Note: Today's first reading is on Wisdom 2:1, 12-22; verse 1 intending to serve as an introduction to the reading (verses 12-22). I have however included Fr. Lapide's comments on verse 2. The following excerpt was translated by Qwen.
Wis 2:1-2 "For they said, reasoning within themselves, not rightly..."
That is, wickedly, foolishly, and impiously. The word "for" (enim) notes here that a reason is being given for the preceding statements: namely, why the impious have summoned death and made a covenant with it, and therefore why they are worthy to be established in the lot and society of death.
Their reasoning is this: Our life, and all its goods and evils, end in death, and after death there will be nothing to cheer or afflict us. Therefore, while we live, let us live merrily and indulge every desire; and therefore let us plunder the wealth and goods of others so that we may feast and take our pleasure on them.
The root of this paralogism of theirs is lust and pleasure, to which they wholly cling. In order that they may pursue and fulfill this with impunity, they persuade themselves that the soul is mortal, and that consequently no vengeance or punishment of the Divinity is to be feared after death.
Historical Origins of this Error:
The author of this error and heresy was Cain, the fratricide of his brother Abel, who denied the Divinity and its vengeance, and therefore killed his brother (testified by Josephus, Antiq. 1.3; Philo, That the Worse Attacks the Better; and St. Ambrose, On Cain and Abel, c. 9). All his posterity followed him, for whose sake God submerged the whole world in the Flood.
After the Flood, Nimrod, the tyrant and author of the Tower of Babel, renewed this perfidy and crime, as if through it he would ascend to heaven and declare war on God (Gen. 11). Then the Samaritans (that is, the Assyrians transferred from Assyria to Samaria by Salmanasar); for these believed that all things perish with death and that there will be no resurrection (testified by Epiphanius, Hæres. 9; Philastrius, Hæres. 7, and others). Finally, Saddoc and his followers, the Sadducees, who lived under Judas Maccabeus (Josephus, Antiq. 13, c. 9).
Among the Gentiles, the same heresy was taught by Democritus (Plutarch, On the Placits of Philosophers, 4, c. 7) and after him by Epicurus and his sect, the Epicureans, whose axiom was: "Eat, drink, play; after death there is no pleasure" (Plutarch, ibid.). Seneca (Epist. 124) recounts their feelings and words: "Thence one comes to these words: 'Virtue, philosophy, and justice are the crackling of empty words. There is one happiness: to make this life free.' Other codices read: 'to eat, drink, enjoy one's patrimony.' This is to live; this is to remember oneself to be mortal. Days flow and life runs irreparably. Do we hesitate to do what gives pleasure? ... While it is possible, while it demands, thrust upon fragility; voluntarily outrun death, and forbid oneself now what she will take away.'"
Refutation of their Reasoning:
Truly, their reasoning is irrational and foolish; their syllogism is a paralogism.
First, it is most false that the rational soul dies with the body, since it was created in the image of God and participates in His immortality.
Second, even if the soul were mortal and all life were to end in death, nevertheless one ought to devote life entirely to virtue, not pleasure. For pleasure is the good of beasts, but virtue (or living according to the doctrine of reason) is the good of men (as Seneca teaches in the place just cited). Add that virtue is the unique and true pleasure of man, but spiritual pleasure, which makes man pleasing to God, joyful, sound, and holy; whereas all carnal pleasure makes man bestial, hateful to God and angels, sad, sickly, and wicked.
Whence that young man in the Lives of the Fathers wisely responded to the demon who falsely suggested he was reprobate by God (to impel him to spend life in every carnal pleasure): "If in the future life it is not granted me to serve and please God, at least I will serve and please Him in this present life. For what is holier, what better, what more delightful than to please God? To serve God is to reign. Therefore I will enjoy my God in this life, if it is not permitted in the next."
The Plot Against the Just One
Wis 2:12 "Let us lie in wait therefore for the just one, because he is useless to us..."
The Arabic version takes "just" in the neuter gender, whence it translates: "Let us establish, feign, fabricate a just one." As if to say: The law of true justice is adverse to us and our lust; let us therefore form another law of justice conformable not to right reason but to our concupiscence, so that whatever pleases us may be just.
Truly, the Hebrew, Septuagint, Vulgate, Chaldean, Syriac, and all others take "just" in the masculine gender, and the following words demand this. Therefore, from the antecedents and subsequents, it is clear that this is the voice of the impious against any insignificantly just and pious man who refutes their impiety by word and life, whom consequently they, as hateful to themselves, persecute to death, as has been done in every age. For thus Cain persecuted the just Abel; the Sodomites, Lot; Esau, Jacob; the brothers, Joseph; Pharaoh, Moses and the Hebrews; Saul, David; Jezebel, Elijah; Manasseh, Isaiah, etc. For he who is fully and perfectly just is not just for himself alone, but for the whole republic, and consequently is a hyperaspistes of justice, that is, a keen defender, propagator, and vindicator, whom consequently the impious hate most wickedly and persecute to death. So think Hugo, Lyra, Osorius, Jansen here, and St. Chrysostom (Hom. 5 on the Words of Isaiah, I Saw the Lord) and St. Ambrose (On Offices, 2, c. 6 & 7). Whence Simeon Metaphrastes in the Life of St. Auxentius says that illud [Wisdom 2] was fulfilled in him: "Let us exterminate the just one, because he is useless to us."
Christological Prophecy:
Truly, secondly, that this is a prophecy concerning Christ and His Passion, whom the impious pontiffs and Jews persecuted as a chastiser of their crimes even to the cross, is clear:
From the words themselves, which here are plainly the same as those with which the Jews mocked Christ hanging on the cross, as is clear to one comparing both, especially that: "Let him deliver now, if he will; for he said: I am the Son of God" [Matt. 27:43]. To which correspond here those words v. 13: "He calls himself the Son of God." And those v. 16: "He boasts that he has God for his Father." And those v. 18: "For if he is the true Son of God, He will take him up." Again, those v. 20: "Let us condemn him to a most shameful death," namely of the cross, which all properly belong to Christ alone. Add that Christ by antonomasia is called the Just One, because He is most just, indeed not only the head but the father and author of all the just, as is clear [Jer. 23:6; Isa. 51:5, etc.].
The Fathers teach the same everywhere: St. Augustine (City of God, 17, c. 20 and book 12 Against Faustus, c. 44) asserts this passage is in Isaiah c. 59; St. Cyprian (Tract on Zion and Sinai); St. Ambrose (On Offices, 2, c. 6 & 7); Author of the Imperfect Work on Matthew (Hom. 43); Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, 5, c. 6); Tertullian (Against Marcion, 3, c. 22); St. Athanasius (Synopsis); Lactantius (book 4, c. 16) convinces the Jews from this place and demonstrates that Christ killed by them was just and the Son of God. "Solomon," he says, "in the Books of Wisdom used these words: 'Let us lie in wait for the just one, because he is unsavory to us and reproaches us with sins of the law; he promises he has knowledge of God and calls himself the Son of God,' etc. Did he not so describe that nefarious counsel begun by the impious against God, that he seems to have been plainly present? Yet from Solomon, who sang these things, up to that time when the matter was done, were a thousand and ten years. We feign nothing, we add nothing."
St. Chrysostom (or the Author of the Imperfect Work apud St. Chrysostom, Hom. 43 in Matt.) gives the cause: "From the vice of pride," he says, "it is born that no one wishes to have a better man before himself, just as the Jews [did not endure] Christ. For not killing him as not knowing him to be the Son of God, but not enduring to have him such, as Solomon also prophesied concerning them: 'Come, let us lie in wait,' etc."
