Cornelius a Lapide

James V

Table of Contents

Synopsis of the Chapter

He continues to censure the cruelty, insolence, and luxury of the rich against the poor. Then, at verse 7, he exhorts the poor and the afflicted to patience, by the example of Job and the Prophets. Soon after, at verse 12, he forbids swearing, bids the sorrowful to pray, the joyful to sing psalms, the sick to be anointed with oil, and sinners to confess their sins. Finally, at verse 16, he commends the practice of prayer and of the salvation of one's neighbors.

Vulgate Text: James 5:1-20

1. Go to now, you rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you. 2. Your riches are corrupted: and your garments are moth-eaten. 3. Your gold and silver is cankered: and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days. 4. Behold the hire of the laborers, who have reaped down your fields, which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth: and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 5. You have feasted upon earth: and in riotousness you have nourished your hearts, in the day of slaughter. 6. You have condemned and put to death the Just One, and He resisted you not. 7. Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth: patiently bearing till he receive the early and the latter rain. 8. Be you therefore also patient, and strengthen your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9. Grudge not, brethren, one against another, that you may not be judged. Behold the judge standeth before the door. 10. Take, my brethren, for an example of suffering evil, of labor and patience, the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11. Behold, we account them blessed who have endured. You have heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is merciful and compassionate. 12. But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath. But let your speech be, yea, yea: no, no: that you fall not under judgment. 13. Is any of you sad? Let him pray. Is he cheerful in mind? Let him sing. 14. Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man: and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. 16. Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much. 17. Elias was a man passible like unto us: and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the earth, and it rained not for three years and six months. 18. And he prayed again: and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. 19. My brethren, if any of you err from the truth, and one convert him: 20. He must know that he who causeth a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.

Verse 1: Go to Now, You Rich, Weep and Howl in Your Miseries

1. Go to now, you rich; weep. — St. James, at the end of the preceding chapter, censured the fault of the rich, namely avarice and insolent rejoicing: here he restrains the same by assigning the punishment, namely the miseries which will come upon them. Whence the exhortation he gave them in the preceding chapter, verse 3, to mourning and weeping, he here drives home. For just as the smith persists in beating iron until he bends and shapes it according to his will, so too the preacher must beat long and hard upon the hard and vicious hearts of men, in order to bend them to penitence and a new life. By "rich," understand the lovers of riches, that is, those greedy and grasping for riches; just as by "sophists" are understood philosophers, that is, lovers of wisdom. For those who do not have the heart fixed on riches, but on heaven — although they are rich in their reckoning, yet they are poor in spirit. Yet he calls them rich, because the rich are wont to be lovers of riches: for riches are sticky, and bind the heart of the possessor to themselves, so that he often desires them by right and wrong. Whence that saying: "A rich man is either unjust, or the heir of an unjust man." Hence Thomas of England explains "rich" as referring both to money and to sins. For as Ecclesiasticus 11:11 says: "If you are rich, you shall not be free from sin." And Christ, Luke 6:24: "Woe," He said, "to you that are rich, for you have your consolation." Where the causal particle "because" must be weighed, in accordance with that saying to Dives: "Son, remember that you received good things in your lifetime, and Lazarus likewise evil: now however he is comforted, but you are tormented." For as St. Jerome says, epist. 34, "it is difficult, nay impossible, for anyone to enjoy both present and future goods; and to fill the belly here, and there the mind, so as to pass from delights to delights."

Moreover, that woe arousing weeping, threatened by Christ and Scripture against the rich, belongs not only to the future life but also to the present; which St. Cyprian explaining, book II, epist. 2, says: "These men, in the midst of their riches, the anxiety of uncertain thought tortures and makes tremble: secure food does not befall them, nor sleep: that man sighs in his banquet, though he drink from a jeweled cup; and when a softer couch shall have hidden his sated body in its deep bosom, he lies awake on down: nor does the wretch understand that his luxuries are torments to him, that he is bound up in gold, and is possessed rather than possesses his riches." Consonantly, Ambrose, book On Naboth, ch. 14: "Well did David," he says, "in Ps. 75:6, call them men of riches, not riches of men, in order to show that they are not the possessors of riches, but are possessed by their own riches." Rightly too altogether, Seneca, epist. 119: "Thus they have riches as we are said to have a fever, when in fact the fever has us. On the contrary, we ought to say: The fever holds him. In the same way it must be said: Riches hold him, indeed they torture him as well." Acutely St. Gregory observes, weighing the words of that rich man, Luke 12:17: "What shall I do, for I have not where to gather my fruits?" "O straits," says Gregory, book 15 of the Morals, ch. 11, "born of plenty! From the abundance of his field the soul of the avaricious man is straitened."

Let St. Augustine conclude, tract. 9 on John: "O man, who toilest in loving avarice — what you love, you love with toil: God is loved without toil. Avarice will command toils, dangers, sadnesses, tribulations; and you will obey. To what end? That you may have wherewith to fill your chest, and lose your security. Perhaps you were more secure before you possessed than when you began to possess. Behold what avarice has commanded you. You have filled your house, robbers are feared: you have acquired gold, you have lost sleep. God, when He is loved without toil, is acquired and held." His twenty-second sermon on the words of the Apostle is also wholly to be read, where he heaps up many things on sleep, which such men cannot get.

Weep howling. — The Syriac: "weep and howl." To howl properly belongs to wolves and dogs when they are tormented with rabid hunger: thence it is transferred to the loudest wailings and lamentations in extreme calamity, such as are wont to be the women's when the enemy captures the city and lays everything waste with sword and flame, as if to say: O cruel rich men, howl after the manner of wolves rabid with hunger; because when Titus shall lay waste Judaea, and even more when God shall thrust you down into hell, you shall be tormented with extreme want, sorrow, and as it were wolfish and canine hunger and thirst, so that in the most blazing flames, asking with the rich Glutton even a drop of water to cool your tongue, you shall not obtain it, because you have denied to the poor afflicted by hunger and thirst, who asked for bread and drink — nay, you have defrauded them of the wages promised and due for their labor and toil. So Hugo. Thus the poets feign Tantalus as a kind of figure of the avaricious man and of avarice, tormented in the underworld with thirst and hunger. "Tantalus, exhausted with thirst, touching the surface of the water with his chin," says Cicero, Tusculans 4; and Virgil, Aeneid 6, of Tantalus:

And banquets prepared before his eyes
In royal luxury; the greatest of the Furies reclines
Beside, and forbids his hands to touch the tables.

Hence Plato, in the Cratylus, considers that Tantalus was so called as it were ταλάντατον, that is, most unhappy. Secondly, "howl, O you rich," in so great a calamity, as boys and women howl in the common ruin of a house or city, because you have lived as women, having the heart fixed on the basest things, namely earth and mud. Whence St. Chrysostom, hom. 25 on Matthew: "Nothing," he says, "is more womanish than to be conquered by avarice." Wherefore Bede thinks that here the rich are admonished to redeem the punishments of hell with weeping and almsgiving: "For those rich men who shall have neglected the works of piety and mercy," he says, "not only shall the fire of visible Gehenna torment them; but also the memory of their empty riches, with which they could have redeemed their faults, shall sear both their souls before the judgment, and after the resurrection their flesh as well, when they shall begin to be wroth with themselves, that they did not redeem their faults by alms; whence it is said to the rich man: Son, remember that you received good things in your lifetime."

In miseries (ἐπί, that is, upon, on account of miseries) which shall come upon you — from God the avenger, both in this age and in the next. He is called "miser" (wretched) who has lost (amiserit) all felicity, says Isidore, Etymologies book 10. Whence Oecumenius thinks that here is foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and Judaea, in which all the rich, both Christians and Jews, were despoiled of goods, liberty, and life. Thus the Prophets threaten the insolent rich of their age with calamity and the Babylonian captivity; as Amos 6:1: "Woe to you that are wealthy in Sion, and to you that have confidence in the mountain of Samaria: ye great men, heads of the people, that go in with state into the house of Israel." And Isaiah 5:8: "Woe to you that join house to house and lay field to field, etc. Shall you alone dwell in the midst of the earth?" And Christ, Luke 6:24: "Woe to you rich, who laugh now: for you shall mourn and weep." Pathetically the author of the sermon to the Brothers in the Wilderness, vol. 10. St. Augustine, sermon 62: "Consider," he says, "dearest brethren, where are kings, where the powerful, where friends, where parents. Behold how from such great power or joy come such great misery and anguish: from such great riches, so many wants; from such great satiety, such hunger; from so light a delight, so long an infirmity; from so brief a light, such long darkness; from so slight a sweetness of fragrance or luxury, such great pains and the stenches of perpetual damnation; and from such an abundance of garments, such nakedness." These catastrophes the just God, avenger of crimes, often brings about in this life, as we behold with our eyes, and shall always bring about in the next.

Symbolically, Hugo: Rightly, he says, it is said "which shall come," because the misery of punishment shall come to the misery of fault, that they may be joined together, and as long as the fault lasts, so also shall the punishment; and because in hell the fault shall be perennial, so also shall be the punishment.

Verse 2: Your Riches Are Corrupted, and Your Garments Are Moth-Eaten

2. Your riches are corrupted. — This is a just cause of mourning and weeping. The Syriac: "your wealth has been corrupted and has stunk;" for from corruption arises rottenness, from rottenness a stench. The avaricious rich would rather have their grain, wines, breads, meats, fish, eggs, etc., rot in chests, than give them to the poor and with them buy heavenly and eternal riches — which is surely as great a folly as it is a cruelty. St. Augustine (or whoever the author is), book On the Twelve Abuses, vol. 9, places this fourth among the twelve. The first abuse, he says, is a wise man and preacher without good works; the second, an old man without religion; the third, a youth without obedience; the fourth, a rich man without almsgiving; the fifth, a woman without modesty; the sixth, a lord without virtue; the seventh, a Christian who is contentious; the eighth, a proud poor man; the ninth, an unjust King; the tenth, a negligent Bishop; the eleventh, a people without discipline; the twelfth, a people without law. Hence Seneca calls misers chests of wealth, book On Remedies of Fortuitous Things: "He has great money," he says; "do you judge him to be a man? He is a chest. Who envies the treasury, or full money-bags? And this man, whom you reckon master of money, is the money's pouch. He has much: is he avaricious or prodigal? If avaricious, he does not have it; if prodigal, he will not have it. He whom you believe to be happy often grieves, often sighs; many accompany him: flies follow honey, wolves follow corpses, ants follow grain: that crowd follows the prey, not the man." For as Isocrates says in the Aeginetic oration: "Many are kinsmen of money, not of the man."

St. Chrysostom notes, in his oration On Riches and the Poor, that monies are called in Greek χρήματα from χρῆσθαι, that is, to use, because they are to be used, and to be spent for our and others' benefit: it belongs to slaves to keep them as in custody; to lords, to spend them. Therefore, to misers, as it were slaves, χρήματα are not χρήματα, but κτήματα ἀχρήσιμα, that is, useless possessions; nay, a χρεία, that is, an ant-house. Wherefore the same Chrysostom, hom. 45 on John, prudently admonishes that we transmit our fleeting wealth into heaven through the hands of the poor, as into a sanctuary, where we shall find it after death. And St. Augustine, sermon 50 On Time: "What," he says, "are the poor, but our porters, that is, our carriers? You give to your porter, he carries to heaven what you give." And soon after: "You will lose what you have given, but you will follow where you have sent it. You will not be left without treasure; but those things which you held on earth with anxiety, you will have in heaven with security." And St. Ambrose, book On Naboth, ch. 14: "You are the custodian, not the lord of your faculties, who buries gold in the earth: assuredly its servant, not its arbiter. Rather, sell gold, and buy salvation; sell the stone, and buy the kingdom of God; sell the field, and buy yourself eternal life." And soon after: "You do not know, O man, how to build up riches: if you wish to be rich, be poor to the world, that you may be rich to God. Rich in faith is rich to God. He who is rich in mercy is rich to God. Rich in simplicity is rich to God. Rich in wisdom and knowledge is rich to God." And ch. 15: "Whoever therefore does not use his patrimony as a possession, who does not know how to bestow on the poor and to dispense, he is the slave of his goods, not the lord of his faculties: because he guards another's goods as a servant, not as a lord makes use of his own. Therefore in this kind of affection we say that he is a man of riches, not that the riches are the man's."

And your garments are eaten by moths, — σητόβρωτα γέγονεν, that is, they have become moth-eaten, or liable to moths, namely such that they are gnawed by moths — those very garments with which you ought to have clothed the poor when they were naked, who consequently on the day of judgment shall accuse and condemn your wicked avarice. Whence Oecumenius, referring this to what follows: "Your riches," he says, "which you have stored up like fire, will eat your flesh: but the rottenness of your riches, and the gnawing of your garments by moths, and the rust of gold and silver shall testify against you, and shall convict your avarice, because you would not distribute them to anyone. Therefore," he says, "in the last days — namely the coming of the Lord — you shall find your riches stored up and treasured for your destruction, like a fire." Hence God threatens to those misers and moth-haunted men that He Himself shall be a moth gnawing them: "And I," He says, "will be like a moth to Ephraim, and like rottenness to the house of Judah," Hos. 5:12. Note physically, from Pliny, book 11, ch. 53: "Dust," he says, "in wool and clothing produces moths, especially if a spider be enclosed with them: for it thirsts, and absorbing all the moisture, it increases the dryness." Hence Horace, book 2, satire 3:

Let his blanket, the food of cockroaches and moths, rot in the chest.

What folly, what cruelty, to give garments to be eaten by moths — garments which, distributed to the poor, would have purchased you heaven? By which you would have conciliated favor for yourself not only of the poor, but also of God and of all the heavenly powers? For the faithful man may truly say that saying of Mark Antony: "This I have, whatever I have given," as Seneca testifies, book 6 On Benefits, ch. 3.

Furthermore, fragrant herbs ward off moths from clothing when set against them, such as lavender, rosemary, mint; or bitter herbs, such as wormwood, as Pliny testifies, book 27, ch. 7; or if you smear the chest with decocted dregs of oil, as Cato testifies, book On Country Matters, ch. 98. Thus the mystical moth and decay, that is, the corruption of the soul which comes through idleness and avarice, are warded off by the fragrant works of the virtues, and by the bitter mortification of the flesh, and by the oil-filled exercises of charity and mercy.

Morally note: Just as almsgiving makes the almsgivers rich, as is plain from the Life of St. John the Almsgiver, and from St. Chrysostom, homily 33 to the People, whose title is this: "That almsgiving is the most profitable art of all;" so on the contrary, lack of mercy and avarice impoverishes the avaricious man, though rich, to such a degree that his wealth consumes itself like a moth: as the feathers of an eagle are said, if mingled with the feathers of other birds, to devour and consume them. For God is wont to destroy the crops, fruits, and wealth of the avaricious by sending in locusts, moths, blight, and enemies, according to Prov. ch. 11, v. 26: "He who hides up corn shall be cursed; but a blessing on the head of those who sell."

Thus John Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow, ch. 85, narrates that in the monastery of Abbot Theodosius all the wheat had been corrupted, because the monks had withheld from the poor the customary alms appointed by Theodosius, on account of the dearth of the year's supply; and instead of the five hundred bushels which they were accustomed to give to the poor, they lost five thousand bushels. Whence the abbot reproving them said: "How much have we hurt ourselves? We have done two evils, one, because we have transgressed the command of our Father; the other, because we placed no hope in God, but in our granary. Let us learn from this, brothers, that God is the one who disposes the whole human race; and that St. Theodosius invisibly bears solicitous care for us, his sons." Our Delrio, vol. 2 Magicarum, book 3, part 1, Question 7, narrates from Peter Bisaeus that a certain wealthy Swabian, in the imminent dearth of supply, bought up all the grain in order to sell at a high price: and when he was unwilling to sell to a poor man at the usual price, the poor man uttered curses upon him, and immediately black oxen were seen (which were of course demons in the form of oxen) in his granary, who consumed all the grain. We read, indeed have seen, the same of many monasteries, namely that they were wealthy as long as they gave alms liberally; but when they restricted them, God likewise restricted His hand, and diminished the yearly revenues. Wittily someone, when asked the cause of this impoverishment, gave this: "Give," he said, "and it shall be given to you," are sisters joined together always by Christ, Luke 6:38: you have driven out one — namely, "give;" therefore the other sister followed her who was driven out — namely, "it shall be given to you."

St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, lost an entire ship laden with grain at sea, because his wife, having been ordered to give to a poor man the one bread that was left at home, had not given it; as is recorded in his Life.

More memorable is what Sigebert writes, and from him Baronius, in the year of the Lord 605, that all the foodstuffs of a certain ship were turned into stones, because the master of the ship had told a poor man asking for alms that he had nothing but stones in the ship, and the poor man, uttering curses upon him, had wished that everything be turned into stones. By other prodigies God has often shown the same, by which He took back the wealth and goods given by Himself to this or that province, because some claimed them tyrannically for themselves alone, or burdened them with tributes. Hear Athenaeus, book 3, recounting three such things. First: "Phylarchus," he says, "writes that whereas previously the Egyptian bean was nowhere and never sown, nor when sown did it grow, except in Egypt — yet under Alexander, son of Pyrrhus, when he was reigning, it sprang up by chance in a certain marsh of Epirus, and during a whole two years brought forth abundant fruit. But when Alexander had placed a guard there, by which would be kept off not only those who wished to gather it, but also those who came thither for the sake of seeing it, the marsh was dried up, and afterwards it not only did not produce that bean's plants, but no water was even any longer seen there."

The second thing also happened in Epirus by miracle. For far from the rest of the waters, a brook near the sea sprang forth pouring out cold water, the drinking of which greatly helped the sick, on which account many flocked thither even from more distant places, in order to drink the water; but when Antigonus's officers, desiring to administer the prince's affairs more diligently, had ordered those who were going to drink to pay something by way of tax, that gushing spring vanished.

Third: "In the Troad, although previously it had been permitted to anyone to carry off Tragasaean salt free of charge, as soon as Lysimachus ordered a salt-tribute to be exacted from there, no salt was seen there afterwards. Lysimachus, marveling at this, remitted the tribute, and immediately the salt again came forth." So Athenaeus. Many similar things stand in the histories. Avarice therefore takes away God's gifts, and dries up the fountain of divine liberality: because God does not suffer that what He Himself bestows liberally on all should be usurped, burdened, or restricted by a few.

Verse 3: Your Gold and Silver Is Cankered; You Have Stored Up Wrath

3. Your gold and silver is cankered, — that is, kept stored away in a chest, it has contracted rust or rather "gold-rust." For just as the defect and corruption of bronze is called aerugo, and of iron, ferrugo, so of gold it is called aurugo. But just as aes (bronze) signifies any kind of money, even golden and silver, because the first money of the ancients was of bronze, as Pliny testifies, book 33, ch. 3, whence the treasury is called aerarium; so likewise its defect is called aerugo. "Iron and bronze," says Philo, book On the Creation of the World, "and other natures of the same sort, we know to perish of their own accord, namely when creeping rust devours them like a serpentine disease." The sense is, as if to say: You, avaricious men, store up gold and silver in chests so that they are corrupted and rust; wherefore you worship it as if it were your idol, and you scorn the true God, because you are unwilling to share those things which He Himself willed to be common; but you guard money as it were some divinity and store it in a chest, so that you do not dare to touch and spend it. Whence the Apostle calls avarice "idolatry," Gal. 5:20, and Ephes. 5:7: see what is said there. Hence the ancients made money a goddess, and made gods Aesculanus and Argentinus, as St. Augustine testifies, book 4 On the City, 21. Whence Propertius, book 3, eleg. 13:

All men, with piety now conquered, worship gold.

Hence St. Basil, hom. 7 Against the Avaricious Rich, compares them to griffins and dragons, which are bred in places where gold is produced, in order to guard it; as the Poets relate, or rather fable.

Note that gold and silver truly do contract rust. For St. James teaches this here, and Baruch ch. 6, vv. 3 and 23, and the Wise Man in Prov. 25:4. Likewise experience and reason: because just as other metals, so also gold by age is impaired, diminished, consumed: which defect James calls aerugo; properly however bronze and iron contract rust and corrosion, that is, a deposit of jaundiced color, or green and moist, not gold and silver, as Plato teaches in Rhodiginus, book 13, ch. 21, and Sappho thus sings of gold: "Because gold born of Jove, neither moth nor cossus gnaws it;" and Pliny, book 33, ch. 3: "Above other things," he says, "no rust, no verdigris, nothing from itself which consumes its goodness or diminishes its weight," namely as easily and quickly as it is done in other metals: yet with difficulty and slowly even the goodness of gold is consumed, and the weight diminished. Note again that, because other metals gradually cast off from themselves filth and as it were dregs, as oil casts off amurca, which cause rust; gold however, if it is pure, casts off nothing of filth; nevertheless from elsewhere — namely from the earth and a moist, viscous, moldy place — it contracts deposit and mold as well as any other thing; and from lime, vitriol, aqua fortis, it suffers corrosion and a defect as it were rust, as experience makes plain. Finally gold is often not pure, but mixed with mountain-bronze (orichalc) and other things, and then all consent that it contracts rust: indeed those who strike gold coin mix bronze with the gold, in order that it may bind together; and that in such proportion, that eleven parts are gold, the twelfth bronze. Hence Festus thinks gold (aurum) is so called from custody, namely because it guards itself, or is guarded by misers: for in Greek ὡρεῖν means to guard; whence also the name "thesaurus" (treasury). Others think gold is so called because it averts (avertat) the minds of men. Hippocrates thinks gold (aurum) is so called from its discoverer, whom he says was called Auryon. Others derive it from aurora (dawn), because it is similar to that in color. Excellently Isidore of Pelusium, book 2, epistles 146 and 233, shows that the rich man is so direly tormented day and night, that he already seems to be enduring the torment of the underworld. For he is driven by continual terror while he fears thieves, dreads more powerful men, does not trust his servants; and sometimes by his sons not only after death, but even while alive, they are despoiled.

