Moralitates
Noah's Vineyard and the Mystery of the Cross
Noah's drunkenness and nakedness in the vineyard prefigure Christ's crucifixion, the Church as the vine, and the faithful who cover Christ through love.
Noah was the first to plant a vineyard; he got drunk, passed out stripped naked, and his firstborn son mocked him, while his secondborn covered and clothed him.✦ Noah prefigures Christ, for just as Noah planted a vine in the renewal of the world after the flood, so Christ planted the church after the flood of the Old Law's transgressions.✦ The vine, then, is the church, which has produced as many branches as elect ones, from righteous Abel to the last of the elect.✦ The wine, on the other hand, points to Christ's blood; the intoxication figures a spiritual intoxication of love, by which Christ was intoxicated and fell asleep on the cross, stripped bare.✦ The mockery of the firstborn signifies the mockery of the Jews and of other unbelievers, because the crucifixion of Christ was indeed a stumbling block to the Jews, but to the Gentiles it seemed foolishness.✦✦ This is why the Jews, who were the firstborn adopted sons of God, mocked the Son of God as he was stripped bare on the cross.✦✦ The secondborn designates the faithful people redeemed by Christ's blood.✦ The covering is love — by it the faithful cover Christ when they clothe the poor and the naked, in accord with the words, 'What you did for the least of these, you did for me.'✦ This is that fervent covering of love that covers Christ in the poor and conceals a multitude of sins.✦
The Moral Teaching of Lord Charles
A brief editorial attribution of the moral teaching to Charles, king of the Romans.
This is the moral teaching of Lord Charles, king of the Romans.
Tubalchaym the Smith and the Forge of Love
Tubalchaym's discovery of melody through hammering iron figures the just person who, through bodily mortification and the fire of love, comes to spiritual delight.
Tubalchaym was the first to discover the craftsman's arts—both the work of the forge and melody—and through the forge he came to melody. For through the striking of iron he discovered the proportion of sounds and perceived the delight of harmony. This Tubalchaym is a figure of the just and faithful person, whose flesh is signified by iron in the state of beginners, because just as iron is hard and yet through hammering is shaped into diverse forms and fitted to produce sounds, so the flesh is hard when it comes to perceiving spiritual delight. Iron, therefore, signifies carnal nature, while the hammering represents the chastisement or mortification of the body, because just as iron without fiery heat cannot be properly drawn out or shaped, so neither can the flesh of a person be mortified without the fire of love.1
From Mortification to Heavenly Delight
The faithful advance from bodily mortification to the contemplation of eternal melodies and heavenly delight.
Melody signifies spiritual and heavenly delight, so that just as Tubal-cain, the first smith, discovered and perceived melodic delight through the working of iron, so a faithful person, in the state of those who are advancing, arrives through the mortification of the body at an understanding of eternal melodies and at heavenly delight in the state of the perfect.
Enoch Taken Up and Christ's Return
Enoch's going away with God and returning, then going away again without returning, signifies human nature's fall and redemption in Christ's ascension and final judgment.
Enoch, as it's read in Genesis, first went away with God and returned, then went away a second time and did not return.✦ Enoch signifies human nature, because human nature first went away with God in the state of innocence in the first parents, but, alas, returned into this world and into a state of misery through sin. But after the assumption of human nature into the unity of the divine Person, the human race went away with God in Christ's ascension, when ascending on high he led captivity captive, and then did not return henceforth to a state of guilt and misery.✦ And just as Enoch will return to judge the Antichrist, so Christ will return to judge the world.✦
The Moral Teaching of Lord Charles, King of the Romans and of Bohemia
A closing editorial attribution of the moral teaching to Charles, king of the Romans and of Bohemia.
These are the moral teachings of Lord Charles, king of the Romans and of Bohemia.
Read the original Latin
Noe primus vineam plantavit; inebriatus obdormivit denudatus, quem primogenitus filius derisit, secundogenitus operuit et texit.
Noe designat Cristum, nam sicut Noe in mundi reformacione plantavit vineam post diluvium, sic Cristus plantavit ecclesiam post diluvium Veteris legis transgressorum. Vinea igitur est ecclesia, que tot palmites, quot electos ab Abel iusto usque ad ultimum electum produxit. Vinum vero saguinem Cristi demonstrat, inebriacio spiritualem inebriacionem figurat amoris, quo Cristus inebriatus obdormivit in cruce denudatus. Derisio primogeniti derisionem significat Iudeorum et infidelium ceterorum, quia crucifixio Cristi Iudeis quidem scandalum, gentilibus autem stulticia videtur. Unde Iudei, qui fuerunt primogeniti Dei filii adoptivi, ipsum Filium Dei denudatum in cruce deriserunt. Secundogenitus populum fidelem designat Cristi sanguine redemptum. Coopertura est caritas – hac fideles Cristum cooperiunt, quando pauperes nudos tegunt, iuxta illud “Quod minimis meis fecistis, michi fecistis”. Hec est illa coopertura fervide caritatis, que operit Cristum in pauperibus et multitutinem tegit peccatorum.