The sense therefore is that the impious persecute eminent just men by whom their impiety is blamed and argued, but maximally the impious Jews will persecute Christ, who is the Just One of the just and the Holy of Holies, inasmuch as he most sharply taxed their vices and especially those of the Pontiffs and Scribes, as he taxes them everywhere in the Gospels. In a similar way Moses prophesied concerning Christ [Deut. 18:18], saying from the mouth of God: "I will raise up for them a Prophet from the midst of their brethren like unto thee"—that is, various Prophets, but one from them eminent and the prince of the others, namely the Messiah or Christ; for this one was similar to Moses, indeed far superior to him. So St. Ambrose on the title of Psalm 35: "The Lord," he says, "reproaches the Jews: 'I for your sake [became] poor, I for your sake sorrowing, and you laid impious hands on me, saying: Let us take away the Just One, because he is useless to us. Let us cast wood into his bread.' He said bread well for his flesh. He brought nourishment; they returned punishment for the benefit. It is not wonderful therefore if they hunger, who denied to themselves the nourishment of eternal life."*
Moreover, the author of Wisdom alludes to Isaiah c. 3, v. 10, where the Septuagint for the Hebrew imru (that is, Say to the just one that it is well) reading iru (that is, bind), thus translate: "They have taken counsel, evil counsel against themselves, saying: Let us bind the just one, because he is useless to us." St. Jerome there translates unpleasant (injucundus); for both signify dyschrestos. "So they shall eat the fruit of their own works." Which words plainly befit the Jews seizing and binding Christ praying in the garden. Whence also St. Justin (Dialogue against Tryphon) reads: "Let us bind the just one, because he is useless to us." The Syriac: "Let us retard or impede the just one." Tertullian (Against Marcion, 3, c. 23): "Let us take away the just one," namely Christ. Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, 5): "Let us take away the just one from us." In Greek it is nidryōmen, that is: "Let us lie in wait for the just one, by ambushes let us capture, bind, kill, oppress him." Thus the Jews proposed insidious questions to Christ to capture him in speech, as when they asked him: "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?" [Matt. 22:18]. Again, by insidious betrayal Judas apprehended him in the garden. They call him Just not so much from their own sense as from the common estimation and naming of the vulgar.
The Paradox of Persecution:
Moreover, the impious by persecuting the pious harms himself more than the pious. For as St. Augustine says on Psalm 36: "Adversity presses your body, iniquity rots his soul. For whatever he brings forth against you, returns upon him. His purgation makes you purged, him guilty." Therefore he harms himself more. Indeed, the impious by his persecution profits the pious, not harms. Hear St. Augustine on Psalm 128: "They have exercised me, they have not oppressed me. They have availed me as fire to gold, not as fire to hay. For fire approaching gold removes dirt, approaching hay turns it to ash. The flame passes and pure gold remains; persecution passes as a dream, and the soul remains shining and splendid by the merit of patience." For it is written: "Like a dream of those waking, O Lord, in your city, you will bring their image to nothing" [Ps. 72:20]. "And it shall be as a dream of a night vision, the multitude of all nations who have fought against Ariel" (that is, against the Church and its faithful, which is called Ariel, that is, Lion of God, from the strength) [Isa. 29:7].
Why the Just One is "Useless"
"Because he is useless to us."
There is miosis (understatement); for useless means noxious. In Greek dyschrestos, that is:
First, useless.
Second, difficult, inconvenient, morose, intractable, who does not know how to accommodate himself to us and connive at our vices and dissimulate them. Whence the Syriac: "Because he is not benign to us."
Such Christ seemed to the Jews, inasmuch as he constantly chastised their avarice, rapines, lusts, and superstitions by word and life. They allude to the name of Christ by antiphrasis, as if to say: Christos is not chrestos (that is, kind, benign, human, easy to gratify, convenient, clement) but achrestos (that is, useless), indeed dyschrestos (that is, difficult, offensive, hard, inflexible, rebellious, pernicious, abhorring our conversation and life, indeed constantly blaming and biting it). Therefore let us take him from the midst.
Truly, they speak partially true, because Christ to the Scribes and Pharisees, as wicked, impenitent, and obstinate in evil, was a perpetual enemy, censor, and reprover, and this by office; for to this he was sent by the Father to the Jews, to reduce them degenerating from the Patriarchs to the ancestral faith and probity. But to others, indeed the probus and even sinners not spurning his faith and penance, he was most sweet and clement, as he was to St. Magdalene, St. Paul, St. Matthew, Zacchæus, St. Peter, and many others, so much so that the Scribes objected this to Christ as a calumny, that he associated with harlots and sinners. Whence he himself gently inviting them to himself: "Come," he says, "to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light" [Matt. 11:28]. Thus Isaiah c. 42:2 and c. 61:1, Zechariah c. 9:9, and the other Prophets equally as the Apostles, as St. Peter [Acts 10:38], who says he "passed through doing good and healing all oppressed by the devil, because God was with him." For it is of God to do good to all and communicate, indeed pour out, his goodness to all. Thus Christ healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons, fed the crowds, calmed storms, indeed gave his body, life, soul, and divinity for us, and those enemies and sinners, and daily gives the same to each in the Eucharist. The same daily by his grace prevents sinners and calls them to salvation.
What therefore was more useful, sweeter, more benign than Christ? Whence in Hebrew he is called Messias, in Greek dyschrestos, in Latin Christus, that is anointed, namely by God as King, Prophet, Legislator, Redeemer, and Pontiff of the new law. By the Gentiles he was called chrestos per i (that is, useful, sweet, benign, beneficent), whence also Christians were called Christiani, that is, bland, sweet, convenient, because just as in Christ nothing was which was not useful, sweet, convenient for the salvation of men, so also in Christians there ought to be. Concerning which I have said more elsewhere. Truly St. Thomas sings of Christ: "Born, he gave himself as a companion; feasting, as food; dying, as a price; reigning, he gives himself as a reward." And St. Bernard: "Jesus is honey in the mouth, jubilation in the ear, a song in the heart." Taste therefore and see that the Lord is sweet [Psalm 33:9].
Opposition to Wicked Works
"And is contrary to our works."
The Syriac: "He opposes, obstructs." For our works are impious, unjust, wicked, noxious; truly those of the just one, and especially of Christ, are pious, just, holy, salutary. Behold, here they explain why Christ seemed to them dyschrestos, that is, useless, troublesome, and pernicious: namely, that he taxed the wicked morals of the Scribes and threatened them with the thunderbolt of eternal damnation, as is clear [Matt. entire c. 23]. Thus today religious men, because they chastise the morals of the wicked either by word or example, are hateful to them. Whence the Apostle [1 Tim. 3]: "All," he says, "who wish to live piously in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."
St. Augustine gives one cause among various ones on Psalm 127: "If the devil is dead," he says, "persecutions are dead; but if that adversary of ours lives, whence does he not suggest temptations? Whence does he not rage, not threaten? He procures scandals."
"And reproaches us with sins of the Law."
Namely, sins committed against the law given by God through Moses.
"And defames among us the sins of our discipline."
