Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Under the parable of a pot of meat cooked, overcooked, and melted by fire, he signifies that the flesh, that is the citizens of Jerusalem besieged by the Chaldeans, shall be consumed; and the pot, that is Jerusalem itself, shall be destroyed and burned. Secondly, in verse 15, the wife of Ezekiel dies, and God commands him not to mourn her, to portend the destruction of the city, in which, as in a common calamity and lamentation of all, no one shall mourn his brother, father, or wife. Hence thirdly, in verse 24, He establishes Ezekiel as a portent to the Jews.
Vulgate Text: Ezekiel 24:1-27
1. And the word of the Lord came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, saying: 2. Son of man, write for yourself the name of this day, on which the king of Babylon has confirmed his siege against Jerusalem today. 3. And you shall speak a parable to the house of provocation by a proverb, and you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord God: Set the pot on, set it on, I say, and pour water into it. 4. Gather its pieces into it, every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder, choice parts full of bones. 5. Take the fattest of the flock, and heap the bones beneath it: its cooking has boiled over, and its bones are overcooked in its midst. 6. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Woe to the city of blood, to the pot whose rust is in it and whose rust has not gone out of it: cast it out piece by piece; no lot has fallen upon it. 7. For her blood is in her midst; she poured it out upon the smoothest rock; she did not pour it out upon the ground, where it might be covered with dust. 8. That I might bring up My indignation and take vengeance with vengeance: I set her blood upon the smooth rock, that it might not be covered. 9. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Woe to the city of blood, whose pyre I will make great. 10. Heap on the bones, which I will kindle with fire: the flesh shall be consumed, and the whole composition shall be boiled, and the bones shall waste away. 11. Then set it empty upon the coals, that it may grow hot and its bronze may melt: and its filth may be melted in it, and its rust consumed. 12. Much labor has been spent in sweating, and the great rust of it has not gone out, not even through fire. 13. Your filth is abominable: because I wanted to cleanse you and you were not cleansed from your filth, you shall not be cleansed until I have caused My indignation to rest upon you. 14. I the Lord have spoken: It shall come, and I will do it; I will not pass over, nor spare, nor be appeased; according to your ways and according to your devices I will judge you, says the Lord. 15. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 16. Son of man, behold I take from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke: and you shall not mourn, nor weep, nor shall your tears flow. 17. Groan in silence, you shall not make mourning for the dead: let your turban be bound upon you, and your shoes shall be on your feet; you shall not cover your mouth with a veil, nor eat the bread of mourners. 18. So I spoke to the people in the morning, and my wife died in the evening: and I did in the morning as He had commanded me. 19. And the people said to me: Why do you not tell us what these things mean that you are doing? 20. And I said to them: The word of the Lord came to me, saying: 21. Speak to the house of Israel: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will profane My sanctuary, the pride of your dominion, and the desire of your eyes, and
that over which your soul trembles, your sons and your daughters whom you left behind shall fall by the sword. 22. And you shall do as I have done: you shall not cover your mouths with a veil, nor eat the bread of mourners. 23. You shall have your turbans on your heads and your shoes on your feet: you shall not mourn or weep, but you shall pine away in your iniquities, and every one shall groan to his brother. 24. And Ezekiel shall be a portent to you: according to all that he has done, so shall you do when this comes to pass: and you shall know that I am the Lord God. 25. And you, son of man, behold on the day when I take from them their strength, and the joy of their glory, and the desire of their eyes, that over which their souls rest, their sons and their daughters: 26. On that day when a fugitive comes to you to announce it to you: 27. On that day, I say, your mouth shall be opened with him who has fled: and you shall speak and be silent no more: and you shall be a portent to them, and they shall know that I am the Lord.
Verse 1: In The Ninth Year
1. IN THE NINTH YEAR — namely from the captivity of Jehoiachin. So all the Hebrews say, that is, in the 9th year of the reign of Zedekiah. Note: On the very same day on which Nebuchadnezzar began to besiege Jerusalem, namely in the 9th year, on the 10th day of the 10th month, as is evident from 4 Kings XXV, 1, on that very same day, I say, this was revealed to Ezekiel in Babylon. Hence he commands the day to be noted, so that afterward, when the Jews in Babylon learn through letters from their people in Jerusalem that this had indeed happened, they may know that Ezekiel is a true Prophet, and that these things happen against Jerusalem not by chance but by God's providence. So St. Jerome. This is what he adds:
Verse 2: Write For Yourself The Name Of This Day
2. WRITE FOR YOURSELF THE NAME OF THIS DAY — meaning: Note and record this day in Babylon, because on this very day Jerusalem has begun to be besieged by the Chaldeans. So St. Jerome.
Verse 3: Set The Pot On
3. SET THE POT ON — meaning: Jerusalem is the pot: prophesy about it, and about the citizens within it who shall be burned by the Chaldeans, as is explained in verses 6 and 10. This is therefore the parable of the pot, which he also proposed in chapter XI, 3. Thus the Spartan women used to beat pots while running through the city at the funerals of their kings, to signify that the city, bereft of its king, lacked spirit, just as those pots were empty. So Pierius, Hieroglyphics LVI.
