For our salvation the Son of God is made the Son of Man. [647] Nine months He awaits His birth in the womb, undergoes the most revolting conditions, [648] and comes forth covered with blood, to be swathed in rags and covered with caresses. He who shuts up the world in His fist [649] is contained in the narrow limits of a manger. I say nothing of the thirty years during which he lives in obscurity, satisfied with the poverty of his parents. [650] When He is scourged He holds His peace; when He is crucified, He prays for His crucifiers. "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." [651] The only fitting return that we can make to Him is to give blood for blood; and, as we are redeemed by the blood of Christ, gladly to lay down our lives for our Redeemer. What saint has ever won his crown without first contending for it? Righteous Abel is murdered. Abraham is in danger of losing his wife. And, as I must not enlarge my book unduly, seek for yourself: you will find that all holy men have suffered adversity. Solomon alone lived in luxury and perhaps it was for this reason that he fell. For "whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." [652] Which is best--for a short time to do battle, to carry stakes for the palisades, to bear arms, to faint under heavy bucklers, that ever afterwards we may rejoice as victors? or to become slaves forever, just because we cannot endure for a single hour? [653]
40. Love finds nothing hard; no task is difficult to the eager. Think of all that Jacob bore for Rachel, the wife who had been promised to him. "Jacob," the Scripture says, "served seven years for Rachel. And they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her." [654] Afterwards he himself tells us what he had to undergo. "In the day the drought consumed me and the frost by night." [655] So we must love Christ and always seek His embraces. Then everything difficult will seem easy; all things long we shall account short; and smitten with His arrows, [656] we shall say every moment: "Woe is me that I have prolonged my pilgrimage." [657] For "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." [658] For "tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed." [659] When your lot seems hard to bear read Paul's second epistle to the Corinthians: "In labors more abundant; in stripes above measure; in prisons more frequent; in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one; thrice was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." [660] Which of us can claim the veriest fraction of the virtues here enumerated? Yet it was these which afterwards made him bold to say: "I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." [661]
But we, if our food is less appetizing than usual, get sullen, and fancy that we do God a favor by drinking watered wine. And if the water brought to us is a trifle too warm, we break the cup and overturn the table and scourge the servant in fault until blood comes. "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force." [662] Still, unless you use force you will never seize the kingdom of heaven. Unless you knock importunately you will never receive the sacramental bread. [663] Is it not truly violence, think you, when the flesh desires to be as God and ascends to the place whence angels have fallen [664] to judge angels?
41. Emerge, I pray you, for a while from your prison-house, and paint before your eyes the reward of your present toil, a reward which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man." [665] What will be the glory of that day when Mary, the mother of the Lord, shall come to meet you, accompanied by her virgin choirs! When, the Red Sea past and Pharaoh drowned with his host, Miriam, Aaron's sister, her timbrel in her hand, shall chant to the answering women: "Sing ye unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." [666] Then shall Thecla [667] fly with joy to embrace you. Then shall your Spouse himself come forward and say: "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away, for lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone." [668] Then shall the angels say with wonder: "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun?" [669] "The daughters shall see you and bless you; yea, the queens shall proclaim and the concubines shall praise you." [670] And, after these, yet another company of chaste women will meet you. Sarah will come with the wedded; Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, with the widows. In the one band you will find your natural mother and in the other your spiritual. [671] The one will rejoice in having borne, the other will exult in having taught you. Then truly will the Lord ride upon his ass, [672] and thus enter the heavenly Jerusalem. Then the little ones (of whom, in Isaiah, the Saviour says: "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me" [673] ) shall lift up palms of victory and shall sing with one voice: "Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest." [674] Then shall the "hundred and forty and four thousand" hold their harps before the throne and before the elders and shall sing the new song. And no man shall have power to learn that song save those for whom it is appointed. "These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." [675] As often as this life's idle show tries to charm you; as often as you see in the world some vain pomp, transport yourself in mind to Paradise, essay to be now what you will be hereafter, and you will hear your Spouse say: "Set me as a sunshade in thine heart and as a seal upon thine arm." [676] And then, strengthened in body as well as in mind, you, too, will cry aloud and say: "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it." [677]
[331] Ps. xlv. 10, 11.
