satisfy the offense against God and restore the honor taken from Him by sin, while Christ, dying on the cross for this purpose, exhibited infinite reverence and worship to God. For just as the offense against God made by the sin of Adam and of other men was infinite, on account of the person and immense majesty of God who is offended; so likewise the person of Christ is infinite, who offered Himself as a victim to God to satisfy this offense. Moreover, the infinite humiliation
of the Word, by which He humbled Himself descending into flesh and the cross, in order to expiate sins, equally corresponds to the infinite vileness, contempt, and injury which Adam in his pride inflicted upon God by sinning — indeed, it far surpassed it. Conversely, the idol is wood through which the greatest injustice and injury is done to God, since divinity is taken from God and ascribed to the idol; and altars, temples, religion, worship, and sacrifices owed to God alone are transferred to the idol. Blessed therefore is the wood of the cross, through which the greatest justice is done: but cursed is the wood of the idol, through which the greatest injury is done to God.
8. But the idol that is made by hands is cursed, both itself and he who made it: because he indeed crafted it, but though it was fragile, it was called a god. — St. Ambrose reads: but cursed is the wood that is made by the hands of men. In the Greek: the thing manufactured by hand (wood fashioned by the hand of the craftsman, that is, an idol) is cursed, both itself and he who made it: because the one indeed crafted it, but the other was called God, though it was corruptible. Vatablus: for happy is the wood through which justice is exercised; but the thing made by hand is unhappy, both itself and its maker. The one as the author of the work; the other because it obtained the name of God, though subject to corruption. The meaning is, as if to say: Blessed be the wood of the ark, through which the just Noah was saved, while the unjust giants were submerged in the flood; as also the wood of the cross of Christ, through which the world was justified and saved — therefore let all bless, praise, and venerate it. But cursed be the wood of the idol, along with its maker, so that all may detest and execrate both: the idol indeed as supremely injurious to God and destructive to all, since it entices them to idolatry, which is the greatest crime; the maker, because he fashioned a work so injurious to God and harmful to men. St. Thomas notes, II-II, Question 76, article 2, that properly only rational creatures are blessed or cursed, and irrational creatures only in relation to rational ones. Therefore the irrational idol is cursed insofar as it is an occasion of idolatry for rational man: and again insofar as the curse of the idol is referred to and falls upon the demon who inhabits and presides over the idol. For the demon is guilty of the curse, that is, of eternal damnation and the execration of God, angels, and men, because of his own malice, and is bound and subject to it.
Mystically, blessed is the cross, that is, the mortification of the flesh and of desire, through which justice is done, because through it the flesh is subjected to the spirit, to which it ought to be subject by justice. But cursed is the wood of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which enticed Eve and Adam to disobedience, gluttony, and the greatest injury and offense against God. Similarly cursed is the root and tree of concupiscence, which unjustly opposes reason and the spirit, so as to dominate that which it ought to serve.
9. For equally hateful to God are the impious man and his impiety. — In the Greek: for equally hated by God are the impious man and his impiety: so Vatablus. He gives the reason why the idol-maker, just as much as the idol, is hateful to God — namely, because the impious man is as hateful to God as impiety itself. The impious man is the idol-maker, who fabricated the idol as impiety, that is, as the object and cause of impious idolatry. Now impiety is hateful to God both formally and materially; but the impious man is hateful only formally — that is, insofar as he is impious, he is hateful to God, but not materially. For the impious man, insofar as he is God's creature and substance, that is, a man or an angel, is loved and cherished by God. For, as St. Jerome (or whoever the author is) beautifully says in Epistle 6 to an ailing friend, Volume IX: "God loves man as a craftsman loves his work; but He hates the evil deeds by which the work is driven to ruin and forced into collapse (which is to slide into ruin), and he who hates evil deeds cannot love the doer of evil deeds, as the most wise Solomon declared, Wisdom 14:9: Hateful to God, he says, are the impious man and his impiety." For the craftsman is such as his work, and therefore if the work is pious and pleasing to God, its craftsman will likewise be pious and pleasing to God; but if the work is impious and hateful to God, the craftsman will equally — and as the Greek has it, enisa, that is, in equal measure, equally — be impious and hateful to God. St. Cyril of Alexandria says excellently in Homily 12: "To bestow upon created things the glory of their Creator is nothing other than to reduce the Creator Himself to the rank of created things."
10. For what was made shall suffer torments together with him who made it. — In Greek, kolasthesetai, that is, it will be punished. But how can an inanimate idol suffer torments? Cantacuzenus responds first that the idol and idolatry are punished not in themselves, but in the idolater himself, when he is tormented by God in hell — just as theft and murder are punished in the thief and murderer who is hanged. Second, Lyra responds that the idol is punished when the demon who presides over it and gives responses through it is punished and burned in hell. Third, the idols of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus are tormented when Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus themselves are tortured and burn in hell: for these were the authors of idolatry and crimes for mankind. Fourth, the idol itself is punished when it is spat upon, cast down, broken, destroyed, and burned by the faithful, as the early Christians and martyrs did.
11. Therefore there shall be no regard even for the idols of the nations: because the creatures of God have been made into an object of hatred, and into a temptation for the souls of men, and into a trap for the feet of the foolish. — The Greek text here reads contrarily: therefore upon the images of the nations there shall be episkope, that is, inspection, inquisition, visitation, punishment. Vatablus: the images shall be inquired into. Our translator seems to have read the negation ou, that is, there will be no inspection or regard. But the meaning comes to the same thing, as if to say: God will not regard the dignity of the idol — namely, that it is worshipped as a divine being by idolaters — and therefore He will not spare it, but will punish it, tear it down, and burn it as vile wood consigned to the flames. Or, as if to say: In the time of Christ, when the nations from idols
will turn to the true God, then they will no longer look upon or reverence or worship idols, but will despise and break them. Then therefore no regard, no honor, no reverence will be given to idols. Therefore the interpretation of St. Bonaventure, Lyra, and Dionysius seems out of place, who explain it as if to say: God will punish the idols, that is, the demons, with eternal fires — and therefore He will no longer look upon them with mercy or spare them, because just as their guilt is unforgivable, so their punishment is unending.
Because the creatures of God have been made into an object of hatred. — In Greek, eis bdelygma, that is, into an abomination, as if to say: Gold, silver, bronze, wood — which are among the chief creatures of God and most used by men — have been turned by the impious into an abomination, since from them they fabricated abominable idols of gold, silver, bronze, and stone, to which they attributed divinity and offered divine sacrifices and honors, with the greatest injury to God and contempt for the Creator. Hence on account of these things, both the idol-makers and the idolaters incurred the hatred of God, of angels, and of right-thinking men. Therefore the Greek text has: because in the creature of God they were made into an abomination — namely, the idols themselves, as if to say: All other creatures are good and blessed by God, but only the idols among them are cursed and abominable, to God, to angels, and to men. Cantacuzenus adds: also to themselves and their own nature, because gold, silver, and wood, through the abuse of idolatry by which idols were fashioned and worshipped from them, degenerated from their proper purpose, which is to serve God their Creator and then to assist men for their salvation. The result was that they became an abomination not only to God but also to men. Hence the Syriac translates: and they made them into uncleanness. The Arabic: because contempt was wrought in the creature. Vatablus: because they were deformed into wickedness in God's handiwork. Less accurately, therefore, Lyra and Dionysius understand by "creatures" the demons, who, they say, according to their good nature are creatures of God and therefore good, but by the perversity of their own will have been made into objects of hatred, because they made themselves hateful to God, and those whom they overcome by tempting and entice to idolatry they make hateful to God. Less aptly also, Hugh understands by "creatures" the men who make or worship idols.
And into a temptation for the souls of men (in the Greek: into stumbling blocks for souls; the Syriac: into a hindrance or offense for the souls of men; the Arabic: they led astray the minds of men, since the idols, by their beauty and costly adornment, enticed the souls of the simple into superstition and idolatry), and into a trap for the feet of the foolish: — For just as foolish mice are caught by a mousetrap, when enticed by the smell of cheese they enter the open trap, but by carelessly touching the piece of wood that holds it up (which is called a "scandal" — hence the name "scandal" is transferred to any stumbling block), the trap springs shut upon them and they are caught and crushed: so likewise
lead them away and draw them toward evil and ruin — this happens not through any fault of the creatures, but through the fault of those who use them foolishly. The same author, III, Question 79, article 1, reply to 2: when it is said "into a temptation," the word "into," he says, is not used causally but consecutively: for God did not make creatures for man's harm, but this followed as a consequence of men's foolishness. Hence it adds: "And into a trap for the feet of the foolish" — who, namely, through their foolishness use creatures for something other than the purpose for which they were made.
similarly men, enticed by the beauty of idols, as well as by the sweetness of wine, of sensual pleasure, and of honors, pursue those things and intoxicate themselves with them, and thus deprive themselves of their mind, God's grace and salvation, and their present and eternal life. For "into a trap," the Greek has "into a snare." Vatablus: to ensnare the feet of the foolish. The Syriac: nets for the feet of fools. Others: into a trap or a bird-snare. He speaks properly of the appearance of gold, silver, colors, and the adornment of idols, by which enticed, simple and foolish men judged them to be gods and worshipped them as divine beings, and from there fell into fornication and every kind of crime, as is clear from the reason he adds below. Generally, however, this statement can be applied to any creature enticing anyone to anything: for thus we see that after the fall, men are enticed by gold to avarice and theft, by fine wine to drunkenness and excess, by honors to ambition and pride, by knowledge to curiosity and arrogance, by the beauty of women to lust, etc.