Moreover, Eucherius in his Spiritual Formulas, chapter VIII, says: The pot, since it is a receptacle for seasonings pertaining to human sustenance, is usually taken in Sacred Scripture for offspring or progeny: for, just as what serves for sustenance is taken from the pot, so from the human vessel offspring is produced, which propagates through many generations of men.
CHOICE PARTS, FULL OF BONES — meaning: All the best parts, which are usually full of bones as supports. The Septuagint translates: The leg and the shoulder, flesh separated from the bones. But this version does not agree well with the Hebrew.
5. HEAP THE BONES ALSO BENEATH IT. — The Septuagint says: Set fire to the bones beneath them. The bones here therefore serve in place of firewood, and they burn with the wood and cook the meat. These things signify that the slaughter of the innocent is the cause of the siege, and their bones pursue them, and in turn, as it were, kindle their bones beneath the pot, the bones placed in the pot. So Vatablus, Rabbi David, and others. For thus he explains in verse 10: "Heap on the bones (under the pot) which I will set on fire: the flesh shall be consumed, and the bones (which are in the pot with the flesh) shall waste away," that is, they shall dissolve and as it were melt, where he distinguishes between the bones that are outside under the pot and the bones that are inside the pot: for he sets fire to those so that these may waste away. Hence, also explaining the parable in verse 6, he says: "Woe to the city of blood," etc.
Otherwise Prado says: "beneath it," that is, inside the pot, place the bones at the bottom beneath the meat. And this is probable, for bones scarcely burn, even with wood.
Moreover it signifies that the princes shall be in the first place, as if at the bottom of the pot, to feel the fire of the siege and destruction. So Maldonatus and Rabbi Solomon.
ITS COOKING HAS BOILED OVER — meaning: The pressures of the siege have so intensified that even the bones have been overcooked, though they are very hard and unsuitable for cooking — that is, the strongest and most powerful of the Jews have been consumed by famine, sword, and pestilence, or scattered. "It has boiled over" means: it is about to boil over now. Hence in Hebrew it reads: Cause its boilings to boil.
Verse 6: WOE TO THE CITY OF BLOOD!
6. WOE TO THE CITY OF BLOOD! — Woe to Jerusalem, filled with slaughter, even of the innocent, and with crimes, and infamous! See chapter XXII, 2. Here the Prophet explains the parable.
RUST — that is, encrustation, namely the charred residue of meat that adheres to the pot, not foam, as Vatablus and Rabbi David would have it, who translate and explain it thus: This pot has boiled for a long time but has not been skimmed, that is, purged of its crimes. But foam is immediately dispersed and expelled by fire when the water boils: and the Hebrew chelata signifies rust, not foam, as is evident from verse 11. Rust signifies impiety and obstinacy. The Apostle in Hebrews XII, 1 alludes to this when he says: "Laying aside every weight, and the sin which surrounds us" — Oecumenius and Vatablus there understand that instead of 'surrounding,' it means 'tenaciously adhering': as if the Apostle compares us and our bodies to a pot, and sin and concupiscence to the charring, or the residue of burnt meat, which cannot be so scrubbed away but that some remnants remain and adhere to the pot. For rust in metals is contracted by sitting idle, in pots by burning — dry and red, gradually consuming pots and metals — so called from its color, for the ancients called red 'robus.'
CAST IT OUT PIECE BY PIECE; NO LOT HAS FALLEN UPON IT. — Vatablus says: empty the pot morsel by morsel, meaning: Remove each piece one by one and throw it out, to signify that the corpses of the citizens shall not all be thrown out at once and at the same time, but successively and individually (so that no one remains alive), one after another, without casting lots, that is, without selection. Again, without lots means they shall not be killed by lottery, as sometimes happens, when every tenth or hundredth person on whom the lot falls is punished (as we read was done with the Theban martyrs); but all to the last, one by one, without distinction, shall be consumed or captured by famine, sword, and pestilence. So Apollinaris, St. Jerome, Maldonatus, and others.
Verse 7: For Her Blood
7. FOR HER BLOOD — namely of the Prophets and innocent children, shed by Manasseh and others, filled Jerusalem like a pot to the brim, as in 4 Kings XII, 16. Hence by the law and punishment of retribution, they likewise, shut within the walls, enclosed in the city as in a pot, shall be boiled, burned, and consumed by the Babylonian siege.
Allegorically, on account of the blood of Christ shed there, Jerusalem was enclosed and set on fire as a pot by Titus.
Anagogically, the pot is the round world, which at the end of the world shall be consumed by fire, so that all its filth and crimes committed in it may be burned and atoned for. So St. Jerome.
Tropologically, the pot always boiling and burning is an evil conscience, which always seethes, both with evil desires and with pains and anguish. For as St. Jerome says: "As many as there are vices, so many are the torments of the soul." And St. Ambrose: "The impious man is his own punishment, the just man his own glory." And St. Bernard: "Nothing in this life is more laborious than to seethe with earthly desires; and nothing more peaceful than to desire nothing of this world."