And the rust of them shall be for a testimony to you (the Syriac: "against you"), — as if to say: The rust at God's tribunal shall be a witness of your cruelty and avarice, and shall tacitly accuse you and prove you guilty of damnation, because you preferred your gold to be corrupted and perish rather than to be spent on the poor. So Caesarius of Arles, hom. 2, treating of almsgiving, says he is terrified by this saying of James: "Because it perhaps happens sometimes," he says, "that through my negligence my garments, which the poor ought to have received, are devoured by moths: and I fear that the cloths themselves may be brought forth to my testimony on the day of judgment, according to what the Apostle James terribly rebukes, saying: Go to now, you rich, weep and howl," etc.

Excellently Seneca, book 3 On Anger, ch. 33: "Avarice," he says, "again carries beneath the earth what it had wickedly brought up." More excellently St. Basil, hom. 7 against the avaricious rich: "It is surely a great madness," he says, "first to bring into the light with all diligence the gold hidden in mines, and to dig it up from the earth, that you may burn for all eternity." The treasure denotes three things: first, an immense abundance of wrath and fire; second, that it is reserved for the impious in hidden places, namely in hell, as well as in the mind and decree of God; third, that from ancient time, namely from eternity, it has been reserved and prepared for them: for, as Paul the Jurisconsult says, on acquiring dominion over things, L. nunquam: A treasure is called "a certain old deposit of money, the memory of which does not survive, so that it now has no owner"; for the word treasure is Greek; for it is called as it were θέμενος εἰς αὔριον, that is, laid up for tomorrow, that is, for the future. But St. Bernard, sermon On the Threefold Mercy, says: "To you (he addresses the sinner), you are storing up treasures of wrath in place of the treasures of mercy long offered, which you despise, and you empty out the mercy of God;" nay rather, in place of the treasures of mercy denied, and the treasures of unmercifulness shown, by which you have driven away the empty poor from you. Finally, the word treasure signifies that the avaricious daily, with continual and unwearied effort, accumulate and increase it through small additions, so that at last it grows into an immense pile. "You add little by little, but afterwards you will find a heap; pay attention to the small daily sins; for rivers are filled from the tiniest drops," says St. Augustine, Against the Adversaries of the Law and the Prophets, 1. The same author, on Psalm 49, teaches that the just send all their works of mercy into the heavenly treasury; but the impious send their evil works, as those of unmercifulness, into the gehenna treasury which awaits them after death.

On the contrary, the Emperor Tiberius was lavish toward the poor, and when Sophia Augusta objected that the treasury was being diminished by this profusion, he answered: "This is a great treasure, since the Lord said: Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Therefore from what God has given, let us gather through the poor in heaven, that the Lord may deign to increase for us in this world." So it happened: for soon he found an immense treasure buried under a cross, as Gregory of Tours relates, Book 5 of his History, ch. 19.

James alludes partly to that passage in Deuteronomy 32: "Their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the suburbs of Gomorrah, etc.; their wine is the gall of dragons, and the incurable venom of asps. Are not these things stored up with Me and sealed in My treasures?" Partly to that of Rom. 2:5: "According to your hardness and impenitent heart you store up for yourself wrath, in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God." For that Epistle was written before this one, indeed it was the occasion for writing this one, as I said in the Prooemium. Wiser was Job, who willingly lost all his possessions for God, and said: "Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return thither." Origen, weighing these words deeply, in Book 1 on Job, says: "The devil shall not laugh at me. Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, naked I shall go beneath the earth. I had nothing when I came, I require nothing when I go. I brought nothing when born, I shall carry nothing away when taken hence. Naked I shall go, naked of property, but also naked of sin; naked of riches, but also of impieties; naked of substance, but also of injustice: for these follow upon substance. Neither malice, nor anger, nor pride, nor cupidity accompany me: naked I shall be. I am not like those of whom it is said: Because they had no covering, they were clothed with hell: naked of all evils I shall go, but clothed with all good things, vested with justice, encompassed with sanctity, adorned with charity, crowned with mercy and good works. Blessed are they, and blessed shall they be, O glorious Job, who shall imitate you, all those who after you shall be able to say with confidence: Naked I came forth from the womb, and naked I shall go into the earth. But woe to those who come naked, but burdened with countless injustices and impieties shall go into the earth: such shall be clothed with calamity and misery, in the day of the just judgment of God who does not accept persons."

Verse 4: Behold the Hire of the Laborers Crieth, and Hath Entered Into the Ears of the Lord of Sabaoth

4. Behold the wages of the laborers, who have reaped your fields, which has been defrauded by you, crieth — to heaven, demanding from God vengeance for so atrocious an injury: for the laborers are poor, and by laboring through heat and cold they exhaust their juice and blood, nor have they wherewith to restore them. For they live from their daily wage: wherefore if it is denied them, they must perish from hunger, thirst, and nakedness, both they themselves and their wives and children. Whence this sin is compared to homicide in Ecclus. 34:27: "He who sheds blood," it says, "and he who defrauds a hireling, are brothers." And 7:22: "Hurt not the servant who works in truth, nor the hireling who gives his soul." Wherefore God had commanded the Jews to pay the due wages to needy laborers before evening: "You shall not deny," it says, "the wages of your needy and poor brother, or of the stranger who dwells with you in the land and is within your gates; but the same day you shall give him the price of his labor before the setting of the sun; because he is poor, and from it he sustains his soul, lest he cry out against you to the Lord, and it be reputed to you for sin."

Tobias repeats and commands the same to his son in chapter 4:15; indeed Christ also in the parable of the laborers in Matthew 20:8, commands that each one be given the daily denarius in the evening.

Furthermore, in the word "crieth" there is catachresis and prosopopoeia. For the defrauding of wages is feigned to be a person so cruel, and so cruelly raging against the poor, that her tyranny and savagery is hateful not only to men, but also to God, and accuses the defrauders before Him, and demands vengeance against them from Him. Therefore this cry is nothing other than the enormity and atrocity of the crime, such that it cannot be excused or hidden, which strikes the ears and eyes of God, and impels Him to wrath and vengeance, so much that the piety of God is overcome, and He is forced to punish, nor can He defer the punishment, says Salvian, Book 1 On Providence, chs. 1 and 2. Thus the oppressed land is said to cry out, Job 31:38: "If my land cries out against me (asking vengeance for its just lord, as if unjustly possessed by me, or as if I had not paid wages to the hirelings and just wages to the tenants), and along with it its furrows weep" this tyranny of mine, by which I have stirred up tears and weeping in my tenants; "if I have eaten its fruits without money, and afflicted the soul of its tillers: instead of wheat let thistles grow up to me, and thorns instead of barley." Let princes note this, who force their tenants or subjects to labor without pay; likewise ministers of princes, who do not pay wages to soldiers, and so force them either to die from hunger and hardships, or to steal and oppress the farmers, or to rebel; whence arises danger and ruin to the commonwealth, as I have often seen with my own eyes with great sorrow in Belgium.

Furthermore, there are four enormous sins which in Scripture are said to cry to heaven. The first is voluntary homicide, Gen. 4:10: "The voice of your brother's blood (Abel, whom you slew, O Cain) cries to Me from the earth." The second, the sin of Sodom, Gen. 18:20: "The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied," etc. The third, the wages of the laborers defrauded, as is clear from this passage. The fourth, the oppression of the poor, Exodus 2:23: "The children of Israel groaning because of their works cried out, and their cry went up to God from their works." And Ecclus. 35:18: "Do not the tears of the widow run down the cheek, and her exclamation against him who causes them to fall? For from the cheek they go up even to heaven." Thus Jeremiah threatens the Jews with the Babylonian captivity, because they had oppressed their servants, ch. 34, v. 11; and Amos, ch. 6, v. 6.

Which has been defrauded by you, — ἀπεστερημένος, that is, which has been taken away and snatched from you, whether through fraud, or by force, or by calumny: for whoever unjustly inflicts loss on another, in whatever way he does it, is said to defraud him of his property. The Syriac: "which you wickedly denied."

And the cry (in Greek αἱ βοαί, that is, cries) of them (who have reaped: for this is the Greek θερισάντων) has entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, — as if to say: Their cry has been heard by God, who will also avenge them. "The entering of prayer is its acceptance," says St. Augustine on Psalm 87. On the contrary: "He is excommunicated from the Church of heaven whose prayer stops up his ear to the cry of the poor," says Hugo of St. Cher there. Furthermore, the word "sabaoth" has emphasis: for God is called Sabaoth, that is, of armies, namely of angels, lightnings, hail, lions, wolves, fevers, plagues and all creatures: for these wage war for God, so that at His nod they leap upon His enemies, namely sinners, and strike them as it were like executioners. Thus God overwhelmed Pharaoh and the Egyptians with thunderbolts and thunder in the Red Sea, and gave their riches and spoils to the Hebrews, that He might repay the wages of works and labors due to them and unjustly denied by the Egyptians, according to that of Wisdom 10:17: "God rendered to the just the wages of their labors, etc.; but their enemies He drowned in the sea, and from the depths of hell He brought them out. Therefore the just took the spoils of the impious and chanted: O Lord, Your holy name, and Your victorious hand they praised together." See what is said on Exodus 11:2, and ch. 12, v. 35.

Verse 5: You Have Feasted Upon the Earth, in the Day of Slaughter

5. You have feasted, — ἐτρυφήσατε, that is, you have reveled in delights. "Feasts" signify both luxuries and abundance of foods, wines, perfumes, flowers, ointments; and also the splendor of tables, dishes, golden and silver cups, etc., by which gluttony, lust, wrath, quarreling and every cupidity are stirred up: whence they would have "feasts" (epulas) so called as it were edipulas, from eating (edendo); or epulas as if epulentias or opulentias, because they belong only to the opulent, as is clear in the rich Epulo, Luke 16:19. So says Isidore, Book 2 of Etymologies, ch. 1. The Greek τρυφή signifies the same thing, namely luxury and delights. Whence Wisdom 19:11: "They demanded," it says, "foods of feasting," in Greek τρυφῆς, that is, sumptuous, dainty and exquisite foods, such as that rich man had, Luke 12:19, saying to his soul: "Rest, eat, drink, feast." Writing on these words, St. Basil exclaims: "O most foolish words! O singular madness! For if you had a swine's soul, what else could you have uttered? Are you so swinish, so ignorant of the soul's good things, that you should sate it with carnal feasts?" Furthermore, the feasters are sumptuous and liberal to themselves, but stingy and cruel to others, and to them they deny not only alms, but also the wages due for labor, in order to amass riches with which to set up their feasts: whence aptly James adds feasts to the wages denied to the laborers, as cause and end: therefore feasting and unmercifulness, surfeit and cruelty are inseparable companions. Hear Ezekiel, ch. 16:49: "Behold, this was the iniquity of Sodom your sister: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her and her daughters; and they did not put forth a hand to the needy and the poor." And Jeremiah, ch. 22, v. 13, on Joakim king of Judah: "Woe," he says, "to him who builds his house in injustice, and his upper rooms not in judgment: he will oppress his friend without cause, and will not pay him his wages." And Amos 6:6: "Drinking wine in bowls, and anointed with the best ointment, and they suffered nothing over the affliction of Joseph."

Furthermore, the harms of feasting are: First, dullness of mind: for the mind is as it were buried in feasts and the belly, whence its virtue and vigor are weakened. Wherefore Christ, in Luke 21:34: "Take heed to yourselves," He says, "lest perchance your hearts be weighed down with surfeit and drunkenness." And Hosea, ch. 4, v. 11: "Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the heart." See what is said there. Second, that they bring on pains of head and stomach, fevers, paralyses, apoplexies and countless diseases, and shorten life. Whence that common saying: "Surfeit kills more than the sword." Wherefore Antisthenes, when someone was praising sumptuousness: "May it happen," he said, "to the sons of our enemies to live in delights." So Laertius, Book 6, ch. 1. Crates, seeing someone fattened by feasts: "O wretch," he said, "cease against your own self to fortify the prison." So Maximus, sermon 27. Again, delicacies torment gluttony with long provocation. Whence Cyrus the Persian, when his grandfather Astyages set out a sumptuous dinner and asked "whether this Median dinner was not better than the Persian," answered: "By no means, grandfather; but with us there is a much simpler and more direct way to satiety than with you. For bread and meat lead us to it: but you indeed tend to the same place we do, but wandering through many roundabouts up and down, you scarcely at last attain to that point at which we long ago had arrived." So Xenophon, Book 1. To this pertains that saying of Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, in Eusebius, Book 8 Preparation, ch. 5: "We are like those animals, to whom an abundance of food and drink is wont to be offered for no other purpose than for their destruction." But St. Chrysostom thunders ardently, hom. 54 to the People of Antioch: "It is a time of war, a time of contest; but you sit in delights? The adversary stands gnashing his teeth, but you are free for tables? Christ wastes from hunger, and you distend yourself with voracity? Are we not to be slaughtered, since we fatten ourselves?" And Clement of Alexandria, Book 2 of the Paedagogus, ch. 1, about the middle: "It is very far from reason and useless, and by no means human, after the manner of cattle to be fattened to be nourished for death."

Third, that they reduce the feaster to poverty. Hence the Wise Man warns, Prov. 23:20: "Be not in the banquets of drinkers, nor in the carousings of those who bring meats to eat: for those who give themselves to drinking, and contribute their portions, will be consumed, and drowsiness will be clothed in rags." Heliogabalus, afterward Emperor, when he lived sumptuously, was rebuked by someone who said: "Do you not fear lest after delights you become poor?" He answered: "What is better than that I should be heir to myself and to my wife?" Therefore from feasting comes poverty, from poverty thefts, treasons and overthrows of cities and commonwealths. Wherefore Lycurgus removed delicacies and all luxury from Sparta, as Plutarch testifies in his Laconica.

Fourth, that it dissolves the harmony of the soul, and makes one insolent, impudent, litigious, quarrelsome, pugnacious. "Who has woe? whose father has woe? who has quarrels? who has pits? who has wounds without cause? who has bloodshot eyes? Is it not those who linger over wine and study to drain cups? Look not upon wine when it grows yellow, when its color shines in the glass: it enters gently, but in the end it will bite like a serpent, and like a basilisk will spread venom," Prov. 23:29. Wherefore truly St. Basil, hom. On Paradise: "A body," he says, "abundantly fattened, and the soul immersed in it, and made prone to sin, is a kind of shortcut to lasciviousness and impudence, and at the same time to all those things which are forbidden." Thus Diogenes, surnamed the Cynic, that is, the dog, or doglike, when asked "what kind of dog he himself was," answered: "When hungry, I am a Maltese; when full, I am a Molossian:" because when hungry he would fawn, when full he would bite and tear at all. So Laertius, Book 6.

Fifth, that it makes a man unfit for keeping watch, working, fighting, studying, praying, and renders him as it were a beast and a swine, indeed a living corpse, as Sophocles says in the Antigone; whence feasters and drunkards are incapable of discipline, of admonition, of divine grace, of the Sacraments and of the things of eternal salvation; so that their salvation is almost desperate. For their whole mind, their whole sense is in the palate and mouth, not in the heart. Delicacies therefore are nothing other than the ruin of health, time, honor, chastity, body and mind. For the luxurious have more wisdom in the palate than in the brain, according to that saying:

There are some whose whole wisdom is in the palate alone.

Wherefore Clement of Alexandria, Book 2 Stromata, ch. 1: "Those," he says, "who are inclined to the luxury of tables, and nourish their own diseases, are presided over by a most gluttonous demon, whom I shall not be afraid to call the belly-demon, the worst and most pernicious of demons." And lower down he cites Plato saying: "But to me, when I had come, what is there called the blessed life, full of Italian and Syracusan tables, in no way pleased me, to live filled twice a day, etc. For from these no man, from those who are under heaven, can be prudent, inasmuch as he has buried his mind in his belly, like the fish which is called ὄνος, that is, the ass, of which Aristotle says that alone among animals it has its heart in its belly. Such are those who have believed in the belly, whose God is the belly, whose end is destruction," as the Apostle says, Philip. 3.

And you have nourished your hearts in luxuries. — "Luxury" here signifies the luxury of feasts, of clothing, and of all delights: for by these the hearts and bodies of feasters are nourished and fattened; and they are incited to lust. For this is what the Greek word ἐσπαταλήσατε signifies; the Syriac translates: "you have made wanton mockeries," by metalepsis, because feasters, when warmed by wine, are wont to be lascivious, to be insolent, and to break forth into jests, taunts and mockeries.

In the day of slaughter. — The Greek adds ὡς, that is, as if, as if to say: You have continually feasted so splendidly as if you were daily celebrating a solemn feast and festival, on which it is customary that victims be offered to God and slain, and from them a banquet is set up, just as if all days were festivals and destined for feasts. Second, removing the ὡς, that is, as if, as our Vulgate removes it, the sense is, as if to say: You have frequently set up the most splendid banquets, and in them you have devoted yourselves to the belly and to lust: that he may censure not only the frequency, but also the excessive luxury of the banquets: for the day of slaughter is a day of solemn sacrifice and feast, on which many cattle, birds and fish are slaughtered to set up a magnificent banquet. Such days among the Gentiles were the Kalends, Hilaria, Saturnalia, Charistia, Sponsalia, Repotia, Natalitia, games, triumphs and other joyful and celebrated days, on which they set up most sumptuous feasts.

Thus today in some places those who are of the Magistracy hold as it were perpetual banquets, and splendid ones, and that from a treasury not their own, but the common one of the people, which James here censures, both because they exceed in the frequency and splendor of the dishes; both because they are built up from the labor and sweat of the poor; both because they make them unfit for considering counsels and judgments, which by office are incumbent upon them for rightly administering the commonwealth; both because they give scandal to their subjects, to whom they ought to shine forth as examples of modesty and sobriety. Thus other private persons celebrate the feasts of Easter, Pentecost, the Nativity of Christ with pomp of clothing and banquets, and prepare for them for many days; so that they neglect sacred confession, communion and devotion, etc., because the flesh suffocates the spirit, against whom St. Bernard inveighs, sermon 3 On Advent.

Mystically, as if to say: You feast and fatten your bodies as victims for death, that you may prepare a feast for worms and toads, as well as for demons and gehenna. You are therefore like swine which are fattened for slaughter, says Theodore the Studite, sermon 37. Whence the Syriac translates: "You have lived in delights upon the earth, and you have made wanton mockeries, and you have nourished your bodies as for a day of slaughter." So says Jeremiah, ch. 12:3: "Sanctify them for the day of slaughter," that is, destine and prepare them for slaughter, namely that the impious Jews may be slaughtered by the Chaldeans: whence in v. 9, inviting beasts to devour their corpses as to a solemn feast: "Come," he says, "gather together, all you beasts of the earth, hasten to devour." And Psalm 43:22: "We have been esteemed as sheep for the slaughter." And Ezekiel 32:4, of Pharaoh: "I will cast you," he says, "onto the land, upon the face of the field I will throw you, and I will make all the birds of heaven dwell upon you, and I will fill the beasts of all the earth with you." And ch. 39:3, of Gog and Magog: "Upon the mountains of Israel you shall fall, and all your troops, and the peoples who are with you: to wild beasts, to birds, and to every flying creature and the beasts of the earth I have given you to be devoured."

Many others, referring the phrase "on the day of slaughter" to what follows, explain it of Christ and Christians, as if to say: "On the day of slaughter," that is, of the Passover, on which you are accustomed to slay the Paschal lamb, "you have condemned and slain the just one," namely Christ the true Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. So Oecumenius, Bede, Hugo, Dionysius, Gagnaeus, Catharinus, Serarius, Salmeron and others. Again more simply: "The just one," that is the just Christians, you have slain on a public and solemn day, which you have destined for their slaughter, says Lyranus, and finally you will soon slay me, James surnamed the Just, on a similar day.

Verse 6: You Have Condemned and Put to Death the Just One, and He Resisted You Not

6. You have condemned — to death: for in Greek it is κατεδικάσατε, that is, you have condemned. So the Syriac, whence follows "and you have slain." So St. Gregory, hom. 17 on the Gospel: "Lest before the just Judge," he says, "our silence condemn us," that is, sentence us. Indeed Cicero against Piso: "You overturned the house of this very one," he says, "whose blood you had condemned," namely to be shed and to death. Wrongly therefore do Bede, Lyranus, Hugo, Dionysius and others read "adduxistis" (you have led) instead of "addixistis" (you have condemned). For the Jews converted to Christ (to whom James writes these things directly, as is clear in ch. 2 and following) scattered throughout the world were in many places powerful, so that they could corrupt witnesses and judges with money to condemn the innocent and just, indeed they themselves in some cities had their own judges and magistrates.

And you have slain the Just One, — both Christ, as I said a little earlier: whence in Greek it is τὸν δίκαιον, as if to say: that just one, the eminent one, by antonomasia, who is prince and parent of all the just. So Oecumenius, Hugo and others. Or "the just one," namely St. Stephen, who was full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and deacon of St. James; or rather any just person. It is a climax or gradation: for the discourse grows, as if to say: You, O rich, have not only denied wages to the laborers, but you have also slain the innocent and the just through calumnies, false witnesses, corrupted judges, that you might seize their goods. For He speaks directly to the rich and avaricious Christians, as is clear from what precedes, not to the Christ-killing Jews; unless one with Bede should say that the discourse is also indirectly extended to them. For James so instructs the faithful that he does not neglect the unbelievers, but is busy to convert them to Christ. For granted that the priests acting in Jerusalem properly slew Christ, nevertheless they did it through the people crying before Pilate: "Crucify, crucify Him;" but this people was gathered from the Jews scattered throughout the whole world, to whom he writes: for these had assembled at Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover there according to custom. Finally, some interpret "slain" as "plundered, robbed," so that from his wealth and plunder they might set up their feasts (for he treated of these a little before). For such a dire plundering of goods, which often forces the poor to die from hunger and miseries, is called slaying in Scripture, as in Ecclus. 34:25: "The bread of the needy is the life of the poor: he who defrauds them is a man of blood; he who takes away bread in sweat is as one who slays his neighbor." And Jeremiah 2:34: "In your skirts has been found the blood of the souls of the poor," where he speaks of those who plunder the poor. A similar place is Prov. 22:22.

