Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He teaches that sons are not punished for the sins of their parents, but that life or death is rendered to each according to his own merits. First, therefore, he teaches that he will abolish this common proverb of the Jews: The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge; and in its place he establishes the contrary, verse 20, saying: The soul that sins, it shall die. The justice of the just shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. Then, verse 21, he declares: If the wicked man does penance, I will not remember all his iniquities. And conversely: If the just man turns from his justice, all his just deeds shall not be remembered. Finally, verse 30, he invites sinners to penance, saying: Make for yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit: and why will you die, O house of Israel? For I do not desire the death of the dying.
Vulgate Text: Ezekiel 18:1-32
1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2. What is it that among you you turn the parable into this proverb in the land of Israel, saying: The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge? 3. As I live, says the Lord God, this parable shall be no more to you a proverb in Israel. 4. Behold all souls are mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins, the same shall die. 5. And if a man be just, and do judgment and justice, 6. and has not eaten upon the mountains, nor lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel: and has not defiled his neighbor's wife, nor come near to a menstruous woman: 7. And has not grieved any man: has restored the pledge to the debtor, has taken nothing by violence: has given his bread to the hungry, and has covered the naked with a garment: 8. has not lent upon usury, nor taken any increase: has withdrawn his hand from iniquity, and has executed true judgment between man and man: 9. has walked in my commandments, and kept my judgments, to do truth: he is just, he shall surely live, says the Lord God. 10. And if he begets a son that is a robber, a shedder of blood, and that does any one of these things: 11. and that does not all these things, but eats upon the mountains, and defiles his neighbor's wife: 12. grieves the needy and the poor, seizes prey, does not restore the pledge, and lifts up his eyes to idols, commits abomination: 13. lends upon usury, and takes increase: shall he live? He shall not live; since he has done all these detestable things, he shall surely die, his blood shall be upon him. 14. But if he begets a son, who seeing all the sins of his father which he has done, is afraid, and shall not do the like to them: 15. has not eaten upon the mountains, nor lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, and has not defiled his neighbor's wife: 16. and has not grieved any man, has not withheld the pledge, nor taken by violence, has given his bread to the hungry, and has covered the naked with a garment: 17. has turned away his hand from injuring the poor, has not taken usury and increase, has executed my judgments, has walked in my commandments: he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, but living he shall live. 18. As for his father, because he oppressed and did violence to his brother, and wrought evil in the midst of his people, behold he is dead in his own iniquity. 19. And you say: Why has not the son borne the iniquity of the father? Indeed, because the son has done judgment and justice, has kept all my commandments, and done them, he shall surely live. 20. The soul that sins, the same shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity
of the son: the justice of the just shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. 21. But if the wicked do penance for all his sins which he has committed, and keep all my commandments, and do judgment and justice: living he shall live, and shall not die. 22. I will not remember all his iniquities that he has done: in his justice which he has done, he shall live. 23. Is it my will that a sinner should die, says the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live? 24. But if the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity according to all the abominations which the wicked man uses to work, shall he live? All his justices which he has done shall not be remembered: in the prevarication, by which he has prevaricated, and in his sin, in which he has sinned, in them he shall die. 25. And you have said: The way of the Lord is not right. Hear ye, therefore, O house of Israel: Is not my way right, and are not rather your ways perverse? 26. For when the just man turns away from his justice, and commits iniquity, he shall die therein: in the injustice that he has wrought, he shall die. 27. And when the wicked man turns himself away from his wickedness, which he has wrought, and does judgment and justice: he shall save his soul alive. 28. Because he considers, and turns away himself from all his iniquities which he has wrought, he shall surely live, and not die. 29. And the children of Israel say: The way of the Lord is not right. Are not my ways right, O house of Israel, and are not rather your ways perverse? 30. Therefore will I judge every man according to his ways, O house of Israel, says the Lord God. Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin. 31. Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit: and why will you die, O house of Israel? 32. For I desire not the death of him that dies, says the Lord God, return and live.
Verse 2: What is it that Among You You Turn the Parable Into a Proverb
2. WHAT IS IT THAT AMONG YOU YOU TURN THE PARABLE INTO A PROVERB (in Hebrew: Why do you use this parable as a proverb? that is, why do you frequently use this parable, or proverb?) THE FATHERS HAVE EATEN SOUR GRAPES, AND THE TEETH OF THE CHILDREN ARE SET ON EDGE. The Syriac: The fathers have eaten bitter grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge, or are frozen, that is, as the Chaldean paraphrase: The fathers have sinned, and the children are beaten.
The occasion of the proverb was that the Prophets everywhere declared that Jerusalem was to be destroyed on account of the sins of Manasseh; just as Israel was destroyed on account of the sins of Jeroboam. For these were the inventors, and as it were the founders, of the idolatry of the Jews. So Theodoretus.