In Greek epiphēmizei, that is: He publishes, divulges, celebrates with our infamy. Whence St. Augustine (City of God, 17, c. 20) reads: "He infames, reproaches, cries out against us the sins which we commit against the discipline and law given to us by God," and especially that we corrupt it by perverse interpretation through Pharisaic traditions. As that we teach sons not to honor nor feed parents, but to offer their wealth to the temple for the profit of the priests; that we teach enemies are to be hated; that we excuse sinners when they give us gifts, etc., which Christ recounts and carps at [Matt. 5]; and that we cleanse cups and platters while inside we are full of rapine and uncleanness [Matt. 23:25]. Again [John 7:19]: "Did not Moses give you the law, and no one of you does the law?" See Luke 11:39 and following. Whence v. 45 a certain one of the lawyers says to him: "Master, saying these things you cast contumely upon us."
Moreover, Christ did this justly and holily. For it was his, as legate sent for this by God, freely to carp at the public crimes of the Scribes and Pharisees, lest the people should esteem them as licit and holy and follow and imitate them, even if he knew he would incite them by this to death and the cross to be inflicted upon himself, as in fact happened. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other Prophets did the same, all to a man, as prototypes and antitypes of Christ. This therefore is the true cause of the hatred of the impious for the pious: that their impiety is convicted and defamed by the piety of these. Lactantius assigns and exaggerates this cause (book 5, c. 9): "Of so great and so pertinacious hatred," he says, "what shall we say is the chief cause? Whether truth begets hatred, as the poet says, as if instigated by divine spirit; or they blush to be wicked in the presence of the just and good; or rather both? For truth is therefore always hated, because he who sins wishes to have a free place for sinning, nor does he think he can enjoy the pleasure of evildoings more securely than if there be no one to whom delicts do not please. Therefore as witnesses of their crimes and malice they strive to extirpate and remove them fundamentally, and they think them grievous to themselves, as if their life were convicted thereby."
He then subjoins the reasoning of the impious: "For why should there be some unseasonably good, who by living well make a reproach to public morals corrupted? Why are not all equally bad, rapacious, impudent, adulterers, perjurers, covetous, fraudulent? Nay rather, let those be taken away before whom one is ashamed to live badly, who strike and beat the brow of sinners, if not by words because they are silent, yet by the very dissimilar kind of life. For whoever dissents seems to chastise."
Claiming Divine Knowledge and Sonship
Wis 2:13 "He promises he has knowledge of God."
Vatablus: "Notion of God." In Greek epangellatai, that is: He announces, preaches, divulges publicly and solemnly, as when something is edicted and promulgated by a herald. For Christ was the herald of the Gospel who brought it from heaven to earth. St. Bonaventure from the Gloss explains: As if to say: He firmly asserts he knows all things as God.
Truly the genuine sense is that Christ publicly and everywhere preaches and heralds that he knows God and the true faith and religion of God, that is, the manner of rightly and piously worshipping God and serving and pleasing Him, he knows, teaches, and preaches, and consequently disapproves of our Jewish rites and traditions as parergos (secondary works) and unpleasing to God. This is what Christ says: "Of myself I have not come, but he is true who sent me, whom you do not know; I know him" [John 7:28]. And: "My doctrine is not mine, but his who sent me" [ibid. v. 16]. And: "No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him" [Matt. 11:27]. And: "Now this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ" [John 17:3]. And: "If you do not believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins" [John 8:24].
"And calls himself the Son of God."
In Greek paida kyriou, that is, boy of the Lord, boy that is son or servant. But here son is taken, is clear from that which follows v. 16: "And he boasts he has God for his Father." For the whole contention of Christ with the Jews was that he said he was the true Son of God, and proved this by miracles and Scriptures; they truly denied this very thing, as is clear [John c. 5 and following], where there is a continuous disputation on this matter with the Scribes.
Hence it is clear that although these things pertain to any just man who is a son by adoption through grace, nevertheless they properly look to Christ, who is the Son of God natural by essence. Moreover, this was the potentissima (most powerful) cause of the hatred of the impious for Christ: that he said he was the Son of God. Then they were proud, and therefore indignantly bore that they, the Scribes and pontiffs, indeed and Moses, were preferred to him (I said above from St. Chrysostom). Then because the graver reproof of Christ happened, by how greater a person, namely the Son of God, it proceeded. Then because from this very fact that he was the Son of God, it followed that his adversaries were sons of the devil, according to that word of Christ: "You are of the devil" [John 8:44]. And this even now is the cause of the pertinacious hatred of all Jews for Christ: namely, they cannot hear and digest that they are the sons and heirs of those who killed their Messiah, the Son of God; for they cannot endure this infamy of so great a sacrilege, indeed deicide, to be cast upon them.
The Burden of His Presence
Wis 2:14 "He is become to us a refutation of our thoughts."
In Greek eis elenchon, that is: Into reproof and reprehension.
As if to say: Christ translates, that is, leads into public, publishes,
and proposes to all to be carpeds our thoughts, that is, our
intentions, our studies, our endeavors. Whence others here translate: He exists as judge of our thoughts. St. Bonaventure: He leads our thoughts into the light. Another: He is become to us for refuting our thoughts.
For Christ knew and revealed and argued the wicked thoughts of the
Scribes, even secret ones, concerning reproving, capturing, killing him,
as is clear [Matt. 9:4]: "Why do you think evil in your hearts?" [Luke 6:7]: "But
the Scribes and Pharisees watched him on the Sabbath whether he would
cure, that they might find whence they might accuse him. But he knew
their thoughts," etc. And from the revelation of secret thoughts he showed the Jews he was God and the Son of God. For as Tertullian says (Apology, c. 20): "The testimony of divinity is the truth of divination."
Wis 2:15 "He is grievous to us even to behold."
That is: He alone by his presence becomes grievous and troublesome to us, so that we cannot look upon and be seen by him without weariness and offense. For hatred and envy make it so that one cannot endure to look upon him whom one hates. Namely, he who acts badly hates the light [John 3:20]. Clear light of the sun is adverse to darkness, and therefore offends the blind. "Light is hateful to diseased eyes," says St. Augustine (Confessions, 7, c. 6). Thus Saul with not right eyes looked upon David [1 Reg. 18:9]. So Tertullian (On Patience, c. 5): "How," he says, "did they lay hands on the Prophets, except through impatience of hearing? But on the Lord himself through impatience even of seeing." Whence he teaches there that every sin is to be ascribed to impatience. And St. Chrysostom (Hom. 5 on the Words of Isaiah, I Saw the Lord): "No mortal," he says, "do those who sin so avert and hate, and him who prepares to reprove, and they seek occasions that they may escape, desiring to flee reproof. For the rebuker not only when he puts forth his voice, but even when he is seen, is grievous to the sinner."
"He is grievous," they say, "even the aspect to us." To which reading Vatablus adhered, reading: "To our aspect also he is grievous." Hence those voices: "Take away, take away" [Matt. 27]. Added to this, the modesty, chastity, and sanctity of Christ scourged the immodest, incestuous, impure eyes of the Jews. Finally, the splendor of divinity shone forth from the countenance of Christ (says St. Jerome), which struck the aspect of the impious, but ravished the pious into love, reverence, and admiration of himself. Thus Nero could not endure the venerable species of Thrasea the Senator, therefore he killed him (says Tacitus, Annals, 16). For as St. Chrysostom says (Hom. 3 to the People of Antioch, tom. 5): "Not only the words of the Saints, but even their aspects are full of grace, so that by their aspect alone they are able to extinguish and soften the hearts of others."
Dissimilarity of Life and Ways (Wis 2:15 cont.)
Wis 2:15 cont. "Because his life is dissimilar to others."