And He did not resist you, — by the example of Christ, of whom Isaiah says, ch. 53: "As a sheep He shall be led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer He shall be silent, and shall not open His mouth." So did the patient Saints and Martyrs. Whence Tertullian, book On Patience, ch. 14, says that the mouth of the patient man, silent in adversities, is marked with the honor of taciturnity. James alludes to that of Isaiah 57:1: "The just perishes, and there is none who considers in his heart." So once Jezebel slew Naboth through false witnesses, that she might seize his vineyard, 3 Kings 21. The Greek is ἀντιτάσσεται, in the present tense, as if to say: Christ as yet is silent, and does not resist you, O Jews; but after a few years He will resist, and will roar like a lion, when through Titus He shall destroy Jerusalem and Judaea.

Therefore Christ was followed by the patient ones and the Martyrs, who did not resist tyrants, even when they could; nay rather, for the rationale and laurel of martyrdom it is required that one not resist, but voluntarily accept death for Christ, and so by voluntary death give testimony to the faith, and as it were seal it with his own blood, as our Lessius teaches, Book 3 On Justice, ch. 1, doubt 3. Hence it is the axiom of theologians: A martyr does not fight. Therefore soldiers who fall fighting for the faith act as soldiers, and obtain the place and crown of soldiers, not of Martyrs. This is what the Church sings of the Martyrs:

They are cut down by swords like sheep:
No murmur sounds, no complaint;
But with silent heart the well-conscious mind
Preserves patience.

Wherefore the Theban Legion under the leadership of Mauritius, when it could have resisted the Emperor Maximian, would not, but laying down their arms, and bending their knees, offered him their throats. The same was done by ten thousand soldiers under the leadership of Zeno, slaughtered by the same emperor at Rome at Aquae Salviae: for these by not resisting soldiers became Martyrs.

Verse 7: Be Patient Therefore, Brethren, Until the Coming of the Lord

7. Be therefore patient, — Greek μακροθυμήσατε, that is, be longanimous. He turns his discourse from the rich who afflict to the afflicted poor, as if to say: Endure, O Christians, when you see yourselves oppressed by the avaricious and proud rich, even Christians, and suffering things so unjust and dire: for although their tyranny and glory may seem long to persist, as well as your oppression and hardship, yet endure, because soon Christ the just judge will come, who will sharply punish their tyranny, and largely reward your patience.

Until the coming of the Lord. — As if to say: Be patient through your whole life until death and judgment, both particular and universal: for this is elsewhere everywhere called "the coming of the Lord." Wherefore less correctly does Oecumenius judge that the "coming of the Lord" is here said in the sense of when Christ came to the destruction of Jerusalem through Titus and Vespasian. The Greek is ἕως τῆς παρουσίας, that is, until the presence of the Lord, as if to say: The Lord shall come, and shall present Himself to you, and by His presence shall plainly console you.

Behold the husbandman. — By the example of the farmer he teaches how longanimous they ought to be, and at the same time teaches that in this matter they ought to imitate farmers, and console themselves with their hope, as if to say: Just as farmers undergo many and great labors of plowing, sowing, weeding, reaping, etc., for the hope of the harvest and fruits, although remote and distant, which they patiently and longanimously await, and therefore endure in continual labors: so also you, O faithful, bear bravely and longanimously all adversities, especially those which you suffer so many and so great unjustly from the rich and powerful, in the hope of the wages and the heavenly crown which Christ the judge shall give you, and although it be deferred somewhat, yet endure in your patience, because He that is to come will come, and will not delay long, Habakkuk 2:3; according to that promise of Christ: "Behold I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to each one according to his works," Apoc. 22:12. Truly Euripides in Stobaeus, serm. 55:

The life of farmers takes pleasure,
While it consoles its sadness with the hope of things to come.

And Tibullus, elegy 6, Book 2:

Hope cherishes farmers, hope entrusts to the plowed furrows
Seeds which the field may return with great interest.

Excellently St. Ambrose on Psalm 72, which he entitles: "On the appeal of David," on that v. 1, "How good is God to Israel," etc.: "Good," he says, "is God always to him who knows in what time he reaps: and therefore as a good farmer, he plows his field with as it were a more rigid plowshare of abstinence; he uproots with a certain pruning-hook of virtues that cuts away vices; he manures by humbling himself even to the earth, knowing that God raises up the needy from the earth, and lifts the poor from the dunghill; he guards his fruits, that he may store them up there more securely." No less elegantly Chrysologus, serm. 103: "Let us believe that the cross of our body is the plow; faith, the seed; the furrow, the tomb; dissolution, the sprouting; expectation, the time: so that when the spring of the Lord's coming shall smile, the then ripe verdure of our bodies may rise up into the vital harvest, which shall now know no end." How great then and how blessed shall be the joy of these spiritual farmers? O happy, they will say, the labors which have brought forth for us such abundant fruits! Isaiah 9:3: "They shall rejoice before You as those who rejoice in the harvest." Psalm 125:5: "Those who sow in tears shall reap in exultation," etc. There stands indeed the fixed saying of the Apostle to the Galatians 6:8: "For what a man shall have sown, this also shall he reap." And 2 Cor. 9:6: "He who sows sparingly shall reap sparingly: and he who sows in blessings, of blessings shall also reap."

The precious fruit of the earth. — "Precious," first, because this fruit costs the farmers the price of great labor and effort. Second, because it is precious in itself, as sustaining, strengthening and refreshing the life of man. Third, because it is sold at a great price.

Clement of Rome notes, 2 Const. final ch., that St. James and his brother Jude were farmers, and therefore often borrowed examples and similitudes from agriculture. But let the faith of this matter rest with the author.

Patiently enduring, — μακροθυμῶν, that is, acting longanimously, laboring longanimously, awaiting longanimously. So the Zurich version, Pagninus and others; whence Greek codices add αὐτοῦ, that is in itself, that is, awaiting the fruit itself; the Syriac has "upon them," namely the fruits.

Until he receive the early and the late. — The Greek adds ὑετόν, that is shower and rain. So the Syriac. The early shower, that is the most timely, is the one which seasonably, namely in October, falls upon the seed once cast, so as to make it germinate; the late, which falls late, namely in April or May, to ripen the crops. See what is said in Jerem. 5:24 and Hosea 6:4. For crops have their day, of which as it were the dawn and morning are the sproutings, the late afternoon and evening is the harvest. Furthermore, all the hope of the crops and every good thing of the farmer consists in timely rain, sowing, and harvest, so that when he has this, he seems to have the harvest already in hand. Hence Moses: "The Lord," he says, "will open His best treasure, heaven, to give rain to the earth in its season," Deuter. 28:12. Wherefore some take the early and late as the fruit of which He spoke before; and by the early fruit they understand the early and first, by the late the slow and later. Thus there are early figs in July, and late ones in September. Thus on the same tree some apples, pears, cherries, and plums ripen first, others late and tardy. The same is true in fields and crops. So Hugo, Thomas Anglicus, Salmeron, Fevardentius, and others.

Hence Bede mystically applying these things to the patient man: The early fruit, he says, of the just and patient man is the glory of the soul: for this is given immediately after death; but the late fruit is the glory of the body: for this will be given late, namely at the end of the world on the day of judgment. Again, the early is the increase of grace and justice, which is given at once in this life; the late is the heavenly crown, which is given after this life. Finally, fitly to the prior sense concerning rain: The early shower is prevenient grace, the late is subsequent grace, says Hugo. Hence the Church prays: "May Thy grace, we beseech Thee, O Lord, go before us and follow us, and ever make us intent upon good works." The same St. James suggests must be prayed for in temptation, dryness, and desolation.

Again, the early shower is the beginning of faith and virtue, namely the inception of the holy life; the late is the progress and perfection of the same. Allegorically, St. Jerome on Jerem. 5, and Cyril on Zechariah ch. 10, take the "early" shower as the Old Testament, because it was given first; by the "late," the New Testament, because it was given later, and because it leads us to the perfection of grace and glory.

Verse 8: Be You Therefore Also Patient, and Strengthen Your Hearts

8. Be you therefore also patient, — μακροθυμήσατε, that is, be long-suffering in enduring the injuries of the rich and powerful, as if to say: "If farmers patiently bear these things for temporal fruits, how much more ought you to be patient for eternal ones! Be therefore patient, and strengthen your hearts, that when Christ the judge comes you may be able to be joyful and approved," says Pope Anacletus, epist. 1.

By a similar comparison of the athlete, the pugilist, and the racer in the stadium, Paul incites the faithful to constancy in suffering and contending: "Every man," he says, "who striveth in the contest abstaineth from all things; and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible," 1 Cor. 9:25. Truly if anyone attentively considers the pains and labors which farmers, athletes, soldiers, and craftsmen undergo for a small gain, he will blush that for God and heaven he suffers and acts so meagerly, so coldly, and so reluctantly.

And strengthen your hearts, — that you may firmly endure in your forbearance. Thus the Apostle says: "Be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of His power. Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the snares of the devil," Ephes. 6:10. See what is said there. And David: "Wait for the Lord, do manfully; and let thy heart take courage, and wait for the Lord," Psalm 26:14. The counterpart of this saying of James is that one written in the same age, to the same faithful, by St. Peter, epist. 1, ch. 5:10: "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will Himself perfect, confirm, and establish you." Which is truly of marvelous consolation; and at the same time teaches first, that this confirmation is more of the grace of God than of our powers cooperating with the grace of God; second, that God after a brief endurance sends abundant consolation and strength, by which He perfects, confirms, and establishes us in patience and virtue, so that accordingly in any tribulation and temptation we ought to be patient and generous, knowing for certain that, if we do this, God will be at hand at once, and will dash to pieces all the force of tribulation, as each one experiences in himself.

Because the coming (παρουσία, that is the presence) of the Lord has drawn near, — that after this brief life He may judge and reward our patience. Thus the Apostle: "I," he says, "am even now ready to be sacrificed, and the time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me in that day; and not only to me, but to them also that love His coming," 2 Tim. 4:6.

Verse 9: Grudge Not, Brethren, One Against Another; Behold the Judge Standeth Before the Door

9. Grudge not, brethren, one against another, that you be not judged. — That is to say: in injuries and oppressions do not grieve and weep too much, do not display impatience, do not murmur and grow angry with one another, lest on account of impatience you be condemned by the Lord: for this is what the Greek κατακριθῆτε signifies, although some read κριθῆτε, that is "be judged," and so the Vulgate reads; but in Scripture, "to judge" is often the same as "to condemn" by metalepsis.

Note the word "one against another." For the poor and afflicted are wont, when they have their heart full of grief, to break out into groans, and complain now of the excessive happiness, power, and tyranny of the rich and fortunate, now of their own injury and affliction, now of the better lot and condition of their neighbors. By groaning they therefore murmur against the rich, are impatient with themselves, envy their neighbors, and so finally complain about God and accuse His providence, that He gives prosperity to others while making them miserable and allowing them to be unjustly oppressed; nay, sometimes having suffered injury from one, they inflict a similar injury on another innocent person by unjust retaliation, either to repair their own injury, or to take a companion with them in punishment, and so to lighten their own grief; for it is a consolation to the miserable to have a companion in punishment, but this is manifest injustice. Finally, the afflicted, with grief on both sides goading them, sometimes groan and lay out their injuries before God, and accuse one another before Him, and demand vindication: but God not rarely hears both and punishes them. Therefore this groaning arises from impatience: its author and stage-manager is the devil. For, as Tertullian says, in his book On Patience, ch. 5: "I detect the birthplace of impatience in the devil himself even then, when he impatiently bore that the Lord God had subjected all His works to man. He deceived men because he had envied; he had envied because he had grieved; he had grieved because he had not borne it patiently." The Apostle assigns the remedy in Galat. 6:2: "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ."

Furthermore, groaning is a sign and effect of a weak, sick, and womanish mind: "For everything weak by nature is querulous," says Seneca. For the truly brave and generous, such as the Martyrs were, in any adversities and torments do not groan, but stand like anvils, nay rather exult, triumph, and mock at tyrants, as the Maccabees did, 2 Macc. 7. Excellently St. Chrysostom, hom. 5 to the People, teaches that all groaning and sadness is useless, except that which is taken up on account of sin: for sadness is its own proper remedy: "Has someone been fined a sum of money? he grieved, but did not recover it. He lost a son; he grieved, but did not raise the dead. He has been affected by insults; he grieved, but did not recall the insult. He is sick; he grieves, he does not take away the disease, but rather increases it. But has someone sinned? he became sad, he wiped away his sins: for that sadness which is according to God works repentance unto stable salvation. Therefore sadness has been made only for the sake of sin, from which it was born; and accordingly like a moth it gnaws at and consumes it."

Behold the judge stands before the door, — that is to say: Christ the judge from heaven looks closely at all your affairs, just as if standing before your open door, He were watching everything that is done in your house; therefore do not groan against one another, because just as He sees your afflictions and injuries, so as to avenge them, so likewise He sees your groanings and impatience, so as to chastise it. Thus we say to those who are quarreling and fighting: "Be quiet; for the magistrate is at the door, who will arrest you and throw you into prison." This is what the Psalmist says, Psalm 101:20: "The Lord hath looked forth from heaven upon the earth, that He might hear the groanings of them that are in fetters, that He might release the children of the slain."

Second, Christ "stands before the door," that is, He is at hand, and shortly will come to judgment, both particular and universal, in which He will praise and crown your patience, and will condemn and punish the tyranny of the persecutors. For from the particular judgment, which will quickly come, depends the sentence of each in the universal judgment. For whatever shall be decreed about me at death, that very thing Christ will publicly confirm on the day of judgment, so that it may be ratified and fixed for all eternity. And by this reasoning it is most true that the day of judgment is near with respect to each individual, and so it threatens each one. Thus St. Augustine, epist. 85 to Hesychius: "In whatever state," he says, "his last day shall find each one, in that state shall the last day of the world apprehend him: because such as each one is when he dies on that day, such shall he be judged on that day." Whence he concludes: "Every Christian ought to be vigilant, lest the coming of the Lord find him unprepared: but that day will find him unprepared, whom the last day of this his life shall find unprepared."

Morally: When we are tempted by concupiscence to sin, let us think: "Behold the judge stands before the door:" the judge, I say, who is the sharpest avenger of sin. "A great necessity has been imposed on us of living justly and rightly, who do all things before the eyes of the judge, who sees all," says St. Augustine in his Soliloquies, ch. 14, and Boethius, De Consolatione, bk. 5, prose 6. St. Augustine adds: "So Thou considerest my steps and paths, and day and night Thou keepest watch over my custody, diligently noting all my paths as a perpetual watchman, as if forgetting all Thy creation of heaven and earth, Thou wouldst regard only me alone, and have no care of others: because just as Thou perfectly considerest the whole all at once, so each individual thing; so therefore Thou standest over my custody, as if Thou wert forgetful of all and didst will to attend to me alone."

Verse 10: Take for an Example, Brethren, of Suffering Evil, of Labor and Patience, the Prophets

10. Take, brethren, an example of the evil outcome of labor and of patience. — He calls the "evil outcome" the harsh death of the Saints, says Gagneius. So Wisdom 3:2 is said of the suffering Saints and Martyrs: "They seemed in the eyes of the unwise to die, and their departure was esteemed an affliction, and that which is from us a destruction; but they are in peace." Thus the Gentiles formerly called Christians and Martyrs βιοθανάτους, biothanatos, that is, those dying by a violent death. In Greek it is κακοπάθεια, that is, the suffering of evils, affliction, the endurance of sorrows, which is greatest in violent death and martyrdom, which in the Old Testament Abel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, etc., bravely underwent; in the New, John the Baptist, St. Stephen, St. James of Zebedee, etc. He exhorts the faithful to patience and constancy by the example of the Martyrs of both the Old and the New Testament, that they may look upon them as a mirror, and conform their life to it.

Thus Alexander the Great roused himself to great deeds by reading and considering the heroic feats of Achilles, Scipio those of Alexander, and Julius Caesar those of Scipio and Alexander, as Plutarch testifies in his Apophthegms of the Romans, and in his book On the Progress of Virtue. This is what Paul says, Hebr. 13:7: "Remember your prelates who have spoken the word of God to you; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation." And ch. 12, v. 1: "And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses laid upon us, laying aside every weight and the sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us, looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who, having joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame."

Wherefore St. Augustine rightly says, serm. 47 On the Saints: "The solemnities of the Martyrs are exhortations to martyrdom, so that one may not be loath to imitate what one delights to celebrate." Thus St. Justin, Apology 1 and 2, testifies that he was converted to Christ by the fortitude of the Martyrs. For the life and death of the Saints is, as it were, a living law, which by its deeds and customs declares what must be done, what the law, what God, what religion wills. "In the lives of the Saints we know what we ought to read in Scripture," says St. Gregory, hom. 40 on Ezekiel. Hence Philo, in his book On Abraham, says that written laws are commentaries on the lives of the Saints. Vice versa St. Augustine, in his book On Lying, ch. 15, teaches that the life of the Saints is the interpretation of the Scriptures.

Again St. Gregory, bk. 25 of Morals, ch. 7, says that the fire was anciently commanded to be fed on the altar with wood, that it might be signified that the fire of charity is to be nourished in us by the examples of the Saints. "For that fire," he says, "on the altar of the Lord, that is, in our heart, is more quickly extinguished, unless it is strengthened by skillfully applied examples of the fathers and the testimonies of the Lord." And bk. 27, ch. 5 or 6, explaining that of Psalm 75:5, "Thou enlightenest wonderfully from the everlasting hills": "From the eternal mountains," he says, "God enlightens us, because through the admirable life of the preceding Fathers He illumines us with the ray of His brightness." The Gentiles saw this same thing: hence Aeneas to his son Ascanius, in Aeneid 12:

Let your father Aeneas and your uncle Hector rouse you.

And another:

Then does the strong horse run well from the opened starting-stall,
When he has those whom he may pass and those whom he may follow.

Theseus would never have killed Sciron, nor Procrustes, nor the tyrant Creon, nor the two-bodied Minotaur, unless he had set before himself the example of Hercules, and had resolved to express his deeds by his own deeds.

Of labor. — This word is not in the Greek, but is comprehended in the preceding κακοπάθεια, that is, the suffering of evils.

And of patience, — μακροθυμίας, that is, of longsuffering.

Who have spoken in the name of the Lord, — saying: "Thus saith the Lord." The "Name" therefore signifies the person, the authority, the command, the will, the inspiration of the Lord. For the Prophets, inspired by God, brought forth the oracles and commands of God, not their own.

Verse 11: Behold, We Account Them Blessed Who Have Endured; You Have Heard of the Patience of Job

11. Behold. — This word is first a mark of admiration, and equally of great joy, that through such great misery one has come to such great glory, says Thomas Anglicus. Second, it is the word of one exhorting to the imitation of the patience of the Saints, that through it we may merit to obtain the same crown with them.

We count blessed (we proclaim blessed; the Syriac gives them טובא tuba, that is, the good, namely the highest, that is, beatitude) those who have endured — by the example of Christ, who said: "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice's sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," Matth. 5.

For "who have endured" the Greek is ὑπομένοντας, that is, who endure. So Pagninus, the Tigurine version, and others; but the Vulgate reads ὑπομείναντας, in the aorist, that is, who have endured: for no one is to be called blessed in life, but only after death, as Solon said to Croesus. Hence the Church in the Canon of the Mass commemorates and celebrates no Saints except those who endured many things and died as Martyrs, such as St. Peter, Paul, James, Andrew, Lawrence, Cecilia, etc. For now that heaven has been opened through Christ, all the Martyrs immediately fly forth from earth into heaven, and there are made blessed by the vision and glory of God; as against Calvin, who says that they sleep beneath the altar until the day of judgment, the Catholic Church teaches.

The Martyrs therefore were "happily unhappy," says St. Augustine on Psalm 127, in whom in the passion of martyrdom, as in shattered vessels (after the manner of Gideon's soldiers, Judges 7:20), the greater splendor of their glory shone forth, which "overcame the impious enemies of the Evangelical preaching by the unexpected brightness of Christ to them," says the same Augustine, Questions on the book of Judges, ch. 20. The same, bk. 13 De Civitate, ch. 6: "Death," he says, "although it is the punishment of the one being born, if it is paid for justice and piety, becomes the glory of the one being reborn." The same, serm. 26 On the Saints: "We ought," he says, "to render honor to the Martyrs, who brought forth our salvation by the shedding of their blood, who offered themselves to the Lord as so consecrated a victim for our propitiation, especially since Almighty God says to His Saints: He who honors you, honors Me; and he who despises you, despises Me. Whoever therefore honors the Martyrs, honors Christ; and he who despises the Saints, despises Christ our Lord."

