VISIO DECIMA, cap. XI
The Dimmed Crown and the Spattered Tunic
Christ laments how self-will, disobedience, and worldly contamination have dimmed His crown and spattered His tunic, leaving the Church's orders weary and joyless.
My crown is dimmed by the division of wandering minds, because each person makes a law for himself according to his own will, and those who ought to have a teacher and endure his rod want instead to be teachers themselves, ruling themselves with an insolent self-approval and calling whatever they choose useful; and so, because they trust in themselves, they are faithless, and they do not attain the salvation of life — from themselves or from anyone else — which no one but God can give. For through all these things my crown is dimmed, because those who do these things do not look at me in that clarity in which I came forth from God. My tunic too is spattered with the dust of the earth, and those who put on the tunic of the Son of God by forsaking the world with a holy and good way of life contaminate it, because they mingle with harlots, as it is written of the younger son in the Gospel. For they are yoked to Christ's yoke through the imitation of circumcision and the legal constitution of the priests, but by transgressing they are adulterers, and they do not cry out with the younger son who runs back to his father, saying, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you,' and they treat the evil of adultery as something settled by custom for them. And so they stain my tunic with the dust of sinners, and they do not shake that same dust from it through repentance, but like maggots they nestle in the rot of sin. For this reason they are blind, deaf, and mute, not crying out about my office and not discerning my judgment; but they swallow greediness and do not heal wounds, because they are full of wounds, and they are deaf to the Scripture that speaks to them, neither hearing it themselves nor teaching it to others. And in these ways there is weariness in all the established orders of the church, and she walks as if without a staff, because all her established ways have now nearly failed. For when the sun is clouded over in a cloud, there is no joy of gladness in created things, nor even among peoples when they are without a king.
Rules Without Practice and the Cry of Justice
The rules of the Church are practiced without obedience, provoking divine judgment; Christ as Justice cries out against those who stripped Him, calling fierce judges to avenge the wolves who pursue His lambs.
The rules of the church's orders have grown dim, because they want their rules to be named without any practice, and so there is no true joy in them either, just as there is no true joy in faith without works. Truly, this won't last, and it won't stand, because God's judgment threatens those who carry out all their own desires in their own possession, as though they were apart from God. For I, who rose up in the ancient counsel to God's judgment, cry out in complaint against those who stripped my cloak from me and left me destitute of all my adornments; and I call their judges against themselves to my aid, in the same calling in which the creator of all called the woman when he took her from the man, so that she might make for him a helper like himself. For just as the woman is subject to the man and bears children, so too people ought to hear God's commands through me and obey them. And because they don't do this, but neglect me—so every time I am struck by them, God's judgment surrounds them, as it happened in ancient times through the flood; and as it has happened many times under the old law and under the new law, just as it still happens more frequently. For I am called Justice, and the Church was born of me through regeneration of spirit and water, and we are one, just as God and man are one. Therefore I will cry out to the fiercest judges, who will avenge me of the mad bites of those who pursue me like wolves after lambs. Yet even those who are sinners don't feast on a fattened calf, but are like the Samaritans, who wanted to exist in two laws.
The Mockery of False Worship
Sinners who delay obedience and keep commandments at their own pleasure are likened to the prophets of Baal mocked by Elijah, deceived by their own presumption and far from God's grace.
And so they will be turned into the mockery of the prophet Elijah, who, as if in jest, told those who worshipped Baal that they should cry out with a louder voice.✦ For if Baal were God, perhaps he would be speaking, or he would be in an inn, or on a journey, or at least he would be sleeping — so that he might be woken up.✦ And so they are also deceived, because the grace of God is far from them: they do not keep the commandments they have received, but throw them behind their back, saying, 'When we want to, we will observe the commandments of our God — because a short time in correction is all it takes for them to be pleased with themselves.' »
God's Unfailing Light and Forbearing Mercy
God, surveying the losses of justice in His own glory, overlooks sins for the sake of repentance but does not abandon sinners to forgetfulness.
Because God, surveying these losses of justice in the unfailing light of his own glory, though he may overlook people's sins for the sake of their repentance, does not hand them over to forgetfulness, and his words rest upon this very point.