For Christ preached the poor, humble, meek, mourning, patient, persecuted as blessed, when the Jews and other worldly men preach the rich, arrogant, imperious, rejoicing, and dominating over others as blessed. Christ preached mortification of the flesh, restraint of concupiscence, chastity, abstinence, the cross, love of enemies, hatred of the soul, which seemed paradoxes to the Jews, inasmuch as they, carnal, sought nothing but meats, wealth, and feasts equally as honors and vengeance against enemies.
This therefore is the root of the whole hatred and envy of the impious for the just, especially Christ: namely, the dissonance of morals and life. For as Aristotle teaches (Ethics), just as the cause of love and friendship is similarity and consonance of morals, so the cause of hatred is dissimilarity and dissonance of morals. Hence Seneca (Epist. 7): "He lives," he says, "in the multitude, or similar to many; to these he is hateful." And the precept of Pythagoras was: "Do not walk in public," that is, do not follow the morals of the vulgar, even if for that cause you incur their hatred. "For an argument of the right is to displease the bad," says Seneca. Christ assigns this root of hatred [John 15], saying and predicting to the Apostles: "If you were of the world, the world would love what is its own; but because you are not of the world, therefore the world hates you; therefore if they have persecuted me," he says, "they will also persecute you."
A certain Doctor says: "Great consolation of pious men consists in this reason constituted. For chosen from the midst of the world and separated from the universality of the lost, dissimilarity of morals renders them hated; for this they affirm that to be which they do not wish to be, and from the hatred of that thing which they vehemently disapprove, they rage, press, and persecute. Iniquity cannot have peace with justice, ebriety with temperance, falsehood with concord, pride with meekness, petulance with modesty, avarice with largess." Thus the world persecuted the head itself on account of this adversity of morals, and surely it will persecute all pious who live by the same spirit. Therefore the impious Jews could minimally endure Christ, because dissimilar affection, contrary studies of life made it, and the one life was the manifest damnation of the other. Whence also to his brothers, when they themselves did not believe in him, he said: "The world cannot hate you," namely its own cultivators and lovers; "but me it hates, because I bear testimony concerning it, that its works are evil" [John 7:7]. Thence it is that the good have always been grievous to the wicked. This is what St. Prosper sings (Epigram 32): "The impious part of the world is hostile to the part of the pious, nor can it endure dissimilar souls; laughing at those unwilling to use present wealth, and hoping that what is entrusted to them can be given."
Therefore, just as peace cannot be between Christ and Belial, so neither can those two cities, of which one is of the pious, the other of the impious, be joined in true concord. Christ is the founder of the Holy City; the devil is the founder and ruler of the impious city. Love of God even to the contempt of self constituted that one; this one, on the contrary, love of self even to the contempt of God. For pleasing itself and swelling, and thinking all things which are worthy of prosecution are placed in itself, it speaks through the Prophet and says: "I am, and besides me there is no other." That one uses the world that it may enjoy God; this one, on the contrary, uses God that it may enjoy the world. That one pilgrimages here, and not having a remaining and fixed city on earth, seeks a future one, as the prayer of a certain most holy citizen declares, which says: "I am a sojourner on earth and a pilgrim, as all my fathers were" [Ps. 38:13]. This one, ensnared by the delights of this world, acquiesces entirely in terrestrial felicity. It comes to pass that whatever it feels adverse to this, it strives to remove, and on account of this its cupidity even pursues with hatred and persecutes the truth. "All," says that one, "your commandments are truth; therefore the iniquitous have persecuted me; help me" [Ps. 118:16].
Moreover, since this hatred is so great, it is necessary that it immediately break forth into war and persecution. For just as fire and water cannot be together unless they fight between themselves, so it is necessary that those two cities conflict with constant adversity between themselves. And just as in the same man flesh concupisces against spirit and spirit against flesh, so in the same republic the bad cannot have peace with the good. Therefore the good hate not men but the vices of men, and if any persecution is ever moved by them, it is to be believed to proceed not from hatred but from charity, by which either the bad are consulted for correction, or certainly the good and integral for tutelage. Whence those words are in the Psalm: "I did not propose before my eyes to do an unjust thing; I hated the workings of those who commit prevarication... A perverse heart did not adhere to me; the one declining from me, the malignant, I did not know. The one secretly detracting his neighbor, this one I persecuted" [Ps. 100:3-5]. Behold a good persecutor, not of the man but of the sin. For St. Ambrose says there is also a just persecution "if we hate the obscene, if we are hostile to the unjust, if we wish to oppress the iniquitous lest they harm more, if we strip the avaricious of the shackles of his fraud, if we execrate the insolence of the proud." For as it is in the Wise Man in Proverbs: "The just abominate an impious man, and the impious abominate those who are in the right way" [Prov. 29:27].
But the terrestrial city of these does not desire to correct, but to destroy; nor is it its heart to take away vices, but to demolish and oppress the truth hateful and exose to itself. For "this is the judgment, because light has come into the world, and men loved darkness more than light; for their works were evil" [John 3:19]. "For diabolical envy," says St. Augustine, "by which the bad envy the good, has no other cause than because those are good, these are bad. For vices are always enemies to virtues, and the best are looked upon by the worst as if reproaching." Read also that of Cicero: "Disparate morals will follow disparate studies, the dissimilarity of which dissolves friendships." Nor for any other cause can the good not be friends to the bad, nor the bad to the good, except that there is between them as great a distance of morals and studies as can be greatest.
"And his ways are changed."
Hugo and others add "in truth," but the Greek and Roman [texts] have no such thing. Vatablus: "And he differs by his institutes." Guarinus: "And his paths are different." Gloss and St. Bonaventure: "His dogmas and deeds are dissimilar," namely doctrine and life. Another: "Foreign, insolent, unusual, unheard of, and abhorrent from the common norm and form are the paths by which he walks," that is, his words and works.
The sense therefore is that the ways, that is, the actions of the just one, especially Christ, and his manner of acting and living, namely his doctrine, conversation, religion, sect, plainly disagree from ours, is changed and diverse. For our justice and religion, namely Pharisaic, is situated in external species, purification, nitore, pomp, ostentation of alms; but Christ's justice, Evangelical, is situated in internal purity, piety, charity, etc., as Christ teaches [Matt. 5]. Again, by hypallage, "his ways are changed" means "our ways are changed by his ways." As if to say: Christ by his Gospel changes and abolishes our law, our Sacraments, and our ceremonies and rites, while for circumcision he substitutes Baptism, for manna the Eucharist, for washings Penance, etc. Finally, he wishes to destroy our Judaism and convert it into Christianity. For this was the cause of the supreme hatred of the Jews for Christ and Paul. Whence the Jews about to stone St. Stephen objected this crime to him: "We have heard," they say, "him saying that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the traditions which Moses delivered to us" [Acts 6:14]. And to St. Paul, when they captured him in the temple: "Men Israelites," they say, "help; this is the man who against the people and the law and this place everywhere teaching, moreover also has led Gentiles into the temple and violated this holy place" [Acts 21:28].
In a similar way at this time, indeed in every age, religious and zealous men who wished to reform the lapsed morals of Religious, Priests, and Christians and restore them to ancestral purity, have stirred up the hatred of many in themselves, but they have consoled themselves by the example of Christ, and by that they have done what they attempted. The same feel those who withdraw themselves from companions that they may vacate to a severer life, prayer, study; soon indeed companions fly at them with tongues and cachinnations, calling them hypocrites, Jesuits, saints, because they bear heavily that they are deserted by them, surpassed, and tacitly carp at and reprove them. But let these also hear solace from Christ: "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven" [Matt. 5:10]. Let these say: "Friends [are] companions, but more [is] friend Christ, more [is] friend Holiness and the salvation of the soul." Plato said: "Friend [is] Socrates, but more [is] friend Truth."