From this it is clear that the Prophet here and throughout the chapter speaks of actual sins, not of original sin. For concerning original sin it is true to say: "Our father Adam ate the sour fruit, and the teeth of all his children are set on edge," or, as St. Bernard says in his treatise On the Steps of Humility: "Therefore we are born to die, because first we die before being born," and, as St. Augustine says: "Condemned before born; because God, by right of His supreme dominion (which He has over His creatures), placed the will of all posterity in the will of Adam, so that whatever he did well or ill, his posterity would be considered to have done. Therefore the will of Adam was the will of all posterity; and God did this so that Adam might be the type, indeed the antitype, of Christ, whose will, satisfaction, and merits He willed to be our will, satisfaction, and merits. For Christ was made for us wisdom from God, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption," says the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 1,
verse 30, who also adds the reason: "That he who glories, may glory in the Lord." Hence piously St. Bernard, in his sermon On the Passion: "O chosen child of my God," he says, "what had you done worthy of such bitterness, such confusion? Absolutely nothing. I, I the lost man, was the cause of all your ruin. I, Lord, ate the sour grape, and your teeth were set on edge." Moreover, with what wisdom, equity, power, and goodness God did this, we cannot perceive and penetrate in this life, but we believe by faith. Wherefore this is one of the four supreme and most difficult mysteries of our faith, which surpass human understanding. For the first is the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity; the second, the Incarnation of the Word; the third, the Eucharist; the fourth, original sin.
Note "are set on edge": for those who eat unripe grapes themselves suffer odontalgia, that is, toothache: but those who stand by and watch them eating, their teeth are set on edge, says Aristotle, Problems section 7, question 5. So here the children complain that their teeth are set on edge from the gluttony and fault of their parents. Thus the Poet says: "The sins of the fathers, O Roman, you will atone for undeservedly." Similar is the adage of Eubulus: "If the cook commits a fault, the flute player is beaten." And those sayings: "The pig pays for the dog's sin: The blacksmith is struck when you hit the fuller: This one sins, that one is punished: Whatever follies kings commit, the Greeks suffer for them."
Morally, St. Gregory, Book XI of the Morals, chapter 15: "What," he says, "is the sour grape, if not sin? The sour grape is indeed fruit before its time. Whoever
desires to be satiated with the pleasures of the present life, hastens, as it were, to eat the fruit before its time. Therefore he who eats the sour grape, his teeth are set on edge: because he who feeds on the pleasure of the present world, his inner senses are bound, so that they can no longer chew, that is, understand, spiritual things: because the source of their delight in external things causes their inner faculties to grow numb."
3. AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD GOD, THIS PARABLE SHALL NO MORE BE A PROVERB TO YOU. Vatablus: No one shall any more use it as a proverb, that is, I swear by my life that I will cause you to no longer use this proverb: because I will show the contrary in reality. Alternatively, Prado considers these words not to be those of one asserting, but threatening, that is, I swear by my life that if you continue to use this proverb, I will severely punish you. For this is understood in the execratory "if," which however the Hebrews suppress for the sake of good omen and euphemism. This meaning is plain, but the former is plainer.
4. ALL SOULS ARE MINE — by reason of the creation and infusion of the same, says Vatablus, that is, all souls are created by me and infused into the body; therefore on account of the sins of the father, the son shall not perish with eternal death. Secondly, and better, all souls, that is, all men are mine, that is, lest anyone think I rage against sons because I cannot punish the parents, as weak and feeble men sometimes do; behold I declare what all know: "All souls are mine," that is, I am equally the creator, Lord, and judge of all men, of parents as well as of children, of elders as well as of younger: I have power of life and death over all: I am the one who kills and gives life to whomever I please: and therefore I will give to each an equal sentence and lot of temporal life or death according to their merits (for I am most just as well as most powerful). So Polychronius. For that the Prophet here speaks literally of temporal matters is clear from what follows: "The soul," that is, the man, "that sins, it shall die." For he responds to the Jews, who falsely complained that they were being punished and afflicted with death and other disasters on account of sins, not their own, but their parents'. Although from this, by an argument from the lesser to the greater, this is even more true of eternal punishment.
Verse 5: Has Done Judgment
5. HAS DONE JUDGMENT. A judge does judgment when he condemns the guilty; justice, when he acquits and vindicates the innocent. Any private person does judgment if he does evil to no one; justice, if he does good, and accumulates good works. So it is taken here: for these things are said to any private person. So Prado.
St. Jerome notes that here is woven a catalogue, and as it were seventeen steps of virtue: "The first," he says, "is to have done judgment; the second, to have joined justice to judgment; the third, not to have eaten on the mountains; the fourth, not to have lifted up the eyes to idols; the fifth, not to have violated the wife of one's neighbor; the sixth, to have avoided the embraces of a menstruous wife; the seventh, not to have grieved any man; the eighth, to have restored the pledge to the debtor; the ninth, to have taken nothing by violence; the tenth, to have given one's bread to the hungry; the eleventh, to have covered the naked with a garment; the twelfth, not to have given money at usury; the thirteenth, not to have taken more than what you gave; the fourteenth, to have turned one's hand from iniquity; the fifteenth, to have done true judgment between man and man; the sixteenth, to have walked in the Lord's commandments; the seventeenth, to have kept His judgments and justifications."
Verse 6: On the Mountains
6. ON THE MOUNTAINS. That is, he has not eaten things sacrificed to idols on the high places of idols. For those who sacrificed to idols used to eat from the victims they had sacrificed, so as to be participants in the sacrifice. And this eating was the consummation of idolatry. So St. Jerome.