You have heard of the patience of Job, — ὑπομονήν, that is, endurance, sustaining, patience. He brings forth from many sufferers one Job, because he himself was the singular mirror and exemplar of patience, as St. Jerome says, epist. 103, whom God willed to set forth to the whole world and to all ages for contemplation and imitation. Hence Suidas, under the word "Job," calls him "a most firm column and anvil"; St. Cyprian, treatise On the Good of Patience, "one advanced by the virtue of patience to the highest pinnacle of praise"; St. Basil, hom. 4 On Thanksgiving, "a man of adamantine heart, and like a rock standing forth in the sea, and an example of fortitude"; St. Hilary, on Psalm 68 and 118, "a glorious and blessed conqueror of all human passions"; Tertullian, in his book On Patience, ch. 14, "one who has expunged — that is, expressed — every species of patience against every force of the devil; in whom God has erected a bier over the devil, has lifted up a standard from the enemy of His glory"; St. Chrysostom, hom. 25 to the People: "A martyr, nay, greater than many Martyrs." Deservedly therefore we count Job blessed, who endured so many things generously and invincibly. St. Ambrose, bk. 2 On the Interpellation of Job, ch. 2, no. 5: "Job," he says, "like a brave athlete sitting in the dunghill, in such great welts and savage pains of his wound, his whole body suffused with dreadful ulcers, was speaking mysteries: nor was he occupied in acquiring remedies for his own sickness, but in sacred discourses. The discourses therefore of the sick man were stronger than those of those who were not sick." And shortly after: "And what shall I say of one found stronger than the rest? he was found stronger than himself. The sick man was stronger than when he had been well, according to what is written: Virtue is perfected in infirmity. Therefore Job too, when he was sick, was then more vigorous. For he was not sick in soul, although he grieved in body: because the soul, in whose passions he did not adhere, was not in his flesh; but in his spirit, with whose virtue he had clothed himself. Therefore he spoke not the groans of the flesh and the infirmities of the body, but the voices of the spirit, by which he pressed on, not by which he would yield."

Wherefore St. Augustine exclaims, serm. 103 De Tempore: "O man rotten and whole! O foul and beautiful! O wounded and healthy! O sitting in the dunghill and reigning in heaven!" And St. Fulgentius, epist. 2, ch. 9: "Blessed," he says, "was Job, when he lived justly in riches; but more blessed, when he stood forth more just in poverty. He was blessed when he was surrounded by ten sons; but more blessed when, smitten by the bereavement of all together, he remained immovable in the love of God. He was blessed in the soundness of body, but he was made more blessed in his wound: more blessed even in a heap full of squalor, than in a palace adorned with marbles."

Allegorically: Job was an explicit type of the suffering Christ. For just as Christ suffered in all the goods of body and soul, and from every kind of men, so also Job. For first, Job lost his sheep, oxen, house, and all his substance: Christ in His passion, despoiled of all goods, even of His garments, hung naked on the cross. Second, Job lost seven sons: Christ all the Apostles and disciples: for these, when He had been arrested, fled. Third, Job was struck with an ulcer from head to heels: Christ in His whole body, and in each member, endured the most bitter pains. Fourth, Job endured grievous reproaches from his friends, and was called impious, a hypocrite, a tyrant, a lion, a tiger: Christ on the cross was mocked as if He were a blasphemer, a seditious man, struck by God. Fifth, Job suffered curses from his wife: Christ suffered from His Mother not curses, but the torments of compassion. Sixth, Job suffered in soul sorrows, fears, scruples, anxieties: Christ in the garden began to fear, to be wearied, to be sorrowful and sad, so that on the cross He cried out: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Matth. 27:46. Seventh, in vexing and afflicting Job the demon exerted all his powers: much more did he exert them against Christ. Eighth, Job was forsaken by all, so also was Christ. Ninth, Job endured all these things with marvelous humility and constancy, when he was a prince, indeed a king of Idumaea, as Isidore, Philip, Bede, and others everywhere teach, in their Preface to Job, and it is sufficiently gathered from this, that his friends were kings, as is evident from Tobias 2:15. Christ suffered such great things when He was King of kings, and Lord of those who rule. Tenth, Job endured almost all kinds of diseases and pains: so also Christ was a man of sorrows, because He was a man of loves. For our Pineda gathers from Job's own words scattered throughout the whole book, in ch. 2 of Job, v. 7, that Job labored under more than thirty diseases, namely gout in the foot, gout in the hand, sciatica, arthritis, dysentery, incubus, wasting, quinsy, canine hunger, sacred fire, cancer, erysipelas, asthma, phthiriasis, hectic fever, leprosy, abscess, tonsillitis, pleurisy, gonorrhea, satyriasis, sleeplessness, pain of the kidneys, worms, the Egyptian plagues, pain of the ribs, putrid intestines, ulcer of the lungs, scab, venereal disease, fainting, etc. (of which several were desperate and deadly); but these things must be treated of in the same place.

Wherefore he was fittingly called איוב Jiob, in Latin and Greek Job, that is, grieving, groaning, howling, lamenting, from the root iabab, which the Vulgate in Judges 5:27 translates "to lament," so that the first letter aleph is not radical, but hemantic, that is, adventitious and formative of the name, as is wont to be in Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic names (concerning which see our Serarius on Tobias ch. 2). So St. Gregory, Chrysostom, Jerome, Philip the Presbyter, and others on Job ch. 1, v. 1. Again Job means one hated, suffering enmities, from the root אהב ahab, that is, he was an enemy, was hostile, opposed, because indeed he received in himself all the darts of the enemy, namely the devil. So Origen, hom. 14 on Joshua ch. 11, and from him Pineda. Third, St. Cyprian against the Jews says that Job is a Cypriot name, and signifies "most beloved of God": because by His love he constantly endured such great things. So also in Hebrew אהב ahab, with which איוב Jiob ends, signifies to love, to esteem. Fourth, others derive it from the root אוב ob, that is, pytho, a soothsayer: because indeed Job was a Prophet and an oracle of God, so that the letter iod is inserted from the tetragrammaton name Jehovah, signifying that his prophecy is from God, not the devil. So to Abraham was added by God the letter he from the tetragrammaton, and instead of Abram he was called Abraham, that there might be signified Abraham's singular union and love with God, as St. Jerome testifies in his Hebrew Questions. Fifth, איוב Job, by metathesis is said as it were ab, that is, father, prior, ancient, teacher, inventor; יונה iona, that is, of oppression, of suffering, and of patience. Again he alludes to אביון ebion, that is poor, from the root aba, that is, he willed, coveted, desired; because the poor man, since he lacks all things, desires all things: for from the summit of riches and happiness Job was cast down to the depth of poverty and misery.

Furthermore St. James here tacitly hints that the book of Job ought to be read by the afflicted and the suffering, that from it they may learn patience. Similar to Job was Tobias, struck with blindness, "so that an example of his patience might be given to posterity," just as also St. Job, Tobit 2:12. Excellently Prosper, in the first part of his Predictions, ch. 22: "From the seed," he says, "of Esau came the Idumaean nation, in which among the other leaders that most strong athlete of God Job shone forth, brought forth as an example of all patience, that in agonistic combat he might overcome the devil, the prince of all malice, supported by the help of God."

You have seen the end of the Lord. — The Syriac: "you have seen the end which the Lord gave to him." "End" therefore here is the reward of patience, namely the happiness in which Job's affliction ended, when poverty passed into wealth, infirmity into health, ignominy into glory: for God restored to him all things double, and made him celebrated and glorious throughout the whole world and to all ages, so that He may seem to have poured out the fountains of His mercy and liberality upon him. So Dionysius, Cajetan, Catharinus, Salmeron, Serarius, Stevartius, Fevardentius, and the recent commentators everywhere.

Job signified this by the names of his three daughters, whom, having been restored to himself and to his own, he begot there. For he called the first Jemima, that is "day"; the second, Ketsia, that is "casia"; the third, Kerenhapuch, that is "horn of stibium." As if to say: I have given them all these names as a memorial of my twofold fortune, prosperous and adverse: as though now from the night and darkness of misfortune I had returned to the day and light of happiness, from the stench of the dunghill to the fragrance of casia, from filth to brilliance and elegance, as though painted with stibium. So Olympiodorus, Vatablus, and others on Job ch. 42. Hence instead of "horn of stibium," R. Abraham translates "horn or strength changed" (for this is what Kerenhapuch means in Hebrew to the Hebrews), namely, changed from infirmity and adversity into this strength and prosperity, greater than the former. The Septuagint, however, translate "horn of Amalthea," that is "horn of plenty"; for the Poets feign that Amalthea was a goat, the nurse of Jupiter, from whose horn Jupiter accordingly was wont to pour forth all good things upon men. Wherefore truly Prosper, in part 1 of On Promises, ch. 22: "Job," he says, "as victor received double rewards. But to those of his own who fight, and conquering with His grace helping, the Lord here promises to give a hundredfold, and to bestow eternal life in the world to come. Which we have seen fulfilled in Valentinian, brother of Valens: who while for Christ he despised the military service of the tribunate, obtained the kingdom of this world, and as a true confessor of Christ acquired eternal life."

Second, others by "the end of the Lord" understand the death of Christ on the cross, or the patience of Christ unto death, and perfect and consummate in death: as if James were joining the type with the antitype, namely Job with Christ, and proposing for contemplation and imitation by the afflicted faithful two exemplars of patience, Job and Christ; for the patience of Christ far surpassed the patience of Job: for, to pass over other things, it lasted unto the end of life and unto death itself, while the affliction of Job endured only seven years, if we believe Olympiodorus and the author of the Greek Catena on Job ch. 42, v. 19 (for our Pineda very probably judges that the time of Job's calamity was much briefer: see him on ch. 2, v. 7 and 8, sect. 12, no. 4); for after it, happiness succeeded unto his death for 140 years, by which he survived, Job 42:16. Whence Abbot Guerricus, serm. 3 On Palm Sunday: "For the endurance of Job," he says, "was unto the return of his substance; the endurance of the Lord unto the departure of life." So St. Augustine, in his book On the Creed to Catechumens, ch. 3, and epist. 120, ch. 10: "That," he says, "we might not hope for such a reward (as Job received), when we suffer temporal evils, He did not say: 'You have seen the endurance and end of Job'; but said: 'You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord'; as if He had said: Endure temporal evils as Job did, but for this endurance hope not for temporal goods, which returned to him in increased measure, but rather for eternal ones, which preceded in the Lord."

St. Augustine proves this exposition from the word "you have seen"; for many in that age had seen the end of Christ; but the end of Job, no one. But to this it can be replied that "to see" in Scripture is often taken for "to know," whether this happens by sight, or by hearing, or by some other sense, as I have shown elsewhere. As is his custom, Bede, the Gloss, Hugo, and others follow Augustine. This sense is sublime, but symbolic: the former therefore seems literal and genuine, which is confirmed by what follows: "Because the Lord is merciful and compassionate," namely toward Job, while He gave him a happy end of his tribulations. For it is the same when it is said: "You have seen the end of the Lord," as that which, as if rendering the cause of His statement, He immediately subjoins: "Because the Lord is merciful and compassionate."

Anagogically, "the end of the Lord" is the resurrection of Christ, His ascension, the sending of the Holy Spirit, the exaltation of His name, the glory and worship among all nations. So St. Augustine in the words already cited, Serarius and others. Again, "the end of the Lord" is the reward and crown of eternal glory, which God after death gave to Job, and gives to all who endure, concerning which St. Cyprian, in his book On Mortality: "Unto immortality," he says, "we pass over by death, nor can eternal life succeed unless it should happen to depart from here: this is not a going forth, but a transit."

Because the Lord is merciful and compassionate. — "Merciful" by habit, "compassionate" by act, by which He continually shows mercy, so that He seems to pour forth the bowels of His mercy upon Job and the afflicted to console them: hence for "merciful," in Greek it is πολύσπλαγχνος, that is, very visceral, taking compassion from the inmost bowels, whom in Hebrew they call רחום rachum: for σπλάγχνα are the bowels.

These words signify that here Job is being literally treated of, not Christ, as I said, especially because to Christ as man, by reason of the hypostatic union and the merit of His passion, the resurrection and glory were owed; although it may be said in this respect to have been given to Him mercifully, in that it was not owed to human nature in Christ precisely considered (that is, apart from the union with the Word), but was gratuitously conferred by God, equally as the hypostatic union itself.

Verse 12: But Above All Things, My Brethren, Swear Not; but Let Your Speech Be, Yea, Yea; No, No

12. But above all things, my brethren, swear not, — that is to say: Above all take care that you do not swear rashly. For many of the faithful then seem to have been just as inclined to oaths as now, and to have introduced into themselves the habit of swearing. Wherefore, that James may amend and correct this proclivity and slip of the tongue, contracted from a vicious custom, he warns them to apply greater care and guard to the tongue lest they swear, than to any other vice: for he who is greatly addicted to one vice, ought above the rest to be vigilant against it, if he wishes to correct it, and to make a particular examination concerning it.

Less genuinely therefore Lyranus explains, as if to say: Above all do not swear, that is, do not, as you are wont, prepose an oath to all your sayings; for there are some so prone to swearing that before every third word they swear.

James alludes to, indeed cites, that saying of Christ in Matth. ch. 5, v. 34: "But I say to you, not to swear at all, neither by heaven," etc. From which words the Anabaptists wrongly conclude and teach, as also Wycliffe (whose error on this matter was condemned in the Council of Constance, session 8), and formerly the Waldensians, and the Pelagians, as St. Augustine testifies, epist. 8, Question 5 (where he laughs at them because they thought they were only swearing if they said: "By God," but not by saying: "God is my witness"), that no oath is lawful for Christians. St. Chrysostom and Theophylact on Matth. 5, and Oecumenius here, seem to favor this view, who say that every oath is forbidden to Christians by Christ; but to the Jews as imperfect it was permitted, as well as the bill of divorce. But these Fathers are to be benignly explained, that they wish to say only that an oath is more severely prohibited to Christians by Christ than to the Jews: for those, on account of the custom of swearing, were not so sharply chastised and punished by God, as Christians are chastised by Christ.

It is therefore of faith that it is sometimes lawful for Christians to swear. For so Paul swore, 2 Cor. 1:23: "I call God to witness upon my soul." Philip. 1:8: "God is my witness." And the angel in Apoc. 10:6 swears by Him who lives forever and ever. Indeed even God, according to that of Psalm 109:4: "The Lord hath sworn, and He will not repent." The reason is that by an oath God is honored as the first and infallible truth, who is called as witness. An oath therefore is an act of religion and of latria, if, as Jeremiah teaches, ch. 4, v. 2, it is made "in truth," namely that what is false not be sworn; "in justice," that what is unjust and evil not be sworn; "in judgment," that it not be sworn rashly and without great utility or necessity: "for an incautious oath lacks judgment, a lying oath truth, an iniquitous oath justice," says St. Thomas, 2-2, Q. 89, art. 3.

You will say: How then does Christ ordain: "But I say to you, not to swear at all"? St. Bernard answers, serm. 65 on the Canticle, that "not to swear at all" is a counsel, not a precept. Others confess that it is a precept, but forbidding only that one not swear by creatures, and this lest the dignity of the first truth be given to them and taken away from God: St. Jerome hints at this on Matth. ch. 5. Others by "to swear" understand "to forswear oneself." But all these things seem foreign or distorted, and are refuted from the words which Christ subjoins, Matth. 5.

For the response, then, note that Christ touches on a twofold error of the Pharisees. The first was that of Exod. ch. 20, v. 7, where it is said: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," that only perjury is prohibited, not a light and vain oath: for the Hebrew word שוא scau, which the Vulgate translates "vain," also signifies "lying": but a lie in an oath is perjury. Indeed the Rabbis judge that there it is only forbidden that anyone pronounce the name Jehovah, except the high priest; which is truly ridiculous. The second was that it was lawful to swear rashly by creatures and to forswear. That the Pharisees thought this is evident from Matth. 23:17. Christ opposes to both errors the word "at all," as if to say: But I say and forbid that not only what is false be sworn, but also what is true, whether it be done by saying "by God," or by the temple, or by another creature: understand according to the mind of the Pharisees, "lightly and rashly," as is done in the common speech of men. For Christ wishes to teach, as St. Augustine and Chrysostom witness, that the propensity to swear is evil; and that an oath, although in itself good, nevertheless arises from evil (namely from the unbelief of men, who do not believe unless one swears), nor is it to be sought after for its own sake; and therefore one ought not to swear at all, unless this evil compels, and this first, lest from the habit of swearing we slip into perjury, as Ecclesiasticus warns, ch. 23, v. 9 and 12. So St. Augustine, epist. 154: "'Swear not at all,' it seems to me to have been said for this reason, not because to swear what is true is a sin, but because to forswear is an immense sin, from which He wished us to be far, who admonished us not to swear at all." Secondly, because the reverence of the divine name demands this. Thirdly, because such ought to be the faith and truth of Christians, that they might be believed without an oath, and might in fact be believed, says Clement of Alexandria, bk. 7 Stromata. Thus among the Romans the Flamen Dialis was not allowed to swear, because it seemed unworthy that he not be believed, as though divine things were committed to him, says Plutarch in Roman Problems no. 43, where he adds: An oath is for a free man what torture is for a slave. For the Romans extorted the truth from slaves by torture, from a citizen by an oath, from a priest by his word alone.

St. James therefore, after the example of Christ, forbids "any oath whatsoever." First, because, as St. Augustine says, sermon 28 On the Words of the Apostle: "A false oath is destructive, a true oath is perilous, no oath is safe." Secondly, because He wills that, as far as it lies in you, you should not be drawn to, nor love, nor as it were desire an oath as a good with any delight, says St. Augustine, chapter 15 On Lying. Thirdly, because to swear is in itself as it were a moral evil involving irreverence toward God, but necessary in this state of fallen and corrupt nature; just as it is in itself an evil to kill a man, but as this (killing) is sometimes lawful — even praiseworthy — when due circumstances are present, so also is swearing, if it be done with truth, justice, and judgment, that is, not gladly and lightly, but only because the unbelieving distrust of another extorts it. Hence St. Thomas, Opusc. 4, says that "an oath, no differently from a medicine, is to be employed only when necessity compels." In paradise, therefore, it was not lawful to swear, just as it is not lawful in heaven. For such is the majesty of the name of God that it is not to be invoked as witness unless necessity compels. Wherefore to do this freely for small and worthless matters is base, irreverent, and injurious to God — just as it would be an injury to a king if someone summoned him as witness for the sake of a single gold coin. Hence Aristotle, Metaphysics 1, chapter 3, says that "an oath is worthy of the highest honor."

Neither by heaven. — For, as I have already said, the Scribes, Pharisees, and the like held that an oath by created things was not an oath and did not bind. Hear Christ, Matthew 23:16, rebuking the Pharisees: "Woe to you, blind guides, who say: Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing." But these same men, blinded by greed, made an exception for those things which, offered to God, filled their own coffers, as if these alone were held most holy; and so, if anyone swore by them, he was bound by his oath. Whence Christ adds: "But whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, is a debtor. You foolish and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gift that is upon it, is a debtor. You blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?" He then gives the reason a priori, that he who swears by a creature implicitly, by the common understanding of men, swears by the Creator, who is the author and preserver of the creature: "He therefore," He says, "that sweareth by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things that are upon it. And whosoever shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it and by Him that dwelleth in it. And he that sweareth by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God and by Him that sitteth thereon," and so truly and properly swears by God and calls Him as witness, and is bound by his oath, just as if he had sworn directly by God. And Matthew 5:34: "But I say to you not to swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king; neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black," as if to say: Do not think it lawful to swear by your head as though it were yours and subject to your full dominion for any use, since it is not yours, but God's: if therefore you swear by your head, you swear by God who gave it to you. Otherwise he who properly swore by himself and his head, and did not intend to swear by God, but by himself alone, would be an idolater; because he would make himself the first and infallible truth, and consequently God.

But let your speech be: Yea, yea (in Greek ναί ναί, that is, certainly, certainly; Pagninus, even, even), nay, nay. — As if to say: Let your speech be a simple affirmation or denial without an oath, so that you say simply that what is, is, and that what is not, is not. Thus Oecumenius. Or, as if to say: Instead of an oath, use a steady and twofold affirmation by saying: "It is, it is"; or a steady and twofold denial by saying: "No, no." See what was said on this expression at 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 17.

Indeed, such ought to be the sincerity, uprightness, and trustworthiness of men, and especially of the faithful, that credit would be given to their simple affirmation or denial. So Isocrates to Demonicus: "It is fitting," he says, "that good men show themselves more trustworthy than an oath, and one is to swear only to free oneself from a charge or a friend from grave peril, but not for the sake of money."

Solon said that there ought to be such uprightness in men that there would be no need to bind them by an oath, as Maximus testifies, sermon 33. Socrates used to say that "good men ought to show such conduct as would be firmer than an oath," as Antonius testifies in the Melissa, part 2, sermon 63.

Thus Clinias, an associate of Pythagoras, preferred to pay three talents as a fine rather than to escape the fine by swearing, as St. Basil reports, sermon On the Profit to be Drawn from Pagan Books. "The Essenes (who were the first Christians from among the Jews) regard everything they say as stronger than an oath," says Josephus, book 2 of The War, chapter 7.

Thus St. Gregory Nazianzen imposed upon himself the law never to swear, and he kept this even to death, as he himself relates in the Poem on his own Life.

Truly Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, book 7: "Where then," he says, "is there any further need of an oath for him who so lives as one who has attained the summit of truth?" And St. Augustine, On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, book 1: "Let a Christian," he says, "speak the truth, and let him commend the truth not by frequent oaths but by uprightness of conduct." Likewise also Philo, On the Special Law, book 1: "Whatever," he says, "a good man asserts, ought to be believed just as if it were sworn, since his word is firm and unbending, not flexible by any falsehood, supported by the truth on which it is grounded." St. Chrysostom, however, in homily 26 to the People: "I have sometimes heard this," he says, "from some: Unless I swear, he does not believe me. You are the cause of these people, you who swear easily: for if you did not do so, but it were established by all that you do not swear, believe me when I say that you would find more faith placed in your mere nod than in those who devour a thousand oaths." See the same author, homily 17, where he assigns various means by which the habit of swearing can easily be corrected. Thus when Carbo promised something and swore to it, the Roman people in turn swore that they did not believe him; for credit must be given to upright men even when unsworn, but to fickle men not even when they have sworn. For, as Menander says, "it is the speaker's life that persuades, not his speech."