IT IS IN HER MIDST — meaning: The blood, that is, the murder and crime of her, is openly and publicly exposed and manifest to all. See chapter XXII, 6 and 13; hence it follows:
SHE POURED IT OUT UPON THE SMOOTHEST ROCK. — Vatablus says: on a prominent rock, namely there were hills in the valley of Hinnom and elsewhere, rocky ones, where they slaughtered the innocent. Our translator better renders it as "smoothest." For what is signified is not an elevated place, but a rocky one, clean and without dust, where dust could not absorb and cover the blood. Hence, explaining, he adds:
SHE DID NOT POUR IT OUT UPON THE GROUND, WHERE IT MIGHT BE COV-
ERED WITH DUST — meaning: Jerusalem did not conceal her murders, blood, and corpses, but openly and publicly committed and exposed them. So Christ was killed on the rock of Golgotha by that same city. So St. Jerome and Theodoretus. Who adds: The blood, he says, was not poured out on earth and absorbed by it, but was cast upon a bare stone, which is continually preserved to accuse those who dared to shed it. So Abimelech killed 70 brothers upon one stone, Judges IX, 5; because he wanted the traces and memory of the blood to remain. Thus the parricide sought glory and fame from parricide, just as Herostratus burned the temple of Diana, so that by this sacrilegious deed he might make his name famous and eternal.
Mystically St. Gregory, Book XV of the Moralia, chapter XIX, says: "Blood is poured out upon the smoothest rock when the malice of a bloody mind rages in the affliction of a just soul."
Verse 8: THAT I MIGHT BRING UP MY INDIGNATION.
8. THAT I MIGHT BRING UP MY INDIGNATION. — The word 'that' signifies not purpose but consequence, meaning: From this it resulted and followed that I brought up My indignation against her. Hence in Hebrew it reads: That it might cause My wrath to burn. Wherefore:
I SET (that is, I will set) HER BLOOD UPON THE SMOOTHEST ROCK — meaning: I also in return will punish her openly and publicly; as she sinned publicly, so she shall be punished by Me publicly. Maldonatus reads it differently, meaning: "That I might bring up," that is, for this reason I permitted that the blood she shed should fall not on earth but on rock, so that seeing it, I might take My indignation and vengeance against her: "I set therefore her blood," which she shed, "upon the smoothest rock," that is, I permitted it not to fall on earth but on rock, lest it be covered with dust.
9. WHOSE PYRE I WILL MAKE GREAT. — In Hebrew: I will also make a great funeral pyre, meaning: Jerusalem has shed much blood; so I too will send upon her great punishment and fire.
Verse 10: HEAP ON THE BONES.
10. HEAP ON THE BONES. — The Hebrew and the Chaldean say: Multiply the wood, light the fire, to make a great pyre. Our translator better reads atsamim, that is 'bones,' instead of etsim, that is 'wood.' For he is explaining the parable of the pot and the bones from verse 5.
AND THE WHOLE COMPOSITION SHALL BE COOKED — namely the mixture of meats in the pot. Hence the Septuagint translates: the broth shall be diminished, that is, the juice of the meats; Vatablus: I will season the seasoning, meaning: Just as meat is seasoned with spices to make it more savory, so I will season Jerusalem with calamities, so that God's justice, as well as the enemies, may take delight from them, as from a well-seasoned dish. So Rabbi David. Again, Maldonatus and others translate: I will boil a decoction of pigments, that is, I will boil them out, just as pharmacists boil their drugs and pigments, until everything is consumed and a third substance results.
THE BONES (in the pot, that is the princes in Jerusalem) SHALL WASTE AWAY — that is, by the heat and fever of affliction, namely by famine, pestilence, and the sword they shall be consumed. The Chaldean translates: Her mighty ones shall go mad.
Verse 11: Then Set It Empty Upon The Coals, That It May Grow Hot And Its Bronze May Melt
11. THEN SET IT EMPTY UPON THE COALS, THAT IT MAY GROW HOT AND ITS BRONZE MAY MELT — meaning: Once the meat is removed and consumed, the bronze of the pot itself shall melt in the fire, and the pot with its rust shall be consumed — that is, once the citizens are slain, the city of Jerusalem itself shall be consumed by fire.
Symbolically, St. Gregory applies this to Rome devastated by the Lombards, Homily 18 on Ezekiel, near the end: "The bones, he says, are the magistrates and the powerful; the flesh is the people. Because, he says, the senate is no more, the people have perished; and yet among the few who remain, sorrows and groans are multiplied daily; already Rome burns empty. For the pot itself is now being consumed, in which the flesh and bones were previously consumed, because after the people have perished, even the walls fall."
12. ITS RUST HAS NOT GONE OUT, NOT EVEN THROUGH FIRE — the malice of the Jews was not scraped away by fire. This is what Jeremiah says in chapter VI, 29: "The bellows have failed, the lead is consumed in the fire, the smelter has smelted in vain; for their evil deeds are not consumed."
Allegorically St. Jerome says: The malice of Jerusalem was not purged through Christ, who toiled in her, burned with heat, and sweated blood — or rather through Titus who devastated and burned her.
13. UNTIL I CAUSE MY INDIGNATION TO REST UPON YOU — meaning: Until I pour out My fury upon you, kill you and lay you waste; and so My indignation shall cease.