HAS NOT LIFTED UP HIS EYES. That is, he has not adored, he has not implored. For this is the gesture of those who pray — to lift up their eyes to God, Psalm 122:2: "Our eyes are unto the Lord our God, until He have mercy on us."
IDOLS. In Hebrew gillulim, that is, rollings, that is, dung rolled together. So idols are called, on account of their foulness. The Septuagint translates: cogitations, that is, gods devised by them. For these are the rollings of their mind: for they constantly revolve their gods in their mind, and devise new rites and ways of appeasing them.
HAS NOT APPROACHED A MENSTRUOUS WOMAN. Because, as St. Jerome says, from such union those born are sometimes leprous and defective, and, as Xistus the Pythagorean said: "He is an adulterer who is too ardent a lover of his own wife." And such is one who uses her at an improper time. See the comments on Leviticus 20:18.
Verse 7: Has not Grieved Any Man
7. HAS NOT GRIEVED ANY MAN — has not harmed him. The Septuagint: has not oppressed.
HAS RESTORED THE PLEDGE TO THE DEBTOR — namely, to one who is poor. For the law commands that the pledge be restored to him out of charity, Exodus 22:26. It is therefore iniquity, even if by strict right, when charity is violated through this; hence God says of such a case: "If he cries to me (the poor man from whom you demand the pledge back), I will hear him," and I will punish you, the harsh exactor: "Because I am merciful," Exodus 22:26.
HAS GIVEN HIS BREAD TO THE HUNGRY. Note: Here the Prophet commends two works of mercy, which wonderfully win the grace of God for both the sinner and the just man. The first is to feed the hungry. To this the faithful of old and the Saints devoted themselves ardently.
"St. Exuperius," says St. Jerome, in his letter to the monk Rusticus, "Bishop of Toulouse, an imitator of the widow of Sarepta, while hungering himself feeds others, and with a face pale from fasting, is tormented by others' hunger, and has poured out all his substance into the bowels of Christ. No one is richer than he, who carries the Body of the Lord in a wicker basket, and the Blood in glass."
St. Dominic, while still a young man, in the common famine of Spain, sold his books and all his possessions, and spent the price on the poor.
Likewise in the famine of Burgundy, the senator Ecdicius did the same, who constantly fed up to four thousand poor. Hence a voice fell to him from heaven: "Ecdicius,
to you and your seed bread shall not be lacking forever; because you have obeyed my words, and have satisfied my hunger with the feeding of the poor." So Gregory of Tours, Book II of the History of the Franks, chapter 24.
St. Judoc, son of the king of the Britons, distributed to the poor the only bread he had for his daily sustenance, saying: "God will provide for us." And behold, through the window were seen and found in the bed of the river four small boats laden with provisions, about which — who brought them, or whither they took them once unloaded — is unknown to this day, says Abbot Florentius in his Life.
The Emperor Leo I, when he was still a private citizen, on a journey served as a guide to a certain blind and thirsty man, and sought drink for him; and when after searching for a long time he could not find any, the Blessed Virgin Mary, with a voice fallen from heaven, showed him water in a grove, and promised that, if he smeared mud on the blind man's eyes, he would restore his sight, and finally she promised him the empire. All these things actually happened to him. So the Ecclesiastical History, and from it Baronius, in the year of Christ 457.
When St. Heimerammus, Bishop of Regensburg, was in the most grievous torments, the executioners, seeing him so tortured and yet not ceasing from praises, in envy cut out his tongue, and so, leaving the trunk of his body, departed. There came to him clerics and Vitalis the priest, a pious man, from whom he asked for water; who answered: "Why do you wish to be refreshed, when you are deprived of the members of your body? Death is rather to be desired for you than life." To whom the Bishop, speaking without a tongue, inflicted this punishment, saying: "As often as you bring drink to your mouth, you shall lose your mind; yet you shall harm no one, but shall present an example of disobedience from yourself." The holy man said this, and as he said, so it was done. So Cyrinus the Bishop in his Life.
In the year of the Lord 1123, the winter was extremely harsh, from which there followed a great famine, in which the generosity of Count Charles of Flanders was remarkable. For every day he commanded that a whole loaf be given to everyone who asked for bread; so that once at Ypres, in one hour eight hundred poor received as many loaves. Moreover, it was his custom on all Fridays to distribute to thirteen poor people thirteen tunics, as many pairs of shoes, and as many linen undergarments. But he himself on the same Fridays (unless a major feast fell) fasted on bread and water. Wearing a hair shirt, with bare feet, in a long tunic so that the bareness of his feet might not easily be seen, he hurried to church in the morning: there he remained devoted to prayer until noon. Meanwhile two of his nobles, the provost of St. Donatian's and the provost of the court, bought a very large supply of grain to sell at their own pleasure: but Charles had the money returned to them; and distributed the grain to the needy, some freely, some at a fair price. Which the said merchants bore ill, and from that day they conspired against the life of their lord. And so on the second day of March, a Friday, in the church of St. Donatian, they killed him behind the altar while he was reading the psalm Miserere, splitting his head and cutting off his right arm. His precious death was immediately proclaimed by miracles. So Christianus Maffaeus, Book XVIII of the Chronicles, and Jacobus Meyerus, Book IX of the Annals of Flanders, in the year of the Lord 1116.
