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Chapter 38OdoC.2.38

Caput XXXVII

The World's Confusion and the Call to Mourn

Drawing on Isaiah and Hosea, the speaker laments the present age as one of moral disorder in which truth is hidden, the humble are crushed, and even judges become instruments of oppression.

Isaiah says: The angels of peace will weep bitterly (Isa.✦ XXXIII, 7).✦ Whoever therefore belongs to these people and not to those of whom it is said: A seduced dove, having no heart (Hosea VII, 11), and to whom it is said: Why have you not had more mourning?✦✦ (I Cor.✦ V, 2.)✦ This present time of life must be mourned, in which all things are so confused that you cannot see even a trace of truth anywhere, while you perceive everything to be filled with wickedness and luxury, and nothing preserved justly or rightly: you see the humble and the weak, and those who are poorer, being crushed by the proud and the powerful and the rich, afflicted and unjustly harmed; indeed, any honorable and peaceable person is thrown about by many injuries: on the contrary, each worst individual is heaped up by power, becomes terrible, and is swollen with success and grows greater in evil deeds — through which neither the fear of judges nor the reverence due to sacred authority can prevail, nor can their destruction be restrained in any way. But what do we say about the judges? For even those who had been appointed to restrain these things wield heavier storms and more destructive ones against the wretched.

Prophetic Rebuke of Earthly Leaders

The injustice pervading city, countryside, land, and sea is confronted by the voices of Micah and Jeremiah, who indict rulers for knowing God's justice yet breaking His yoke.

This unjust and unfair inequality is committed and carried out not only in cities but also in the countryside, and not only on land but also at sea. And to the leaders in particular the prophet says: 'Surely you ought to know what justice is?'✦1 (Mic. III, 1.) And another says: 'Perhaps they are foolish and ignorant of the way of the Lord?'✦2 'I will go, therefore, to the nobles, for they themselves have known the judgment of their God, and yet — look — these have broken the yoke all the more.'✦3 'For these things shall I not punish them?' says the Lord.✦4 (Jer.

God's Inescapable Judgment and Compassionate Grief

Through Malachi and Amos, the speaker declares that no sinner can flee God's swift witness, yet those who grieve over such ruin share in the divine compassion that wept over Israel and Jerusalem.

V, 4, 5.) He will surely visit, and as Malachi says, he will be a swift witness against evildoers, against adulterers, against perjurers, and against slanderers.✦ And, as Amos says, there will be no escape for them; but if they ascend to heaven, he will drag them down from there, and if they hide themselves in the depths of the sea, he will command the serpent there, and it will bite them.✦ Anyone, therefore, who considers either the cause of those who receive the grace of God in vain and, returning to diabolical servitude, perish — or the miseries of those who, afflicted beyond measure, fall into murmuring or into despair, and incur both temporal and lasting losses — there is enough here to be grieved and to mourn.✦ Those, however, who are able to be grieved over these things — God himself can be grieved in two ways: he is recorded to have grieved over the miseries of the children of Israel, and to have wept over Jerusalem, which was about to perish.✦✦

Read the original Latin

Dicit Isaias: Angeli pacis amare flebunt (Isa. XXXIII, 7). Quisquis ergo de istis est, et non de illis, de quibus dicitur: Columba seducta, non habens cor (Osee VII, 11), et quibus dicitur: Quare non magis luctum habuistis? (I Cor. V, 2.) Lugendum est ei presentis vitae tempus, in quo sunt ita omnia confusa, ut veritatis quidem nec vestigium usquam videas, nequitiae vero atque luxuriae cuncta esse repleta prospicias, nec aliquid juste recteque servari: humiles et invalidos, atque pauperiores videas, a superbis et potentibus divitibusque comprimi, affligi atque injuste Iaedi; honestum vero quemquam et quietum multis laesionibus perturbari: econtra unumquemque pessimum potentia cumulari, terribilem fieri, et tumido successu in malis augeri, quibus nec judicum metus, nec reverentia sacrae auctoritatis praevalere potest, nec eorum perniciem ullatenus cohibere. Sed quid de judicibus dicimus? Nam et ipsi, qui ad haec reprimenda constituti fuerant, graviores tempestates et perniciosiores in miseros exercent.