Secondly, and better: meaning: Until I have exhausted and fully satisfied all My wrath, until I have poured out upon you all the weapons of My vengeance; so that they, and at the same time My anger, may rest and be buried in you. See what was said at chapter XVI, 42.
14. IT SHALL COME — vengeance is at hand, and the day of vengeance has been decreed. Hence the Hebrew has baa, that is, 'it comes.' Therefore Maldonatus reads less correctly 'come,' meaning: Come now, and I will accomplish in you what I have spoken.
I WILL NOT PASS OVER — I will not omit what I have threatened. Rabbi David says: I will not retreat, that is, I will not depart from My sentence. The Septuagint says: I will not delay.
Verse 16: I TAKE FROM YOU THE DESIRE OF YOUR EYES
16. I TAKE FROM YOU THE DESIRE OF YOUR EYES. — Here is the second part of the chapter, in which from the siege he passes to the overthrow of the city, and foreshadows it through another parable, namely through the death of his wife. "I take," therefore, "from you the desire" — that is, your gracious and lovable wife, for since one who loves a thing often casts his eyes upon it, the desire of the eyes means a beloved thing; namely: "Where the eye is, there is love; where the hand is, there is pain."
WITH A STROKE. — That is, as the Hebrew has it, by a violent death, namely by a sudden disease or rather by a blow and force inflicted; for it signifies that Jerusalem shall be suddenly overthrown by force brought against it by the Chaldeans. For an unforeseen death and destruction afflicts and strikes more severely, for arrows that are foreseen strike less hard.
AND YOU SHALL NOT MOURN — do not mourn, do not weep. For these future things signify God's command; therefore they must be interpreted as imperatives.
17. GROAN IN SILENCE — Groan in secret, so that no one hears you groaning. Otherwise the Chaldean and the Hebrews translate: From groaning be silent, meaning: I do not even permit you to groan. But our translator and the Septuagint render it better; for in verse 23, explaining the parable, he says: "Each one shall groan to his brother," that is, he shall flee in silence.
LET YOUR TURBAN BE BOUND UPON YOU. — "Crown" means the band with which priests crown their cap, as it were, and fit it to the head; or certainly he calls the round cap itself a crown, which like a crown crowns and surrounds the head — such as were the mitres and tiaras of the priests, and now the turbans of the Turks: for these in Hebrew are called peer, that is, the beauty and glory of the head; and they had ribbons or bands by which they were tied to the head. For Ezekiel was a priest, and therefore was clothed with a mitre as with a crown. Or finally he calls it a crown of hair, namely a head of hair either trimmed in a circle or rather tied up: so the Septuagint, for they translate: Your hair was bound upon you, as St. Jerome and Theodoretus read. But the Roman edition of the Septuagint reads the opposite: Your hair shall not be bound upon you. The sense is: Do not mourn, and do not, in the manner of mourners, remove your hair, cap, or the band crowning it, and take off your shoes, so as to go with head and feet bare; nor shall you cover your mouth or face with a garment, as those in mourning do. So St. Jerome.
Thus the Greeks of old and the Romans would lay down their crowns at funerals. Hear St. Jerome to Heliodorus in the Epitaph of Nepotian: "They cite, he says, innumerable men, and especially Pericles and Xenophon the Socratic; of whom the former, having lost two sons, delivered a speech in the assembly still wearing his crown," to show that he did not grieve or mourn. "The latter, when while sacrificing he heard that his son had been killed in battle, is said to have removed his crown: and to have replaced it on his head after he learned that he had fallen fighting bravely in battle." But of these things more fully shortly.
Note here the rites of mourning the dead, customary among the Jews. First, they would remove their crowns and usual garments and put on mourning clothes. So the Gentiles would lay aside the insignia of their magistracies in mourning, as Tacitus narrates in Book III, on the Funeral of Germanicus. The Chinese still do the same: when one of their people dies, they mourn to such a degree that they entirely resign their magistracy for some years and live at home in silence. That they changed their rings is clear from Suetonius, who relates that when Augustus died, some proposed: "On the day of the funeral, golden rings should be laid aside and iron ones taken up." Livy, Book XXXIV: "What else do they do in mourning but lay aside their purple and gold?" Ovid, Book VIII of the Metamorphoses, of Althea, when she beheld her brothers slain:
She, with lamentation, fills the city with mournful cries, And changed her golden garments for black ones.
To this belongs the epigram of C. Cilnius Maecenas on the Floralia, found in Isidore, Book X, chapter XXXII:
Mourning you, my life, I seek neither emeralds, Nor beryls, Flaccus, nor the shining Bright white pearls; Nor rings that the Thynian file has polished, Nor jasper gems.
Indeed among the Romans in the public mourning for princes there was a cessation of legal proceedings: the consuls sat on a common seat in the senate house, their fasces were carried before them inverted, they avoided everything joyful and abstained from public life. Tacitus says, in Book III, on the Funeral of Germanicus: "The news of his death so inflamed these sentiments that before the edict of the magistrates, a cessation of proceedings was declared, the courts were abandoned, houses were closed, everywhere silence and groaning."