That you fall not under judgment. — So too the Syriac, as if to say: That you may not fall into condemnation, when from the frequency of swearing you fall into perjury by swearing falsely. The Greek now has ὑπὸ κρίσιν, that is, that you may not fall into dissimulation, as Pagninus, the Zurich version, Cajetan, and Clarius render it, as if to say: Do not swear feignedly and with dissimulation, swearing with the mouth and not with the heart, and saying: "I have sworn with the tongue, but I bear an unsworn mind": on which principle the tyrant Lysander used to say that boys must be deceived with dice and men with oaths, as Plutarch testifies in the Laconic Apophthegms. The same is said — nay, done — by politicians and atheists, who, since there is for them no divinity, no conscience, have likewise no religion or fidelity in an oath: which is truly more than pagan — fraudulent, sacrilegious, and barbarous. But other codices have κατὰ κρίσιν, that is, judgment and condemnation; and indeed Oecumenius, reading ὑπὸ κρίσιν, expounds it as κατὰ κρίσιν.

Verse 13: Is Any of You Sad? Let Him Pray. Is He Cheerful in Mind? Let Him Sing

13. Is any of you sad (κακοπαθεῖ, that is, suffers, is troubled, is afflicted)? Let him pray. — Thus Christ, sorrowful unto death in the garden, prayed: because prayer obtains from God help, gladness, and strength to overcome sadness; and so prayer itself, and converse with God, cheers and gladdens him who prays. It is plain that these are distinct precepts or counsels. For what has sadness to do with the oath that came before? The fruit of prayer, moreover, is plain in Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who, when she was of bitter spirit and had prayed, "her countenances were no longer changed," 1 Kings 1:18; and in Christ, who overcame His agony by prayer and, advancing fearlessly afterwards to meet the Jews, delivered Himself up to death. Therefore, when you are sad, do not seek consolations from friends, from feasts, from music, from stories; but from prayer and converse with God. Furthermore, more powerful to do harm than any diabolical action is the spirit of grief; for the demon overcomes nearly everyone whom he overcomes, by means of grief: if you take that away, no one can be hurt by the demon, says St. Chrysostom, sermons 2 and 3 On Providence.

Is he of an even mind? Let him sing. — The Syriac: "if he is glad, let him sing." Some read on the contrary ἀθυμεῖ, that is, he is of a sick mind, so that the same thing is said and the foregoing is repeated, as if: While you are sad, pray and sing, that you may shake off your sadness. But the proper reading is εὐθυμεῖ, as others read everywhere — that is, of an even, peaceable, tranquil, untroubled, joyful, eager mind. For although it is useful for the sad man to sing psalms, it is difficult, according to the saying: "Music in mourning is an unseasonable narration," Sirach 22:6. But the joyful and eager man is impelled to sing and to chant psalms. Psalmody therefore preserves and increases joy, and stirs up jubilation to God. For this reason psalmody was introduced into the Church. First, that by it the faithful may be stirred up to the love of God. Secondly, that, as various voices come together into one harmony, so the spirits of the faithful may conspire into one, says St. Athanasius, On the Interpretation of the Psalms. Thirdly, that the spirits may be soothed by the sweetness of song, so that they may more eagerly receive the force and efficacy of the divine oracles, says St. Basil, Preface on the Psalms. Fourthly, that we may emulate the angels and the Seraphim, who perpetually sing and chant praises to God: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts," Isaiah 6:3. So Cyril, Catechesis 13. See what was said on Ephesians 5:19. "The Psalm," says St. Augustine, Preface on the Psalms, "is a standard-bearer of peace, a spiritual incense, an exercise of heavenly things: it represses luxury, suggests sobriety, calls forth tears." And St. Basil, Proem on the Psalms: "The Psalm," he says, "is the tranquillity of souls, the arbiter of peace, restraining the tumults and waves of thoughts, soothing wrath. The Psalm is a conciliator of friendship, a joining together of the divided, a reconciliation of enemies. For who will reckon as an enemy one with whom he sends up a single voice to God?" And below: "The Psalm puts demons to flight, summons angelic helpers, is security in nightly terrors, rest in daily labors; protection for infants, an ornament for the young, a solace for the old, the most honorable ornament for women; it makes solitudes populous; the rudiment for beginners, the increase for those who advance, the consummation for the perfect. The Psalm is the voice of the Church, and it celebrates feast-days. The Psalm is the work of angels, the spiritual ornament of the heavenly commonwealth." St. Chrysostom on Psalm 14: "The Psalm," he says, "is the sanctification of the soul, a beautiful concord of the mind, a most sharp dart against demons; nor do stags so flee from arrows as demons from the psalms of David. David took the cithara and struck it, and the evil spirit departed from Saul, and the departing demon fell as a stag pierced by an arrow and wounded in the liver."

Hence in the Lives of the Fathers we read that the demon dreads no prayer so much as psalmody. Sophronius in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 152, gives the reason: that "in the Psalms we partly pray to and invoke God by ourselves praising Him, and partly assail the demons with curses." Again St. Chrysostom on Psalm 134: "The Psalm," he says, "has pleasure together with usefulness. Its chief gain is to address hymns to God, to purify the soul, to lift up thought on high, to learn true and exact doctrines, to philosophize about things present and to come." And shortly after: "For though he who sings be a thousand times wanton, while he reverences the psalm, he lulls to sleep the tyranny of his own wantonness; though he be oppressed by countless evils and beset by sickness of soul, while he is soothed by the delight, he raises his spirit, lifts up his thought, and bears his mind aloft into the heights."

Verse 14: Is Any Man Sick Among You? Let Him Bring in the Priests of the Church

14. Is any man sick among you? — Catholics understand this passage of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. This Sacrament was once denied by the Armenians, Waldensians, Albigensians, Wycliffe, and in this age by Luther and Calvin. Cajetan, although he concedes that it is a Sacrament, denies that it is here treated of, but rather a miraculous unction for healing the sick, to which Christ sent His disciples, who at that time were not yet priests and therefore could not be ministers of the Sacrament, Mark 6:13. But it is of faith both that Extreme Unction is a sacrament, and that James here treats of it. So the Church holds, which in the administration of this sacrament prays thus: "O God, who didst speak through Thy Apostle James, saying: Is any man sick among you," etc. The same was defined by the Council of Florence in the Decree of Union, and explicitly by the Council of Trent, session 14, where it expounds this passage of James at length. It says, therefore, in canon 1 On Extreme Unction: "If anyone shall say that Extreme Unction is not truly and properly a Sacrament instituted by Christ our Lord and promulgated by the blessed Apostle James, but only a rite received from the Fathers, or a human invention, let him be anathema." And canon 2: "If anyone shall say that the sacred unction of the sick does not confer grace, nor remit sins, nor relieve the sick, but has now ceased, as if it had once been only the grace of healings, let him be anathema." More explicitly, in chapter 1: "This sacred unction of the sick," He says, "was instituted, as truly and properly a Sacrament of the New Testament, by Christ our Lord — insinuated indeed in Mark, but commended and promulgated to the faithful by James the Apostle and brother of the Lord. Is any man sick among you, He says, let him bring in the Presbyters of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. By which words, as the Church has learned by Apostolic tradition received from hand to hand, He teaches the matter, form, proper minister, and effect of this saving Sacrament. For the Church has understood the matter to be oil blessed by a Bishop; for unction most aptly represents the grace of the Holy Spirit, by which the soul of the sick man is invisibly anointed; the form then to be those words: Through this unction," etc.

Calvin therefore is in error when he says that Innocent I instituted the sacrament of Extreme Unction, and that Sigebert asserts this in his Chronicle. Chemnitz errs even more when he attributes it to Felix IV, about the year of the Lord 528, who was a hundred years later than Innocent; for Sigebert has no such thing, nor any other historian. The same is taught and defined by the Pontiffs Fabian, Innocent I and III, and Callistus I, and by the Councils of Meaux, Gangra, Sens, Chalons, Mainz, Worms, Cologne, and Aachen. See Bellarmine, volume 4, On Extreme Unction. The reason is, first, because the grace of healings was not a permanent thing, but only given by Christ to the disciples for a time and entrusted to them; whereas James speaks of this unction as a permanent and ordinary thing having an infallible effect. For this epistle was written long after Christ's death, when the grace of healings was ceasing. Secondly, the Apostles and disciples of Christ had the grace of healings, but not all Presbyters. Therefore, when He bids that the Presbyters be brought in, it signifies that they are the ministers of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. Thirdly, because He says: "And if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him." From which it is plain that this was not the grace of healings; for that healed the body from diseases, not the soul from sins. Again, this unction is a Sacrament, because a Sacrament is nothing other than a visible sign conferring invisible grace, and such is Extreme Unction; for the remission of sins is not effected except through the infusion of grace. Fourthly, because James here recounts all the things necessary for a Sacrament, namely he assigns oil for the matter, the prayer of faith for the form, the Presbyter for the minister, and the remission of sins for the effect.

Note: When He says "is sick," understand it of one gravely and dangerously sick unto death; for here ἀσθενεῖ means that he is plainly destitute of strength and vigor, whom He therefore presently calls τὸν κάμνοντα, that is, "one dangerously laboring." Again He says that the Lord ἐγερεῖ, that is, "will raise up" such a one as if from death to life: otherwise He would have ordered, in slight illnesses, not Presbyters but physicians to be summoned, who would heal the sick man with medicines. So the Council of Trent expounds it, session 14, chapter 3, On Extreme Unction: "It is also declared," it says, "that this unction is to be applied to the sick, but especially to those who lie so dangerously ill that they appear to be at the point of departing this life: whence it is also called the sacrament of the departing, equally with Extreme Unction." For it is the last (extreme) of those things which are administered to a faithful man in life: for the faithful man is first anointed in Baptism, but on the crown of the head; secondly, in Confirmation, but on the forehead; thirdly, in Holy Orders, but on the hands; but extremely he is anointed with this unction, when he is extremely sick, for the final struggle with the demon, the world, and the flesh, which is to be entered upon and overcome bravely. Hence the Council of Trent, session 14, says that it is the consummator of penance and of the whole life, and that Christ willed by it to fortify the end of life as with a most firm bulwark against the devil, who then strains every nerve of his cunning to destroy us and to drive us from confidence in the divine mercy. Wherefore, as to what we read in the Life of St. Hedwig — that, when illness was imminent and she was still well, she asked to be anointed, that she might receive the Sacrament more devoutly, and was anointed — this was done by divine instinct as a dispensation, and is not to be imitated, as the author of her Life warns.

Note secondly: The word "is sick" signifies that this unction is not to be administered to those who are well but undergoing peril of life in battle, shipwreck, capital punishment, etc., but only to those who are so weakened by disease that their life is in danger.

Note thirdly: The word "is sick" signifies that this unction is not to be administered to the dead, as the Valentinian and Archontic heretics once did, invoking the names of Principalities so that the dead might become incomprehensible and be redeemed from the power of the principalities. See Theodoret, book 1 of Heretical Fables; Irenaeus, book 1, chapter 18; St. Augustine, heresy 16.

Let him bring in. — This word signifies that this unction is not to be administered except to one who is in possession of reason and mind, or at least at some time was: for he alone can "bring in" — that is, summon and bid that the Presbyters be brought in: for in Greek it is προσκαλεσάσθαι, that is, let him call. Therefore those incapable of it are the perpetually insane and infants, even if they are desperately ill. Wrongly, then, does Nicholas of Cusa, epistle 3, write that Extreme Unction was once given to infants. Again, the word "bring in" signifies not only counsel, but also a precept — namely, that he who conveniently can ought to receive this Sacrament, that he may more surely provide for his eternal salvation in so great a peril and at the last point of life; because it not seldom happens that one is saved through Extreme Unction who without it would have perished and been damned — for example, if a sick man cannot confess and be absolved, and yet is in mortal sin, he is to be anointed, and the unction will blot out the sin and confer on him first grace and justice.

Wherefore we read in the Life of St. Malachy, in St. Bernard, that when he had been summoned to anoint a certain woman, and was somewhat delayed and found her dead without this Sacrament, he so grieved that, praying long with his companions, he raised the dead woman and anointed her. Wherefore, where the other Sacraments cannot be administered to a sick man, Extreme Unction must be administered, and this seems to be of precept; for no one can in such an emergency safely trust his own contrition: so teach the Master in book 4, distinction 23; Bonaventure and Major in the same place; and Cajetan in his Summula. But if the other Sacraments can be administered, Extreme Unction does not seem to be of precept, but of counsel — yet a counsel which is imprudently neglected, as St. Thomas teaches in book 4, distinction 23, question 1, article 1, chapter 3, little-question 3; Paludanus and Soto in the same place; Sylvester, under the word Extrema Unctio, doubt 9; Navarrus, Ench., chapter 22, number 46.

Presbyters, — not lay elders, especially physicians, as Aretius, Calvin, and Luther pretend; but priests, as the understanding and practice of the whole Church holds. Hear the Council of Trent, session 14, canon 4: "If anyone shall say that the Presbyters of the Church, whom Blessed James exhorts to be brought to the sick man to anoint him, are not priests ordained by a Bishop, but elders in age in any community, and that for this reason the proper minister of Extreme Unction is not the priest alone, let him be anathema." Wrongly, therefore, does Thomas Waldensis, part 2 On the Sacraments, chapter 136, hold that in extreme necessity Extreme Unction can be conferred by a layman: clearly he was deceived by the words of Innocent, which I shall presently cite.

Furthermore "Presbyters," that is, one of the Presbyters of the Church; but formerly other Presbyters used to accompany him, that they might pray for the sick man. He adds, from Ruard, Suarez, part 3, volume 4, disputation 43, section 1, that this Sacrament is validly confected by several priests, if one anoint the ears, another the eyes, another the feet, etc.; nevertheless this ought not to be done. Finally, in some places it was formerly the custom that seven priests should visit the sick man, and that prayer should be made for him for the same number of days, says Gabriel on book 4, distinction 23.

You will say: Innocent I, epistle 1 to Decentius, 8, and from him the Council of Worms, chapter 72, says that holy oil can be used not only by priests, but also by laymen in their own and their own people's necessities. Doctor Soto answers, on book 4, distinction 23, article 1, that Innocent is speaking of the use of oil outside the Sacrament for curing the sick: but then they do not use holy oil blessed by a Bishop, but oil blessed by themselves, as the Hermits did. I say, then, that Innocent is speaking of the recipient, not of the minister, as if to say: It is lawful for all Christians to use holy oil in their own and their own people's necessities — namely by calling in the Presbyters and receiving Extreme Unction from them, but not by administering it to others. So Bellarmine, On Extreme Unction, chapter 9.

And let them pray over him, — with prayer both common and sacramental, that is, the form of Extreme Unction, which is deprecatory, saying: "By this holy unction and His most loving mercy, may God indulge thee whatever thou hast offended in by sight," etc. Note the words "over him"; for hence formerly the hand was imposed on the sick man, as it is even now imposed, and this is prescribed by the Roman Ritual lately revised and published by command of Paul V: indeed the hand is imposed on the organs of the senses while they are anointed. And aptly so, because the dying sick man suffers extreme pains, weaknesses, failings, and faintings in the body; and in the soul temptations, scruples, anxieties, and even horrible visions of the demon: wherefore prayer is made for him, and the hand is imposed on him, that God may deign to console and strengthen him. Wherefore, although the Church of Milan, from the Ritual of St. Ambrose, uses a form not deprecatory but absolute, saying: "I anoint thee with sanctified oil in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," yet by the surrounding circumstances it implies and involves a deprecation. Hence Suarez, part 3, volume 4, disputation 40, section 3, holds that the Sacrament is invalid unless something is added by which the deprecation is signified.

Anointing him with oil — of olives (for this is properly called oil), blessed by a Bishop, as Innocent I defines, epistle to Decentius 8, and the Councils of Trent and Florence. This blessing is a silent prayer in which the Bishop, in the name of the Church, prays that God may make this oil salutary for the sick. Hence the practice of the Church holds that the Bishop on the fifth feria of Holy Week — that is, on the Lord's Supper (on which day Christ seems to have instituted this Sacrament) — consecrates the oil both of the sick, and of the catechumens, and of those to be confirmed, that is, the chrism, in which oil balsam is mingled. Hence Suarez in the place cited asserts that the Sacrament is valid if the sick man be anointed with chrism. From this it is plain that the matter of this Sacrament is oil, and that fittingly and suitably. First, because oil soothes diseases, and sometimes heals them. Secondly, because it provides nourishment for light, that it may be signified that the sick man, who is in darkness and the shadow of death, is by the power of this Sacrament enlightened and consoled by God. Thirdly, because athletes are anointed with oil for the contest, says St. Jerome on Hosea chapter 14; but the sick man here undergoes the contest of death: he is therefore anointed with this oil, that he may be strengthened by God for the final struggle. Wherefore St. Gregory, homily 39 on the Gospel; Climacus, step 7; and Eusebius of Emesa, homily 1 to the Monks, teach that by this unction the powers and rages of the demons — which they would otherwise discharge entirely at this last moment — are broken and bridled. Fourthly, because oil cheers and gladdens; but the sick man, oppressed by disease and grief, has need of joy. Truly Theophylact, on Mark chapter 6, reports that the sick are healed by oil, "since oil is useful for labors, a nourishment of light and a producer of cheerfulness, and signifies the mercy of God and the grace of the Spirit, through which we are freed from labor, and receive light and spiritual joy and cheerfulness." Hence in the Lives of the Fathers we read that St. Hilarion, St. Martin, St. Macarius, and other holy Anchorites cured diseases with oil blessed by themselves.

In the name of the Lord. — The Syriac: "of our Lord," namely Jesus Christ, as St. Augustine has it, On Visiting the Sick, chapter 4. Furthermore, the words "in the name of the Lord" signify, says Bede, "oil consecrated in the name of the Lord (by a Bishop), or certainly because even when they anoint the sick man, they ought to invoke the name of the Lord over him."

Some add: "in the name of the Lord," that is, in the place of the Lord; for God works and heals through the Sacraments as through instruments.

Symbolically, the words "in the name of the Lord" signify that the sick, and especially the dying, ought to commend and give themselves wholly to the Lord, to have Him perpetually in mind and to invoke Him, that, just as they drew life from Him, so they may render the same to Him: and just as from boyhood, as soon as they began to use reason, they were turned to God — indeed St. Thomas, 3, question 89, article 6, holds that this is to be done at the very first instant of the use of reason — so likewise, when failing, they may die to the same, saying: "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." This is what the Apostle admonishes, Romans 14:8: "For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore, whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord's."

Xenophon praises, in book 8 of the Education of Cyrus, Cyrus because he undertook his empire from God and finished it with Him: for, as the same author says, book 1, Cyrus, having been made Emperor, first of all performed a divine rite, and, the sacrifices having been duly offered, began to rule and to handle the affairs of the kingdom. In book 8 he describes the death of Cyrus thus: "There seemed to ascend to him (Cyrus) one of more august human appearance, and to say: Gather your vessels, O Cyrus, for you are forthwith to depart to the gods. Forthwith, therefore, having taken victims, he performed a divine rite to ancestral Jupiter and to the Sun, saying: O ancestral Jupiter and Sun, and all you Gods, I give great thanks, because I have understood your care for me, and because in prosperous affairs my mind was never lifted up beyond the human condition," etc.

More splendidly Nazianzen, exhorting the sick Philagrius to bear his pains bravely, epistle 58: "This," he says, "became my Philagrius, namely not to be softened, nor broken by pains, but to despise the clay, and to allow the body indeed to suffer those things which its nature bears, by the law of nature destined to dissolve altogether, either now or later (for it will perish, either consumed by disease or by old age); but to keep the soul above, and through thoughts to be united with God." Epistle 60 praises his constancy in pains: "For stretching your hands to heaven, with your eyes turned to the East, you began to cry out: I give Thee thanks, Father, and Founder of Thy men, that Thou doest us good while we are unwilling and resisting, and through the outward man Thou purgest the inward, and through contrary things Thou leadest us to the blessed end, for those reasons which Thou knowest." And epistle 64: "I urge you," he says, "to resist pain, and to show yourself superior to its bonds, and to consider sickness to be nothing other than a useful kind of discipline, tending precisely to this, that, despising and counting as nothing all bodies and whatever is fluid and turbulent and subject to perishing, you may give yourself wholly to the heavenly part, and live not for the present time, but for the age to come. Finally, the living cross of Christ — such as is a sickness — is as venerable as the dead cross — that is, painted or fashioned," as a certain one of the Saints says.

Salvianus, epistle to his sick sister Cattura: "The strength of the body," he says, "is always an enemy to the mind, so that I rightly think you now so much the stronger in spirit, the more weakened in flesh you have begun to be." For the flesh, says the Apostle, lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary one to another, so that you do not those things that you would. Therefore if, with the body resisting, we cannot do what we would, we must be made weak in the flesh, that we may do what we desire. And it is true: for the weakness of the flesh sharpens the vigor of the mind, and when the limbs are afflicted, the powers of bodies are transferred into the virtues of souls; so that a certain kind of health seems to me to consist in a man's being sometimes not sound. He immediately adds the cause: "For then there is hardly any struggle of the spirit with the body — that is, no struggle of the divine nature with its earthly enemy: not do the marrows seethe with shameful flames, nor do hidden incitements kindle the unhealthy mind, nor do roving senses revel through various delights; but the soul alone exults, glad while the body is afflicted, as though the adversary were subjugated. Rejoice therefore, foster-child of Christ, ever indeed of a simple and quiet, but now of a more refined and unrestrained mind: open the door, and draw in, as you read, the Holy Spirit. Never, as I think, have you been more worthy of God as your indweller: the weaker in body, the purer in sense; while the diseases overcome your flesh, you have conquered with your mind. Happy you, if you keep this death of the body forever turned into life of the spirit — perhaps with all incitements of human temptations extinguished in you."

Verse 15: And the Prayer of Faith Shall Save the Sick Man, and the Lord Shall Raise Him Up

15. The prayer of faith shall save the sick man, — τὸν κάμνοντα, that is, one gravely laboring, failing, and dying; whence the dead are by Homer, Plato, and Aristotle called κάμνοντες. "The prayer of faith" can be understood both as common and as sacramental. The common prayer is that by which the priest and the bystanders pray for the sick man's health. This is called "of faith," because from faith it has its force and efficacy: for the greater the faith and hope of the one praying, the more he obtains by his prayer from God, according to that of Matthew chapter 9, verse 29: "According to your faith, be it done unto you"; and chapter 17, verse 19: "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: Remove from hence hither, and it shall remove."