[332] According to the Vulgate.
[333] Gen. xi. 31; xii. 1.
[334] Ps. xxvii. 13.
[335] Gen. xix. 17.
[336] Luke ix. 62.
[337] Matt. xxiv. 17, 18.
[338] Joh. viii. 44, R.V.
[339] 1 Joh. iii. 8.
[340] Cant. i. 5.
[341] Eph. v. 31, 32.
[342] Nu. xii. 1.
[343] Cant. i. 4.
[344] Cant. viii. 5, LXX.
[345] Heb. xiii. 4.
[346] Gen. xix. 26.
[347] Rom. xi. 20.
[348] Isa. xxxiv. 5, R.V.
[349] Gen. iii. 14, 18.
[350] Eph. vi. 12, R.V.
[351] Joh. xiv. 30. The variant is difficult to explain and may be only a slip.
[352] Ps. xci. 5-7, Vulg.
[353] 2 Kings vi. 16.
[354] 2 Kings ii. 11; vi. 17.
[355] Ps. cxxiv. 7.
[356] 2 Cor. iv. 7.
[357] Gal. v. 17.
[358] 1 Pet. v. 8.
[359] Ps. civ. 20, 21.
[360] Jer. xxix. 22.
[361] An allusion to "Maher-shalal-hash-baz," Isa. viii. 1.
[362] Hab. i. 16, LXX.
[363] Luke xxii. 31.
[364] Matt. x. 34.
[365] Isa. xiv. 12.
[366] Obad. 4.
[367] Isa. xiv. 13, 14.
[368] Gen. xxviii. 12.
[369] Ps. lxxxii. 6, 7.
[370] Ps. lxxxii. 1.
[371] 1 Cor. iii. 3.
[372] Acts ix. 15.
[373] Gal. i. 15.
[374] 1 Cor. ix. 27.
[375] Rom. vii. 23.
[376] Rom. vii. 24.
[377] Am. v. 2.
[378] Am. viii. 13.
[379] Matt. v. 28.
[380] Matt. xxv. 3, 10.
[381] Isa. xlvii. 1-3.
[382] Cant. v. 2, LXX.
[383] Ps. xlv. 10, P.B.V.
[384] Jer. xiii. 26.
[385] Ezek. xvi. 25.
[386] Isa. i. 21.
[387] Isa. xxxiv. 15; xiii. 22, R.V.
[388] Psa. cxviii. 6; lvi. 4.
[389] Ps. xlii. 11.
[390] Ps. cxxxvii. 9.
[391] 1 Cor. x. 4.
[392] Cant. i. 3, 4.
[393] 1 Tim. v. 6.
[394] 1 Tim. v. 23.
[395] Eph. v. 18.
[396] Rom. xiv. 21.
[397] Gen. ix. 20, 21.
[398] Ex. xxxii. 6.
[399] Gen. xix. 30-38.
[400] Deut. xxiii. 3: Jerome substitutes "fourteenth" for "tenth."
[401] 1 Kings xix. 4-6.
[402] 2 Kings iv. 38-41.
[403] Exod. xv. 23-25.
[404] 2 Kings vi. 18-23.
[405] Dan. i. 8.
[406] Bel. 33-39.
[407] Dan. ix. 23, A.V. marg.
[408] Ps. lxxxiv. 6, R.V.
[409] Matt. iv. 2, 3.
[410] 1 Cor. vi. 13.
[411] Phil. iii. 19.
[412] Job ii. 3.
[413] Job xl. 16, of behemoth.
[414] Ps. cxxxii. 11.
[415] Gen. xlvi. 26.
[416] Gen. xxxii. 24, 25.
[417] Exod. xii. 11.
[418] Job xxxviii. 3.
[419] Matt. iii. 4.
[420] Luke xii. 35.
[421] Ezek. xvi. 4-6.
[422] 2 Sam. xi.
[423] Ps. li. 4.
[424] Solomon was the reputed author of the Book of Wisdom.