Secondly, the Jews in mourning would put off their shoes and walk barefoot: hence God commands Ezekiel to walk with shoes on, lest he mourn his wife's death while wearing shoes.
Thirdly, they would cover their mouth, as if cutting off their own voice and breath in mourning for the one who in death had lost both. So among the Romans, if the deceased had left surviving children, the sons would go forth in the funeral with covered heads, but the daughters with uncovered heads, as Plutarch teaches in the Roman Questions, Problem 14. They would also cut their hair and place it on the breast of the dead. So it was done at the funeral of Virginia, daughter of Virginius, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus relates, Book XI. And Ovid says in Book III of the Metamorphoses, of the sisters of Narcissus:
The Naiad sisters mourned, And laid their shorn hair upon their brother.
Fourthly, they abstained from feasts. Paul, Book of Sentences, chapter XXI: "He who mourns, he says, must abstain from banquets." Cicero to Atticus, Book XII, on the death of Tullia: "Since I must abstain from banquets, I prefer it to seem that I do this by law rather than by grief." Indeed they even abstained from fire. Juvenal, Satire 3:
Then we groan at the disasters of the city, then we hate fire.
Where the old commentator says: "We do not allow fire to be made in the house, which mourners also customarily observe."
NOR THE BREAD OF MOURNERS — meaning: You shall not eat from the funeral feast or from the obsequies. By all these things he signifies that at the death and fall of Jerusalem, the neighbors will not mourn but will rejoice; and Jerusalem will have no one to grieve with her or console her: indeed so great will be the disaster and the common grief of all, that no one will be moved by the pain and death of even his closest brother. So Theodoretus.
Jeremiah XVI, 5 is similar. See what was said there.
Verse 18: And My Wife Died
18. AND MY WIFE DIED — as God had foretold in verse 16.
AND I DID IN THE MORNING AS HE HAD COMMANDED ME — that is, I crowned my head, put on my shoes, and gave no sign of mourning.
Morally, learn here that wise and godly men, such as the Prophets were, ought not to mourn and weep excessively over calamities, whether private or public, nor over any afflictions of this life; but rather in them to resign themselves and conform to the divine will that sends or permits them — especially because the mind of the wise, fixed on heaven and on God, esteems all things beneath the moon, whether good or evil, as small and trifling, as indeed they are in comparison to heavenly and infernal things.
Add to this: The wise man knows that all mortal things are condemned to death; he knows that after sin the human race was consigned to these calamities; he knows that from every age there have been such overthrows of kingdoms, disasters, and slaughters. And so he sees nothing new here to wonder at or grieve over — especially since this grief and sadness is useful neither to himself nor to others (for through it he can neither prevent impending disasters, nor recall and restore those already inflicted), but is rather harmful and injurious, and augments and doubles the calamity itself, Sirach XXX, 24: "Drive sadness far from you; for sadness has killed many, and there is no profit in it." Cassian, Book IX of the Institutes of Renunciants, chapter XII, says: "All sadness, except that which is undertaken for salutary repentance, or for the pursuit of perfection, or out of desire for future things, must be equally repelled as the sadness of the world that brings death, and must be thoroughly expelled from our hearts, just like the spirit of fornication or avarice."
Seneca considers whatever nourishes grief to be a farce, that is, a thing deserving laughter. The same author, Epistle 77: "The blow of a foreseen evil, he says, comes gently; therefore the wise man accustoms himself to future evils, and what others make light through long suffering, he makes light through long reflection." Servius Sulpicius, consoling Cicero on the death of his daughter Tullia: "There is no grief, he says, which the length of time does not diminish and soften." And Sophocles: "Time, he says, is an easy god," who softens and soothes all things and heals all afflictions. This is what wise medicine prescribes. Anaxagoras, upon hearing of his son's death at Troy: "I knew, he said, that I had begotten a mortal. I knew I was sending him into a deadly war, not to a banquet." Indeed, says Cicero, Book III of the Tusculan Disputations: "This is that excellent and divine wisdom: to have thoroughly grasped and reflected upon human affairs; to marvel at nothing when it happens; to consider, before it has occurred, that there is nothing that cannot occur." Seneca, Epistle 86: "Our Demetrius, he says, calls a life that is secure and without any assaults of fortune a dead sea. To have nothing by which you might be roused, by whose threat and attack you might test the firmness of your spirit — to lie in undisturbed idleness is not tranquility but a dead calm. That famous Stoic Atticus used to say: I prefer fortune to have me in her camp rather than in her lap. I am racked, but bravely — so be it." And in his book On Providence, before the middle: "Nothing, he says, seems to me more unhappy than the man to whom no adversity has ever happened; for he is not permitted to test himself. The gods have judged poorly of him; he has been deemed unworthy for fortune ever to conquer — fortune, which flees from every coward." And further on: "I judge you wretched because you have not been wretched; you have passed through life without an adversary." Cicero, Tusculan Disputations III: "There is no mortal whom pain and sickness do not touch; many
children must be buried, new ones must be begotten; death is the end of all. Earth must be returned to earth, and life must be reaped from all as grain. So necessity commands us to endure the human condition, as if forbidding us to fight against God." Euripides at the end of the Phoenissae: "Why, he says, do I lament these things and weep in vain? A mortal must endure whatever God sends."