Remarkable is what Martinus Cromerus writes, Book II of On the Affairs of the Poles, that when Popielus, prince of the Poles, was killed by mice born from corpses on account of his cruelty and slaughter of his own people, there succeeded him Piastus, a simple man, who sustained his life by cultivating a small field and by beekeeping, because he was generous to the poor and hospitable to strangers. For when he had cheerfully received into his home and lavishly entertained, according to his means, two men in pilgrim's garb (they are thought to have been angels, or Saints John and Paul the martyrs, whom Julian the Apostate killed because of their wealth spent on the poor and their faith in Christ), who had been excluded from the royal palace, his pork grew in abundance, and his honey overflowed from the vessel, so much so that he refreshed the prince with his entire retinue, who was suffering from want, with an abundance of provisions. When this miracle became known, with one voice all cried out that Piastus was given to them as prince by divine judgment, and dragged the unwilling man, dressed in his rustic garment, into the palace and inaugurated him in the principate.
AND HAS COVERED THE NAKED WITH A GARMENT. This is another work of mercy that wins the grace of God, and was therefore frequently practiced by the ancients, such as Tobias, chapter 1, verse 20, and St. Job, chapter 31, verses 19 and 20. So St. Martin at Amiens gave to a poor man, having nothing else, half his cloak. The following night he saw Christ dressed in the part of his cloak with which he had covered the poor man, saying to a multitude of angels: "Martin, still a catechumen, has clothed me with this garment." Sulpicius is the witness in his Life.
So St. Marcian clothed a poor man with the only inner garment he was wearing, as Baronius reports from his Life in the year of Christ 459.
So St. Martyrius, wrapping a leper in his cloak and carrying him, discovered by an admirable miracle that he had clothed and carried Christ. For Christ, ascending into heaven, said: "Martyrius, you were not ashamed of me on earth, I will not be ashamed of you in heaven." So St. Gregory reports, homily 39 on the Gospels.
St. Francis, while still a layman, clothed a poor soldier, and the following night saw a beautiful and august palace, and when he asked whose all those things were, he heard: "They shall be yours and your soldiers'." So St. Bonaventure in his Life.
St. Elizabeth, daughter of the king of Hungary, giving her cloak to a poor man, when her husband demanded it from her, showed him the very same cloak miraculously restored on a pole, as Jacobus of Speyer reports in her Life.
Hear the marvelous generosity and equally marvelous reward of St. Catherine of Siena, which Raymond reports in her Life. For as she wished to return home from the church, Christ met her in the form of a young pilgrim, about thirty years old, and asked her for a garment. She, returning to the chapel from which she had descended, carefully removed the tunic without sleeves, which she wore under her outer garment on account of the cold, and gave it to the poor man, not knowing it was Christ. And he also asked for a linen garment. Then she told him to follow her to her house: where she gave him an undergarment and a loincloth. But he did not cease begging for more, to test her spirit. "What," he said, "shall I do with this tunic, which lacks sleeves? Please also give me sleeves." She searched through the house, and behold she saw hanging from a pole a new tunic of a maidservant: and removing the sleeves from it, she gave them to the poor man. Again he said he also had a companion in the hospice, greatly in need of clothing. Then indeed the holy virgin, seeing that she had absolutely nothing left to give besides the tunic she was wearing, which her virginal modesty and propriety would not allow her to remove, lest she be forced to walk naked to the scandal of many, said to the poor man: "Truly, dearest, if I could by any means, I would gladly provide something for your companion." But he, smiling: "I see," he said, "your willing spirit; but now farewell." Although the holy virgin, after he departed, guessed from certain signs that it was the Lord Jesus: nevertheless, because she thought herself most unworthy of such grace, she returned to her customary exercises. But the following night the Lord manifestly showed Himself to her as she prayed, in the likeness of that poor man, holding in His hand the tunic which the virgin had given Him, now adorned with pearls and shining gems,
and He said that He would give her an invisible garment, which would ward off from her every harmful cold of both body and soul. Which indeed He also actually provided, so that from that time she was content with the same garments in winter as in summer: indeed she never felt the severity of winter. At the same time also, when the Lord showed her this tunic, He made such promises to her that she could know for certain that she would enjoy excellent glory in heaven without end.
Let the rich hear, let princes hear the golden saying of Pope Agapetus, renowned for holiness, in his Parenetic Epistle to the Emperor Justinian: "The garment that does not grow old is the mantle of beneficence, and the incorruptible robe is mercy toward the poor. He, therefore, who wishes to reign piously must adorn his soul with the beauty of such garments. For he who is clothed in the purple of love for the needy also becomes the possessor of the heavenly kingdom."
When St. Willibrord asked for food and drink from a rich man, and the latter refused and went away, he was struck with a burning thirst, which he could not quench for a whole year, until after a year, when St. Willibrord returned, he obtained pardon by asking for it. For the Saint gave him to drink from his own chalice with a blessing, and so he was absolved and healed. So Albinus Flaccus in his Life.