Hence St. Anthony, as St. Athanasius testifies, saw the whole world full of snares; and when he asked the Lord: "Who will escape them?" he heard: "Humility." This is what Job says, chapter 18, verse 8: "The impious man has cast his feet into a net, and he walks among its meshes: his foot will be held by a snare, etc., his trap is hidden in the ground, and his snare upon the path." And St. Augustine in the Soliloquies, chapter 16: "The enemy," he says, "is always awake without sleep in order to kill, and we, to guard ourselves, do not wish to wake from sleep. Behold, he has stretched before our feet infinite snares, and has filled all our paths with various traps to capture our souls. And who will escape? He has placed snares in riches, he has placed snares in poverty, he has stretched snares in food, in drink, in pleasure, in sleep and in waking; he has placed snares in word and in deed, and in every path of ours. But You, O Lord, free us from the snare of the hunters and from the harsh word, that we may confess to You saying: Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. Our soul like a sparrow has been snatched from the snare of the hunters. The snare has been broken, and we have been set free." He then adds that these snares are spread in darkness; hence, in order to see and avoid them, he asks for light from God: "And You indeed, O Lord my light, illuminate my eyes, that I may see the light and walk in Your light, and not stumble into his snares. For who will escape those many snares unless he sees them? And who will see them unless You illuminate him with Your light? For the father of darkness himself has hidden his snares in his own darkness, so that all who are in his darkness may be caught in them — who are the children of this darkness, not seeing Your light, in which whoever walks will not fear: for he who walks in the day does not stumble; but he who walks in the night stumbles, because the light is not in him." Fittingly, St. Thomas, I, Question 65, article 1, reply to 3, notes that creatures by their nature lead men to the Creator, but that from Him
12. For the beginning of fornication is the devising (in Greek, epinoia, that is, the invention) of idols, and the invention of them is the corruption of life. — He gives the reason why he said: "The creatures" — namely, the golden, silver, and wooden idols — "have been made into an object of hatred and into a temptation for the souls of men," because the idols are for them the beginning and cause of fornication and of the corruption of morals in all of life. For idolatry introduced lustful desires, drunkenness, and every flood of crimes. Hugh, Holcot, Dionysius, and others understand by "fornication" idolatry itself, for this is the mystical fornication by which the soul, abandoning God her spouse, prostrates herself in worship before idols and demons as if before adulterers. Hence idols are called Baalim, that is, husbands — but adulterous ones. Therefore the prophets everywhere call idolatry fornication or adultery, as Ezekiel, chapter 16, verse 26; Jeremiah, chapter 2, verse 16; Hosea, chapter 2, verse 5; Nahum, chapter 3, verse 4, etc. In this sense the meaning is, as if to say: The devising and fabrication of idols is a pursuit of fornication, that is, of idolatry: for to this the idols invite and entice. But this interpretation seems both foreign and thin — for who does not know that idols entice to idolatry? I would therefore prefer to take "fabrication" in its proper sense, especially since "corruption of life" is joined to it — that is, the license and corruption of all morals, which is commonly the companion of fornication, indeed its offspring and daughter. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Idols and idolatry are the beginning and cause of fornication (under which term understand all other species of lust by synecdoche), and from there it depraves and corrupts all proper and honorable morals of life. For fornication brings with it feasting, drunkenness, quarrels, fights, murders, and every troop of crimes.
The first cause is that idolatry is the supreme apostasy and departure from God, who is holiness and purity itself, and a passage to the demon, who is, as it were, impurity and depravity itself. For the demon, obstinate in evil on account of the hatred with which he pursues God and men — who are God's images and destined for the heavenly glory from which he himself has fallen — rages through envy to drag men into every wickedness, especially into lust, to which he knows man is supremely inclined by his corrupted nature. Therefore, just as God wills to be worshipped with chastity, so the demon wills to be worshipped with lust, as is evident from the rites of Priapus, Venus, etc. Hence just as we see true believers devoted to purity and chaste, so we see idolaters and heretics unchaste. Therefore when someone falls into luxury, he takes a step toward heresy. The second cause is that no one can be chaste without the special and continual help of God's grace, and grace is the companion of faith; therefore those destitute of faith are likewise without the grace of chastity, for God bestows this singular grace almost exclusively upon the faithful and holy. The third cause is that, as Ambrosiaster says on Romans chapter 1, idolaters, "worshipping God as unconcerned, and therefore as one to be disregarded, became more dull-witted and readier to commit every evil," because a great bridle on men's crimes is the fear of the Divine Power, namely the true God, lest they be punished by Him according to their deserts. Once this is removed by idolatry, idolaters loosen the reins to their desires and rush into every disgrace. For they do not fear wooden and mute idols, nor do they expect vengeance from them. This is what the Apostle says, Ephesians 4:17: "Despairing (destitute of faith and hope), they gave themselves over to shamelessness for the practice of every uncleanness." The fourth cause is that idolaters worship Jupiter, Priapus, Venus, etc., who were the most impure of men, infamous for their adulteries and lusts. Therefore they think it not only permissible but honorable to commit adultery and indulge in luxury, so as to imitate their gods. Hence that young man in the Comic poet says: "Shall I not do what Jupiter did?" as St. Augustine narrates more fully, Book II of the City of God, chapter 7.
Hence St. Athanasius, in his oration Against Idols, teaches that idolatry was instituted from the desire of those who are represented in images as full of debaucheries and outrages. For the fables, comedies, and tragedies of the poets are full of the lusts of Jupiter, Mars, Venus, etc., which they celebrate and extol as the exploits of the gods. Therefore the worshippers of idols set before themselves the most shameful life of the gods as something to imitate. St. Athanasius adds, investigating the origin of idols: "Nearly all cities teem with every kind of lust on account of the enormity of morals they see in their gods. Nor is there, among this class of gods, one you could call chaste. In ancient times, Phoenician women certainly prostituted themselves before idols, dedicating their earnings to the deities, persuaded that through prostitution they would propitiate them and that prosperity would result." The women of Babylon, Persia, Armenia, and elsewhere did the same, as I noted on Baruch 6:42. St. Athanasius continues: "Men also, renouncing their sex and no longer tolerating being male, took on the nature of women, as if by doing so they would honor and please the mother of the gods. All live in the most shameful manner and seem to have taken up a competition of depravity among themselves, and as St. Paul said: Their women exchanged the natural use." Read St. Paul, Romans 1. It is well known that the priests of Isis were the most impure. It is well known that the chaste matron Paulina was desired by Decius Mundus, and when he could not seduce her, through the priests of Isis he persuaded her that the god Anubis wished to enjoy her; and so in place of Anubis, Decius himself
substituted himself, and abused her. The story is narrated by Josephus, Book XVIII of the Antiquities, 4, and Hegesippus, Book II, chapter 4. Hence Balaam gave the Moabites this counsel for conquering the Hebrews: namely, to send beautiful maidens to the camp of the Hebrews, who would entice them to both fornication and the worship of Baal-Peor; and so it happened, as is clear from Numbers 25, as I showed there.
Symbolically, the idol is the phantasm of a beautiful maiden or harlot, which a man forms that drives him to fornication. For carnal men who cast their eyes upon the beauty of women imprint it upon themselves like an idol, which they so revolve and adore that they can think of nothing else. Therefore they commit fornication with it continually in their minds, and bodily when they can possess the woman. Hence they look up to, worship, and venerate their mistresses as if they were certain goddesses. Therefore whoever desires to remain chaste, let him close his eyes, and exclude these idols from his mind, so that he may say with holy Job, chapter 31, verse 1: "I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not even think about a maiden." Here is relevant what St. Isidore says, Book II of On the Supreme Good, chapter 39, and is cited in 32, Question 7, canon 15, Non solum: "Not only does the sin of committed fornication reign in a person, but even if he still takes delight in it and it holds his mind, sin undoubtedly reigns. Fornication of the flesh is adultery; fornication of the mind is the servitude of idols. But there is a spiritual fornication, about which the Lord says, Matthew 5:28: Everyone who looks at a woman with desire has already committed adultery with her in his heart." The same applies to any other phantasm — of anger, vengeance, gluttony, pride, avarice — which the wrathful, gluttonous, proud, or avaricious person worships like an idol, so as to fulfill it in deed and enjoy its use and pleasure. See St. Cyprian's Prologue On Cardinal Works, which beautifully discusses these idols of concupiscence.
At the end; Epiphanius, Preface to the book On Heresies and at the beginning of the Panarion; Damascenus, at the beginning of Book I on Heresies, and the rest who assign the origin of idolatry to the age following the flood — among whom the foremost is St. Cyril, Books I and III Against Julian.
Understand this of idolatry as it is known from Sacred Scripture or other histories, as St. Cyril and the rest explain themselves: for neither Scripture nor any history clearly asserts that idolatry existed before the flood. But from signs and conjectures one may very probably conclude the contrary, namely that idolatry existed before the flood, and indeed was the cause of the flood; and Tertullian expressly teaches this in his book On Idolatry. This is proved first because in Genesis 6 it says: "All flesh had corrupted its way;" and this corruption naturally leads to atheism and idolatry, just as it did after the flood.