Hermas, Bishop and Martyr, disciple of St. Paul, in the book entitled The Shepherd, which is cited and approved by Dorotheus, Damasus, and other Fathers, in the fifth vision, the tenth commandment, relates that an angel appeared to him in the figure of a shepherd and among other things said to him: "Sadness is the most wicked of all spirits, and the worst for the servants of God, and it destroys all spirits and crushes the Holy Spirit; and the prayer of a sad man does not have the power to ascend to the altar of God: for just as wine mixed with vinegar does not have the same sweetness, so sadness mixed with the Holy Spirit does not have the same pure prayer."
Finally the Psalmist, Psalm LXXVI, 3: "My soul, he says, refused to be comforted; I remembered God and was delighted." Whence Nemesius, book On the Nature of Man, chapter XIX: "He who, he says, in these sad circumstances gives himself entirely to the contemplation of things, will not be disturbed at all, since he has removed himself from the affairs that are conducted in human life and joined himself to God, according to Psalm XXXVI, 4: 'Delight in the Lord.'" And Cassian, Book IX of the Institutes of Renunciants, chapter XIII: "We shall be able to drive out this most pernicious passion of sadness if we raise our mind with future hope and contemplation of the promised blessedness."
Do you want examples of constancy in public disaster, and those of pagans? Antiochus, driven by Lucius Scipio beyond Mount Taurus from the borders of his empire, having lost the province of Asia and the neighboring nations, said he was grateful to the Roman people that, freed from too great an administration, he might use the moderate boundaries of his kingdom.
Wisely Solon judged that no one, while still alive, should be called happy, because until the very last day of fate we are subject to uncertain fortune. Death therefore consummates the title of human happiness. When he saw one of his friends grieving deeply, he led him to the citadel and urged him to cast his eyes over all the parts of the buildings below. When he saw that this had been done: "Consider now with yourself, he said, how much mourning has been under these roofs in the past, exists today, and will exist in the ages to come; and cease to weep over the misfortunes of mortals as if they were your own alone." By this consolation he showed that cities are pitiable enclosures of human calamities. The same man used to say: "If everyone brought together their misfortunes into one place, each would prefer to carry his own back home rather than take his share from the whole heap of miseries." By which he concluded that we ought not to judge what we suffer by chance as being of extraordinary and intolerable bitterness. So Valerius Maximus, Book VII, chapter II.
But we have among the faithful more illustrious and more constant examples. King Hezekiah, hearing from Isaiah that his treasures and descendants were to be delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans: "Good, he said, is the word of the Lord that He has spoken; let there only be peace and truth in my days."
Irene, cast down from the empire by her servant Nicephorus: "I, she said, ascribe it to God's grace that He placed me, an orphan and unworthy, at the helm of the Empire; but that He now allows me to be cast down, I ascribe to my sins. In all good things and in all evils, blessed be the name of the Lord." So Paul the Deacon, Book XXIII of Roman History.
Pope Pius II, hearing that his army in Picenum had been destroyed by the enemy, was not at all moved: "It will now be ours, he said, to conquer, we who have been conquered. The fortune of war is with us; for those whom it first favors, it later abandons."
Ferdinand, King of Aragon and Naples, stripped of his kingdom by the French, and having meanwhile suffered a new defeat at Seminara, bore himself with nearly the same spirit as if he had conquered: he only complained that he had been deceived in his expectation, and had no doubt about fortune, which by many omens had entirely promised him a timely return to his kingdom and homeland.
Henry VI, King of England, deprived of his kingdom by his rival Edward and cast into chains, with his son moreover killed, gave thanks to God that He had given him this Purgatory in life by which to atone for his sins. Polydore is the witness, Book XXIV.
Do you want private examples, and ones proper to this passage, namely of those who bore the death of wives, children, and their loved ones with an even and brave spirit? Hear the pagan examples. Lucius Aemilius had two sons, of whom one preceded his father's triumph by his death four days before; the other, seen in the triumphal chariot, expired after the third day. Aemilius bore this blow with such strength of spirit that, speaking to the people about his deeds, he said: "When in the greatest abundance of your good fortune, citizens, I feared that fortune might be plotting some evil, I prayed to the gods that if any adversity threatened the Roman people, they would turn it entirely upon my house. Wherefore things are well; for by granting my prayers they brought it about that you should rather grieve for my loss than I should groan over yours." So Valerius Maximus, Book V, chapter X.
A Spartan woman, when she heard that her son, whom she loved uniquely, had been killed in battle, said: "I bore him for the purpose that there might be one who would not hesitate to meet death for his country." Plutarch is the witness in the Apophthegms. Learn therefore to beget children remembering that by nature, the law of receiving and returning the breath of life is declared at the same moment.
A certain Athenian was mourning his daughter Elpinice's death in an unseemly way, prostrate on the ground and crying out: "What offerings shall I make to you, daughter? What shall I bury with you?" The philosopher Sextus arrived and said: "You will give your daughter the greatest gift if you mourn moderately." So Philostratus in the Sophistae.
Amasis said to someone deprived of his son: "If you were not saddened when your son did not yet exist, you ought not to grieve now either, when he no longer exists."