More illustrious is the example of a pagan girl of Alexandria, which Sophronius reports in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 207. She freed a certain man who was preparing a noose for himself because of his debts, both from his debt and from death, giving him all her possessions. Hence she herself began to be in want, so that to obtain sustenance she prostituted her body. She fell into sickness, and coming to herself, repenting of what she had done, she asked for baptism. The priest rejected her unless she brought a guarantor that henceforth she would live chastely. When she could find no one who would guarantee, angels offered themselves in the appearance of certain courtiers, saying they would guarantee for her, and so she was baptized; afterward, when those courtiers were asked about her, they denied knowing her or having seen her. Hence it was recognized that they had been angels. She then
being questioned by the Bishop, narrated her life and her act of almsgiving, and soon fell asleep in the Lord, with the Bishop saying: "You are just, Lord, and Your judgment is right."
Verse 8: Has not Taken Increase
8. HAS NOT TAKEN INCREASE (in Hebrew: superabundantly, that is, anything above the principal, or the capital). Note: God, among other crimes, also threatens death to usury and usurers, and justly so. For, as St. Ambrose says in his book On Tobit, chapter 10: "There is no difference between a funeral and a loan, nothing between death and capital." And Cato, when asked: "What is it to lend at usury?" replied: "It is to kill a man." Wherefore St. Ambrose in the same book, chapter 12, compares usury to a viper: "The money of the usurer," he says, "is a kind of viper, which gives birth to such great evils. Yet the viper, fertile in sufferings, dragging out its innards, is ruptured by its own birth, and by the mother's death teaches the offspring not to be degenerate toward the mother. It tears her apart with its bites. There where poison is born, it is first tested. But the money of the usurer conceives all its evils, gives birth, nourishes them, and itself grows more in its offspring, more numerous with its sorrowful brood." And further: "There therefore are pains, as of one giving birth. Hence also the Greeks called interest tokous, because they seem to arouse the pains of birth in the soul of the debtor." I have said more about usury in Deuteronomy 23:9.
9. HAS WALKED IN MY COMMANDMENTS, AND KEPT MY JUDGMENTS. He repeats the same thing in other words by way of explanation. For judgments and commandments are the same in substance; but distinct in connotation, as is clear to one examining the etymology. Others understand by commandments the affirmative precepts, by judgments the negative ones; understand: grave matters binding under mortal sin. For as St. Augustine wisely says in his Sentences: "Just as certain venial sins, without which this life is not lived, do not impede the just man from eternal life: so some good works profit nothing for the salvation of the wicked man, without which it is very difficult to find the life of any most wicked person."
TO DO TRUTH — that is, duty, or the obligation of virtue. For just as truth in speech is the correspondence of what is said to what is in the mind: so truth in deeds is the correspondence of the work to what the law, reason, or faith dictates should be done.
HE SHALL SURELY LIVE — he shall live a happy life, namely temporal; and secondly, the just and blessed man shall live the life of grace and glory in heaven. For to live a life, for the Hebrews, means to live joyfully, happily, according to one's will and pleasure.
13. HE SHALL SURELY DIE — he shall be snatched away by an unhappy death; his father's virtue shall not profit the wicked man. So Prado.
HIS BLOOD SHALL BE UPON HIM — he shall pay with blood, that is, with the death he brought upon himself; he himself will be the cause of his death. So in chapter 33, verse 4, it is said: "His blood shall be upon his own head." Alternatively the Chaldean paraphrase: He shall be guilty of death. Alternatively also Maldonatus: He shall pay the penalties of bloodshed, that is, of the murders he has perpetrated: just as he has shed the blood of others, so shall his blood be shed.
Verse 14 and 17: If he Begets
14 and 17. IF HE BEGETS (the robber just mentioned in verse 10 and following) A SON, WHO SEEING ALL THE SINS OF HIS FATHER WHICH HE HAS DONE, IS AFRAID, AND DOES NOT DO THE LIKE TO THEM, etc., HE SHALL NOT DIE FOR THE INIQUITY OF HIS FATHER, BUT SHALL SURELY LIVE. Thus Ahaz, Manasseh, and Amon, wicked kings, perished miserably: but their pious sons, namely Hezekiah and Josiah, lived happily and gloriously. So Theodoretus.
You will say: Exodus 20:5 states: "I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation." Again, in 2 Kings 24, on account of David's sin, 70,000 of the people were struck down. On account of the sins of Dathan, Abiram, and the Sodomites, the entire family and nation together with innocent children was destroyed. So in Midian God ordered even all the children to be killed, Numbers 31:17. So in Jericho Joshua ordered even all the infants to be killed, Joshua 6:17 and 21. Therefore God punishes the sins of parents in their children.
St. Augustine responds, Epistle 75, that children are punished for the sins of their parents with bodily punishment, which they received from their parents, not with punishments of the soul, that is, spiritual ones. But Ezekiel, like Moses, properly speaks of bodily punishments, as I have said.