Secondly, and rather, "the prayer of faith" is called the form of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction: for this has the appearance of prayer and supplication. It is called "of faith," first, because faith metonymically signifies all charisms and Sacraments which rest upon faith and flow forth from it as a branch from a tree. Thus the Apostle, Romans 3:28, says that we are justified by faith: where under faith he comprehends hope, penance, charity, and the other virtues which flow from faith as from their root: for without these no one is justified. So Romans 12:3, He says: "To every one as God hath divided unto him the measure of faith," that is, of spiritual charisms, which God distributes among the faithful.

Secondly, it is called "of faith," because the force and efficacy of the Sacrament consists, not in the physical power of the matter — for example, of oil — but in faith, that is, in the spiritual force of the words, which is grasped by faith. Hence St. Augustine says, treatise 80 on John: "The word comes to the element, and a sacrament is made; not because it is spoken, but because it is believed — that is, not by reason of the external sound which passes away, but by reason of the inward power which is perceived by faith alone." Whence he adds: "For in the very sound, the passing sound is one thing, the abiding power another" — which power, namely, is as it were the soul of the Sacrament, and is not perceived by the senses, but believed by faith. This prayer therefore is called "of faith," because it is dictated by faith, and is understood by faith.

Thirdly, it is called the prayer "of faith," because it requires faith in the one receiving the Sacrament, and without this faith it is invalid and inefficacious. Again, he who receives the Sacrament thereby publicly professes that he believes and embraces the doctrine of Christ and the power of this Sacrament instituted by Him.

Fourthly, the prayer "of faith," that is, faithful, that is, certain and undoubted, as if to say: This prayer — namely, the deprecatory form of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction — is not of doubtful and uncertain power, but faithful and certain, because it surely obtains what it prays for; for it works by way of a Sacrament from the work performed (ex opere operato), not from the work of the one performing it (ex opere operantis), namely, of the one praying. Thus the Apostle often says: "A faithful saying," that is, a certain, undoubted, most true saying, 1 Timothy 1:15, and chapter 3:1; Titus 3:8.

Fifthly, "of faith," that is, of the faithful and of the Church: because the priest who anoints, anoints and prays for the sick man in the name of the whole Church. For he acts as the minister of the Church; whence he must have the intention of doing what the Church intends, namely, of conferring on the sick man the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.

Shall save. — First, the Syriac: "shall heal bodily." Secondly, Dionysius: "shall heal spiritually" — that is, shall cooperate toward his eternal salvation, namely, as Feuardent says, by conferring on him grace and strength, by which he may resist the horror of death and the temptation of the demon. Thirdly, more fully, Hugh, Thomas the Englishman, and others take it of both salvations, namely both of the body and of the soul — so that this salvation is general, which is then explained in some manner in particulars, namely the salvation of the body by the word "shall raise him up," and the salvation of the soul by the words "and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him." For instead of "shall save," the Greek has σώσει, that is, shall preserve, which is a general word and embraces the salvation both of the soul and of the body.

The sense, therefore, is, as if to say: "The prayer of faith," that is, the Sacrament and the sacramental form of Extreme Unction, "shall save the sick man," that is, shall confer on him grace by which the soul may be saved: grace, I say, either first grace, if the sick man is in mortal sin, or second grace, that is, the increase of grace, if the sick man was already in grace. So the Council of Florence understands by salvation grace, when it says that the effect of this Sacrament is the healing of the soul; and the Council of Trent, session 14, chapter 2; for it says: "The reality and effect of this Sacrament is explained in those words: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man, etc. For this reality is the grace of the Holy Spirit." Otherwise James would here have omitted the primary and proper effect of the Sacrament, which is to confer or to augment justifying grace, and so to make one just or more just. Again, "shall save," or, as it is in Greek, σώσει, that is, shall preserve him, that is, shall confer on him bodily health, if it should so be expedient for the salvation of the soul, says the Council of Trent in the place cited. It might further be expounded thus: "The prayer of faith shall save the sick man," namely, by giving grace which either, through death, conveys him to eternal salvation, or recalls him to life, and restores to him salvation and bodily health. For thus σώσει, that is, shall preserve him in either the present or the eternal life. For the proper effect of Extreme Unction is that, as it were a viaticum or potion, as a medicine of immortality, conducts and transmits the dying man to another better and eternal life. Moreover, from this it is clear that the fear of some people is false and preposterous, who think they will surely die if they receive this Sacrament, and therefore defer it until the very last breath of life, and indeed sometimes die without it. On the contrary, the proper effect of this Sacrament is to restore health, if it be expedient for the soul's salvation, as the Council of Trent says — of which matter we read and have seen many examples, and we see them daily.

And the Lord shall raise him up. — St. Augustine, in the treatise De Restit. Cathol. convers., and Cassian, Conferences 20, ch. 8, read "will lift up" (Greek egerei); the Syriac and the Hebrew יקימנו iekimennu, that is, He will rouse, raise, awaken, lift him up — not only by bodily relief of the sickness, but still more spiritually by conferring on him strength, alacrity and joy, by which he may bravely and eagerly overcome fear and scruples on account of past sins, the devil's temptations (especially of mistrust, despair, and grief), the pains, weariness, and torpor of the disease, and the dread of death and the anxiety over the imminent judgment, so that he may be "raised up," that is, lifted up, gladdened and strengthened in body and soul. Thus the Council of Trent, sess. 14, ch. 18: "It lifts up and confirms the sick man's soul," it says, "awakening in him a great confidence in divine mercy, by which the sick man, being uplifted, bears the inconveniences and labors of his illness more lightly, and more easily resists the temptations of the demon who lies in wait at his heel."

John Eck, the conqueror of Luther, in homily 57 De Sacramentis, eminently assigns six properties of oil by which are signified the six gifts and effects of this Sacrament, namely: First, healing and spiritual health. Second, brightness of conscience. Third, strengthening of the soul's faculties. Fourth, peace and rest in God's mercy. Fifth, a kind of consecration as it were of a soldier and athlete of Christ. Sixth, joy and gladness. Hence the Rite of St. Ambrose, which the Church of Milan uses, commands the head to be anointed, in which these six gifts are received. Hence too the Bishop, when blessing this oil, prays that it may be a protection of mind and body for everyone anointed with this ointment of heavenly medicine, for the dispelling of all pains, all infirmities, and every sickness of mind and body.

Do you want examples? Take some illustrious ones. "St. Mary of Oignies, when at the warning of the Blessed Virgin she received Extreme Unction, all the Apostles were present, and Blessed Peter, showing the keys, promised that he would open the gate of heaven for her. Moreover Christ fixed the sign of the cross, the standard of His victory, at her feet. And when she was anointed in various places, in the very reception of the Sacrament she perceived the working of the Holy Spirit with a great illumination of each of the parts. Certain friends and acquaintances of hers also, who had long since died, were sent to her to console her," says James of Vitry the Cardinal, in book 2 of her Life, ch. 12. The same, ch. 4: "When in the presence of Mary of Oignies the sick received the sacrament of Extreme Unction," he says, "she felt Christ to be present with a multitude of Saints, mercifully strengthening that sick person, expelling the demons, purging the soul; and as his limbs were anointed she felt herself, as it were, diffused as light through his whole body."

Reginald, one of St. Dominic's disciples, when admonished to prepare himself by Extreme Unction for the struggle with the devil, said: "I do not in the least dread this struggle; rather I joyfully await it. For long ago the Mother of Mercy anointed me, in whom I greatly trust, and to whom I gladly go." That he had been first anointed by her had happened thus. When many years before he was grievously ill, while he kept watch by night the Queen of Heaven appeared to him with two other virgins, and approaching him she anointed with her own hands the eyes, ears, mouth and hands of the man as he lay, with an unguent which she had brought, and finally also his feet "unto the preparation of the Gospel," as she herself, as it were praying from the formula, added. So has the Life of St. Dominic, bk. 2, ch. 2.

So St. Lydwina was anointed by Christ the Lord, in the presence of the Blessed Virgin, all the Apostles, and many Angels and Saints, on all the limbs which are usually anointed for the dying. She asked Him to load her with as many pains as were needed to redeem her Purgatory. To whom Christ said: "It shall be done, daughter, as you ask: after two days you shall sing Alleluia with the other virgins in the kingdom of My Father." So has her Life in Surius, 7 April, part 3, ch. 11.

And if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. — "Sins," not only venial: for all have these; but also mortal, if there be any. Hence he cautiously says "if." So too the Council of Trent, sess. 14, ch. 3: "The anointing of the Holy Spirit" (which Extreme Unction signifies and confers), it says, "wipes away offenses, if any still need expiation, and the remnants of sin." Hence the five senses are anointed, because they are as it were five doors through which sins enter into the soul. Now the remnants of sin are: first, venial sins. Second, penalties owed for sins, even mortal sins already forgiven. Third, the weakness and languor of the soul's powers in resisting the sin and temptations by which the dying are wont to be assailed by the demon. Fourth, mortal sins into which the sick man has fallen after confession, and does not know that he is bound by them. Again, when confession was invalid because of some defect of which the sick man is in good faith ignorant, if he himself grieves over all his sins in general, as is fitting, Extreme Unction altogether forgives and abolishes them all. Other Sacraments do the same, but accidentally; whereas Extreme Unction does this of itself and properly, because it has been peculiarly instituted for this and prepared at the end of life to remove all impediments which could delay the soul flying out from the body from entering heaven. Wherefore it is to be neglected by none, because many are saved through it who otherwise would be damned; many fly straight to heaven, or are briefly purged in Purgatory, who would otherwise be purged there for a long time. So commonly the Interpreters and Bellarmine, De Extrema Unctione, ch. 8, examples of which abound.

Hence some infer that the Blessed Virgin at the end of her life did not receive Extreme Unction, nor was she capable of it, because there was no sin in her, nor any remnants of sin. Whence the form would have been false in her case, when one said: "May God forgive you whatever you have committed by sight, hearing," etc. Again, she did not need strengthening in sickness and death; indeed, without any sickness, she is believed to have breathed forth her soul out of love and desire to enjoy Christ her Son. So Gabriel, Paludanus, Victoria, and Eck.

But the contrary — namely, that she was anointed — is taught by Albert, Sylvester, and Canisius, whom Suarez cites and follows, 3 part., vol. 2, dist. 18, sect. 3. The reason is that the proper effect of Extreme Unction is to strengthen a person in the final struggle against the snares of the enemy, not really the remission of sins, except under this condition, "if the sick man have any," as James says. It was therefore fitting that the Blessed Virgin should receive this Sacrament along with the others (except Order, Penance, and Matrimony), to give the faithful an example of humility and Christian life. To the argument Suarez replies that the form is to be understood conditionally, namely: "If you have committed anything by sight," etc. We will reply better that she was anointed with another form, e.g. the Ambrosian (which I cited above), which makes no mention of sins. Moreover, what Albert says, that she received the sacrament of Penance and confessed to St. John, others everywhere refute: for the proper matter of penance is one's own sins, of which the most holy Virgin had none, and she herself knew this best, being most filled with divine light, as well as with grace.

Finally, what William Durandus writes in book 1 Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, ch. 8, num. 25, and Eck in homilies 56 and 58 De Sacramentis, is false — namely, that a sick person should be anointed only once a year, even though he be sick more often, or not until after several months: for Extreme Unction does not imprint a character. It can therefore be repeated as often as one who has recovered from illness falls into it, or another, again and is dangerously ill. From what has been said it is clear that St. James assigns three effects of Extreme Unction. The first is the salvation of the soul and consequently of the body; the second, the relief of the sick man; the third, the forgiveness of sins, if there be any remaining.

Verse 16: Confess Therefore Your Sins One to Another; the Continual Prayer of a Just Man Availeth Much

16. Confess therefore your sins one to another. — For "therefore" the Syriac has דין den, that is, "but"; some Greek copies (for the majority do not have it) ουν, that is, "therefore." The little word "therefore," or "but," connects these things with the preceding, as if to say: I have spoken of Extreme Unction: "If he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him," namely, if the one who is anointed is unaware of them or has forgotten them: for if he is conscious of them, he ought to confess them before Extreme Unction, as Innocent I teaches, epistle 1 to Decentius, ch. 8. Therefore, that you may rightly receive it, "confess your sins one to another," that is, confess as men to men like yourselves, namely to those to whom by Christ has been entrusted the care and power of absolving, namely to priests, according to that of 1 Peter 4: "Each one as he has received grace, ministering it to one another." So we commonly say: Teach one another, heal one another, support one another, sacrifice for one another: namely, that those who are learned should teach the unlearned; those who are physicians should cure the sick; those who are rich should support the poor; those who are priests should sacrifice for the laity. For these words must be expounded fittingly according to the subject matter, the grace and office of each. Thus expound Bede, St. Bernard in the book of Meditations, ch. 9; Hugo of St. Victor, bk. 2 De Sacramentis, part 14, ch. 1; Alcuin, epist. 26 in Henricus Canisius, vol. 1 of Lectiones Antiquae, and the Council of Sens, decree 10, and St. Augustine, bk. 2 De Visitatione Infirmorum, ch. 4 (though the Doctors of Louvain doubt whether this book is St. Augustine's, and Erasmus denies it). To these are added St. Bonaventure and Alexander of Hales, soon to be cited. Hence it is clear that he is here speaking of sacramental confession: which the Erasmizing Cajetan wrongly denies.

You will say: Why then does St. James say, "Confess one to another"? Why does he not expressly say, "Confess to priests"? I reply first, to lighten the burden and shame of confession, as if to say: You ought to confess, but not to angels, before whom, as most pure and holy, you would too greatly blush to lay bare your sins, especially carnal ones; but to men, namely priests, who are subject to the same temptations and sins, or have been, or can be. "One to another," then — that is, man to man, like to like, brother to brother — confess, namely to a priest, who, though he be superior in office, is nevertheless equal in nature, similar in weakness, equal in the obligation of confessing.

Second, to signify that priests as much as the laity ought to confess their sins. He did not therefore wish to say: Confess to priests — lest the priests should think themselves exempted from the burden of confessing, because it belongs to them to receive laymen's confessions and to absolve them as judges; but that they ought to lay aside the persona of judges and make themselves accused when they confess their own sins. As if to say: Confess to one another, namely to priests, in such a way that, when they themselves sin, they likewise confess to other priests. So Serarius here, and Turrianus in book 2 of the Constitutions of St. Clement, ch. 18.

Third, James indicates that it is a matter of counsel, not of precept, to confess sins not only to priests but also to laymen — whether for the sake of mutual reconciliation, or out of zeal for humility, or to seek counsel and help, or for a greater bond of charity, especially when departure and death are imminent. Hence we read that many Saints did so, like St. Gregory in the entire last chapter of the Morals. And in religious orders the more devout men are wont to do the same, and to ask pardon from them for their offenses and the scandal which by their lukewarmness, or impatience, or anger they have given to their companions. The same thing St. James here means and counsels. Hence Bede: "In this saying of James," he says, "there ought to be discretion, that we should confess to one another, our equals, daily and light sins, that they may pray for us; but grave sins we should disclose, according to the law, to a priest, that he may absolve us from them, which laymen cannot do." And Simeon of Thessalonica, in the book On the Divine Temple, says these words of James are fulfilled by the Bishop, when with bowed head he asks the prayers of the people and confesses himself a sinner (as the priest does at the entrance of the Mass). And St. Ephrem, vol. 2, p. 72, in self-reproach and confession imploring his brothers' compassion toward him, cites this passage of James.

Fourth, from this passage of James some have judged that, in the absence of a priest, confession should be made to a layman. Hence Alcuin, epist. 26, wishing to persuade the Scots of this, says: "It is commanded that we confess to one another, that is, man to man, the accused to the judge, the sick to the physician." St. Francis sanctions the same for his own in the Rule, ch. 20, citing this passage of James. The same was done by Baptista the catechumen, who, on the testimony of St. Augustine, as is reported in De Consecratione, dist. 4, ch. Sanctum est, when a storm arose on a ship was baptized by a layman: for he then asked absolution from the man whom he had baptized, and obtained it. The same is clear from the Council of Tribur, which is cited in the Decretals, ch. fures, de furtis. It says that thieves and robbers, if when caught or wounded they have confessed to a Presbyter or Deacon, communion is not to be denied them. Hence some have thought that at the point of death, in default of a priest, confession should be made to a layman, and that this is here commanded by James, and consequently that a layman may then absolve the one confessing. St. Thomas seems to hint at this in the Supplement, Q. 8, art. 2, ad 1, and Abulensis on Leviticus ch. 16, Q. 24. Indeed St. Francis in the Rule, ch. 20, prescribes thus to his Religious: "If they cannot have a Priest, let them confess to their brother, as the Apostle James says: Confess your sins one to another." But he immediately adds: "Yet let them not for this reason cease to have recourse to priests, because the power of binding and loosing has been granted to priests alone."

But I say truly, that a confession made to a layman is in no way sacramental, nor was it ever necessary. The first part is clear, because the layman does not have the power of the keys, and sacramental confession is made for the sake of absolution. The second part is clear, because there is no precept, divine or ecclesiastical, except concerning confession made to a priest; furthermore, because the necessity of confession arises from the necessity of absolution, which a layman cannot give.

You will object: Cyprian, bk. 3, epist. 17, maintains that those who lapsed in persecution may, at the point of death, if no priest is at hand, make confession (exomologesis) before a Deacon and receive the imposition of hands as penance; and the author of the book On True and False Penance, ch. 10: "So great is the power of confession," he says, "that if a priest is lacking, let him confess to a layman." So too Bede in the words just recited. Similar things are in the Gloss on ch. pastoralis, de officio judicis ordinato (though in some more corrected copies these have now been deleted). I reply: Cyprian is speaking of the confession which is wont to be made by those undergoing public penance, to this end — that they may be absolved from excommunication and reconciled to the Church: which confession can be made to a Deacon who has the jurisdiction of absolving from excommunication. The conjecture of D. Pamelius, by which he says that perhaps in the absence of the Bishop, and when the presbyters were shut up in prison, by some privilege the reconciliation of penitents was permitted and granted to Deacons in case of necessity, just as we read that the administration of the sacrament of Confirmation was granted by St. Gregory to presbyters, is in no way probable: both because no one has ever said this, and because the Deacon does not have the priestly character, and the distance between deacon and presbyter is far greater than between presbyter and Bishop; and finally because the Bishop can in no way grant the administration of the sacrament of Confirmation — only the Vicar of Christ grants this — therefore much less can he grant to a Deacon the administration of the sacrament of Penance, just as he cannot grant him the consecration of the body of the Lord. The author of the book De Poenitentia and Bede commend this confession not as necessary, but as useful: both because a man more easily stirs up in himself sorrow for his sins while confessing them to another; and because by that shame he in part makes satisfaction for sins; and finally because he can receive counsel and consolation from another. Hence also the Master of the Sentences and the Doctors in 4, dist. 17, Q. 17, praise this confession made to a layman in extreme necessity — which understand, when there is no scandal, nor any other danger which could arise from such a confession. But what St. Thomas says in the Supplement, Q. 8, art. 2, ad 1, that in necessity the penitent ought to confess to whom he can, is not a precept but a counsel, as Soto understands it: which in St. Thomas's time was more frequently in use than now. As for what he adds — that the lack of a priest is then supplied by the High Priest — understand this as supplied as regards the obtaining of the remission of sins, if one is contrite, but not if only attrite, since no promise of this exists: hence that supplying would be altogether outside the ordinary law. Furthermore, a layman hearing confession cannot absolve the one confessing: for thus he would usurp the office of a priest and would commit sacrilege. But would he become irregular? D. Soto affirms it: because, he says, in the chapter "si quis," de Clerico non ordinato, the penalty of irregularity is imposed on one who solemnly baptizes, or performs any divine office without Orders: and under the name of "divine office" all the Sacraments are contained. But others better deny this, because under the name of "divine office," by the usage of the Canons, only the sacrifice of the Mass and the solemn chanting of the Gospel or Epistle is understood. So Sylvester, under the word Confessor; Ledesma on 4, dist. 2, Q. 7, art. 3, and others.

Finally, Thomas the Englishman errs here when he attributes the institution of confession to the Church, the promulgation to James, and to Christ only an insinuation, namely when He gave the keys to Blessed Peter; indeed the Canon "Quidam Deo," tit. De Poenitentia, dist. 1, with the Gloss, seems to attribute the institution of confession to St. James: but by "institution" understand express promulgation, which St. James here makes more than St. Peter, Paul, John, and Jude. For it is of faith that this Sacrament, as well as the rest, was instituted immediately by Christ the Lord, as the Council of Trent defines, sess. 14, ch. 1 De Extrema Unctione. Hence St. Bonaventure, in 4, dist. 17, art. 1, Q. 3, and Alensis, ibid., num. 3, art. 2, teach that confession was instituted by Christ but here promulgated by James.

Moreover, how necessary confession is for the sinner's salvation is clear from the example of Severus, who raised back to life a dead man who had died without confession, and on that account had been carried off to hell, that he might be able to confess: as St. Gregory narrates, Dialogues 1, last chapter. On its utility I have said more on Acts 19:18. The same God has often declared by miracles, which Bede recounts, bk. 5 Hist., ch. 14; Peter of Cluny, bk. 1 De Miraculis, chs. 3, 4, 5, 6; the author of the Life of St. Bernard, bk. 1, ch. 9; St. Bonaventure in the Life of St. Francis, ch. 10; Alanus Copus, bk. 2 Dial., last ch.