Hence Abbot Serenus in Cassian, Conferences VIII, chapter 21, teaches that the sons of God, that is the sons of Seth, when they went in to the daughters of men, that is the daughters of Cain, gave themselves over to sorceries and superstitions, and worshipped demons. Since these are not visible, it is probable that they presented themselves in images and idols to be seen and worshipped by men, as they did among the Gentiles after the flood, and still do among the Indians. Serenus narrates similar things about Ham the son of Noah. Second, because the giants, on whose account God brought the flood, were most impure, indeed atheists and fighters against God, as the poets narrate of their Titans, who without doubt were the giants. For the giants, despising the divine power and God, and oppressing and subjecting all by their might and pride, seem to have wished to be regarded and worshipped as gods, as that Mezentius did, saying in Virgil:
My right hand is my god, and the weapon I hurl.
Moreover, the memory of God the Creator and of the creation of the world vanished from the minds of the impious early and long before the flood, as the things already said demonstrate. Add that the flood happened late, namely 1500 years after the creation of the world. Hence the Hebrews too in Bereshit Rabbah, that is the Great Genesis, on Genesis chapter 4, verse 17, report that in the time of Enosh, who was the grandson of Adam through his son Seth, the men of that age abjured faith in the one God, and then idolatry began, and therefore Enosh opposed it and began to invoke the name of the Lord with a proper and public worship — though others think otherwise.
14. The vain conceit (in the Greek it is kenodoxia, that is, emptiness, vainglory, and ambition) of men (namely of idols and idolatry) came into the world. — As if to say: Through the vanity and ambition of men, idolatry entered the world; for it is nothing other than sheer vanity and ambition, and therefore it will quickly perish and vanish. For ambitious men, desiring divine honors for themselves, brought the idol into the world. For "came," as the Roman and Greek editions have, others read "was devised"; but the meaning is the same. Hence others, reading touto in the ablative, translate: by vainglory or ambition, idols entered the world. So St. Athanasius, oration Against Idols, and Vatablus: for by the ambition of men, he says, they were introduced into the world. Although ambition was the first human cause for fashioning idols and sacrificing to them, nevertheless the envy of the devil and the hatred with which he pursues God and men, as Tertullian writes in his book On Idolatry, kindled and increased this fire. And therefore a swift end has been devised for them. — For "devised," in the Greek it is epachthe, that is, was contrived, was hastened — namely by God: so Clarius, Vatablus, and others. Hence St. Athanasius also reads: and therefore a brief consummation of them was contrived, as if to say: Just as vanity and vain ambition devised idols, so God on the contrary, to restrain this vanity and evil, immediately devised a remedy by which He would gradually wear it down and consume it — namely by calling Abraham to His worship, and in his family and nation establishing the Synagogue and the true faith and religion of the one God, which would directly oppose idolatry until He would destroy it through Christ and the Apostles. Otherwise, it is well known that idolatry lasted a long time — namely until Christ, through nearly three thousand years — unless one says that this is a prophecy about something soon to happen, if you consider the time of the author who wrote this, so that "devised" is taken prophetically for "will be devised," as if to say: Soon the end of idolatry will be found and will arrive, for the coming of the Messiah is at hand, who will abolish it. For this book seems to have been written around the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus and the Seventy translators, two hundred years before Christ, who overthrew the idols. Moreover, Peter Nannius, reading dia to instead of dia touto, translates and explains it thus, as if to say: On account of the brevity of human life, idols, that is, images of the dead, were devised — so that they might compensate for the brevity of their loved ones' lives with the longevity of their memory through images and idols. But almost all manuscripts have dia touto, not dia to.
15. For a father, grieving with bitter sorrow over a son quickly snatched from him, made an image of him: and he whom death had taken as a mere man, he now began to worship as a god, and established sacred rites and sacrifices among his servants. — By "sacred rites" understand feasts, temples, altars, incense, and other sacred modes and rites of worship: so Dionysius. For "bitter" the Greek has aoro: and aoron means that which in fruits is untimely, and therefore bitter, being unripe, not yet ripened by the heat of the sun, but still sour. It is transferred to the misfortunes and evils of life, and to a person's swift death, as is clear from chapter 10, verse 7. The grief is therefore called bitter or untimely because the son was mourned as one snatched away before his time. "Sacred rites" — in Greek, mysteries and sacrifices, that is, ceremonies, rites, and whatever pertains to worship — he prepared, and established sacrifices. Hence the Arabic translates: because the father groaned with infinite groaning over his sorrow, on account of the sudden taking away of his son; immediately he made an image of him, and a permanent figure of the man whom they originally venerated as God. More obscurely, the Syriac: for the sacrifice of sorrow the father took up with trembling of living beings, and his son shall be taken away, because he made a form for a man — then he died, and he made him now a likeness of God. And he gave to those under his authority the mysteries of ministry.
He proves that idols did not always exist, but are a very recent human invention, from the fact that they were devised by parents to soothe the grief conceived from the premature death of sons or loved ones — namely, to preserve their memory as some consolation, they made images of them and worshipped them along with their household as if they were idols. For the love of parents for their children is blind and senseless, so that they are not satisfied with the sight, worship, and praise of their children until they attribute divine honors to them. O great calamity of the human race! He transferred the signs of love into incentives to sin, and what first served charity he made serve so great an injury to God. He therefore committed a threefold crime, imprudently and sacrilegiously. First, he preserved the image of his son as an idol to soothe his grief, when by doing so he rather increased it: for as the memory of his son returned through the image, the father's grief over his death was renewed, and as often as he looked at it, each time it pierced his heart as with the thrust of a knife. He clearly did not know that the only medicine for sorrows and miseries is forgetfulness. Second, through his love and honor for his son he excluded the love and honor of God, and set up an idol for his son as a rival of God, to His supreme injury, and willed it to be worshipped by his household with sacred rites and sacrifices. Third, he became for posterity the cause of idolatry and of all the crimes that arise from it. Therefore Olympias playfully rebuked her son Alexander the Great when he boasted of being born from Jupiter: "For when he," says Gellius, Book XIII, chapter 4, "had written to his mother: King Alexander, son of Jupiter Ammon, sends greetings to his mother Olympias, she wrote back to him in this sense: I beg you, my son, be quiet, and do not denounce me or accuse me before Juno. She will surely give me great trouble when you confess in your letters that I am her rival. This courtesy of a wise and prudent woman toward her fierce son seems to have gently and kindly warned him to lay aside the vain opinion which he had imbibed from his great victories, the flatteries of admirers, and incredibly prosperous events — that he had been begotten by Jupiter."
This is a weighty and obscure question about the origin of idols and idolatry — by whom, when, and how they began. Calvin, Book I of the Institutes, chapter 11, section 8, contends from this passage that this book is not canonical and accuses the author of falsehood, because, he says, Rachel is read to have stolen the idols of her father, Genesis 31:19, which however were not images of the dead; and this happened before the custom of consecrating images of the dead had prevailed. But Calvin must prove both points, for both are false: the first, because Rachel's idols are called in Hebrew tera-
phim, which are images of a man or representing a man, as is clear from 1 Samuel 19:13, where Michal, in place of her husband David, who was being sought by Saul's servants to be killed, put in the bed a teraphim, that is an image of a man and therefore resembling David, in order to deceive them with the likeness of a human body. The latter point is also false, because long before Rachel, Ninus, the first king of the Assyrians, in whose 43rd year of reign Abraham was born — the grandfather of Jacob, whose wife was Rachel — Ninus, I say, set up an image and idol for his father Belus after his death, to be worshipped, as I shall show shortly. Moreover, St. Athanasius refutes Calvin, in his book Against Idols, where he quotes and approves this opinion of the Wise Man about the origin of idols in express words, as do all the other doctors and interpreters, and the whole Church, which received this book as canonical and dictated by the Holy Spirit, and defined it as such in the Council of Trent, Session IV.
For the resolution of the question, I presume that idolatry could exist without idols, and indeed did exist before idols — namely when gods were worshipped without images, or with only temples and empty buildings, as Tertullian expressly teaches at the beginning of his book On Idolatry, and Plutarch in the Life of Numa teaches that by his precept, for 170 years from the founding of the city, no image, neither painted nor fashioned, was seen in the temples of Rome. Dionysius of Halicarnassus says the same, adding that Tarquinius Priscus taught the Romans to set up images for the gods. Varro also holds this, as cited by Augustine, Book IV of the City of God, chapter 31. I say first: idolatry seems to have begun immediately after the flood, but not idols. This is proved first because Nimrod, son of Cush, son of Ham, son of Noah, Genesis 10, by proud tyranny urged the people to defect from God to himself: so Josephus, Book IV of the Antiquities, and St. Augustine, Book XVI of the City of God, chapter 4, and others generally agree that he was the author and overseer of building the Tower of Babel against God. Hence he and his followers were punished by God, when, as St. Augustine says, Book XVI of the City of God, chapter 11, Heber alone with his family, as God's people, retained the original language, namely Hebrew, as well as faith and piety; but Nimrod with the rest who followed him was stripped of both. Hugh of St. Victor on Genesis chapter 10 adds that Nimrod led men to idolatry, to worship fire as God — an error the Chaldeans later followed. Hence Abraham is said to have been delivered from Ur, that is, from the fire of the Chaldeans, 2 Esdras 9:7. Second, because Ham, son of Noah, a most wicked man, was the author of the magical art (for magicians worship the demon): so Cassian, Conferences VIII, 21, and Berosus Annianus and others; Berosus teaches that he was thence called Zoroaster, and that the Egyptians followed his pernicious doctrines and made him one of their gods under the name of the younger Saturn. Reason supports this, for we see that the worst morals, such as Ham's and his descendants', nearly always degenerate into infidelity, heresy, or atheism.