Secondly, St. Augustine, Enchiridion chapter 46; St. Leo, Epistle 84, and St. Gregory, Book XV, Morals 22, explain this concerning actual sin, which is opposed to original sin: We draw original sin from our parents, they say, because we are one with them: but having been freed from it through baptism, we no longer have the faults of our parents, but those which we ourselves commit. But Ezekiel, like Moses, speaks of punishment, not fault; temporal punishment, I say, not of original sin, but of actual sins which the Jews had committed after circumcision and the deletion of original sin through it.
Thirdly, St. Augustine, Book VI of Questions on the Old Testament, chapter 8, and St. Thomas, I-II, Question 87, article 8, respond that God scourges the children, even the good ones, of evil parents, so that these scourges may be punishment for the parents and preservative medicine for the children. Plutarch teaches the same in his book On the Delay of Divine Vengeance. Prado refutes this: because this is medicine for the children, not punishment.
Fourthly, Maldonatus responds that this general statement of the Prophet is to be understood not generally of all persons and of all times: but as fitted to the matter at hand. Now the matter here concerns the punishments which the Jews complained they were suffering on account of the sins of Manasseh: to which God responds that they will no longer be punished on account of the sins of Manasseh, either because they had already given sufficient punishment for them; or because they themselves had enough sins of their own, so that God would justly exact the most grievous punishments from them. But the general words of the Prophet demonstrate that the statement is general, even if the occasion for it was the particular wickedness of Manasseh.
I respond therefore that the Prophet speaks of adult pious sons, who detest the sins of their wicked parents; but Moses speaks of the wicked sons of wicked fathers, who imitate the sins of their parents: for in these God punishes the sins of the parents. For then the parent is punished both in himself and in his son: and the son is punished on account of the sin of the father, not insofar as it is the sin of the father, but insofar as he has imitated it and made it his own. It is true, however, that the son would not be punished so quickly and severely unless the sins of the father had preceded; because he sins more gravely in that by imitating the crimes of his elders, he approves and participates in them by his complacency, and is therefore more shameless and obstinate, while he adds and heaps up his own upon theirs. So St. Jerome. See the comments on Exodus chapter 20, verse 5. I say this about adults, because God sometimes punishes small children with temporal death, and involves them in the common disaster of their parents, as is evident in Sodom, in Jericho, in Canaan, in the Midianites, and in the case of David. The reason is that small children are still, as it were, one with their parent, and as it were his part and possession. Hence the parent, conscious of his own crime, is more grievously tormented by the death of an innocent child. But for the children themselves, this death is a benefit; because if they have been purified from original sin, they are saved, and snatched from the dangers of damnation. But if they are in original sin, as were the children of the Sodomites, it is better to die with that alone, than with many and unspeakable actual sins, into which they would certainly have fallen had they lived. Therefore, in the case of adult wicked sons of wicked parents, the saying of Exodus is true: for adult sons learn and imbibe wicked habits from their parents, on account of which both they themselves and their parents in them are punished. Similar is the proverb: "From a bad crow, a bad egg."
The origin of which is reported by some as follows: A certain Corax was the first at Syracuse, after the death of Hiero, to profess the art of rhetoric for pay. With him a certain young man Tisias made an agreement on the condition that he would pay the fee only when he had mastered the art. Then, when the art had been learned but he was delaying in paying the reward, Corax summoned his student to court. There the young man proposed the following dilemma: When asked what is the end of rhetoric, and Corax answered, to persuade by speaking: "Come," he said, "if I persuade the judges that I owe nothing, I will not pay, because I have won the case: but if I fail to persuade, I will not pay, because I have not mastered the art." But Corax turned the dilemma back on his student like a counter-argument: "On the contrary," he said, "if
you persuade, you will pay, because you possess the art, and you owe it by our agreement: but if you fail to persuade, you will pay, because you are condemned by the judgment of the judges." Hearing this clever device of the young man, the judges cried out: Kakou korakos kakon oon — From a bad crow, a bad egg. For Corax in Greek means a crow! So it is read in the Prolegomena to Hermogenes' Rhetoric. A completely similar story about the sophist Protagoras and his student Evathlo is told by Gellius, Book V, chapter 10.
17. IN THE INIQUITY (that is, on account of the iniquity) OF HIS FATHER.
18. BEHOLD HE IS DEAD (behold, he shall die) IN HIS INIQUITY — on account of his own iniquity.
20. THE SOUL THAT SINS, IT SHALL DIE. From this St. Augustine infers, treatise III on the Apocalypse, volume IX: "Many," he says, "are known to carry dead souls in living bodies." For just as the soul is the life of the body: so the life of the soul is God and the grace of God: therefore the soul, losing this through sin, is rightly said to die. Secondly and more simply, "the soul," that is, the man who sins, he himself shall die, with a death both temporal (which the Jews most feared) and spiritual and eternal. What then is sin? It is the death of the immortal soul: it is therefore a living death, an eternal death, because it is the death of a soul always living and eternal. Its immortal death, therefore, is sin.
THE JUSTICE OF THE JUST SHALL BE UPON HIM — that is, the just man shall receive the reward of his justice, namely life; and the wicked man shall receive the penalties of his wickedness, namely death. From this it is clear that we are formally just through justice, not that of Christ imputed to us, as the heretics claim, but through our own inherent justice, which God infuses into the soul on account of Christ's merits. Again, that we as truly and properly merit rewards by working well with the grace of God, as without it we merit punishments and death by working ill. For the Prophet speaks in the same manner about both.