The Impious Estimate the Just One as Base
Wis 2:16 "We are estimated by him as base men..."
Instead of "as base men" (tamquam nugaces), in Greek it is eis kibdēlon, that is: "We are estimated by him as spurious, or as dross, or as rust." That is, as if spurious, or as trifles, nugatories, and things of nothing. For kibdēlos properly signifies gold, silver, or brass not pure and sincere, but to which dross is mixed, and therefore counterfeited, vitiated, and adulterated.
Thus Christ taxed the Jews because they adulterated and corrupted the Law with their human and superstitious traditions. Whence He called them "a wicked and adulterous generation" [Matt. 12:39], liars, whitened sepulchers, serpents, and a generation of vipers [John 8:55]. For they preferred their own nugacies and the nugatory washings of hands and body to the Law of God and of Christ.
Hence St. Bonaventure explains: We are estimated by this One as doing and saying vain things. Denis: As if fools and liars. More clearly: As adulterine. Vatablus: We are held as adulterine. Comestor: We are reputed as spurious.
They allude to John 8:39, where the Jews boasting, "Our father is Abraham," Christ responded: "If you are the children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. You do the works of your father." They said therefore: "We are not born of fornication; we have one Father, God." As if to say: You, O Christ, seem to assert that we are not legitimate sons of Abraham, and consequently spurious and adulterine, born of fornication, in which matter you inflict upon us a notable injury and stain, in that you object another father to us besides Abraham, namely the devil, inasmuch as we follow his works. But you falsely calumniate us, because no other adulterer, but the true father, is ours: on earth Abraham, in heaven God; and we worship one God the Father equally with Abraham. Therefore you falsely accuse us of not following God and piety and the works of Abraham, as if spurious.
Christ responded: "If God were your Father, you would indeed love me; for I proceeded and came from God; nor have I come of myself, but He sent me. Why do you not know my speech? Because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and in the truth he did not stand" [John 8:42-44]. By which words He showed and confirmed that they are not sons of Abraham but spurious sons of the devil.
"...and he abstains from our ways as from uncleannesses."
As from filths, inquinaments, spurcities. As if to say: He flees and detests our mode of living as unclean, wicked, and accursed. Thus Christ [Luke 12:1]: "Attend," He says, "and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy," etc.
The sense is that Christ is a sectary distinct from us; for from our religion, as unclean, He leads men to His sect as clean. They speak partly true, because Christ confuted the superstitions and wicked morals of the Pharisees; partly false, because Christ on the stated days frequented the temple, and there prayed and taught, and observed the Law and taught it to be observed.
St. Gregory Nazianzen wisely (Oration in Praise of St. Basil) warns that the companionship of the wicked is to be avoided: "Lest," he says, "we have familiarity with the most flagitious of companions, but with the best and most honest; nor with the most pugnacious, but with the most tranquil, and those whose companionship brings great fruits, holding this explored: that much more easily is vice contracted than virtue communicated, just as also more easily is disease contracted than health imparted."
He Prefers the Last Things of the Just
Wis 2:16 cont. "And he prefers the last things of the just."
In St. Augustine (City of God, 17, c. 20) it is read nobilissima (most noble), but wrongly, as it seems.
First, Hugo explains: He prefers the last ones of the just to us, saying: "The last shall be first, and the first last" [Matt. 20:16]. And: "Woe to you rich... Blessed are the poor in spirit" [Luke 6; Matt. 5]. And: "The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment and condemn this generation" [Matt. 12:41].
Truly, in Greek it is makarizei ta eschata dikaiōn, that is: "He beatifies the extremes of the just," that is, He pronounces the exit of the just as blessed. Comestor and Vatablus: He preaches the ends of the just as blessed. The Gloss and Bonaventure: He prefers eternal life to pleasure.
As if to say: Christ pronounces the poverty, compunction, humility, tears, mortification, and cross of the just as blessed from the end, namely because it leads them to heavenly happiness and glory; and by this very fact He condemns us, who place all happiness in riches, joys, laughter, feasts, lusts, pride, and other pleasures of this life; for to these He Himself threatens woe and the thunderbolt of eternal damnation. This is clear from the history of the rich Glutton and Lazarus [Luke 16]. Thus also Ecclesiasticus, celebrating glorious men [Sir. 44:14], says: "Their bodies are buried in peace, and their name lives unto generation and generation." And Psalm 115:15: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." And Apocalypse 14:13: "I heard a voice from heaven, saying: Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."
Nazianzen gives the reason (Oration at the Funeral of his Father): "Because death not only vindicates us from present evils, but often translates us also to the supernal life, I know not," he says, "whether it can properly be called death, as formidable more in name than in reality. There is one life: to have eyes cast upon life; there is one death: sin. For the interitus of the soul is [true] death."
He Boasts God as His Father
Wis 2:16 cont. "And he boasts that he has God for his Father..."
And consequently assigns us, contrary to Himself, to the devil as sons to a father. Instead of "he boasts" (gloriatur), in Greek it is alazoneitai, that is: With pride, gloriation, and ostentation he vaunts. Another: As if to say: He falsely feigns to himself, lies, arrogates, and as an impostor, jactabund, insolent, and elated beyond measure, he ostentatiously claims God as Father.
For Christ had said: "It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that He is your God, and you have not known Him" [John 8:54]. Wherefore you, O Jews, who deny me the Son, deny also the Father, and consequently deny your God.
The Scribes and Pontiffs felt themselves sharply stung by this stimulus of Christ, and therefore machinated death against Him. For as much as it is honor and glory to have God for a Father and in Him all goods, so much dishonor and infamy it is to have the devil for a father and in him all evils, both of fault and of punishment.
Testing His Words and End
Wis 2:17 "Let us see therefore if his words be true..."
Namely, those by which he vaunts that he is the Son of God and has God for a Father, and teaches the true faith, law, and worship of God. For if He is the Son of God, God will surely protect Him and liberate Him from our hands, or certainly raise Him up when killed by us, as He Himself asserts and vaunts.
"...and let us test what things shall happen to him..."
Whither his affairs may evolve. In Greek: And let us make experiment in his exit, namely, what things shall happen. St. Prosper (On Promises, part 1, c. 26) reads: Whether those things which shall happen to him succeed, namely, [whether] God, whom he boasts as his Father, [will liberate] him from our hands or raise him from death. Explaining, they subjoin: "For if he be the true Son of God, He will receive him," etc. Others translate: Let us make trial of his events, namely, what shall finally happen to him, what end he shall have, unto what term and catastrophe the tragedy of his life and sect is about to cease. For it will go into smoke, indeed into infamy.
"...and we shall know what his last things shall be."
These words are lacking in the Greek. Lactantius and St. Cyprian (Testimonies, 2, c. 14) read them nevertheless; also the Roman [Vulgate] and St. Augustine (City of God, 17, c. 20). It seems to be an epanalepsis (repetition), and the same thing said in other words. For "Let us test what things shall happen to him" seems to be explained by that which is subjoined: "And we shall know what his last things shall be."
As if to say: Christ prefers to us and our pleasure and present happiness the last things of the just, of whom He says He is the head and prince. Let us see therefore what are His last things, and thence we shall collect what kind the last things of His just ones are about to be. Let us kill Him and see whether He rises from death, and thus it will appear that the last things, namely the joys of eternal life which He fruitlessly promises to His just ones, are vain. Thus the impious and atheists [reason].