Read the original Latin
Corona mea schismate errantium mentium obnubilata est, quoniam quisque secundum voluntatem suam legem sibi constituit, et qui magistrum deberent habere, ac virgam illius pati, magistri esse volunt, atque petulanti constitutione semetipsos regentes, et utile dicentes quidquid eligunt; sicque infideles existentes, quia in se confidunt, nec a se ipsis, nec ab aliis hoc modo salutem vitae consequuntur, quam nemo praeter Deum dare potest. Nam per omnia haec corona mea obnubilata est, quoniam ista facientes in claritate illa me non inspiciunt, qua a Deo processi. Tunica quoque mea pulvere terrae aspersa est, quam illi contaminant, qui sancta et bona conversatione, saeculo relicto, tunicam Filii Dei induunt, quoniam meretricibus se admiscent, quemadmodum de juniore evangelico filio scriptum dignoscitur. Jugo namque Christi per imitationem circumcisionis et legalis constitutionis sacerdotum jugati sunt; sed praevaricando fornicatores existunt, nec cum juniore filio clamant, qui ad patrem suum recurrit dicens: « Pater, peccavi in coelum et coram te , » malumque adulterii velut eis constitutum sit in consuetudine habent. Quapropter et tunicam meam pulvere peccatorum maculant, nec ab ea eumdem per poenitentiam pulverem excutiunt, sed quasi vermes in putredine peccatorum se fovent. Hinc etenim caeci, surdi et muti sunt, officium meum non clamantes, nec judicium meum judicantes; sed avaritiam deglutiunt, et vulnera non sanant, quia vulneribus pleni sunt, et ad Scripturam quae eis loquitur surdi sunt, eam nec audiendo, nec eam alios docendo. Et his modis taedium in omnibus constitutis ordinibus ecclesiae est, ipsaque velut sine baculo incedit, quoniam omnes constitutiones suae jam pene defecerunt. Cum enim sol in nube obnubilatus fuerit, gaudium jucunditatis in creaturis non est, nec etiam in populis, cum sine rege sunt.
Constitutiones namque ecclesiasticorum ordinum obnubilatae sunt, quia constitutiones absque opere nominari solummodo volunt, ideoque etiam verum gaudium in ipsis non est, sicut nec in fide quae sine operibus est. Vere istud sic non perdurabit, nec permanebit, quoniam judicium Dei his minatur, qui omnes voluntates suas in proprietate sua quasi absque Deo sint complent. Ego enim quae in antiquo consilio surrexi ad judicium Dei clamo de his querimoniam faciens, qui pallium meum a me abstraxerunt, et qui omnibus ornamentis meis me destituerunt; judicesque eorum adversum ipsos in adjutorium mihi advoco, in eadem vocatione qua creator cunctorum mulierem vocavit, quando illam de viro tulit, quatenus faceret ei adjutorium simile sibi. Quemadmodum enim mulier viro subdita est, et ut filios producit, sic etiam homines praecepta Dei per me deberent audire, eisque obedire. Et quia hoc non faciunt, sed me negligunt; idcirco quoties ab eis percutior, toties judicium Dei ipsos vallat, velut in antiquo tempore per diluvium accidit; et ut in veteri lege, et in nova lege multoties factum est, sicut et adhuc saepius fit. Ego quippe Justitia nominor, et Ecclesia per regenerationem spiritus et aquae de me orta est, et unum sumus, sicut etiam Deus et homo unus sunt. Igitur ferocissimis judicibus clamabo, qui me vindicabunt de furiosis morsibus illorum, qui me, ut lupi agnos, persequuntur. Ipsi quoque peccatores existentes cum saginato vitulo non epulantur, sed Samaritanis similes sunt, qui in duabus legibus esse volebant.
Quapropter et in irrisionem Eliae prophetae convertentur, qui illis qui Baal colebant, quasi illudendo dicebat, quod clamarent voce majore. Deus enim si esset Baal, et forsitan loqueretur, aut in diversorio esset, aut in itinere, aut certe dormiret ut excitaretur. Et ideo etiam decepti sunt, quoniam gratia Dei longe ab eis est, quia praecepta quae suscipiunt non servant, sed illa retrorsum projiciunt dicentes: « Cum voluerimus praecepta Dei nostri observabimus, quia modicum tempus in correptione ipsi placet. »
Quia Deus ista justitiae detrimenta in indeficienti lumine claritatis suae considerans, quamvis peccata hominum propter poenitentiam dissimulet, oblivioni non tradat, et verba ipsius super hoc idem.
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Kgs.18.27 — And at noon Elijah mocked them and said, "Call out with a loud voice, for he is a god! Either he is musing, or he is busy, or he is on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened."
- ↩1Kgs.18.27 — And at noon Elijah mocked them and said, "Call out with a loud voice, for he is a god! Either he is musing, or he is busy, or he is on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened."
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