CAPUT XLIV. Quale sit, vel quantum habere perfectum zelum animarum
The Greatest Grace: Converting Souls
Describes the surpassing grace of being able to convert others from sin, comparing it favorably to raising the dead, and declares it the fitting dowry for the Bride of Christ.
Anyone who can, consider what kind of son this is, and how great his strength is: through his role, each person not only strengthens himself against vices, but also strives to rescue others from the traps of sin, and for those whose malice he cannot improve, he at least works to hold them in check by resisting it. I don't know whether a human being can receive anything greater from God in this life; I don't know whether, for the time being, God can grant a person any greater grace than this: that through his ministry the perverse may be changed for the better, so that from children of the devil they may be made children of God. Or will it perhaps seem to someone that raising the dead is greater? So then, will it be greater to raise flesh that will die again than a soul that will live forever? So then, will it be greater to call flesh back to the joys of the world than to restore to a soul the joys of heaven? So then, will it be greater to restore to the flesh goods that pass away and will perish again than to give back to the soul eternal goods that will last forever? Oh, what a dowry, what great dignity, to receive such grace from God!1 God's bride should not receive any other dowry from her Bridegroom, and it was not fitting for the heavenly Bridegroom to give his bride any other dowry than this: that through the grace of adoption she might bring many sons to birth for God, and from children of wrath and children of Gehenna enroll them as heirs of the heavenly kingdom.
The Dowry of Zeal
Leah's exclamation at the birth of Zebulun and the psalmist's declaration of hatred for wickedness illustrate the perfection of zeal for souls.
Rightly, then, when Zebulun is born, his mother Leah cries out: God has enriched me with a good dowry. Do you see what it is like—and how great a thing it is—truly to possess zeal for justice, to bear hatred of vices from the heart, and to put it into practice in truth?2 Whoever has borne such a son sings with the Prophet in confident trust: I have hated every wicked way.
Read the original Latin
Cogitet qui potest qualis sit hic filius, quanta sit ejus virtus, cujus officio quisque non solum seipsum contra vitia munit, sed etiam alios a peccati laqueis eripere contendit, et quorum non potest malitiam in melius mutare, nititur saltem resistendo reprimere. Nescio si potest homo aliquid a Deo in hac vita majus accipere; ignoro an possit hac gratia interim majorem aliquam Deus homini conferre quam ut ejus ministerio perversi homines in melius mutentur, ut de filiis diaboli filii Dei efficiantur. An forte cuiquam magis videbitur esse mortuos suscitare? Ergone majus erit suscitare carnem iterum morituram, quam animam in aeternum victuram? Ergone majus erit carnem revocare ad gaudia mundi, quam animae restituere gaudia coeli? Ergone majus erit restituere carni bona transeuntia iterum peritura, quam animae reddere bona aeterna in aeternum mansura? O qualis dos, quanta dignitas talem gratiam a Deo accipere! Non debuit Dei sponsa a sponso suo dotem aliam accipere, non decuit coelestem sponsum sponsae suae dotem aliam donare, quam ut per adoptionis gratiam possit multos Deo filios gignere, et de filiis irae filiisque gehennae, regni coelestis haeredes ascribere.
Merito ergo Zabulon nato exclamat mater ejus Lia: Ditavit me Deus dote bona. Videsne quale, quantumve sit zelum justitiae veraciter possidere, et vitiorum ex corde gerere, in veritate exercere? Qui talem filium genuit, cum Propheta fiducialiter psallit: Omnem viam iniquam odio habui.
Notes
- 1 ↩dos keeps the bridal-dowry image that Leah's exclamation (next section) and s8 develop; not mere 'gift.'
- 2 ↩Latin has vitiorum ... gerere without an explicit accusative object (e.g. odium). Rendered as 'bear hatred of vices' from chapter context (hatred of vices / zeal against sin); alternative is shared object zelum: 'carry zeal against vices from the heart'.
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