I say second, Ninus, the first king of the Assyrians, was likewise the first to set up, by the public authority of a king, around the three hundredth year after the flood, the famous idol of his father Belus after his death — who was either Nimrod or his successor — and he made it a sanctuary for criminals. So St. Ambrose on the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 1; St. Cyril, Book III Against Julian, not far before the end; St. Jerome on Hosea, chapter 2; Eusebius in his Chronicle; and others generally. Hence ancient idols were called Bel, Baal, Baalim, Belial, Baal-Peor, Beelzebub, and many such names. Bel or Baal means "lord" in Hebrew, just as we call God "Lord" by way of eminence: see what was said on Genesis 10:10. Therefore, what the Greeks claim — as St. Cyril testifies in his book Against Julian — that their king Cecrops was the first to fashion an image, naming it Jupiter, the chief of gods, setting up altars for it and sacrificing an ox — this is either false, or must be understood as the first in Greece. Likewise, what St. Jerome in the Preface to the Epistle to Titus, and Didymus in his Exegesis, assert — that idolatry began with Melissus, king of the Cretans — and Diodorus and Eusebius say it began with the Phrygians, and Lactantius, Book II of On False Religion, with the Canaanites, because their founder Canaan, cursed by his grandfather Noah, was the first to fall from the worship of the true God to images — these claims, I say, are either false or must be understood as meaning that they were the first authors of idolatry only in their own regions and provinces. Thus the Atlanteans, a people of Africa, falsely boasted that the god Ouranos, that is, heaven, had first reigned among them. And Sanchuniation of Berytus, in Eusebius, Book I of the Preparation, equally falsely claims for the Phoenicians the origin of theology and religion. Hence it is equally clear that the Hebrews are wrong who, according to Isidore, Book VIII of the Etymologies, chapter 11, report that the first maker of an idol was Ishmael, and indeed that the idol's name was Ishmael.
I say third, before this famous and universal idol of Ninus, there were other private, and indeed public, idols; but not so universal as that of Ninus. This is clear, for Ninus was a contemporary of Abraham — Abraham was born in the 43rd year of Ninus: so Eusebius, St. Jerome, Augustine, Cyril, Bede, and Isidore. That there were idols before Abraham is clear, because his father Terah and the rest of the Chaldeans were idolaters, as the common tradition of the Hebrews has it, and as is evident from Joshua 24:2. Again, Epiphanius, at the beginning of Book I of On Heresies, and from him and Philo, Suidas, under the entry "Serug," teaches that idolatry in the worship of images or pictures began with Serug, who was the grandfather of Terah and seventh from Noah. From Serug, therefore, the idolatry of images seems to have begun, but not yet of statues.
I say fourth, the cause and beginning of idols was the making of images of the deceased. For they made idols so that the memory of sons, ancestors, kings, inventors of arts, benefactors, and friends might be preserved. Such deceased persons therefore were considered gods, since they were worshipped as if received into heaven, and in their place demons on earth substituted themselves to be worshipped, and demanded sacrifices from deceived and lost men — says Augustine, XXII Against Faustus, 17; Cyprian, at the beginning of the book On the Vanity of Idols; Herodian, Book I; Tertullian, Apology, chapter 11; Eusebius, Book VII of the Preparation, 7; Lactantius, Book I, chapter 17. Suidas teaches the same about Serug above. "That this is so," says St. Cyprian, "Alexander the Great wrote in a famous volume to his mother, saying that through fear of his power, the secret had been betrayed to him by a priest concerning the gods who were really men — that the memory of ancestors and kings was preserved, and from there the rite of worshipping and sacrificing grew up." Hence Eusebius, Book II of the Preparation, chapter 8, Lactantius, and Clement of Alexandria in the Protrepticus derive the origin of temples from the tombs of kings and famous men: "Superstition," he says, "persuaded people to build temples: for what had formerly been the tombs of men, built more magnificently, were called by the name of temples." So also among Christians, churches were built over the tombs of martyrs, and hence were called martyria, as I said on Revelation 6:9. For this reason, St. Augustine, Book XVIII of the City of God, chapter 5, teaches that the image of Serapis, with finger placed at his mouth, customarily indicated that it should be kept silent that Serapis had been a man — indeed, the penalty of death was imposed on those who said Serapis had been a man, although it was certainly known that he had truly been a man. Herodian, Book IV, at the beginning, describes the rite of apotheosis of the Caesars, that is, the elevation of the Caesars into gods. The Wise Man here intends nothing else: he merely wishes to say that idolatry took its beginning from excessive affection and grief for one's own family, which happened in various ways among different nations — among some with a father building an image of his son, among others a son of his father, among others a husband of his wife, among others for other deceased persons, as the Wise Man suggests in verse 21. Therefore the love and ambition of the deceased fashioned the idol, flattery and fear of princes advanced it, the fraud of demons, the splendor of idols, and the error and custom of so many centuries confirmed it.
I say fifth, it is more natural and likely that a father would erect an image and idol to his son than that a son would to his father or to anyone else. Consequently, the idol of a son seems to have been either the first or among the first. This is proved first because the words of the Wise Man incline in this direction, and nothing from antiquity can be brought against it; and on the other hand it is entirely probable that the author of this book, everywhere a pious, learned, and serious man, received this opinion from tradition. Second, because fathers love their sons, especially tender ones, more than sons love their fathers; therefore the love and grief of parents more readily impelled them to erect images for their deceased sons, rather than the reverse — especially since fathers desire to continue existing and living, as it were, through their sons, and not the reverse. This is proved third by examples: for Lactantius, Book I of On False Religion, chapter 15, teaches from Cicero that Cicero himself attempted to make his daughter Tulliola, after her death, into a goddess by erecting an image to her, and this in imitation of the ancients; therefore this was the custom of the ancients.
Again, Fulgentius, Book I of On the Gods of the Gentiles, at the beginning of the chapter on Idols, from Diophantus the Lacedaemonian has a most ancient example of an idol, which Sy-
nophanes, a splendid Egyptian, erected to his deceased son; and he adds that hence the word "idol" was said as if from eidos olou, that is, "appearance of grief" — and this grief is most bitter in the death of sons. Our Hieronymus Prado, on Ezekiel chapter 8, near the end, agrees with this, where he asserts first that this Synophanes was the first idolater (which Holcot also asserts), and that he is the one the Wise Man refers to here; and hence in Hebrew idols are called atsabim, aven, that is, sorrows, labors. Second, that the Egyptians were the originators of idolatry. Third, that this son seems to be Adonis: for "Synophanes" seems to be a corruption of the name Adonis. Hence Stephanus in his book On Cities says: "Amathus," he says, "was a most ancient city of Cyprus, in which Adonis Osiris was worshipped; and since he was Egyptian, the Cyprians and Phoenicians made him their own forever." Fourth, Epiphanius, at the beginning of his book On Heresies, and from him Suidas under the entry "Abraham," teaches that Terah — who had Serug as his grandfather and Abraham as his son — was the first, before Saturn, Jupiter, Rhea, Juno, and the other gods, to make statues from clay by the potter's art, that is, idol-statues, and that he was the first whose son, namely Haran, Scripture mentions as having died before his father — as if to suggest that this happened because Terah was the first to erect an idol for a deceased son, and was therefore most severely reproved for the worship of idols by his son Abraham. And indeed, if Terah was the first to fashion idolatrous statues for the dead, there is no doubt that he made one especially for his son Haran, and for a small deceased child, if he had one. If these things are true, it seems the Wise Man here refers to this Terah, who first erected a statue for a deceased son: for the Wise Man here seems to speak of the image of a statue. Hence in verse 17, in the Greek he calls them glypta, that is, sculpted; and in verse 21, stones and wood. If however anyone would refer these things to the painted images of Serug, I do not object, but I would like an ancient author who expressly asserts that Serug first erected images to a deceased son. Therefore, what Julius Hyginus says, Book I of the Fables, chapter 274 — that Daedalus, son of Eupalamus, first made images of the gods — must be understood as referring to the Greeks or Athenians: for before him there were the Chaldeans, Terah, and Serug.