Morally, learn from this the saying of St. Clement, Book II of the Apostolic Constitutions, chapter 14: "One should not avoid communion of speech with wrongdoers, but communion of action;" for the latter contaminates, not the former.
Verse 21: But If the Wicked Man Does Penance
21. BUT IF THE WICKED MAN DOES PENANCE — if he is contrite in heart, if he seriously grieves and repents, and changes his life. Hence in Hebrew: When he has departed from all his sins, and kept all the commandments — that is, has resolved to keep all of them, even if he has not yet actually kept them; for not all commandments can be kept in one day or hour; nor however should the remission of sins be expected to take a long time, since Ezekiel chapter 33, verse 12, asserts that the sinner on whatever day he is converted will have pardon. These words therefore seem to refer to the desire and purpose of keeping the commandments, which the contrition of the penitent includes. For the words of the Hebrews often signify not a completed act, but one begun, namely a purpose, determination, or attempt. So Paul says: "The grace that was given (that is, was decreed or predestined to be given) to us before all ages," 2 Timothy 1:9. Here therefore the penitent "shall live in his justice which he has done," that is, which he has begun to do, and has firmly resolved to continue doing hereafter. So Bellarmine, Book II On Penance, chapter 6, who from this proves that ordinarily a formal purpose of amendment is required for true contrition: and that a virtual one does not suffice. On the contrary, Andreas Vega, Book XIII on the Council of Trent, chapter 21, saying that a virtual purpose suffices, explains it thus: After justification obtained through penance, one must persevere in it, by keeping all the commandments hereafter. But, because the Prophet requires this as a condition and disposition before the remission of sins, so that God may not remember them, and that the sinner may live: hence the former exposition is truer, which Cajetan, Soto, Navarrus, Gerson, Ruardus and others follow, whom Francis Suarez cites and follows, treatise On Penance, Question 85, article 1, disputation 4, section 3.
HE SHALL SURELY LIVE — he shall certainly live both a temporal life, and a spiritual and eternal one. See the comments on verse 4.
22. I WILL NOT REMEMBER ALL HIS INIQUITIES, etc. "So much so," says St. Jerome, "do the sins of fathers not pass to their children, that if the same wicked man himself repents, God says: I will not remember his sins." Note the power of penance, which erases sin not only from the conscience, but also from the memory of God — of God, I say, who was offended. For otherwise it is commonly said of men:
He who injures writes in dust, but the injured in marble.
In Hebrew it is: they shall not be remembered to him, that is, they shall not be imputed to him for guilt and punishment, that is, they will be pardoned and abolished, so as to exist no more.
From this therefore it is clear that perfect contrition, which absolutely detests all sins committed as the greatest evils, from love of God above all things, with a serious and absolute purpose of avoiding them and all others henceforth, abolishes all sins and brings justifying grace. For it is the ultimate disposition toward it: wherefore this contrition is called, and in reality is, "formed by charity." Moreover, just as this was true in the Old Testament (where they did not have sacraments justifying ex opere operato, nor other remedies of justice): so it is also in the New. For it is
this is, as it were, connatural to true contrition: but God does not change the nature and order of things, but perfects them. So all the Fathers and Scholastics teach in the Third Part, in the matter On Penance, indeed the Council of Trent, Session XIV, chapter 4.
From this passage Peter Martyr attacks purgatory: If God, he says, after penance and contrition does not remember sins: therefore He does not punish them with temporal punishment in this life or the future. I respond by denying the consequence. For the meaning of this passage is: "I will not remember their iniquities" — supply: as one remaining hostile and an enemy, who remembers the injury received from an enemy in order to avenge it; for thus God before penance remembered the sin: but after it, now reconciled, He does not remember, that is, I now lay aside the memory of the injury and the enmity which until now I bore and kept in my mind against the one who sinned: I now receive and restore him to grace and friendship, and therefore he shall live and not die, that is, I will not punish him with death as I had previously decreed, but I will bestow on the truly penitent, reconciled to me, life both present (which the Jews especially regarded and desired) and eternal, and will preserve them in it; yet so that they may suffer and expiate with some temporal punishment, either here or in purgatory, not as enemies, but as friends and children who have recently offended me, on account of the pleasure which they drew from sin and my offense. For otherwise it is established that God speculatively remembers sins, as also all other things that are past; therefore this statement is not to be taken absolutely, but is to be understood and limited in relation to the present matter. For on the other side it is said of the just man, that if he sins, "all his justices shall not be remembered" — namely in such a way that on account of them he remains just and a friend, and worthy of life.
be granted present and eternal life. For it is established that God sometimes recompenses the good works of those who are, indeed of those who have always been, wicked with some temporal reward: and this St. Chrysostom explicitly teaches, homily 67 to the People, Jerome in chapter 39 of Ezekiel, Augustine, Book V of the City of God, chapter 15.
23. IS IT MY WILL THAT THE WICKED SHOULD DIE? Do I antecedently and of myself desire and take pleasure in the death of the wicked? Far be this from divine goodness and mercy. Away then, Calvin, who blaspheme that God created the damned for their own damnation and eternal death: this fate is not Christian, not Stoic, but tyrannical, but diabolical.