The Challenge of Divine Protection
Wis 2:18 "For if he be the true Son of God, he will receive him..."
In Greek and Syriac: For if the just one is the Son of God. The just one, either any just man, or by excellence, namely Christ. As if to say: If Christ, who names Himself just by eminence, God will surely receive Him, that is, falling into death, with hand extended He will apprehend, sustain, strengthen, protect, lest He fall. For to receive in Scripture signifies to succor the slipping, to bring help, to conserve, to protect.
These words are taken from Psalm 22:9: "He hoped in the Lord, let Him deliver him; let Him save him, because He wills him." With which words the impious Jews upbraided Christ on the cross, because He had said He was the Son of God, as is clear [Matt. 27:40].
"...and will deliver him from the hands of his adversaries."
Namely, from the hands of the Scribes and Pontiffs opposing Him and driving Him to the cross and death.
Examination by Insult and Torture
Wis 2:19 "With insult and torture let us examine him..."
In Greek hybrei, that is: With injury, dedecorum. Lactantius (book 4, c. 16) reads in the plural: with insults and torments. St. Bonaventure: With contumely of words, he says, and with torment, or cruciament, of words.
"...let us examine him..."
In Greek exetasōmen, that is: Let us prove, exercise, inquire the truth from him. For thus a judge from a reus through interrogations and torments inquires the crime, which are called judicial questions. The Arabic: Let us investigate him with calumny and torment.
The torments which the Jews inflicted on Christ were very many, very great, very ignominious. These the Jews say here they are inflicting on Christ.
"...that we may know his reverence..."
In Greek epieikeian, that is: Equanimity, modesty, meekness, tranquility, composition of mind, with which the just one, especially Christ, unjustly beaten, fears and shrinks not only from avenging Himself, but from emitting the least sign of indignation, or pain, or impatience.
Let us prove therefore his justice through probra and torments, because if his justice be true, he will show it through patience; if it be fucated and simulated, he will betray it through impatience. For it is impossible that a proud hypocrite and fictitious one, if vexed and beaten, not break forth into maledict words, threats, and impatient gestures. Whence St. Gregory (Dialogues, 1, c. 5): "What kind each one hides within himself," he says, "inflicted contumely proves."
Hence also the Greek basanos, that is, torment, torture, question, signifies also the judge-stone, or Lydian and Herculean stone, concerning which Pliny (book 33, c. 8) says that such cruciatus, just as that stone, manifest the excellence of gold, the excellence of virtue. Hence to examine by torment is to interrogate, because just as one examined by a judge in question responds nor conceals the truth which supplications extort, similarly that examination made by iniquitous judges by contumely and torment shows the truth of the divinity and doctrine of Christ, and also of holiness worthy truly of God. Confer these things with the passion of Christ described in the Gospels, and you will say the Wise Man here, equally as Isaiah c. 53, is not so much a Prophet of the passion of Christ as a historian and Evangelist.
Active and Passive Reverence:
This reverence therefore of the just one, especially Christ, was both active and passive.
Active was a certain sacred pudor and holy verecundy, by which Christ, even in the most atrocious passion and cross, out of respect and reverence both of His own person and of the virtue, patience, and modesty itself, and of God, Angels, and men in whose presence He was conversing and suffering, feared to do or say anything, I do not say impatiently, but less dignified or decorous, namely which might less befit a patient, modest, constant, perfect, celestial, divine man. Whence He gave no sign of groaning, or of pain, infirmity, or fear. Considering which, a certain Gentile writer exclaimed: "O man unbroken in spirit, who poured forth neither prayer nor tear!" Whence the Syriac translates: That we may know the diligence or solicitude of his humility. The Arabic: That we may know his obedience or subjection, and prove his true patience.
Passive was the effect of the active, by which namely the active reverence, which shone forth in Christ's countenance composed, pious, reverent, and reverend, and in all His sayings, doings, and gestures, made Him venerable and reverend to all, and excited in the spectators reverence, love, and admiration of Himself. As He did in the Centurion who, seeing Him die with such constancy, resignation, and piety, while crying out "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit," exclaimed: "Indeed this was the Son of God" [Matt. 27]. Indeed also one of the thieves on the cross itself, moved and compuncted by Christ's holy patience, rebuked his companion blaspheming, and converted to Christ, before the Jews and Scribes said: "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom." The same did the Jews and others, concerning whom Luke says [Luke 23:48]: "And all the multitude of them who were together at that spectacle, seeing the things that were done... returned striking their breasts." As if lamenting and indigning at the holy death of their Creator.
Hence also Christ by so much obedience and patience to God the Father, as if he had injected reverence of Himself, obtained from Him whatever He postulated. For "with a strong cry and tears offering, He was heard for his reverence" [Heb. 5:7].
Examples of Martyrs:
In a similar way, Martyrs in their martyrdoms showed forth so much equity, constancy, piety, holiness, hilarity in countenance and words, that they compelled their torturers to reverence of themselves, and made them Christians, indeed Martyrs.
Thus St. Lawrence, by the joy and alacrity of his torments, converted St. Romanus and Hippolytus with their whole family, so that all to a man generously underwent martyrdom.
Thus St. Cecilia by her hilarity converted Maximus and others, four hundred.
Thus St. Polycarpus, by his venerable canity, comity, promptitude, and sanctity, injected so much pudor and fear into the soldiers sent to apprehend him, they scarcely dared to touch him (testified by Eusebius, Hist. 4, c. 15).
Thus St. Thecla, object to lions, by virginal pudor remained unharmed, reverend to the same lions. Concerning whom St. Ambrose (Epist. 25 to the Church of Vercelli): "With what gift," he says, "was venerable Thecla even to the lions, that the beasts, stretched out for their prey, unfed, carried her away with sacred fasting? It was to be seen that the lion did not approach the virgin with procacious eye, nor ever violate her with harsh [touch], because by the aspect itself of virginity holiness is violated."
The same [Ambrose] more fully and elegantly (On Virgins, 2, near the beginning): "Thecla," he says, "changed the nature even of beasts by the veneration of virginity. For when prepared for the beasts she declined even the aspect of men, and offered her very vitals to the lion, she made those who had brought impudicious eyes carry back pudicious ones." Then graphically depicting the reverent gestures of the lions, he subjoins: "You would see the beast lying on the ground with bent feet, testifying with mute sound that it could not violate the sacred body of the virgin. Therefore the beast adored its prey, and forgetful of its own nature, put on the nature which men had omitted. You might see, by a certain transfusion of nature, men induded with ferocity, commanding savagery; the beast kissing the feet of the virgin, teaching what men ought to do." Whence by an epiphonema exaggerating he concludes: "So much admiration has virginity, that even lions admire it. It bent not the unfed with food, it snatched not the citated impetus, it exasperated not those stimulated by anger, use deceived not those accustomed, nature possessed not the fierce. They taught religion while they adore the Martyr; they taught also chastity while they kiss nothing of the virgin except the plants, with eyes demersed into the earth, as if verecund lest any male or beast see the virgin naked."
Learn here how much modesty, meekness, piety, and patience is reverend, and how much it makes its followers venerable and reverend. He therefore who seeks for himself authority and reverence, let him seek it not by ostentation of gravity, not by pomp of chariots and followers, but by meekness, beneficence, and virtue.
"...and let us prove his patience."