Finally, Victor of Marseilles teaches that Nimrod, out of grief, set up a statue for his son, whom he had lost as his only child, and performed sacred rites at it, offered victims, and became the author of idolatry. Our Sebastianus Barradius, Volume IV on the Gospels, Part VIII, agrees, and holds that Ninus or someone else first established a public idol for his son, who was called Belus or Baal after his grandfather: for the Wise Man here is speaking not of a private but of a public idol. William of Paris holds the same, in the book On Laws, chapter 25. But Eusebius, St. Augustine, Cyril, and the rest teach that Ninus set up the first idol for his father Belus, not his son. Moreover, what Lactantius says, Book I of the Institutes, last chapter, from Theophilus and Thallus — that Belus was contemporary with Saturn, who was the begetter of the gods, and both came of age at the same time — the rest
generally refute: for Saturn and Jupiter were much later than Belus, Nimrod, Ninus, and Abraham. Saturn reigned in Crete, and driven out from there by his son Jupiter, in Italy and Latium, a hundred years before the Trojan War, which occurred in the time of Samson, who was many centuries later not only than Belus and Abraham but also than Moses, as Eusebius testifies in the Chronicle. Hence Epiphanius, in the Preface to Book I Against Heresies, says: "Afterward (after Terah and Abraham) they deified either wretched tyrants, or conjurers displaying spectres to the world, venerating their monuments; and long afterward, Saturn and Jupiter, Rhea and Juno, and others thereafter." It also follows that Saturn and Jupiter are Latin names; and the Latins were much later than the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hebrews such as Nimrod and Bel or Belus. For in Latin, Jupiter is derived from juvans pater, that is, "helping father"; Saturn from satur annis, that is, "full of years," as Cicero testifies, Book II of On the Nature of the Gods. Indeed Lactantius himself in the cited passage says: "Agamemnon, who waged the Trojan War, was the great-grandson of Jupiter, and Achilles and Ajax were great-great-grandsons, and Ulysses was of the same degree." Therefore Jupiter did not live long before the Trojan War, though Bel or Belus existed many centuries before it. For the Trojan War occurred a few years before Samson. Indeed, our author Salianus in the Annals asserts that Troy was captured in the last year of Ahialon, judge of Israel, who was succeeded by Abdon judging Israel for eight years, and then Samson. Hence Eusebius in the Chronicle counts 825 years from the birth of Abraham, who was born in the 43rd year of Ninus (who succeeded Belus), to the fall of Troy, and 310 years from the birth of Moses to the fall of Troy. The error arose because, when the Latins considered their Jupiter and Saturn to be the first and most ancient of the gods, and heard that Belus was similarly regarded among the Assyrians, they concluded that Belus was the same as or at least contemporary with Saturn — though Belus was much earlier, just as the Assyrians were earlier than the Latins. From this it further happened that some extended the name of Jupiter to Belus and gave him the name Jupiter Belus, and called the father of Belus Saturn; but they are clearly abusing names, and this abuse produces confusion of gods and chronology.
Hear St. Cyprian, at the beginning of the book On Idolatry: "The cave of Jupiter is visited in Crete, and his tomb is shown, and it is well known that Saturn was driven out by him. From his hiding place, Latium received its name. He was the first to stamp letters and coin money in Italy, hence the treasury is called the treasury of Saturn. He was a cultivator of rustic life, hence he is depicted bearing a sickle. When he was driven out, Janus received him as a guest, from whose name the Janiculum was named, and the month of January was established. He is depicted as two-faced, because standing in the middle, he seems to look at the year both beginning and departing."
And with Saturn already the stronger, Jupiter reigned in Italy, who was succeeded by his son Picus, after whom Faunus, who was the father of Latinus, the father-in-law of Aeneas. From this, gather how little the age of the gods was removed from the Trojan age, says Genebrard in the Chronicle; for Aeneas, after the capture of Troy, fled to Italy. At that time, then, the principal gods flourished together — that is, the men enrolled among the gods by the Greeks and Latins, who were twelve in number, which Ennius comprised in these two verses:
Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo.
Eusebius adds Saturn and Bacchus, Book IV of the Preparation. The tombs of these formerly existed in Greece and Latium, and especially that of Jupiter in Knossos, a city of Crete: so Eusebius, Clement, Lactantius, St. Cyril, and others already cited. Moreover, many of these were sons of Saturn, who is therefore called the Begetter of the gods: for Saturn from Rhea or Ops begot Jupiter, Ceres, Juno, Neptune, Pluto, etc., as Lactantius testifies, Book I, chapter 14, from Ennius. Finally, St. Thomas, II-II, Question 94, from this chapter gathers four causes and origins of idolatry. The first was excessive love or fear: for men, excessively loving a son, father, or prince, or venerating him too much, bestowed divine honor upon him. The second was the beauty of the image, by which men are naturally delighted and captivated. The third was ignorance of God: because they found no other God, they attributed divinity to creatures. The fourth was the fraud of demons, who, desiring to be worshipped in idols, gave responses through them or performed certain wonders.
16. Then as time passed, the wicked custom growing strong, this error was maintained as a law, and idols were worshipped by the command of tyrants. — For "wicked," as the Greek and Roman editions have, some erroneously read "ancient." The phrase "this error" is not in the Greek, which reads thus: and the impious custom was maintained as a law — namely by the impious. For the pious know that an impious custom never acquires prescription, nor is it strengthened by any length of time so as to take the force of law. For "idols" the Greek has glypta, that is, sculpted things — namely idols. For the first idols were carved images, that is, images of kings or other men sculpted in gold, bronze, and wood. This signifies therefore that the first idols were worshipped privately at will, but that this private idolatry was strengthened by public custom and the command of kings, so that it was no longer free, but enforced by custom as if by law, and compelled by the violence of tyrants. So Ninus compelled his subjects to worship the idol of his father Belus; so Nebuchadnezzar, erecting a statue of himself, ordered himself to be worshipped in it, Daniel 3; so Nero, Decius, Diocletian, and the other emperors compelled the worship of the idols of Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, etc., and therefore persecuted with sword and flame the Christians who refused to do so, for three hundred years — from Christ to Constantine — and at that time many hundreds of thousands of martyrs
won glorious trophies of virtue against both tyrants and idols.
17. And those whom men could not honor openly, because they lived far away, having brought their likeness from a distance, they made a clear image of the king whom they wished to honor, so that by their zeal they might worship the absent one as if he were present. — In the Greek: so that they might studiously flatter the absent one as if he were present. This is the second cause of idols and idolatry, namely flattery: for many, in order to flatter kings and other powerful men and curry their favor, made a clear image of them — in the Greek, emphane, that is, bright, manifest, and lifelike — and began to worship it as a divine being. Hear St. Cyprian at the beginning of his treatise On Idols: "That those whom the common people worship are not gods is known from this. They were formerly kings who, on account of their royal memory, began to be worshipped among their own people, even after death. Hence temples were established for them; hence images were fashioned to preserve the appearance of the deceased, to which they offered victims and celebrated festival days with honors. Hence what had been taken up as consolations for the first became sacred rites for posterity. And let us see whether this truth holds for each one: Melicertes and Leucothea are cast into the seas and afterward become sea deities; Castor and Pollux die alternately so that they may live; Aesculapius is struck by lightning so that he may rise to godhood; Hercules, to put off the man, is burned in the fires of Oeta; Apollo pastured the flocks of Admetus; Neptune built the walls for Laomedon, and the unhappy builder did not receive the wages of his work."
18-20. And the exceptional skill of the craftsman advanced even those who did not know him to the worship of these. For he, wishing to please the one who had engaged him, labored with his art to fashion the likeness to greater beauty. And the multitude of men, led astray by the beauty of the work, now regarded as a god the one who shortly before had been honored as a man. — This is the third cause of idolatry, namely the skill of the craftsman fashioning a remarkable and beautiful idol: for this beauty of the idol enticed the dull and simple to its contemplation, admiration, and adoration. For "exceptional skill," the Greek has philotimia, that is, love of honor, ambition — namely the ambitious and, as Vatablus says, affected diligence of the craftsman, who, in order to win praise from the one who commissioned it, or from his master, and from others for his art, and to gain the name and glory of an excellent craftsman, studiously and ambitiously elaborated the image — as Apelles used to do, who when asked why he painted so slowly, deliberately, and precisely, replied: "I paint for eternity." For "the one who engaged him," etc., the Greek has: he, wishing to please ton kratounta, that is, the ruler, namely the prince who commissioned the idol to be formed — so Vatablus, Jansenius, Osorius. Or rather kratounta, that is, his master and lord, who as it were seized him and hired him with payment to fashion the prince's idol: for the discussion is about one who, flattering an absent prince, arranges for his image to be made as elegantly as possible. Hence our translator skillfully renders "the one who engaged him": so Lyra, Hugh, Dionysius, and others.
He labored. — In Greek, exebiasato, that is, he accomplished by force through art, or applied the utmost force of art, exerted the greatest effort and striving in elaborating, formed it with his whole endeavor: so Nannius. "To fashion the likeness to greater beauty" — in the Greek: he elaborated with art the likeness to greater beauty, or to greater beauty and elegance — that is, he fashioned it as beautifully and elegantly as possible, and applied therein all the force of art and talent, and as it were exercised the utmost of his power.
And the multitude led astray — in Greek, ephelkysthenta, that is, attracted, enticed. Hence Jansenius thinks it should be read "led toward"; but the Romans more expressively read "led astray," that is, enticed, seduced, deceived (by the beauty of the work) — in Greek, by the grace of the work — (the one who shortly before) — in Greek, pro oligou, that is, a short time before, or a little earlier — (had been honored as a man, they now regarded as a god) — in Greek, sebasma elogisanto, that is, they considered him an object worthy of worship, namely a divine being. Hence Vatablus translates: the common people, enticed by the beauty of the craftsmanship, now regarded as a divine being the one whom they had recently honored as a man.
21. And this was the deception of human life: that men, serving either their grief or their kings, imposed the incommunicable name upon stones and wood — in the Greek: and this was a trap for life, enedra, that is, an ambush — that is, something insidious, namely to capture simple men by the elegance of the idol, so that they would believe it to be a divine being, and thus be driven to the ruin and destruction of life, both present and eternal. For "grief or kings," the Greek has e symphora e tyrannidi, that is, either calamity or tyranny — calamity, that is, the grief arising from the calamity of a lost and dead son, relative, or parent. For he restates what he said in verse 15: "For a father, grieving with bitter sorrow, quickly made an image of his snatched son."