Hec est moralizacio domini Karoli, regis Romanorum.
Tubalchaym primus artes, fabrilem et melodicam, invenit, atque per fabrilem ad melodicam devenit. Nam per ferri concussionem deprehendit sonorum proporcionem, et percepit armonicam delectacionem. Iste Tubalchaym est figura hominis iusti et fidelis, cuius caro pro statu incipiencium per ferrum designatur, quia sicut durum est ferrum et tamen per malleacionem disponitur ad formas diversas nec non ad sonos formandos coaptatur, ita caro dura est ad percipiendam spiritualem delectacionem. Ferrum igitur carnalem designat naturam, malleacio vero corporis castigacionem figurat sive maceracionem, quia sicut ferrum sine ignili calore nequit duci bene sive disponi, sic nec hominis caro potest macerari sine igne caritatis.
Melodia spiritualem signat delectacionem et supernam, unde sicut ille Tubalchaym, primus faber, per ferri artacionem invenit et percepit melodicam delectacionem, sic homo fidelis in statu proficiencium per corporis maceracionem pervenit ad intellectum eternarum melodiarum et supernorum delectacionem in statu perfectorum.
Enoch, ut legitur in Genesi, primo cum Deo abiit et rediit, secundo abiit et non rediit. Enoch naturam designat humanam, quoniam natura humana primo quidem abiit cum Deo pro statu innocencie in primis parentibus, sed, heu, rediit in hunc mundum et miserie statum per peccatum. Verum post assumpcionem nature humane in unitatem suppositi divini humanum genus abiit cum Deo in Cristi ascensione, quando ascendens in altum captivam duxit captivitatem, et tunc non rediit amodo ad culpe et miserie statum. Et sicut Enoch revertetur ad iudicandum Anticristum, ita Cristus revertetur ad iudicandum mundum.
Iste sunt moralitates domini Karoli Romanorum et Boemie regis.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.9.20-Gen.9.23 — And Noah, a man of the ground, began by planting a vineyard. Gen.9.21 — He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. Gen.9.22 — And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Gen.9.23 — Shem and Japheth took the garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered their father's nakedness; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness.
- ↩Gen.9.20-Gen.9.21 — And Noah, a man of the ground, began by planting a vineyard. Gen.9.21 — He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.
- ↩Gen.4.4 — And Abel also brought some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. And the LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering.
- ↩Gen.9.21 — He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.
- ↩Gen.25.29-Gen.25.34 — Jacob was cooking stew when Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. Gen.25.30 — And Esau said to Jacob, "Let me gulp down some of that red stuff—this red stuff—because I am exhausted." That is why his name was called Edom. Gen.25.31 — But Jacob said, "Sell me your birthright today." Gen.25.32 — And Esau said, 'Look, I am about to die, so what good is the birthright to me?' Gen.25.33 — And Jacob said, "Swear to me today," and he swore to him, and he sold his birthright to Jacob. Gen.25.34 — Then Jacob gave Esau bread and a stew of lentils, and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
- ↩1Cor.1.23 — but we proclaim Christ crucified: to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness,
- ↩Exod.4.22 — Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD: Israel is my son, my firstborn.'
- ↩Gen.9.22-Gen.9.23 — And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Gen.9.23 — Shem and Japheth took the garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered their father's nakedness; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness.
- ↩Gen.9.23 — Shem and Japheth took the garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered their father's nakedness; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness.
- ↩Matt.25.40 — And the King will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'
- ↩1Pet.4.8 — Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, for love covers a multitude of sins.
- ↩Gen.5.24 — Enoch walked with God, and he was no more, for God took him.
- ↩Ps.68.18 — The chariots of God are twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them, Sinai in the holy place.
- ↩1Cor.15.24-1Cor.15.28 — Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, after he has abolished every rule and every authority and power. 1Cor.15.25 — For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 1Cor.15.26 — The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 1Cor.15.27 — For 'He has put all things under his feet.' But when it says 'all things' are subjected, it is clear that this excludes the One who subjected all things to him. 1Cor.15.28 — When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all.
Notes
- 1 ↩caritatis rendered as 'love' per lexeme policy default for charitas; 'charity' is also theologically appropriate here given the contrast with carnal nature.
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