24. ALL HIS JUSTICES WHICH HE HAD DONE SHALL NOT BE REMEMBERED — so as to make him just before God, pleasing, and worthy of life, not of death. See the comments on verse 22.
25. AND YOU HAVE SAID: THE WAY OF THE LORD IS NOT RIGHT. Truly St. Augustine in Sentences, volume III, sentence 177: "As," he says, "food that is pleasant to a healthy palate is punishment to an unhealthy one: and the light that is
pleasing to healthy eyes is hateful to sick ones: so is the justice of God, to which if they submitted, they would not be disturbed."
IS NOT MY WAY RIGHT? etc. WHEN THE JUST MAN TURNS AWAY. Note: To those who calumniate His justice, God responds with the very thing they were calumniating, as though convincing them by this argument; because first principles do not have a cause and demonstration, but rest upon themselves and are understood by the knowledge and consideration of their terms. So divine truth rests upon itself, and divine equity of His justice has no reason beyond itself: but the thing itself proclaims it to be most just. So Polychronius, Theodoretus, Prado, and others. So Cicero, exaggerating the crime of parricide, says: "You killed your mother. What more shall I say? You killed your mother." Because he had nothing graver to add.
26. HE SHALL DIE IN THEM — for them, on account of them, namely his iniquities. Alternatively Theodoretus and Polychronius: He who is hardened in his sins and impenitent shall die in them, and consequently go to eternal death.
27. HE SHALL SAVE HIS SOUL ALIVE. The Septuagint: He shall guard and preserve it in life.
30. INIQUITY SHALL NOT BE YOUR RUIN — sin shall not be for you the cause of ruin and death.
31. A NEW HEART — a new will, A NEW SPIRIT — a new affection, ardor, so that you may pass from idols to me, from vices to virtues. He notes the freedom of the will, by which with the grace of God we can make ourselves a new heart.
WHY WILL YOU DIE? — that is, as Vatablus says, why by your negligence and impenitence would you bring it about that you die? And as Maldonatus: If you do this, there will be no reason why you should die. For it is not my will that you die, as I said in verse 23.
Sin alone is the cause of your death; why will you die? Why do you wish to die of your own accord? Why do you not seize the salvation I offer you?
Our Prado admirably and effectively presses and exhausts the words of the Prophet. If I, he says, who am the supreme judge, incline to your side, and refuse by every means to pass a sentence of condemnation; if I myself, who am the accuser, or even provoked by you, do not seek revenge, but freely pardon the offense — if you are sane and do not despise your own life: "Why then will you die, O house of Israel?" when you have an advocate instead of an accuser, and a patron instead of a judge? We shall die, because the law, the minister of death, condemns transgressors. But I absolve the penitent: "Why then will you die?" Because our fathers have sinned, we die. But as I live, the children shall not bear the iniquity of the fathers. "And why will you die, O house of Israel?" Because we have made a pact with death, and a covenant with hell. But it is in your power to dissolve the covenant struck: return, and live. "Why will you die, O house of Israel?" Because, weighed down by the law of our members, we are cast into the abyss of death. But it is permitted, if you wish, to make yourselves a new heart. "And why will you die?"
Because it is difficult to strive for life through the keeping of the law. And yet it is easy for you to acquire a new spirit and a new heart, by which you may be carried to heavenly life. "Why will you die, O children of Israel?" Because we have already been handed over to death by divine justice. But I, who do not desire the death of the dying, will snatch even those already devoured from the very jaws of death. "Why then will you die?" Because the Lord has forgotten us on account of the sins of our kings, Ahaz and Manasseh, therefore we die. But I cannot forget the devotion of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, and David: mindful of them, I will show you, O house of Israel, mercy and clemency. "And why will you die?" Because we cannot resist the divine power, which has sold us to the Babylonians. But it is permitted to you, if you flee to mercy, to be strong against God, which you well know that your father Israel once did: "Why then will you die?" There is only one thing that accuses you, that casts you down, that condemns and adjudges you to death, namely that you refuse to come to your senses, because you do not yet know what it is to live. But even those laboring under so dangerous a frenzy I will not cease to admonish and urge to sounder counsels: "Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I do not desire the death of the dying, etc., return, and live."
Plutarch narrates that in times past the Milesian virgins, driven by madness, were accustomed to killing themselves, having no reason except: "I wish to die." And since they could not be turned from this by either threats or promises, a certain wise man gave the counsel that all who had killed themselves should be hung up naked in public. This disgrace restrained the virgins from self-slaughter. So does the sinner act; for like a madman he rushes to his own destruction, inflicts death upon himself, and eternal death at that. Is this not insanity? Is it not madness? The damned now see their madness, their error, and grieve. "But the Phrygians grow wise too late." Justly therefore the worm of conscience here gnaws at them continually: Why, O most foolish of the living, did you willingly bring this eternal misery upon yourself? Why did you voluntarily cast yourself into an eternity of fires? No one compelled you: the devil did not force you, but merely invited you. Blame yourself for your lot; you freely chose death over life, demons over angels, hell over heaven. While we have time, let us think on these things and be wise.