They imposed the incommunicable name upon wood and stones — as if to say: The divine name Jehovah, that is, of God, proper to the true God alone, they attributed to wooden and stone idols, which they called gods and ascribed divinity to them — which was the height of stupidity and an injury to the true God. Tropologically, every sinner does the same when he places a creature before the Creator, fixing all his love upon it and placing his happiness and ultimate end in it. For such a person worships his riches, honors, sensual pleasures, delights, etc., as his idols and gods; therefore he as it were attributes divinity to them and takes it away from the Creator, with the greatest offense to Him. For He Himself says, Isaiah 42:8: "I am the Lord, this is My name; My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to graven images." Therefore, when any creature entices you by its beauty like an idol to idolatry, that is to sin, resist it bravely and reply as the martyrs replied to the tyrants.
The three Hebrew youths, when Nebuchadnezzar pressed them to adore his statue and threatened them with the Babylonian furnace, nobly replied, Daniel 3: "We have no need to answer you in this matter: for behold, our God, whom we worship, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and from your hands, O king, to set us free. But if He will not, be it known to you, O king, that we do not worship your gods, and the golden statue which you have set up we do not adore." They said and they performed it, and therefore, unharmed in the midst of the flames under God's protection, they sang a Eucharistic hymn to Him. See what was said there. St. Marius, and his sons Audifax and Habacuc, Persians and noble martyrs, when they were led through the city of Rome with bound hands, mocking the idols, while the herald cried: "Do not blaspheme the gods," they exclaimed: "They are not gods, but demons, who will destroy both you and your prince." So the Acts of St. Valentine record, in Surius under February 14. St. Publia, a most noble and excellent matron (whom the Greeks in the Menologium assert was the mother of St. Chrysostom, and Theodoret suggests the same), hearing Julian the Apostate, the patron of idols, passing that way, sang with her choir of virgins in order to mock him: "The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of men's hands. Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them." When Julian, indignant, ordered them to be silent, Publia and her companions sang the same with even greater enthusiasm. Therefore the tyrant ordered her to be struck and bloodied with slaps. But she, counting this insult as the highest honor, returned home and continued to taunt the tyrant with spiritual songs, as Theodoret says, Book III. A trinity of martyrs and virgins under Diocletian were the Saints Menodora, Metrodora, and Nymphodora, sisters, and as it were three gifts of virginity, whose triumph over idols as well as torments the Church celebrates on September 10. When Menodora was beaten for two hours by four lictors while the herald cried: "Worship the gods and sacrifice to them," she fearlessly replied: "Do you not see that I have sacrificed my whole self to my God? For what profit is there for my blood if I descend to destruction without first having sacrificed it to my spouse?" Therefore her bones were crushed with rods, and the rosy cheeks of the martyr were shattered, and she, crying out in a loud voice: "Lord Jesus Christ, my exaltation, my love, to You, my hope, I fly; receive my soul in peace," breathed forth her crimson spirit into His hands. Metrodora, mocking the idols and scoffing at the gods as demons, was burned with torches for two hours and crushed with iron bars, and following her sister, ascended as a martyr to her spouse. Nymphodora, ordered to sacrifice to idols, while being torn apart with iron claws, said: "I have sacrificed myself to the Lord, for whom to suffer is a delight and to die is gain." Therefore, likewise crushed with iron bars, she flew victorious to Christ. Happy maidens, who emulating the life of angels, indeed surpassing it, earned the double
crown of virginity and martyrdom, and translated by the hands of angels into the choirs of heaven, they triumph. Their life is found in Surius under September 10.
22. And (in the Greek, eita, that is, then) it was not enough for them to err concerning the knowledge of God (in the Greek, gnosin, that is, cognition), but living in a great war of ignorance (in the Greek, agnoias, that is, of ignorance), they call so many and such great evils peace. — As if to say: To such a pernicious error about God there is added a certain army, as it were, of errors concerning morals and vices, which nevertheless to the blinded idolaters seems a peaceful and tranquil state; and amid such great discord, tumult, quarreling, and fighting of crimes, they rest as if in pleasant peace. So Lorinus. You will ask: what is this great war of ignorance? Some respond first that it is the war which idolaters, like new Titans, foolishly wage against God, while they cling to idols and Lucifer and fight against God under his banners. But this war he expressed shortly before, saying: "It was not enough for them to err concerning the knowledge of God" — to which he now adds and as it were contrasts that they lived "in a great war of ignorance." Hence others understand the war which idolaters, opposing the Creator, undertook against all His creatures: for these, standing for their Creator against all His enemies, such as idolaters, fight back. For the idolater (and mystically any sinner), provoking and challenging God, by that very act provokes and as it were challenges to a duel all His creatures, for as it says in chapter 5, verse 21: "The whole world will fight with Him (God) against the senseless." Second, others interpret the war of ignorance as that which idolaters declare against truth and wisdom itself, when they prefer idolatry to the worship of the true God, superstition to religion, falsehood to truth, heresy to faith, the demon to God. Third, and genuinely, ignorance in this passage is understood not speculatively but ethically and practically, and is the same as foolishness, imprudence, error in life and morals, vice, malice, crime. The war of ignorance, therefore, is that in which vice conflicts with virtue, as well as with the opposite vice: for prodigality, for example, conflicts with liberality as well as with avarice; pride conflicts with humility as well as with pusillanimity; gluttony conflicts with temperance as well as with excessive abstinence, etc. St. Augustine, in the book On the Conflict of Virtues and Vices, and Prudentius in the Psychomachia graphically depict these conflicts of individual virtues and vices. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The impious idolaters, from their idolatry and the error by which they preferred idols to the true God, fell into other practical errors concerning matters of conduct — that is, into all vices: into sacrileges, envy, adulteries, perjuries, etc., which he adds by way of explanation — and especially into murders and homicides, by which, having abandoned natural piety and justice, they stained themselves with impious slaughters, and indeed sacrilegiously slaughtered and sacrificed their own children to idols. For in what follows
he explains this war by recounting the crimes that are connected with unbelief and idolatry, and now with heresy and the sect of political men and atheists, or that follow from it. For "heretics," as St. Jerome says on Micah, chapter 1, "daily discover something to worship, and fashion idols (of errors) for themselves with craftsman's hand and curious mind." This war of the idolaters, then, is that by which, against every law and right of nature, they sacrificed their own children to Moloch and Saturn; likewise that by which they invaded the marriage beds of others and corrupted their neighbors' wives through adulteries; by which they seized the goods of others or occupied them through schemes and frauds; by which, finally, they threw themselves into every injustice, lust, greed, and impiety — since they did not fear their mute and wooden idol, or its divine power and vengeance. And by this course they stirred up against themselves both God and angels and men, so that they lived in perpetual hatreds, disputes, quarrels, and dangers; and yet they are so blind and foolish that they live in all this so securely, as if they dwelt in complete peace and friendship with all. Cantacuzenus explains "they call it peace" as meaning that idolaters inscribed and celebrated their gods as peaceful, as patrons of friendship and peace, as household and ancestral gods — theous kai philous, that is, kinsmen and friends — which were epithets of Jupiter.
Tropologically, the war of ignorance is that in which desire raised up conflicts with charity, sense with reason, flesh with spirit, love of the world with love of God: so Hugh. For the concupiscences are like certain tyrants who rebel against their king, namely the mind, and wage war against the citadel of reason, and therefore stir up perpetual tumults, quarrels, seditions, and conflicts in the soul, as those experience who do not wish or are unable to tame them; and yet they are so blind that they do not notice or recognize them, but think they are leading a pleasant life in peace and happiness. See St. Augustine, or whoever the author is, of On the Conflict of Virtues and Vices. Symbolically, the war of ignorance is that in which students of knowledge strive and toil to extract truth, besieged as it is by so many shadows, mists, opinions, and errors as by enemies, and to bring it out into the light, having routed them. Hence we see with how much labor and effort boys strive toward the sciences: the grammatical war is well known, as is the logical one.
23 and 24. For either sacrificing their own children, or performing secret sacrifices, or holding vigils full of madness, they no longer keep either life (the chastity and honor of life) or marriages pure, but one kills another through envy, or grieves him by adultery. — In the Greek: for either sacrifices in which they kill their children (Vatablus: through the murder of their children), or secret mysteries, or feasting with exotic rites or laws that produce madness (Vatablus: bacchanalian revels; others: celebrating bacchanalia — he notes the madness and rites of bacchanalia and bacchants), they no longer keep either life or marriages pure, but one person kills another either by ambush, or grieves him by adultery. Behold, this is the war of ignorance of idolaters, which they wage against their neighbors, indeed against their own children and against nature itself, through murders, homicides, adulteries, etc., without any fear of divine power (since they think it is wooden and inanimate — for such is the idol). By "secret sacrifices" he indicates the clandestine, light-shunning, and nocturnal rites of Venus, Bacchus, Priapus, Cybele, Isis, Proserpina, etc., which were full of lusts and obscenities, and therefore were performed in hidden, shady, or underground places, often only at night. See 2 Maccabees 6; 2 Kings 23:7; Josephus, Book XVIII of the Antiquities, chapter 4; Tertullian, Apology,
chapter 15; St. Augustine, Book VI of the City of God, chapter 7; Giraldus, On the Gods of the Gentiles. Hence they are fittingly called in Greek mysteria apo tou mysous, because they are abominable, says Clement of Alexandria in the Protrepticus, and so their martyria are mastylia, that is, brothels and dens of prostitution — namely fornications and obscenities. For, as the Apostle says, Ephesians 5:12: "What is done by them in secret, it is shameful even to speak of." This is what Minutius Felix says in the Octavius: "Where more than among priests, between altars and shrines, are debaucheries arranged, procuring practiced, and adulteries planned? Indeed, burning lust is more often satisfied in the cells of the temple-keepers than in the brothels themselves."