The sophist Quirinus, to friends consoling him on the death of his son: "When, he said, shall I more clearly show myself a man than now?" Sensing that grief was indeed bitter, but that the praise of fortitude would be all the more splendid. So Philostratus.
When the sophist Herodes was immoderately mourning the premature death of Polux, and wanted to harness chariots and horses for him as if he were about to ride, and even to prepare a dinner, Demonax approached: "Behold, he said, a letter for you from Pollux." When Herodes brightened and asked what he wanted: "He blames you, he said, for delaying to come to him." Signifying that Pollux would not return to him, but that the chariot was being rightly prepared if he wished to follow the deceased.
Horatius Pulvillus, when in the Capitol to Jupi-
ter the Best and Greatest he was dedicating a temple as pontiff, and while holding the doorpost during the solemn pronouncement of the words he heard that his son had died; he neither removed his hand from the doorpost, lest he interrupt the dedication of so great a temple, nor turned his face from the public religious duty to private grief, lest he seem to have played the part of a father rather than a pontiff.
Quintus Marcius Rex, colleague of the elder Cato in his consulship, lost a son of the highest devotion, great promise, and — which was no small addition to the calamity — his only son. And although he saw himself shattered and overthrown by his death, he so restrained his grief by the loftiness of his resolution that from the pyre of the young man he went directly to the senate house and summoned the senate, which by law was required to be held that day.
Pericles, the chief of the Athenians, stripped of two remarkable adolescent sons within four days, during those very days delivered speeches with his face retaining its former composure and his speech in no way broken. Indeed he even endured wearing his head crowned in the usual manner, so that he might detract nothing from the ancient custom on account of his domestic wound. Not without reason, therefore, did a spirit of such strength ascend to the cognomen of Olympian Jupiter.
Xenophon, who as regards the Socratic school holds the next rank of happy and blessed eloquence after Plato, while performing a solemn sacrifice, learned that his elder son named Gryllus had fallen in battle at Mantinea, yet did not think the divine worship he had begun should be abandoned; but was content only to lay down his crown, which crown itself, when he inquired how his son had died and heard that he had fallen fighting most bravely,
he replaced upon his head: declaring before the gods to whom he was sacrificing that he felt greater pleasure from his son's virtue than bitterness from his death. So Valerius Maximus, Book V, chapter X. Hear St. Jerome to Heliodorus, while consoling him on the death of his nephew Nepotian: "Why should I mention, he says, the Roman generals, by whose virtues, like so many stars, the histories of Latium shine? Pulvillus, dedicating the Capitol, ordered his son, who was suddenly reported dead, to be buried in his absence. Lucius Paulus entered the city in triumph during the seven days between the funerals of his two sons. I pass over the Maximi, Catos, Galli, Pisos, Bruti, Scaevolae, Metelli, Scauri, Marii, Crassi, Marcelli, and Aufidii, whose virtue was no less in mourning than in war, and whose bereavements Cicero set forth in his book On Consolation — lest I seem to have sought other men's examples rather than our own. Although these things too have been briefly said to reproach us, if faith does not surpass what unbelief has shown."
Finally, mourning, wailing, and funeral weeping were forbidden to the Romans by the laws of the Twelve Tables.
But these are trifling examples if compared with the moderation, strength, and equanimity of the faithful. Holy Job, deprived of all his goods and all his children at the same time, did not groan, did not accuse God or men, but resigning himself to God, he blessed Him: "The Lord, he said, gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
Equal to him in virtue, though inferior and weaker in sex, was St. Paula of Rome, says St. Jerome in her Epitaph, when the losses of her household and the ruin of her entire patrimony were reported to her: "What profit, she said, is it to a man if he gain the whole world?" And: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return. As the Lord pleased, so it has been done."
St. Bernard would not allow mourning for St. Malachy, who died at Clairvaux; for he writes thus in his Life: "And indeed what reason is there to mourn Malachy immoderately, as if his death were not precious, as if it were not more a sleep than a death, as if it were not a harbor from death and a gate of life? Malachy our friend sleeps, and shall I weep? This mourning defends itself by custom, not by reason. If the Lord has given His beloved sleep, and such a sleep in which is the inheritance of the Lord, children as a reward, the fruit of the womb — which of these things seems to warrant weeping? Shall I then weep for him who has escaped weeping? He dances for joy, he triumphs, he has been led into the joy of his Lord, and shall I mourn him? I desire these things for myself; I do not begrudge them to him."
Equally noble, indeed more noble, were the mothers of the martyrs. The mother of the seven Maccabees, 2 Maccabees VII; St. Symphorosa and St. Felicitas, likewise mothers of seven sons and heroines: who exulted in the death of their children endured for God, and spurred them on to embrace death by their countenance, their words, and their examples.
Such also was St. Sophia, mother of three young daughters, Faith, Hope, and Charity, whom while they were still children she formed and inflamed for martyrdom — truly a martyr three and four times over. See their martyrdom in the Lives of the Saints, August 1. See also St. Gregory of Nyssa in the oration whose title is: One Should Not Grieve Over the Death of Those Who Have Fallen Asleep in the Faith.