So also read St. Cyprian, Lactantius, and St. Augustine. Some codices for dokimasōmen (let us prove) read dikasōmen (let us judge). Rightly do the impious, for exploring the justice of the just one, especially Christ, prove his patience. For patience is the Lydian stone by which true justice and sanctity are proved. For "Touch the mountains," that is, the proud, impatient, "and they shall smoke" [Ps. 143:5]; for they will exhale smoke of anger, quarrels, maledictions, and vindicta. This is what Paul says [Rom. 5:3]: "Tribulation works patience; patience indeed probation; probation vero hope." And St. James [James 1:4]: "But patience has a perfect work, that you may show the virtue of the patient to have evaded to the summit of sanctity and perfection."
Moreover, in Christ, before other Saints and Martyrs, so great and so divine patience, constancy, and charity shone forth in so many blasphemies, injuries, torments, most atrocious and immense, inasmuch as they were cast upon God Himself, that He prayed to God for the Jews themselves killing Him, and impetrated for them pardon and salvation. So that this alone sufficed to prove Him to be the Messiah and Prophet, indeed God and the Son of God, especially because for showing this the virtue itself was employed and exhibited by Christ. For virtue is the sole index of truth, and therefore alien from all fucus; wherefore it cannot be witness of falsity, but must be the index of truth alone, both to Jews and Gentiles. To the Jews from the Law.
Condemnation to a Most Shameful Death
Wis 2:20 "Let us condemn him to a most shameful death..."
In Greek aschēmona, that is: Indecorous, foul, deformed, so that there is not to him species nor decor [Isa. 53], contumelious, infamous, and therefore shameful by excellence, that is, most shameful, namely of the cross. The Syriac: To public and infamous death let us depute him.
For the supplice of the cross, especially of those affixed to it with nails, was an atrocious and long death, whence from the cross cruciatus (torment) is said; and the same was most ignominious. Deut. 21:23: "Cursed by God is he who hangs on a tree." Wherefore the crucified is ordered there to be buried the same day before evening, lest he contaminate the land. Whence the Apostle [Gal. 3:13]: "Christ," he says, "redeemed us from the maledict of the Law, made for us a maledict, because it is written: Cursed is every one who hangs on a tree." Similarly among the Romans and Gentiles the cross was an infamous and horrendous supplice of latrons and scelerates. See Lipsius and Gretserus On the Cross.
The Cause of Crucifixion:
The cause therefore why Christ was crucified, on the part of the Jews crucifying Him, was their immense hatred of Christ, by which they drove Him to the cross as to a most infamous and atrocious death. On the part vero of Adam and men, it was because Adam sinned on wood, namely eating the apple of the forbidden tree; wherefore on the wood of the cross it was fitting and due that this crime of his inobedience be expiated by Christ, and that the devil, who conquered on wood, also be conquered on wood by Christ. On the part vero of God offended, the cause was love of justice, that by it the gravity of the offense of Adam and men against God be shown, namely that by it they made themselves reos of eternal malediction, and consequently became a maledict. Christ therefore took upon Himself the maledict of Adam and men to be lued and expiated, and therefore was suffixed to the cross, because on the cross among the Jews by the Law already cited He was cursed and a maledict. The atrocity therefore of the fault from equal justice postulated atrocity of pain, that condign satisfaction be made to it. Such is the pain of the cross.
On the part of Christ the cause was immensity of love, that by the cross Christ show how much He loved us, inasmuch as for us He suffered things so dire and hard, and that He give to us mortification for crucifying continually the motions of concupiscence, and martyrdom for any death however horrid and probrosam to be willingly undergone for Himself and virtue, as the Martyrs underwent, to Christ crucified, as far as they could, par pari, namely rendering dolor to dolor and love to love. Whence St. Augustine on Psalm 140: "The cross," he says, "which nothing seemed more execrable, the Lord Himself took up, lest His disciples fear not even death, nor shudder the horror of death." The same (Homily 32 On the Saints): "The whole life of a Christian man, if lived according to the Gospel, is a cross and martyrdom." See more at Gretserus book 1 On the Cross, c. 41, 42, and following, and book 4, c. 1, and following; and D. Thomas, Suarez, and the Scholastics, 3 part, question 48, art. 4; and Cassian, book 4 On Institutes, renunc. c. 34 & 35.
The Irony of Divine Regard
Wis 2:20 "For there will be regard had of his words..."
Instead of regard (respectus), in Greek it is episkopē, that is: Observation, visitation, consideration, inspection. A triple sense can be here:
First, Clarius, who translates: For from his words and facts let us inspect what he is. And the Syriac: But let there be against him interrogation from his words. As if to say: While he is afflicted by us, we shall consider and inspect from his words what kind he is, says Jansenius. Or as if to say: If on the cross we shall be able to extinguish Him, we shall recognize Him to have lied when He named Himself the Son of God, who is immortal. So St. Bonaventure, Denis, Lyra, and others. Or as Osorius and Lorinus: Let us crucify Him, that from His words which vehement dolor shall have expressed, we may judge concerning the mind of the man. For the Jews wished by the atrocity of the cross and torments to elicit truth from the mouth of Christ, as if terrified or cruciated He were about to speak something which He had not yet wished, or openly say what He had simulated or dissimulated. This sense satisfies the Greek episkopē sufficiently, not equally the Latin respectus.
Second, it is that of Vatablus, who translates: He shall be treated according to his sayings. As if to say: Because He blasphemed, calling God His Father and Himself His Son, He shall pay condign pains of this blasphemy on the cross. And Hugo: There shall be, he says, our respect, that is, defense, accusation, that if we be asked why we killed Him, we respond: Because He made Himself the Son of God.
Third, and more genuine, it is that it be irony: God will look upon Him and liberate Him from the cross, or raise Him from death. For this He vaunted by frequent sermons. Whence Guarinus translates: For his ratio shall be had according to His Sermons. Hence also the Scribes sealed the sepulcher of Christ and placed guards for it, lest anyone steal the body and feign Him to have risen; which things condemned the Jews themselves and demonstrated Christ to be the true Messiah and Son of God, when He through the closed sepulcher, with guards present, rose [Matt. 27].
Otherwise, our a Castro: He shall be visited and explored by us through the cross and torments, that we may see whether his patience and constancy respond to his sermon. For He preaches love of the cross, patience, constancy; let us experience whether He on the cross perform the same in work. For many preach fasting, well fed; continence, adulterers; humility, the proud; meekness, the iracund; the cross, the laut and delicate. This is to preach with the mouth but contradict with the work.
The Error and Blindness of the Wicked
Wis 2:21 "These things they thought, and they erred..."
St. Gaudientius (Serm. 19) reads: the nequitia of their heart. Lactantius (book 4, c. 16): their stultitia. Hitherto the words of the impious, which now the Wise Man chastises with sharp reprehension. They erred, he says, and by their malice they were blinded. For a bad affect in the will draws to itself the reason and judgment of the intellect, and vitiates and corrupts it; for it makes reason judge the species of delectable good apparent to be that which is to be elected as better, which is to be detested as worse.
Moreover, this error and blindness of the impious is multiple:
First, that they prefer pleasure to reason, vice to truth, caduca goods to eternal.
Second, that by these they summon death and Gehenna for themselves.
Third, that they believe man like a beast plainly perishes in death, nor does another life survive, because the soul of men is mortal and perishes with the body.
Fourth, that the just one, namely Christ, whom from holiness of life, prophecies, and miracles they could and ought to recognize as the Son of God, they hated and crucified as a chastiser of their crimes.