Solon was also the first to erect at Delphi a temple of public or prostitute Venus, as Philemon writes in Athenaeus, Book XIII, chapter 9, in which prostituted women plied their trade in dwelling-places. Hence Juvenal, Satire 9:
For in what temple does a woman not sell herself?
Such are today the nocturnal and lamp-lit rites of the Anabaptists, in which, once the light is extinguished, promiscuous intercourse takes place. The cause was that Jupiter, Venus, Bacchus, Priapus, etc., the gods of the nations, were the most impure of men, and therefore the nations thought they should be worshipped with every kind of gluttony and luxury, as most pleasing to them, as I said above. Hence Cantacuzenus, interpreting verse 24 of the gods themselves, says: For the gods, he says, do not keep life clean — that is, bious, lives — on account of bias, that is, violences and assaults, which the fables recount, of children against parents and brothers against each other, on account of absurd bonds and other plots; nor marriages, on account of the shamelessness attributed to the gods, and the shameful loves and illegitimate unions with daughters, mothers, and sisters, and their monstrous mutual embraces. Therefore the bias (lives) of the gods was bia (violence) — that is, their life was force and violence, and therefore impure and criminal.
25 and 26. And all things are mixed together — blood, murder, theft and deceit, corruption and unfaithfulness, turmoil and perjury, tumult against the good; forgetfulness of God, defilement of souls, alteration of birth, inconstancy of marriages, disorder of adultery and shamelessness. — In the Greek: all things (others: all persons) are mixed together, or promiscuously there is blood and slaughter, theft and fraud, corruption, unfaithfulness, turbulent agitations, perjury, tumult against the good; forgetfulness of grace, defilement of souls, alteration of generation, disorder of marriages, adultery and shamelessness. Vatablus: all things at last are overtaken without distinction by blood and slaughter, theft and deceit, etc. Cantacuzenus says clearly: all evils simultaneously are mixed together among idolaters, or follow from idolatry in a mixed succession. He heaps up the crimes that proceed from idolatry, of which the first is blood and murder: for these two are nearly the same, but "blood" is added for emphasis, because in murder there is a foul and horrible shedding of blood; "blood" therefore means the shedding of blood. "Deceit" — in the Greek, dolos, that is, guile and fraud, as if to say: Everything among unbelievers and idolaters is full of plots and frauds. "Corruption" — that is, corrupt concupiscence, says St. Bonaventure; corrupt faith or faithfulness, says Dionysius; others say corruption means the deflowering of virgins. Better, Vatablus: corruption, both that which occurs in courts of law and that which occurs in merchandise, contracts, commerce, and other affairs — as if to say: Everything among idolaters is full of corruptions. "Unfaithfulness" is the violation of faith or perfidy. "Turmoil" — in the Greek, tarachos, that is, tumult, as if to say: Among unbelievers everything abounds in disturbances, tumults, dissensions, and seditions. "Tumult of the good" is the disturbance and confusion of good things, or the vexation of good men, when unbelievers and the impious create uproar against the faithful and pious. "Forgetfulness of God" — as if to say: They are not mindful of God; the forgetfulness of God overtakes them. But the Greek has charitos amnestia, that is, forgetfulness of grace or of benefits — so Vatablus. For as Seneca testifies, he is ungrateful who does not repay a benefit; more ungrateful who forgets; most ungrateful who denies receiving what he received. Hence Francis Lucas in his Notes here suspects that instead of "God" as the Vulgate reads, one should read "forgetfulness of gift." But the Roman and other codices have "God," not "gift," and Nannius, formerly public professor of the Greek language at Louvain, maintains this is the genuine reading.
Defilement of souls — through gluttony, excess, and lust. St. Bonaventure understands the internal movements of lust and lingering pleasures. Alteration of birth — in the Greek, geneseos, that is, of generation and the act of procreation — alteration through perverse lust, whether with males, or with women, or even with beasts, as Jupiter had his Ganymede, Trajan had Hadrian, and Hadrian had Antinous, as Spartian testifies. Vatablus, however, translates it as alienation of offspring, namely when the child begotten is ascribed not to the true father but to a false and foreign one, as adulteresses do. Inconstancy of marriages — in the Greek, ataxia, that is, disorder — namely when an unbeliever divorces his wife and marries another and another, entering a new marriage every year, or even every month, and one that is only temporary, as some Ethiopians do; or when they give their wives to other men, as Cato did; or when they exchange their wives with those of others, and by other similar means.
Disorder of adultery and shamelessness — in the Greek: of adultery and wantonness, that is, every kind of shamelessness. "Disorder" adds emphasis to adultery, and indicates that to adultery are added incest, sacrilege, or some other crime; and to shamelessness are added various new lustful modes of kissing and touching.
27. For the worship of unspeakable idols is the cause of every evil, and the beginning and the end. — "Unspeakable" — in the Greek, anonymon, that is, unnamed, which means execrable, so much so that they should not even be named. "Unspeakable" therefore means the same as "not to be spoken of," about which, as about anathemas, it is not permitted to speak. This is an epiphonema generally embracing what he has already enumerated in detail — namely, that idolatry is the cause of all crimes, the beginning and the end. The cause, because all crimes typically arise from unbelief and idolatry and contempt for the vengeance of the divine power, as I have already shown. In a similar sense the Apostle says in 1 Timothy 6:10: "The root of all evils is desire" — in Greek, philargyria, that is, avarice.
The beginning and the end. — "Beginning" is the same as cause or occasion. In a similar sense Ecclesiasticus says, chapter 10, verse 15: "The beginning of all sin is pride," because from pride as from a mother every sin is accustomed to be born and arise, just as from idolatry. From it therefore, as from a beginning and source, every evil gushes forth; and conversely, in it as in an end and terminus all evils conclude. As if to say: All evils are born to arise from idolatry, and conversely in it they terminate and end — so Dionysius. For those who fill themselves with lusts and other crimes at last become unbelievers, idolaters, and atheists; for in order to indulge their desires without scruple or fear of the divine power and God's vengeance, they shake off faith in God and His providence, according to Psalm 14:1: "The fool has said in his heart: There is no God." So today we see carnal and wicked men become heretics and at last atheists, because in heresy they find nothing of true faith but mere fabrications. See Stanislaus Reszka, On the Atheism of Heretics. So St. Thomas, II-II, Question 94, article 4, reply to 1: "Idolatry is said to be the cause, beginning, and end of all sin, because there is no kind of sin that idolatry does not sometimes produce, either expressly by inducing it as a cause, or by providing the occasion as a beginning, or as an end, inasmuch as certain sins were taken up into the worship of idols, such as the killing of men, the mutilation of members, and other such things. And yet some sins can precede idolatry, which dispose a person toward it."
Hear Tertullian, at the beginning of his book On Idolatry: "The principal crime of the human race, the supreme guilt of the age, the entire cause of judgment — idolatry." He then adds that in idolatry there is the crime of murder, adultery, and defilement: "The idolater," he says, "is likewise a murderer. You ask whom he killed? If anything serves the ambition of the indictment, not a stranger nor an enemy, but himself. By what ambush? That of his own error. With what weapon? The offense of God. With how many wounds? As many as his idolatries. He who denies that the idolater has perished will deny that the idolater has committed murder. Likewise, recognize adultery and defilement in the same person: for he who serves false gods is without doubt an adulterer of truth, because every falsehood is adultery; and so he is also plunged into defilement. For who, having dealt with unclean spirits, does not walk about polluted and defiled? And indeed the Sacred Scriptures use the word 'defilement' in the condemnation of idolatry. The nature of fraud is this, I believe: if someone seizes what belongs to another, or denies what is owed to another — and certainly fraud committed against a human being bears the name of the greatest crime. But idolatry defrauds God, denying Him His honors and conferring them on others, so that it joins insult to fraud." And after certain points, he teaches that the same involves other crimes: "In it there is also the concupiscence of the age: for what solemnity of idolatry is without the ambition of worship and adornment? In it there is wantonness and drunkenness, since feasting for the sake of the belly and of lust is most frequently indulged in. In it there is injustice — for what is more unjust than that which does not know the Father of justice? In it there is also vanity, since its whole rationale is vain. In it there is falsehood, since its whole substance is false. Thus it happens that all things are found in idolatry, and idolatry in all things."
Tropologically, you may say the same about the idol of the avaricious, which is the phantasm of gold; of the proud, which is the phantasm of excellence; of the lustful, which is the phantasm of a mistress; of the glutton, which is the phantasm of banquets and wines. For when each person loves and worships this phantasm of his as an idol, in order to enjoy it, he rushes into every crime. Therefore, in order to avoid these, tear out, crush, and break this idol of yours which you have fashioned in your mind and imagination.