St. Bernard splendidly, epist. 113, explaining that of Psalm 95, "Confession and beauty are in His sight": "In truth," he says, "where Confession is, there is beauty, there is comeliness: if there be sins, they are washed away in Confession; if good works, they are cleansed. When you confess your evils, a contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God; when God's benefits, you offer to God a sacrifice of praise. Love Confession, if you desire beauty. Confession is a good ornament of the soul, which purges the sinner and renders the just man more pure: without Confession the just man is judged ungrateful, and the sinner is reckoned dead. Confession, therefore, is the life of the sinner and the glory of the just."

Finally, the power of confession is wonderful: with one word it obtains from God the indulgence of all sins, even the gravest, and reconciliation with God — as David obtained; for by saying "I have sinned against the Lord," he immediately heard from Nathan: "The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die," 2 Kings ch. 12, v. 13. Memorable is the Gloss of the Hebrews on that of Canticles 5:2, "Open to me, my sister," edited by Galatinus, bk. 8, ch. 8: "My sons," He says, "open to Me one opening of penance, like the eye of a needle, and I will open to you openings of mercy, through which chariots and wagons may enter."

Pray for one another. — Both laymen for laymen, and priests for priests, and especially for laymen who are sick, when they anoint them; for of these he has been treating up to now, and priests have been ordained and deputed by God and the Church to pray in the name of the Church for all the faithful, being as it were public envoys and mediators between God and the people. Whence too there follows: "That you may be saved," in Greek ιαθήτε, that is, "that you may be healed," namely from the illness which holds you. Damascius on verse 14 — "The prayer of faith shall save the sick." Hence by the usage of the Church the Litanies are read for the sick when anointed, as common prayers of all, to implore for them in their last agony the help of the Saints against the phalanxes of demons. Yet this general sentence is to be extended to all, even to laymen: for charity dictates and impels us to pray for one another, that we may be healed, that is, saved both in soul and in body — for the health of the soul is of greater value than that of the body. The very same is confirmed by the example of Elijah, which James adds. Note: James first set down the warning about confession, because after it prayer is more powerful, as proceeding from a soul pure and holy, the friend and daughter of God, to God the Father, who does the will of those who fear Him, Ps. 144:19. Thus Job, at God's command praying for his friends, obtained pardon for them, last ch., v. 8. Judith, asking the prayers of her fellow citizens, killed Holofernes, ch. 8. Jeremiah prayed for the people and, as it were, bound the hands of the angry God, ch. 14, 11. Hence too after his death he was seen interceding for the same, 2 Macc. 15, 14. For St. Peter when imprisoned the whole Church prayed, and obtained his freedom for him, Acts 12, 5. Paul prayed for others, and asked the prayers of others for himself, Rom. 1, 9, and ch. 15, 30; Col. 4, 3. St. John prays for all, epist. 3, ch. 2. Finally Christ prays for the apostles and all the faithful, John ch. 17, v. 11.

Moreover it is more useful for one praying to pray for others than for himself alone: first, because the sacrifice of prayer is more gladly received when it is seasoned, in the sight of the merciful judge, with love of one's neighbor; "wherefore we accomplish more by common and reciprocal prayers than by particular or private ones," says St. Augustine, epist. 97. Second, "because while individuals pray for all, also all pray for individuals," says St. Ambrose, in the book on Abel, ch. 9, who also adds: "So great is the reward, that by the prayers of individuals there are obtained for individuals the suffrages of the whole congregation." St. Chrysostom, in sermon 5 "Ne desperemus," asserts that it is best to share in the prayers which the saints pour forth, since God often grants to them what He does not grant to ours, because we are unworthy. St. Gregory, bk. 1, epist. 24, when he had been created Pontiff, asks prayer for himself: "Lest the burdens I have undertaken," he says, "press upon me beyond my strength. But mindful of what is written: Pray for one another, that you may be saved, I too render what I ask, but I shall receive what I render: for while we join ourselves to you by the help of prayer, as it were walking on a slippery place, we mutually hold each other's hand, and it comes about by the great provision of charity, that the charity of each may be the more strongly fixed, the more each leans on the other." Truly St. Augustine: "If Stephen had not prayed," he says, "the Church would not have Paul." Again St. Gregory, bk. 5 of the Register, epist. 419: "For our prayers," he says, "are the more swiftly lifted up to the ear of the Lord's mercy, the more the ardor of charity sharpens those poured out in turn for us."

For the continual prayer (δέησις, that is, a prayer which in want and affliction is made suppliantly to relieve it; for δέεσθαι is to be in need) of a just man availeth much. — Ἐνεργουμένη, that is, worked-out, strenuous, efficacious, lively; Pagninus, "intent" — namely, one which with the whole exertion of the soul is formed and sent forth from the depth of the heart with an ardent spirit and a sure faith and hope. For this, as it were, compels God to give what is asked. "Continual," then, that is, intent and urgent, that it may obtain what it seeks. For "assiduus" in Latin properly means the same as "unceasing, continuous," and as it were sitting beside the thing on which one is intent. So Festus. Hence secondly, "assiduus" is the same as "intent, diligent, careful." So Cicero, bk. 1 De Oratore, calls a diligent and elaborate writing "assidua." And in the book On Old Age: "Always," he says, "the wine-cellar, oil-cellar and storeroom of a good and assiduous master is well-stocked, and the whole estate is rich." Thirdly, "assiduus" by metalepsis means the same as "wealthy and most approved." Thus by Gellius, bk. 18, one is called "a classical and assiduous writer, not a proletarian." In a similar way prayer that is "assiduous" is, first, intent, elaborate, careful. Second, continual, until it obtains what it so carefully asks. Third, approved and rich, because it gives itself wholly to God, and expending all the powers of body and soul in prayer hands them over to God: it is therefore rich toward God, since it offers Him itself and its goods liberally, that it may in turn oblige Him to itself, and persuade and almost compel Him to be liberal in granting what is asked. Thus the Greek ἐνεργής is the same as ἐν ἔργῳ ὤν, that is, "existing in work, intent on the work, careful, strenuous, keen, continuous, until it completes its work." Such energy, efficacy, intent and exertion is therefore required in prayer, such as in work — e.g. as a student applies in study, an architect in building, a soldier and general in battle in order to win victory — namely, that being roused by an efficacious principle, that is, by an ardent and vehement mind and spirit, and as it were animated, it may be ardent and vehement, and may shoot up to heaven burning sighs as fire-balls from a war-engine, by which it may strike God and as it were wound Him, and compel Him to give what it demands. Such was the prayer of St. Catherine of Siena, who pleadingly used to say: "Lord, I will not depart, I will not let Thee go, until Thou grant me this or that thing" — for instance, a soul.

Hence secondly, the prayer of a just man avails much, if it be ἐνεργουμένη, that is, acting, working, not lazy and sluggish, but intent on good works and accompanied, winged, and armed by them. For the works both of him who prays and of him for whom one prays — namely penance, amendment of life, observance of the commandments, and the exercise of charity, patience, humility, and the other virtues — make prayer efficacious and as it were omnipotent, says Maximus, century 3, chs. 8 and 84, and from him Theodore Studita, sermon 107. Thus Paul, Gal. 5:6, says that faith "which works through love" — Greek ἐνεργουμένη — avails much. This is what the angel teaches Tobias, ch. 12, 8: "Prayer with fasting and almsgiving is better than to lay up treasures of gold."

Therefore fasting — that is, affliction of body and spirit, and especially contrition of soul, sighs, tears — give force to prayer and as it were compel God to come to the help of the afflicted. Hence: "When you prayed with tears," Raphael says to Tobias, ch. 12, v. 12, "you were heard"; and Judith, ch. 8, 14: "Let us ask His indulgence," she says, "with poured-out tears"; and Magdalene obtained pardon "when she began with her tears to wash His feet," Luke 7:38. Hence St. Gregory Nazianzen rightly says, oration 1 Against Julian: "The tears of the pious are a deluge of sin, and the expiation of the world." And Climacus, step 7: "Greater and more powerful than baptism, after baptism, is the fount of tears." St. Maximus, homily On the Penitence of St. Peter: "More useful," he says, "are the prayers of tears than of words: because a word in praying perhaps deceives, a tear does not deceive at all; for a word sometimes does not bring forth the whole matter, a tear always reveals the whole affection." Chrysostom, homily 30 on Genesis: "What, I pray, is more beautiful than those eyes adorned with a perpetual shower of tears and as it were with the comeliness of pearls?" St. Gregory of Nyssa, in the funeral oration On Placilla: "Tears," he says, "are as it were the blood of the wounds of the soul." St. Leo, sermon 9 On the Passion: "Blessed," he says, "O holy Apostle, are your tears, which to wash away the guilt of denial had the power of sacred baptism." Hence Peter of Celle, in the book De Panibus, ch. 12: "The devil," he says, "endures flame more tolerably than our tear."

Antipater seriously complained to Alexander the Great by letter about Olympias, the very mother of Alexander, and earnestly pressed the king that the injury inflicted on him with utmost insolence should be redressed as soon as possible. Alexander calmly read the complaints and answered with that noble apophthegm: "Antipater seems not to know that a single tear of a mother will wipe out many letters." Likewise a single tear of a sinner, melted by the fire of contrition, will wipe out many — and those most grievous — injuries inflicted on God. Peter Chrysologus, sermon 93: "O how great," he says, "is the power in the tears of sinners! They water heaven, drench the earth, extinguish hell, blot out the sentence handed down by divine promulgation against every crime." Anselm of Laon, or the Interlinear Gloss, on that of Tob. 3:14, "Persisting in prayer with tears she besought God": "Prayer," he says, "softens God, a tear compels Him; the one anoints, the other pricks." St. Bernard, sermon 30 on the Canticle: "The tears of the penitent," he says, "are the wine of the angels," indeed of God Himself, with which He delights Himself and as it were quenches His thirst, according to that of Ps. 55:9: "Thou hast set my tears in Thy sight." Where the Zurich version translates: "Lay up my tears in Thy little flask." Deservedly therefore does Justinianus exclaim, in the book On the Tree of Life, ch. 9: "O humble tear, thine is the power, thine is the kingdom. Thou dost not fear the tribunal of the judge, thou dost impose silence on the accusers of thy friends, there is none who can forbid thee to approach God; if thou enter alone, thou shalt not return empty. What more? Thou conquerest the invincible, thou bindest the omnipotent, thou openest heaven, thou puttest the devil to flight."

Note: "of a just man," understand of anyone, but especially of one who is a minister of the Church and a presbyter, whom it altogether befits to be just, most of all when he administers Extreme Unction and the other Sacraments. Again, the prayer of the just man ought to be ἐνεργουμένη, that is, intent, laborious, efficacious, assiduous, such as was that of our St. James, surnamed the Just, whose knees from continual prayer had grown callused, as I said in the Proem. Such likewise was the prayer of St. Benedict, St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Thomas Aquinas, who therefore asserted that they had never asked anything of God, especially through the Blessed Virgin, which they had not promptly obtained. For the minds of the Saints are as it were an altar of incense, which exhales a continual incense of prayers and sighs, most fragrant and most pleasing to God. Such was the prayer of Abraham praying and obtaining that Sodom might be spared, if ten just men were found in it, Gen. 18:32. One just man therefore is of more value with God than all sinners, than heaven and earth. "The intercession of the Saints is the common remedy of all diseases," says Theodoret in the Religious History, ch. 16. What wonder? Augustus Caesar, when Alexandria was taken, although indignant at it for the injuries inflicted on him, spared it for the sake of Arius the Alexandrian philosopher, his friend. But God is far more merciful than Augustus, far more liberal. Wherefore God cries out through Jeremiah, ch. 5, 1: "Go around the streets of Jerusalem, look and consider, and seek in her squares, if you can find a man doing judgment and seeking faith, and I will be merciful to her." The just therefore are the bases, the supports, and the columns of cities, provinces, and kingdoms. "Who can doubt that the world stands by the prayers of the Saints?" says Rufinus, preface to the Lives of the Fathers. But the prayer of a sinner avails little, unless he repent and seek from God the help to convert himself, as did St. Magdalene, the Publican, St. Peter, St. Paul. Such above all was the prayer of Moses, Exodus 32:10. For, as St. Basil says, oration 2, which is on Prayer: "Of great weight is the help of those who can bend God by their prayers; and mutual supplications, while they are salutary in this life, will, when we depart from this life, supply us with abundant provision for the life to come."

Note secondly: Cassian, Conferences 8, ch. 33, assigns many ways and causes by which prayer is made efficacious: "You have," he says, "in the agreement of two, the fruit of being heard, marked by the Lord's own voice, according to that: If two of you agree on earth concerning anything, whatever they ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. You have another in the fullness of faith, which is compared to a grain of mustard: For if, He says, you have faith like a grain of mustard, you shall say to this mountain: Pass hence, and it shall pass, and nothing shall be impossible for you. You have it in the assiduity of prayers, which the Lord's word, on account of the indefatigable perseverance of petitions, called 'importunity': For Amen I say to you, that if not on account of friendship, then on account of his importunity, he will rise and give him whatever he has need of. You have it in the fruit of almsgiving: Shut up, He says, alms in the heart of the poor, and it itself shall pray for you in the time of tribulation. You have it in amendment of life and works of mercy, according to that: Loose the bonds of impiety, undo the bundles that oppress." And after a few words, in which the unfruitful sterility of fasting is rebuked: "Then," he says, "shall you call, and the Lord shall hear you; you shall cry out, and He shall say: Here I am. Sometimes indeed an excess of tribulations also brings being heard, according to that: To the Lord when I was in trouble I cried, and He heard me; and again: Do not afflict the stranger, for if he shall cry out to Me, I will hear him, because I am merciful."

Note thirdly: St. Thomas, in his sermon for the Rogations, shows how much the prayer of a just man avails, from its six effects. For first, he says, it appeases God's wrath, opposing itself as a shield, Wisdom 18:21; it obtains all things, Matt. 21:24; it inclines God to obey man, Joshua 10:14. Second, angels stand by the one praying, Daniel 9:24; the same offer the prayers to God, and bring back the answer, Job 12:12. Third, the just man's prayer frees a man from evils, and obtains pardon, and confers present and eternal salvation, bodily and spiritual — here, v. 15. Fourth, it puts demons to flight from heart and body, Matt. last, v. 17; it makes them obedient, even to throw themselves into the sea, Matt. 21:21. Fifth, it has dominion over all the elements and creatures; it stops the sun, Joshua 10:14; it summons fire from heaven, 2 Kings 1:10; it shuts heaven, as is plain in the next verse; it divides the sea and the waters, Exodus 14:15 and 21; Joshua 3:16; it leads the dead out of Purgatory, Ecclus. 48:5; it tames the most ferocious beasts, cures leprosy, fever, plague, and all diseases; it calms storms, fires, floods; it summons all virtues and graces from heaven, and so conquers and as it were binds the omnipotent God. Finally Origen, homily 9 on Numbers, teaches that God grants to the one praying more than he asks. Hence the Church also prays: "O God, who in the abundance of Thy mercy dost surpass both the merits and the desires of suppliants, pour out upon us Thy mercy, that Thou mayest forgive what conscience fears, and add what prayer does not presume."

Excellently the author of the sermon to the Brothers in the desert tacitly here confutes the error that Elijah is still alive somewhere on earth, deferred unto the end of the world. Peter Damian followed this error, in epistle 11 to Pope Nicholas. James tacitly refutes it here, saying that he was passible and mortal. I likewise refuted this error at Numbers 25:13. The sense therefore is, as if to say: If Elijah, a just and holy man, obtained so much from God by praying, then likewise the prayer of other just men will obtain great things from God; for Elijah was not an angel, nor of any other nature than we are; indeed in all things he was similar to us; but he had great confidence in prayer, and by it obtained things that were naturally impossible: let us put on the same confidence through God's grace, and we shall obtain similar things.

Verse 17: Elias Was a Man Passible Like Unto Us, and With Prayer He Prayed

17. Elijah was a man passible like ourselves. — The Gloss: "with similar fragility of mind and flesh"; in Greek ὁμοιοπαθής, subject to similar affections and passions as we are; and yet his prayer was the unlocking of heaven, opening it and closing it at will; moistening the earth, and drying it; making it fruitful, and parching it. He proves that the prayer of a just man avails much by the example of Elijah, whose justice and holiness, as well as the efficacy of his prayer in working miracles and portents, was most celebrated among the Jews. For Elijah was a man similar to us. He says this first, because Elijah, now caught up into heaven, is unlike us and impassible. Second, because his life was so sublime, and he was such a wonder-worker, that he could seem to be an angel rather than a man. Whence he was caught up into heaven by a fiery chariot; so that Elijah, says St. Chrysostom in his sermon On the Ascension of Elijah, may seem to have been ἥλιος, that is the sun, ascending from earth into heaven. For thus the Jews thought Malachi, Haggai, and John the Baptist to be incarnate angels. Hence Elijah is called as it were אלייד Eliia, that is, "My Lord God," as Pagninus testifies in his Nomina Hebraica, or "My strong God." Hence St. Athanasius, in the Apologia for his Flight, says that Elijah was named God. Wherefore Ecclesiasticus 48:1: "Elijah the prophet stood up as fire," he says, "and his word burned like a torch"; for he was wholly aflame with zeal for God, and Epiphanius asserts that this was signified by a prodigy, in his book On the Lives of the Prophets, in the section on Elijah. For he says: "When his parent was bringing him forth, such a vision appeared to the father: men bearing a snowy-white appearance were caressing the infant, and were dragging him from his mother's breasts into the fire; indeed they were even ministering the flame of fire to him in place of food. So the father went off to Jerusalem, and reported what he had seen to the priests. The chrematismus (that is, the oracle, or response) answered him: Beware of making it known: for the light shall be the dwelling of this son, and his word shall be a demonstration and a brief sentence, and he shall judge Israel both with fire and with the sword. This is that Elijah who thrice brought down fire from heaven, who carried the rain on his tongue, who likewise raised the dead, and was at last taken up into heaven in a cloud, or whirlwind of fire."

Third, because the Hebrews hand down that Elijah is the same as Phinehas, son of Eleazar the high priest, who on account of his zeal merited immortality, namely to live until the end of the world.

St. Augustine, sermon 22, shows the efficacy of prayer: "Jeremiah praying," he says, "is strengthened in prison, Daniel exults among the lions, the three youths dance in the furnace, Job on the dunghill triumphs over the devil, the thief from the cross finds paradise, Susanna is defended from the elders, Stephen is taken up from the torrent into heaven: there is therefore no place in which we ought not to pray. Pray therefore always, and in every place, and for one another, that you may be saved. Holy prayer is the column of the virtues, the ladder of the godhead, the husband of widows, the kinswoman of the angels, the foundation of faith, the crown of monks, the relief of the married."

Morally, St. Gregory, in book 19 of the Morals, ch. 5, notes that God leaves an innate fragility in Elijah and the saints through whom He works such great things, lest they grow proud over God's works and arrogate them to themselves. "When," he says, "Elijah had advanced to such heights in so many virtues, yet he fled from a little woman (Jezebel), sought death from the hand of God, and did not receive it, etc. In those virtues Elijah recognized what he had received from God; in those infirmities, what he could be of himself: that power was virtue, this infirmity was the guardian of virtue: in those virtues he was showing what he had received, in those infirmities he was guarding what he had received. In miracles Elijah was being displayed, in infirmities he was being preserved."

And he prayed a prayer (that is, he prayed fervently: for this is the force of the doubling) that it might not rain upon the earth, and it rained not for three years. — In 3 Kings 17:1, it is only said that Elijah foretold this drought. James adds that he himself procured and obtained the same by his prayers, and this out of an enormous zeal for the divine honor, namely that he might show himself to be a true and effective Prophet of the true God; and that he might chastise Ahab and Jezebel and their impious subjects, who worshipped Baal, by this punishment, and bring them back to the worship of the true God who sends this plague. Wherefore St. Chrysostom rightly, in homily 16, drawn from various passages of Matthew: "Elijah's tongue," he says, "was like the key of heaven: for he became as it were the arbiter at whose nod the rains were both restrained and poured down." For lawful prayer, says Tertullian in his book Against the Psychics, ch. 6, strengthened by fasting and abstinence, had the power of obtaining; and this in order "that heaven might be closed to the impious, who had polluted earthly things," says St. Ambrose, in his book On Elijah, ch. 2. Great was this zeal of Elijah; not however excessive, as St. Chrysostom seems to say, who in sermon 1 On Elijah, at the end, gives as the cause of Elijah's rapture into heaven his excessive zeal, lest by it the world should perish and be lost. "For if you had to remain long on earth," he says, "the human race which is being chastised by you would soon be utterly destroyed. Pass therefore into the heavens, O Elijah: you cannot dwell with the reed of fire. After this you shall have sinless companions; I shall make you dwell among the choirs of angels."

The same author, in his sermon On Elijah and Peter, calls Elijah an earthly angel, a heavenly man, who walking on the ground closed heaven, and of the waters was the guardian: for his tongue was a treasury of waters, which by his tongue would restrain the clouds of heaven, neither praying nor entreating; but as soon as he uttered the word of truth, he closed heaven, indeed he made it as it were of bronze: his word lay upon the bowels of the earth like a fever, and immediately all things were parched; whence there was a common wailing and lamentation of children and mothers, and the deepest despair; the cattle, beasts of burden, wild animals, birds, men, springs, rivers, lakes, perished, and all things in them died: a universal shipwreck took possession of the lands, made not from abundance of waters but from lack of them. And yet, he says, none of these things was a care to Elijah. Whence he judges that he was therefore not heard by God for a long time, when he begged His help fleeing from Jezebel for forty days, so that he might learn to suffer with others and have mercy. But zeal excuses Elijah; "zeal purges the deed," he says. Wherefore by his prayer he obtained so many prodigies by which he might punish the idolaters and establish the worship of the one true God. Whence when they repented, he immediately stopped the prodigies and called back the plagues. Hence also as he was ascending into heaven he deservedly heard from Elisha: "My father, the chariot of Israel and its driver," as if to say: You, O Elijah, were the whole strength of Israel, who helped Israel more by your prayer and zeal than the great multitude of chariots and horsemen. So the Chaldeans, Procopius, Vatablus, Cajetan and others on this passage. Tropologically: "The teacher of the people correcting morals, as Elijah was, is the chariot, because by tolerating he carries the morals of the people; the same is the driver, because by exhorting he urges them on," says St. Gregory, in book 2 on Ezekiel, homily 21.