[425] 1 Kings iv. 33.
[426] 1 Kings xi. 1-4.
[427] 2 Sam. xiii.
[428] Isa. xiv. 13.
[429] Tit. i. 15.
[430] 1 Tim. iv. 3.
[431] The Manichæans believed evil to be inseparable from matter. Hence they inculcated a rigid asceticism.
[432] Jer. iii. 3.
[433] Plebeians wore a narrow stripe, patricians a broad one.
[434] Beloved ones, viz., women who lived with the unmarried clergy professedly as spiritual sisters, but really (in too many cases) as mistresses. The evil custom was widely prevalent and called forth many protests. The councils of Elvira, Ancyra, and Nicæa passed canons against it.
[435] Prov. vi. 27, 28.
[436] Matt. xiii. 8.
[437] Cena dubia. The allusion is to Terence, Phormio, 342.
[438] Cant. i. 7, R.V.
[439] Phil. i. 23.
[440] Luke ii. 51.
[441] Eph. vi. 16.
[442] Hos. vii. 4, 6, R.V.
[443] Luke xxiv. 32.
[444] Ps. cxix. 140, P.B.V.
[445] Cant. iii. 1.
[446] Col. iii. 5.
[447] Gal. ii. 20.
[448] Ps. xxxix. 6, Vulg. That is, who knows that the world is vanity.
[449] Ps. cxix. 83, Vulg.
[450] Ps. cix. 24; cii. 5.
[451] Ps. vi. 6, P.B.V.
[452] Ps. cii. 7.
[453] 1 Cor. xiv. 15.
[454] Ps. ciii. 2-4.
[455] Ps. cii. 9.
[456] 2 Kings ii. 13.
[457] Gen. iii. 16.
[458] Gen. ii. 17.
[459] Gen. i. 28.
[460] Gen. iii. 18, 19.
[461] See Letter XLVIII. §§ 2, 3.
[462] Matt. xix. 11, 12.
[463] Eccles. iii. 5.
[464] Matt. iii. 9.
[465] Zech. ix. 16, LXX.
[466] Joh. xix. 23.
[467] Ps. cxvi. 7.
[468] Isa. xi. 1, LXX.
[469] In the Latin there is a play on words here between virga and virgo.
[470] Cant. ii. 1.
[471] Dan. ii. 45.
[472] Cant. ii. 6.
[473] Gen. vii. 2.
[474] Ex. iii. 5; Josh. v. 15.
[475] Matt. x. 10. According to Letter XXIII. § 4, these typify dead works.
[476] Joh. xix. 23, 24.
[477] Isa. xxviii. 24.
[478] 1 Cor. vii. 25.
[479] 1 Cor. vii. 7, 8.
[480] 1 Cor. ix. 5.
[481] Isa. xxxi. 9, LXX.
[482] Isa. liv. 1, LXX. (?)
[483] Ps. cxxviii. 3.
[484] Ps. cv. 37.
[485] Isa. lvi. 3.
[486] Cf. Luke xvi. 19 sqq.
[487] Gen. xxv. 1.
[488] Gen. xxx. 14-16.
[489] Gen. xxx. 1, 2.
[490] Jer. xvi. 2.
[491] Jer. i. 5.
[492] 1 Cor. vii. 26, R.V.
[493] 1 Cor. vii. 29.
[494] Lam. iv. 4.
[495] Isa. vii. 14.
[496] Isa. ix. 6.
[497] Judith xiii.
[498] Esther vii. 10.
[499] Mark viii. 34.
[500] Matt. viii. 20-22.
[501] 1 Cor. vii. 32-34.
[502] See the treatise "Against Helvidius," in this volume.
[503] 1 Thess. v. 17.
[504] 1 Cor. vii. 3, R.V.
[505] 1 Cor. vii. 28.
[506] Not extant. Jerome alludes to it again in his treatise against Jovinian.
[507] See Migne's "Patrologia," xiii., col. 347-418.
[508] Ambrose de Virg. Migne's "Patrologia," xvi., col. 187.
[509] Matt. xxiv. 13.