Haec autem iniqua atque injusta inaequalitas non solum in urbibus, sed et in agris; et non solum in terra, sed et in mari committitur et exercetur. Et primoribus quidem propheta dicit: Nonne vestrum est judicium scire? (Mich. III, 1.) Et item alius dicit: Forsitan stulti sunt et ignorantes viam Domini? Ibo igitur ad optimates: ipsi enim cognoverunt judicium Dei sui, et ecce hi magis confregerunt jugum. Nunquid super his non visitabo, dicit Dominus? (Jer.

V, 4, 5.) Visitabit certe, et sicut Malachias dicit, erit testis velox maleficis, adulteris, et perjuris, et calummiatoribus. Et, sicut Amos dicit, non erit eis fuga; sed si ascenderint ad coelum, inde detrahet eos, et si celaverint se in profundum maris, ibi mandabit serpenti, et mordebit eos. Quisquis igitur considerat vel causam eorum, qui gratiam Dei in vacuum recipientes, et ad diabolicam servitutem redeuntes pereunt, vel miserias eorum, qui innumerabiliter afflicti, aut in murmurationem aut in desperationem excedentes, et temporalia et mansura damna incurrunt, satis est unde contristetur, et lugeat. Qui autem super his contristari possunt, Deum dupliciter qui super miserias filiorum Israel legitur doluisse, super perituram Hierusalem flevisse.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Isa.33.7 — Behold, their brave ones cry out in the streets; the messengers of peace weep bitterly.
  2. ↩Isa.33.7 — Behold, their brave ones cry out in the streets; the messengers of peace weep bitterly.
  3. ↩Hos.7.11 — Ephraim has been like a dove, easily deceived and without sense; they called to Egypt; they went to Assyria.
  4. ↩1Cor.5.2 — And you are arrogant. Should you not rather have mourned, so that the one who did this deed might be removed from among you?
  5. ↩1Cor.5.2 — And you are arrogant. Should you not rather have mourned, so that the one who did this deed might be removed from among you?
  6. ↩1Cor.5.2 — And you are arrogant. Should you not rather have mourned, so that the one who did this deed might be removed from among you?
  7. ↩Mic.3.1 — And I said: Hear this, heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know justice?
  8. ↩Jer.5.4 — But I said, "They are only the poor and simple; they have acted foolishly, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.
  9. ↩Jer.5.5 — I will go to the great ones and speak with them, for they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God. But they too have broken the yoke and torn off the bonds.
  10. ↩Jer.5.9 — "Should I not punish for these things?" declares the LORD. "Or on a nation such as this should my soul not take vengeance?"
  11. ↩Mal.3.5 — Then I will draw near to you for judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the sojourner, and those who do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.
  12. ↩Amos.9.2-Amos.9.3 — Though they dig into Sheol, from there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. Amos.9.3 — And if they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they conceal themselves from my sight in the bottom of the sea, from there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them.
  13. ↩2Cor.6.1 — As God's fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain.
  14. ↩Luke.19.41 — And as he drew near, when he saw the city, he wept over it,
  15. ↩Judg.10.16 — They put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD, and his soul was grieved by the misery of Israel.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Nonne vestrum est judicium scire? is rendered to capture the rhetorical force of nonne (expecting assent): the prophet is rebuking leaders for failing in a duty they should have known. The Latin is compressed; 'Surely you ought to know what justice is' unpacks the implied obligation.
  2. 2 ↩forsitan introduces a tone of ironic or indignant questioning — the speaker does not genuinely doubt but implies the answer is obvious. Rendered as 'Perhaps' to preserve the rhetorical tentativeness.
  3. 3 ↩The colon after optimates marks a shift to direct divine speech. Ibo igitur ad optimates continues the quotation from Jeremiah 5:5. Ecce hi magis confregerunt jugum renders the prophetic indictment that the leaders, despite knowing God's judgment, have rebelled more egregiously than the common people.
  4. 4 ↩Nunquid ... non visitabo is a double-negative rhetorical question expecting the answer 'yes, I will.' Nunquid expects a negative answer to the question it introduces, but combined with non the force becomes emphatic affirmation: 'Surely I will punish them.' Rendered as a straightforward rhetorical question preserving the divine speech register.

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