Verse 18: And He Prayed Again, and the Heaven Gave Rain, and the Earth Brought Forth Her Fruit

18. And he prayed again, — Ahab having repented and the people requesting rain, the key of which God alone holds, as the Hebrews say. Elijah was a type of the priest, who opens heaven to the sinner, and procures for him the rain of grace, when he absolves him and remits his sins. So our Turrianus, ch. 4 On the Marks of Doctrine. Furthermore, Elijah praying, "prostrate on the earth, placed his face between his knees," 3 Kings 18:42, so that by this difficult, attentive, humble, modest, confident composition and posture of the body, he might as it were compel God to give.

Again, Elijah prayed seven times to obtain rain: for he sent the boy seven times to see whether heaven was being covered with clouds and bringing forth rain; and when the boy said he saw nothing, Elijah returned to prayer and prayed more intensely, until on the seventh occasion, praying most strenuously, he obtained rain, 3 Kings 18:44. So Bede. Thus often God at the beginning of prayer does not grant what we ask, so that we may pray more strenuously and constantly: wherefore one must not then despair, but hope must be aroused and increased, and we must pray more confidently. Those who know and consider this never lose heart, but always press more spiritedly upon prayer, and so obtain their wishes, or certainly obtain something better.

Heaven gave rain. — The history is narrated in 3 Kings 18:1 and 41. So St. Hilarion praying obtained rain for his own people, of whom St. Jerome writes thus in his Life: "Furthermore, it had now been three years (since the death of St. Antony) that the closed heaven had parched those lands, so that people commonly said that even the elements were mourning Antony's death. The inhabitants therefore besought rain from the servant of Christ (St. Hilarion), that is, from the successor of Blessed Antony: seeing them, he was wondrously grieved, and lifting his eyes to heaven and raising both palms aloft, he immediately obtained what they had asked."

Likewise our Elijah's namesake Elijah, Bishop of Jerusalem, when unjustly driven from his see by the impious Severus, Patriarch of Antioch, brought drought, locusts and famine upon Palestine, as the Life of St. Sabas relates.

Thus St. Wilfrid freed the Anglo-Saxons, when they had received Baptism, from a three-year drought, says Bede, in book 4 of the History of the English, ch. 13.

St. Audoenus did the same in Spain, as Volaterranus testifies in book 21, and in Bohemia St. Adalbert, as his Life relates.

Prayer therefore is the key of heaven. Hear St. Augustine, sermon 226 On the Seasons: "The prayer of the just is the key of heaven: prayer ascends, and God's mercy descends." Therefore she is the key of heaven: first, because by her Elijah closed and opened heaven; indeed Joshua, ch. 10 v. 13, by the force of prayer halted heaven and the whole machine of the celestial orbs; Hezekiah also turned it back and led it back through ten degrees, Isaiah ch. 38 v. 9. Second, because prayer brings down the strongest Angels who govern the heavens, and elicits them to our aid. For "when Elisha had prayed, etc., behold a mountain full of horses and fiery chariots round about Elisha," 4 Kings 6:17. Third, because (and this is more wonderful) prayer binds God, and as it were chained draws Him from heaven to the just, or rather draws the just from earth into heaven, and binds them to God, so that nothing can harm them. St. Dionysius beautifully teaches this, in book 3 On the Divine Names, by two examples, namely of a chain let down from heaven and firmly fixed there; and of a rope tied to a rock, while a ship is tossed by the waves: he who would draw it to himself with his hands would rather be drawn by it. Therefore God is conquered as it were by the one praying, but by this most close manner of prayer, the man is drawn to God more than God is drawn to him. To this pertains that saying of God angry at His people to Moses praying: "Let Me go, that My fury may be wroth against them," Exodus 32:10. "For to whom it is said, Let Me go, it is shown that he has the power of holding," says St. Jerome on Ezekiel ch. 13.

Allegorically, St. Augustine, sermon 201 On the Seasons: Elijah, he says, was a type of Christ. "Just as, with Elijah praying, after three years and six months rain came down from heaven, so also at the coming of the Savior, in the three years and six months in which He deigned to preach, the rain of the word of God happily watered the whole world; and just as then at the coming of Elijah all the priests of idols were killed and destroyed, so at the coming of the true Elijah, that is, of our Lord Jesus Christ, the sacrilegious observance of the Pagans was destroyed."

And the earth gave her fruit. — Hence the earth worshipped by the Gentiles as a goddess, was called Ceres, as it were Geres, from bearing fruits (gerendis fructibus), just as among the Greeks she was called Δημήτηρ, as it were γημήτηρ (Earth-Mother), says Cicero in book 2 On the Nature of the Gods. The same was also called Pandora, as it were bringing forth and bearing every good and gift. Hence the Poets fabled that Pandora was a most beautiful and most gracious woman, to whom the individual gods gave their gifts, namely Pallas wisdom, Venus beauty, Apollo music, Mercury eloquence. Whence she is called in Greek Pandora, as it were the gift of all, or gifted by all, or endowed with all good things. The true Pandora of the Holy Trinity, of the angels, and of men, is the Blessed Virgin. She indeed is the paradise of delight and the land of the living. For truly the Poet, addressing Christ, sang of her thus:

Nor is any of parents more fruitful than your mother,
Who alone gave so many goods through her childbirth.

More truly the Prophet, sighing at her birth: "Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just; let the earth be opened and bud forth a Savior," Isaiah ch. 45.

Verse 19: My Brethren, if Any of You Err From the Truth, and One Convert Him

19. My brethren. — This maxim is distinct from what precedes, yet it can be connected to it. For it looks back to what was said in v. 16: "Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be saved." To this James here aptly subjoins and teaches of how great moment it is to procure the conversion and salvation of sinners, whether by praying for them, or by warning, exhorting them, etc. For sinners are converted more by prayer obtaining for them the efficacious grace of God, than by preaching.

If any of you shall err from the truth. — There is a twofold truth, speculative and practical, or of faith and of morals. The truth of faith is to believe what orthodox faith teaches; the truth of morals is to do what faith, law, and virtue dictate must be done. For just as the truth of the mind is the adequation and conformity of the concept to the object itself, namely the thing conceived, when the mind so conceives a thing as it is in itself; and the truth of the mouth is the conformity of speech with the concept of the mind, when the mouth speaks what the mind perceives: so the truth of faith is the conformity of the act of faith with its object, namely with the thing to be believed, when one believes that which truly must be believed; and the truth of morals and of life is the conformity of these same with their rule, namely with the faith and law of God.

In like manner there is a twofold error, namely of faith and of morals. Error in faith is heresy, or infidelity; error in morals is sin and crime. Either truth and either error can be understood here. For, as the Wise Man says, Proverbs 21:16: "A man who shall wander from the way of doctrine shall abide in the company of the giants": of the giants, that is, of the damned: for the cruel and proud giants of old were drowned in the flood, and being damned descended to hell; and the demons, inhabitants of hell, are mystical giants, indeed parents of giants and of the proud. Hence Scripture calls hell the place of the giants, Wisdom 14:6; Isaiah 26:14; Job 26:5. Indeed even the Gentiles, as Macrobius testifies in book 1 of the Saturnalia, ch. 20, hold that the giants and Titans signify an impious people contemning and denying the gods, and therefore the Poets attached the feet of dragons to them, to signify that they had thought nothing right, the gait and progress of their whole life inclining downward to the infernal regions.

Verse 20: He Shall Save His Soul From Death, and Shall Cover a Multitude of Sins

20. He who shall cause a sinner to be converted from the error of his way. — "Way" signifies life, morals, actions, manner of living. Now one converts a sinner by praying, teaching, rebuking, urging, giving examples of holy life, giving alms, doing good, praising, etc. Therefore the first instrument of one converting souls is prayer. The second, charity by which one accommodates oneself to all, descends to all things, and with Paul becomes all things to all men. Chrysostom gives the reason, in homily 33 on 1 Corinthians: "Charity," he says, "is a great teacher, sufficiently capable of removing errors, of forming morals, of leading by the hand to philosophy, and of making men out of stones. He therefore who excels in charity" ought to help others, and to win them all however lost. The third is gentleness, of which St. Bernard, in his sermon On St. Magdalene: "O with how meek and most sweet a spirit is the spirit of him imbued, who knows how to instruct the sinner in the spirit of meekness, to suspend punishment, and with affectionate bowels to draw the sinner into himself until he is restored to life." The fourth is prudence, "so that those whom the persuading and admonishing word does not heal, threats may heal; those whom threats do not heal, the rod may heal; those whom the rod does not heal, fire may consume," says Clement, in book 1 of the Paedagogus, ch. 7. Whence also the bride, though beautiful, showed herself black to her own, so that to those remiss and fleeing discipline, she might display not the brightness of serenity but the dark zeal of severity, says St. Bernard, sermon 28 on the Canticles.

He shall save his soul from death — present and eternal: for in the present life the soul dies through sin, because through it she is deprived of God's grace. For just as the life of the body is the soul, so the life of the soul is God, and God's grace, says St. Augustine. But in the future she dies in hell, because she suffers eternal pains and the agonies of death, and is always dying, and is never dead. Of how great worth therefore is it to convert a sinner? Of as great worth as it is to save a soul, to free her from sin and from hell, and to restore to her grace and eternal glory.

St. Chrysostom magnificently, in his homily On Having Care of the Salvation of One's Neighbor, vol. 1: "Sailors," he says, "although their ship is being borne along by a favorable wind, yet when they see others making shipwreck even from afar, do not, looking only to their own advantage, despise the calamity of those men; but they halt the ship, they take down the sails, they cast out the anchor, they bring forth ropes, they throw out planks, so that he who is being submerged by the waves may, by perchance grasping one of these, emerge. Do you also imitate the sailors, when you see one of those sailing swimming in the waves and being already submerged: leaving your own affairs, stand immediately and providently to his salvation." The same, in homily 3 on 1 Corinthians: "The price of no thing," he says, "is to be compared with a soul, not even the whole world. Wherefore even if you give innumerable riches to the poor, you will accomplish nothing such as he who converts a soul."

Rightly therefore does St. Bernard lament, in book 4 On Consideration: "A she-ass falls," he says, "and there is one to lift her up: a soul perishes, and there is no one who takes account of it." So the die is cast. So the salvation of so many souls, and eternal salvation, is gambled away. How many thousands of souls daily descend to hell, who would be saved if they had a zealous guardian for themselves? Oh if you could see their torments, if you could hear their groans, if you could know their complaints against their confessors, pastors, priests, how you would devote and spend yourself for their conversion and salvation! To have perished once is eternal: to have been damned once is irrevocable.

If you saw a child rushing into fire, you would run, and with all effort would draw him out: you see souls rushing into eternal fire, into the burnings of hell, and you scarcely move a foot to snatch them away. O torpor! O stupor! The virgin of Israel "is cast down upon her own land, there is none to raise her up," God cries through Amos ch. 5 v. 2.

Note: The word ejus ("his"), namely αὐτοῦ, is no longer in the Greek; but it was once: hence some, reading αὑτοῦ with the rough breathing, translate it suam ("his own"). So Pope John VIII, epistle 38, Bede, the Gloss, Hugo, Dionysius and others, as if to say: He who saves another's soul will also save his own, because if he is just, by condign merit he will earn heavenly glory by so pious a work. If he is unjust, by congruous merit he will earn grace and justice, as I shall presently show. Again, he who watches over the salvation of another consults his own salvation; because he would incur the death of his soul if he neglected the salvation of that other entrusted to him, according to that of Paul, 1 Timothy 4:16: "Take heed to thyself and to doctrine: be earnest in them; for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee."

Morally: Learn here that those who devote themselves to the conversion of men are, after Christ, their saviors. This is what Obadiah says in v. 21: "And saviors shall come up into mount Sion to judge the mount of Esau: and the kingdom shall be the Lord's." Where St. Jerome: "The Savior Himself," he says, "willed His Apostles to be the saviors of the world." How glorious this is, first, is clear from the price of a soul; for a soul is worth more than the whole world: for the soul is the image of God, and the highest participation of God. Whence St. Ignatius, founder of our Society, when the beauty of a soul washed by the blood of Christ was shown to him by God, was so inflamed with zeal for souls that he devoted his whole life through immense labors and pains to her; indeed he instituted the Society for this end, saying that the beauty of a soul was so great that it surpasses every price and every labor. So Ribadeneira in his Life, book 5, ch. 2.

Second, from the example of Christ, who descended from the heavens for this end, that He might save souls, and therefore throughout His whole life He labored, sweated, and bore the bitterest pains, and willingly underwent the cross itself. Do you wish then to know how precious a soul is? Estimate her from the price by which she was bought, namely from the blood of Christ: the price therefore of a soul is the life of Christ, and Christ Himself. Wherefore those who study the salvation of their neighbors are of the family and society of Jesus. If the most skilled goldsmith bought a diamond for a thousand gold pieces, we should all greatly esteem the little stone. Christ poured out His blood to redeem a soul: how greatly therefore is she to be esteemed! "A great thing is the soul, which has been redeemed by the blood of Christ," exclaims St. Bernard, epistle 54.

Third, from that of St. Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy ch. 3, where he teaches that this is the work not only of angels (for it is theirs to purge, to illuminate and to perfect), but of God Himself: wherefore the most divine of all divine works is to cooperate with God in the conversion of the impious to Him. "For we are God's helpers," says Paul, 1 Cor. 3:9; and God to Jeremiah ch. 15 v. 19: "If thou wilt separate the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth." See what is said there. These indeed are the angels and ambassadors of God: for the angels "are ministering spirits, sent for ministry, for the sake of those who shall receive the inheritance of salvation," Hebrews 1:14. Again, "no sacrifice is such to God as zeal for souls," says St. Gregory, in book 34 of the Morals, ch. 7.

Fourth, from the mind of the Saints. For St. Paul spent himself wholly on converting souls, and suffered as much as he himself recounts in 2 Corinthians ch. 11. The same all the Apostles did. Those therefore who study the gain of souls perform the Apostolic office, and are Apostolic men: such were St. Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Gregory, Augustine, Ambrose, Bernard, Dominic, Francis, etc. Truly St. Leo, in his sermon On St. Laurence: "No good man," he says, "is good only for himself, nor is any wise man's wisdom friendly only to himself; and this is the nature of true virtues, that they lead many away from dark error."

Fifth, that in this work consists the perfection of charity and virtue, as St. Cyril teaches on Zephaniah ch. 2, no. 14, and St. Augustine on the First Epistle of St. John, homily 6: "This," he says, "is the perfection of charity, and a greater cannot at all be found, than to lay down one's life for one's brothers." The same, cited here by Dionysius the Carthusian, asserts that he is more perfect in the charity of God who converts more to His love; and just as Christ cannot suffer a graver persecution than for someone by word or example to turn away from Him souls redeemed by His blood: so we cannot pay Him a greater honor than by converting straying souls to Him.

Sixth, from the illustrious reward and aureola. "Those who are learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and those who instruct many unto justice, as stars for perpetual eternities," says Daniel 12:3; and Christ: "He who shall do and shall teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven," Matt. 5:17. Odo of Cluny, in his sermon On St. Benedict, asserts that the faithful opinion is, that each one shall rise with those whom he has gained for the Lord. "When therefore," he says, "all the sheep that have followed this his institute shall be gathered together into one, what a sign of apostleship will that copious army then exhibit to St. Benedict!" So the Apostle calls the faithful converted by him his crown, his glory and joy in the day of the Lord, Philippians 4:1, and 1 Thessalonians 2:19. Thus St. Amandus appeared in glory to St. Aldegund, surrounded by all those whom he had converted, as the Life of St. Aldegund relates. And St. Gregory, homily 17 on the Gospels: "There," he says, "Peter shall appear with Judea converted, which he drew after himself. There Paul, leading with himself, so to speak, the converted world. There Andrew shall lead Achaia after him, there John Asia, Thomas India, into the sight of his Judge converted. There all the rams of the Lord's flock with their gains of souls shall appear, who by their holy preaching draw after them to God the flock subject to them."

Furthermore, he who busies himself to convert souls must first convert his own, and consolidate and perfect himself in virtue, both because holiness avails more for converting sinners than a sermon; and lest he create danger for himself: for just as those who wish to snatch the shipwrecked from danger, unless they themselves are in safety, often go to the same danger and are submerged with them: so some weak persons, while they strive to convert sinners, are perverted by them, and are engulfed with them in the same Charybdis of sin and hell. Whence Christ wisely warns: "What does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Matt. 16:26.

And shall cover (some read, "covers") a multitude of sins, — both of him whom he converts, and of his own. St. James alludes to that of Proverbs ch. 10 v. 12: "Charity covers all offenses." First then charity is like a cloak, a veil, a covering, by which the converted and penitent sinner covers, that is, abolishes all past sins (whence in Greek it is καλύψει, that is, will draw over, cover, hide), just as light covers darkness by abolishing it; as a cloak covers nakedness by removing it; as a ditch is covered by earth thrown in, when it is filled with it; as the color black laid over white covers it not by hiding but by abolishing; as water covers fire by quenching and extinguishing it. This is what Christ says of Magdalene: "Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much," Luke 7:47.

Second, the amendment of morals and a new and holy life cover the sins and disgraces of the preceding life, and place themselves under and against them before God's eyes, so that He may no longer see them as if covered and hidden, according to that of Psalm 31:1: "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered."

Third, "shall cover," that is, shall extinguish the spreading flood or fire of sins. For error in faith, namely heresy, is the fount and origin of blasphemy, contention, pride, gluttony, lust, fraud and all sins. He therefore who converts the one in error, namely a heretic, this man covers and extinguishes all these sins which he was about to commit. Similarly the sinner is drawn from one sin to another and another. For sin is like a plague, a pestilence, a gangrene and a cancer, which always creeps on, until it infects the whole body and fills it with sins. He who converts the sinner covers and cuts off all these things.

Fourth, he who converts a sinner covers all the scandals and sins of others, which others would have committed by his example. Thus often the error and crime of one powerful man infects with his contagion the whole city and commonwealth, and contaminates them with crimes. He therefore who converts such a man covers and removes all these things, so that he restrains and turns aside not one but a thousand sins and innumerable offenses and injuries against the Most Good and Greatest God. Is this not an enormous good, and a signal honor and glory of God?

Fifth and more genuinely, "he shall cover" sins not only of others but also his own, as the Interpreters commonly explain — Bede, Thomas the Englishman, Dionysius, Titelmann, Fevardentius and others (some cite the Syriac, as if it had translated "of his sins": but in vain; for the Hebrew and Syriac affix av can be translated either "his" or "his own": for in Hebrew and Syriac the reciprocal pronoun is the same as the absolute); for if he is just, as often happens, by so pious a work of charity he will cover venial faults and a great part of the punishment remaining from mortal sins already remitted; but if he is still unjust and in the state of mortal sin, this his study, solicitude, and ardor of converting his neighbor elicits and provokes, and as it were by congruous merit gains God's mercy, so that He bestows on him efficacious grace, by which roused he too may detest his former sins, change his life, and become just and holy. For, as St. Gregory says, in book 19 of the Morals, ch. 12 (or 16): "The blessing of one who is to perish comes upon him, when he prevents the destruction of the sinner, and by holy exhortations brings him back from the pit of guilt." Here therefore this man's zeal is like a cloak by which he veils his sins before God's eyes, that he may find grace among them: for zeal is so pleasing to God that it is His ornament, and He Himself is clothed and adorned by it as by a cloak, according to Isaiah 59:17: "He was clothed with zeal as with a cloak." Finally, if he is just, he merits to be preserved and strengthened in justice against future sins, so that he may either escape or overcome the dangers and occasions of sins pressing upon him, in which otherwise he would have fallen. For he merits this grace and protection of God, who busies himself to free and protect others from sin: which must be very greatly weighed, so that by this reward we may be incited to zeal for souls. For while we care for another's salvation, we care for our own, and as much for our own as for another's. For it is written: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy," Matt. 5:7. Whence Damascene, in book 1 of the Parallels, ch. 48, from these words of James teaches that the way of abolishing one's own sins is the study of abolishing those of others.

Thus Pope Zachary explains this passage, in epistle 1 to Boniface: "Labor," he says, "most holy brother, among them; because you know it is written: He who shall cause a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover the multitude of his own sins"; Pope John VIII has the same, in epistle 38, and Origen in homily 2 on Leviticus, and Cassian in Conference 20, ch. 8. The reason is, because the soul that you convert is as it were a victim for sin which you offer to God, far more pleasing to Him than a he-goat, ram, or ox, which of old He commanded to be offered to Himself as victims for sin. For here, as it were by the law of retaliation, you give to God the soul of your neighbor for your own soul: you give therefore as much as you owe, for the price of your soul is as it were equivalent to the soul of another: for a soul is worth a soul, as an ox is worth an ox, a gold piece a gold piece.

Wherefore wisely St. Gregory, book 6, epistle 27, admonishes Dominica, the Superior of the monastery, "that she gather as many souls as she can into the service of her Creator, so that their minds may receive through her word the grace of compunction, and she herself may be the more swiftly absolved from all her sins, the more by her life and tongue also the souls of others may have broken forth from the bonds of their sins, etc.; so therefore that she may perfectly satisfy her Lady, that is, eternal Wisdom, who alone flees, may return with many. For the guilt of her aversion will be imputed to no one, who returning brings back gain." The same, in book 19 of the Morals, ch. 6: "For if, by the great law of retaliation, you give to God the soul of your neighbor for your own soul: you give therefore as much as you owe, for the price of your soul is as it were equivalent to another soul. For here, as it were by the law of wages, if it is meritorious to snatch from death flesh that is some day to die, of how great merit will it be to free from death a soul that shall live without end in the heavenly fatherland!"