These men in Gehenna recognize their error. Whence they say [Wis. 5:6]: "Therefore we have erred from the way of truth." Hence it is clear:
First, this blindness is grave, not only a punishment but also a fault, inasmuch as it emanates from voluntary malice, as D. Thomas teaches (2-2, question 15, art. 1).
Second, the sinner properly and directly blinds and obdurates himself, God vero improperly and indirectly. For God, as much as is from Himself, illuminates every man coming into this world, but sinners do not wish to receive this light, and close their eyes to it, and open them to their pleasures and cupidities; wherefore they deprive and blind themselves of true light, just as the sun scatters rays everywhere, but he who closes the window to it is the cause of darkness in the house, not the sun itself. So D. Thomas (1-2, q. 79, art. 3). This is what Christ upbraids the Jews [John 3:19]: "Light," he says, "has come into the world, and men loved darkness more than light; for their works were evil." See what I have said Exodus 7:3, where I treated fully concerning the cause of excæcation and obduration.
Ignorance of the Mysteries of God
Wis 2:22 "And they knew not the sacraments of God..."
Behold here is the error and blindness of the impious, and it is double: First, that they knew not the Sacraments of God; second, which follows from the first, is that they hoped not for the reward of justice, nor judged the honor of holy souls. The first this place pursues, the second the following chapter.
Therefore sacramenta, or as in Greek mysteria, are in this place those which he subjoins, namely: that God created man immortal and to His similitude, but man by the envy of the devil deceived adhered to him through sin and made himself mortal and miserable; and that the just ones, whom God permits to be killed and vexed by the impious, He will premiate with eternal glory, as He will say in the following chapter. In the cross therefore glory lies hidden, and in death immortality.
The Sacraments of the Cross:
Such are the Sacraments of the Lord our Jesus Christ, because in it is salvation, life, resurrection, our glory. But the impious ignore these sacraments, and therefore spurn the cross and Christ crucified. The Apostle: "Far be it from me," he says, "to glory, save in the cross" [Gal. 6:14].
Secondly, others by sacraments understand holier things; others the prophecies and oracles of God; others sacrifices. As if to say: The impious know not the just ones killed by them to be the sacraments of God, that is, sacrifices and holocausts.
Others accept the counsels, judgments, and works of God by which He governs the world, and especially by which He created man and decreed to redeem him fallen through the Incarnation and Passion of Christ. For this is the work of God and maximum. So Cantacuzenus. For concerning the Nativity and Passion of Christ long sermon has preceded and follows c. 18 & 14. For great mysteries are recondite in the cross of Christ, as the exaltation of Christ, the institution of the Church, the sanctification of the faithful, consolation, virtue, grace, glory, felicity, every good, which the impious Jews ignored.
Mystically: The Eucharist:
Mystically by sacraments you may accept the Sacraments of the new Law instituted by Christ, especially the Eucharist. For it was a type of manna, as will be clear c. 16 & 20. For it is called by antonomasia the Venerable Sacrament, indeed Sacraments, because it contains many and those wonderful things of God. Whence by the Fathers it is called Sacrament, Mystery, Type, Antitype, because under the species of bread and wine it veils and contains the real body, soul, blood, divinity, and person of Christ, and consequently the very living representation, indeed exhibition, of the Incarnation and Passion of Christ, of which hitherto act has been. Just as the other Sacraments exhibit and confer the grace which they signify, namely ablution from sins, so the Eucharist exhibits the body of Christ which it signifies.
But heretics know not and understand not the Sacraments of God, who wish them to be only symbols of bread, which do not contain but only represent the body of Christ. But thus far better does a painter represent Christ than arid bread and wine. And what, I ask, would be there profound, divine, and inexplicable which the Fathers so celebrate? For to represent one thing by another is to God, indeed to man, most easy. Wherefore truly the Church and Fathers hold this Sacrament to be a symbol of the thing, namely of the flesh of Christ once crucified, but present, absent, and existing in heaven. For this is wonderful, ineffable, and worthy of God, a work and Sacrament.
Hear Tertullian (book 4 Against Marcion, near the end): "He made the bread His body, saying: This is my body," that is, the figure of my body. But it would have been a figure unless it were the body of truth. Which place I explained Jer. 11:19. And Theodoret (Dialog. 3), who Apathēs (Impassible): "But if the flesh," he says, "is changed into nature, which the heretics Eutychians said, wherefore do they participate the antitype of the body? For superfluous is the type, the truth denied; now superfluous is the type, indeed false, the truth of the real presence of the body of Christ denied."
And Hilary (On Consecration, dist. 2): "The body of Christ which is taken from the altar is a figure while bread and wine are seen, but when the Body and Blood of Christ are believed in truth interiorly."
St. Chrysostom (Hom. 83 in Matt.), explaining this Sacrament: "He reduces us," he says, "with Himself into one mass, as I may say, nor by faith only, but He makes us His body."
And St. Cyril on that [word] Vine, the Savior says: "He who eats my flesh abides in me, and I in him." Whence it is to be considered that Christ is in us not by habitude only, which is understood through charity, but truly also by participation of His nature.
St. Ambrose (book On Mysteries, and is cited On Consecration, dist. 2): "In that Sacrament Christ is, because it is the Body of Christ; not therefore corporal food, but spiritual." And the Apostle concerning its type says: "Because our fathers ate spiritual food." For the body of God is a spiritual body; the body of Christ is the body of the divine spirit.
St. Epiphanius (Against Melchisedechians): "Melchisedech," he says, "proposed breads and wine, prefiguring the enigmas of mysteries and exemplars." For as St. Jerome says to Marcella: "While he offered bread and wine, he dedicated the Christian mystery in the Body and Blood of the Savior." The same on c. 26 Matt.: "After the typical Pasch he passes to the true Paschal Sacrament, that as in the prefiguration of it Melchisedech, Priest of the most high God, offering bread and wine had done, so he also might represent the truth of His Body and Blood."
And St. Macarius (Hom. 27) says that what operates in the Church bread and wine, the antitype, that is, representing the present not absent flesh and blood of the Lord, and that those who participate Him who appears bread, spiritually eat the flesh of the Lord. The Eucharist is the mystery of mysteries, because Christ whom sensibly by the species of bread as food of the soul it represents, spiritually, that is insensibly, as if an Angel under the species of bread latent, it exhibits, truly, really, and substantially.
"...nor did they hope for the reward of justice..."
In Greek hosiōtētos, that is: Of sanctity. For justice is the complex of all virtues, and itself sanctity.
"...nor did they judge the honor of holy souls."
In Greek amōmōn, that is: Irreprehensibles. For holy souls are those which in nothing can be reprehended. Instead of honor, in Greek it is geras, that is: Decus, dignity, prize, honor, munus, donum, remuneration.
The sense is that the impious did not reckon with themselves, did not estimate as was fitting, of what honors, what crowns, what dignities, what prizes are prepared by God for the holy souls which in this life served Him in continence, purity, patience, persecution. And consequently judging their lot miserable and infelicitous, they delivered themselves to pleasures and libidines, and accordingly persecuted them themselves and despoiled them of goods and life. But late they shall experience and recognize their error, when the holy souls, assiding to Christ in judgment, shall be their judges, and shall condemn them to the supplices of eternal Gehenna, as will be explained c. 3, 4, & 5.
Otherwise explains Angelus de Paz (Exposition on the Symbol, c. 23), namely that by the honor of holy souls all Saints are understood, whom the impious in Christ judged and condemned tacitly, Himself being judged and condemned.
CONTINUE
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