Verse 21: BEHOLD, I WILL PROFANE (I will desecrate through the Chaldeans
21. BEHOLD, I WILL PROFANE (I will desecrate through the Chaldeans the temple, which is) THE PRIDE (that is, the glory, grandeur, and magnificence: for thus we call proud cities and buildings glorious, splendid, and renowned) OF YOUR DOMINION (the Chaldean and the Septuagint say: of your strength, that is, that in which you take pride as if it were invincible, and which is) THE DESIRE OF YOUR EYES (that is, most lovable to your eyes, in the sight of which you take the greatest delight): AND THAT OVER WHICH YOUR SOUL TREMBLES — that is, fears lest it perish, be devastated, be burned. The Hebrew says: the indulgence of your soul, that is, the thing which you so love as indulgent parents love their children. He explains the parable. For by the wife of Ezekiel he signified the temple, which was the supreme delight of the Jews.
Secondly, 'the desire' and 'that over which your soul trembles' could be referred to wives, or rather to children, whom they loved most tenderly, who were killed, so that as if explaining he adds: "And your sons and daughters, whom you left behind, shall fall by the sword." Hence the Septuagint translates: those whom your souls spare.
WHOM YOU LEFT BEHIND — in Jerusalem. For he was speaking to Jews living in Babylon.
Verse 22: AND YOU SHALL DO AS I HAVE DONE, meaning: Just
22. AND YOU SHALL DO AS I HAVE DONE, meaning: Just as it was not permitted for me to mourn my dead wife, so neither will it be permitted for you to mourn Jerusalem and your friends, nor to give the signs of mourning that follow and about which I spoke in verse 17; because the Chaldeans — both those with whom you live in Babylon as captives and subjects, and those who will storm Jerusalem, violating your wives and dashing your little ones against the rocks — will not allow you to weep or groan. Hence in secret each one will groan especially in his heart, as to his brother; that is, silently within himself, and one looking at another. Maldonatus says otherwise: You will not be able, he says, to mourn the death of your children and brothers in your customary way; because you are in captivity, where you cannot conveniently observe your rites, nor even mourn conveniently.
23. YOU SHALL HAVE YOUR TURBANS. — He calls 'crowns' the round caps such as the Turks wear; or hair trimmed in a circle in the manner of a crown; or Abyssinian bands with which the more noble would encircle their head or cap in the fashion of a crown.
24. AND EZEKIEL SHALL BE A PORTENT TO YOU. — The Chaldean says: a sign, namely of future things. He speaks in the person of God, to persuade more effectively.
Verse 25: I SHALL TAKE FROM THEM THEIR STRENGTH.
25. I SHALL TAKE FROM THEM THEIR STRENGTH. — He describes the temple: first, that it was most fortified, both in location and by God's protection, 3 Kings VIII; secondly, that by its beauty and adornment it delighted and filled all with joy; thirdly, that by its dignity
and majesty of the divine presence was venerable to all nations. And so the temple was for the Jews a refuge in war, a joy at home, a glory abroad — as now our temple is for us, and the Eucharist, which is as it were the temple of God, namely the incarnate Word, concealed under the appearances of bread, says Prado.
Note therefore here six illustrious epithets of the temple used by the Jews and to be imitated by Christians. For first, they call it "their strength," as if confessing that all their might consists in the temple and the worship of God; secondly, they call it "their pride" and "their glory;" thirdly, "the joy of their dignity," in Hebrew, of their glory, that is, in which they most rejoice and glory; fourthly, "their desire;" fifthly, "that upon which" they trust and "rest;" sixthly, "that over which their soul trembles," as the soul of Eli trembled over the Ark of the Covenant: whence upon hearing it was captured, struck with distress and terror, he fell backward. And indeed the faithful should tremble when temples and sacred things are overthrown: for then the certain destruction of the state is imminent, as we saw in the iconoclasm of Belgium.
THAT OVER WHICH THEIR SOULS REST. — In Hebrew, the elevation of their soul, that is, to which they lift up their soul, that is, in which they hope and trust. Others translate: the burden of their soul, that is, their anxiety, about which, namely lest it be profaned, they are most anxious. For just as a burden weighs down the body, so anxiety weighs down and depresses the soul.
Verse 26: On That Day When He Comes
26. ON THAT DAY WHEN HE COMES — namely a messenger from Jerusalem who escapes from its destruction shall announce that it has been devastated, which happened after three years, as is evident from chapter XXXIII, 22. Then speak: that these things were predicted by you and are now fulfilled; and again you will not be silent, nor speak timidly and fearfully through parables and riddles, as you did before, because the Jews did not believe you; but freely, openly, and boldly you will reprove their sins, so that they may recognize you as a Prophet, and on account of these sins acknowledge that they were justly devastated. For you will say: Behold, you see that the destruction of the city has now come to pass just as I had predicted; but you refused then to believe me. Do not refuse any longer; believe me and correct your crimes, which I have so often rebuked, and on account of which I predicted that this destruction would befall you.
27. AND YOU SHALL BE A PORTENT TO THEM — they will recognize that you were and are a portent, and that you foretell the future, now instructed by experience and by their own suffering.