28. For either while they rejoice, they are mad: or else they prophesy falsehoods, or they live unjustly, or they swiftly commit perjury. — He shows that all kinds of crimes are born from idolatry, and enumerates the chief ones, as if to say: Idolaters pour themselves into foolish joys, revel and go mad, or they fabricate oracles by which they drive themselves and their people to licentiousness and luxury of life; or they live unjustly, plundering, defrauding, and destroying the property of others; or they rashly and quickly commit perjury. He adds the cause: 29. For trusting in idols, which have no soul, they do not expect to be harmed when they swear falsely — that is, they do not fear they will be injured. So Virgil: But dread (that is, fear) the gods, who remember both right and wrong. As if to say: Idolaters therefore quickly commit perjury and rush into any crimes, because they do not fear their gods — that is, their idols — since these are inanimate and made of stone or wood, and do not feel the injury done to them through perjury and other crimes, and therefore cannot avenge it. Just as therefore "fear first made gods in the world," so conversely, the bold contempt of gods or divine power
is the principle and cause of perjury and every wickedness.
30. Both punishments therefore shall come upon them deservedly, because they thought wrongly of God by attending to idols, and they swore unjustly, despising justice with deceit. — "Both," that is, the retribution for both — namely, the fitting punishment and penalty for both idolatry and perjury — will come upon the idolaters. In the Greek: amphotera de autous meteleysetai ta dikaia, that is, both just things will come upon them — namely, punishments; or, both will punish them justly. For meteleustomai is sometimes the same as kolazo, that is, I punish — so the Lexicographer from Synesius and Thucydides. The Vatican manuscripts translate: both rights will pursue them. All these come to the same meaning. The sense therefore is, as if to say: The just vengeance for both (crimes, namely idolatry and perjury) will overtake them, or will exact punishment from them. The just cause and reason for both punishments will seize them and execute its own right. Both will be charged to them for punishment: both that they thought wrongly of God, and that they committed perjury. In the Greek the plural is used: both just things will apprehend them — namely, punishments — or because these two crimes will subject them to penalties. For "justice," the Greek has hosiotetos, that is, holiness, namely the religious character of an oath: for this is holy and must be kept holy, and is therefore called a sacrament. For although the idolater swears by an idol, which is not God, and therefore in reality does not swear or commit perjury, nevertheless in his own mind, by which he believes the idol to be the true God, he swears and commits perjury. For the error of idolatry, by which one thinks his idols are true gods, causes him to be held sacrilegious and unjust in committing perjury, says St. Augustine, Epistle 154 to Publicola, and it is found in XXII, Question 1, canon Movet...
31. For it is not the power of those by whom they swear (in the Greek, dynamis, that is, might), but the punishment of sinners that always pursues the transgression of the unjust. — For "of those by whom they swear," the Greek has omnymenon, which is of the middle voice and can be translated either actively as "of those swearing," as the Complutensian and Royal editions read, or passively as "of those sworn by," that is, of the idols by which they swear — and this fits this passage better. As if to say: Granted that the idols, by which idolaters swear, have no power, that is, no force and ability to punish their perjuries — and therefore the idolaters and perjurers themselves despise them and know them to be weak and powerless to chastise them — nevertheless the punishment intended by God for sinners, especially for idolaters and perjurers, pursues, punishing the transgression of the unjust — namely their idolatry and perjury — by which, both by swearing falsely and by swearing by false gods, they inflict a double injury upon the true God. First, because they oppose and prefer idols and false gods to the true God. Second, because they swear falsely and commit perjury by that which they consider to be the true God: for they swear and commit perjury by them just as if they were swearing by the true God and calling Him as a witness to falsehood — which is a signal injury and insult to the true God.
For "punishment," the Greek has dike, which means a forensic cause, one that is tried before a judge — a suit, an action, a judgment, a right, a sentence, a penalty; likewise a just vengeance. Hence Dike is imagined by the poets to be the goddess of judgments, so called because she justly resolves disputes and punishes the guilty. Hence she is said to be a virgin, because justice and vengeance must be pure and unblemished. Hence Hesiod says: "The virgin Justice was born of Jupiter." This last meaning is most fitting for this passage, as if to say: Dike, that is, divine vengeance, walks through idolaters, perjurers, and criminals, to seize them and strike and punish them according to their deserts, just as a praetor walks through the forum to catch thieves and hang them. Hence God said to Cain the fratricide: "If you do well, will you not be accepted? But if badly, sin will be at once at the door" — that is, the vengeance of sin, like a lictor, will pursue and punish you. Hence Vatablus translates this passage: for it is not the power of them (the idols) by which the oath was sworn, but the avenging justice of sinners that always exacts penalties for evil deeds from the unjust. So also Cantacuzenus, Jansenius, and others. Hence for "walks through," the Greek has epexerchetai, that is, as Budaeus says in his Commentary on the Greek Language, page 99: it courses through, invades, harasses, ravages, drags into court, judges, and avenges.
Moreover, the vengeance of God especially pursues perjurers, as being guilty of injuring the divine power and the divine name. Hence those who swear falsely by invoking St. Anthony as witness are accustomed to be struck by his sacred fire.
In ancient times, in doubtful cases, the accused were sent to the oratory of St. Stephen to clear themselves by oath of the crime charged against them; and if they committed perjury, they were immediately punished from heaven. Gregory of Tours writes the same about the Oratory of St. Martin, Book VIII of the History, chapter 16, where among other things he narrates that a certain arsonist, denying the fire he had set and committing perjury in the church of St. Martin, was consumed by avenging flames from heaven. The same happened in the Oratory of Saints Processus and Martinianus, about whom St. Gregory says, Homily 32 on the Gospels: "To their dead bodies the living sick come and are healed; perjurers come and are tormented by a demon." And in the Oratory of St. Felix of Nola, to whose church St. Augustine, as he himself reports in Epistle 137 to the people of Hippo, sent the priest Boniface, who was accused of a crime, so that he might clear himself there by oath; and if he were guilty, he would betray himself through God's customary vengeance. And St. Augustine adds: "We know that at Milan, at the shrine of the saints, where demons make wonderful and terrible confessions, a certain thief who had come to that place to deceive by swearing falsely was compelled to confess the theft and to return what he had taken." Such also was the Oratory of St. Apollinaris at Ravenna, where Maximus cleared himself of the crime of simony by oath, as St. Gregory testifies, Book VII, Epistle 7 and following; and above all the Basilica of St. Peter, upon whose body bishops accused of crime were accustomed to clear themselves by oath, as St. Gregory testifies, Book II, Epistle 23, and Book II, Epistle 8.
The Gentiles experienced the same when swearing by their idols.
Hence Hesiod, in Book II of the Works and Days, verse 39: The fifth days (of every month), he says, avoid, because they are difficult and severe. For on the fifth they say that furies roam about Avenging the oath which strife has begotten for perjurers.
And Tibullus: Ah, wretch! Even if at first one conceals perjury, Great punishment still comes with silent footsteps.
Do you want examples? Take them. Cleomenes had made a seven-day truce with the Argives, confirmed by oath. Then on the third night he attacked them and killed many, saying he had made a pact about days, not about nights. Vengeance followed him: for he was frustrated of the city for whose sake he had violated the agreement, because the women, having taken weapons from the temples of the gods, avenged themselves against him — as if the very gods whom he had despised were exacting punishment from him. Finally, turned to madness, he stabbed and cut his own body with a small sword from his ankles to his vital organs, and so ended his life laughing with his mouth gaping. Agesilaus was accustomed to praise and approve barbarians who had violated the sanctity of their oath, saying that by nothing did they make the gods more hostile to themselves than if they rashly violated a sacred oath. So Aelian, Book XIV of the Various Histories. Pericles of Athens, when a friend asked him to give false testimony on his behalf, to which an oath was attached — that is, perjury — replied that he was indeed his friend, but only up to the altar; meaning that one should oblige friends to a certain point, but short of violating an oath. Finally, St. Augustine, Book I of the City of God, chapter 15, celebrates the most noble example of Marcus Atilius Regulus, who as a prisoner among the Carthaginians was sent by them to Rome to negotiate with the Senate about exchanging prisoners on both sides, having first sworn an oath by the gods that if he did not obtain it he would return to them. When he did not obtain it — indeed, he himself dissuaded the Senate from this exchange — in order to keep faith with his oath, he returned to the Carthaginians, even though he knew he would be tortured to death by them, which is what happened. St. Augustine adds another example from the Saguntines in Spain, who, in order to keep the faith they had sworn to the Romans, preferred to be burned alive rather than surrender their city to the Carthaginians.
From all these examples, learn how great a reverence must be shown to the divine name, and how truthfully, sparingly, and circumspectly God is to be named and invoked as a witness. For what is given to the divine name is given to God Himself, whose name it is. Hence Jeremiah, chapter 10, verse 6: "There is none like You, O Lord; You are great, and Your name is great in might. Who would not fear You, O King of nations?" And Daniel, chapter 3, verse 52: "Blessed are You, O Lord God of our fathers, and worthy of praise and glorious and superexalted forever; and blessed is the name of Your glory, ho-
ly and praiseworthy and superexalted in all ages." And Ecclesiasticus, chapter 39, verse 19: "Bless the Lord in His works, give magnificence to His name." And the Psalmist, Psalm 72,
18: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things, and blessed be the name of His majesty forever, and let the whole earth be filled with His majesty. Amen, amen."