Ezekiel 13

The Ishmaelites represent those who are a law unto themselves, who yield to their own capricious hearts and evil desires. Ezekiel expresses the same thought: "Son of man, prophesy against the prophets that prophesy their own thought and do whatever their spirit impels." We, however, must not follow our own inclinations and be labeled Ishmaelites, "obedient to themselves," but rather be called Ishmael, "obedient to God."

There is no kind of sin about which Scripture is silent and about which it does not teach its readers.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, prophesy to the prophets of Israel who prophesy; and you shall say to those who prophesy from their own heart: Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God. (This which we have set down: Who prophesy; and you shall say to those who prophesy from their own heart, the Seventy omitted, and in its place they added what is not found in the Hebrew: And you shall prophesy, and you shall say to them.) Now this speech is against the false prophets, who were deceiving the people and prophesying something else, contrary to the commandments of God. Nor should it trouble anyone that they are called prophets, for holy Scripture has this custom, that it names each one the prophet of his own prophesying and speech, just as there are called prophets of Baal and prophets of idols and prophets of confusion; whence also the apostle Paul calls a Greek poet a prophet: A certain one of them, their own prophet, said: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies, and in Hosea we read: As a raving prophet, a man bearing the spirit. But whatever was said at that time to the Israelite people is now referred to the Church, so that the holy prophets are the apostles and apostolic men, while the lying and frenzied prophets are all the heretics, whose leaders invent things from their own heart, while those who have been seduced by them acquiesce in the lies of others.

False prophets are teachers of the church whose words or life do not properly accord with the doctrine that they preach.

If the Word of God accuses me, I will try to be converted.

The word of the present can agree with those who teach in the church, as long as they do not teach other than what the truth demands.

If anyone reading the gospel fits its proper sense to the gospel without understanding that the Lord speaks, he is a false prophet speaking according to his own heart in the gospel.

If I find in Moses and the prophets the thought of Christ, I speak not according to my own heart but from the Holy Spirit.

Woe to the senseless prophets, who follow their own spirit and see nothing. (LXX: "Woe to those who prophesy from their own heart and do not see at all", leaving out that which has been set down by us: Who follow their own spirit). Since the name of prophets, according to the rule of the Scriptures, is common to the good and the bad, they differ in this, that the good prophets are said to be wise, but the bad stupid and senseless; of these the one is referred to the men of the Church, the other to all the heretics, who, abandoning the Spirit of God, follow their own spirit, because they prophesy not at all by divine inspiration but from their own heart: whence also they see nothing. But he who is wise follows not the thoughts of his own heart but the Spirit of God, according to that passage in which, earlier on, the living creatures and the wheels followed the Spirit of God; and the prophet says: After the Lord your God you shall walk, and in another place: Lead me in the right path, and again: Your Spirit, he who is good, will lead me into the land; and for the people of God the pillar of fire and the cloud was the leader in the wilderness; and Jeremiah says: I have not labored following you. But which of the heretics, who follows his own spirit, does not stumble into darkness and, blind, lead the blind into a pit? Hence, although in their mysteries, or rather their orgies, they seem to themselves to see more than the teachers of the Church, still they see nothing at all, because they have lost the sun of righteousness, and in vain they imitate those who were formerly called 'seers' and to whom it is said: You who see, go; withdraw into the land of Judah, and in Bethel you shall not prophesy; for which reason the 'vision' of Isaiah and of Obadiah is placed in the titles, and the Lord commanded the apostles: Lift up your eyes and see, and the prophet humbly entreats: Unveil my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law.

In the same way that a saint prays with the Spirit and prays with understanding and sings with the spirit and sings with understanding, so the false prophet prophesies according to his own heart and follows not the Spirit of God but his own spirit.

At another time, because of his deceit toward his brother, he makes himself like the villainous fox. Truly, there is in him excessive folly and a bestial lack of reason, because, made according to the image of the Creator, he neither perceives his own constitution from the beginning nor wishes to understand such great dispensations that were made for his sake, so that he could learn his own dignity from them; he does not realize that, throwing aside the image of the heavenly, he has taken up the image of the earthly.

Moreover, according to the Seventy the sense here is this: all the heretics, because of their deceitfulness and wickedness, are like foxes, of whom the Savior speaks: Foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky nests; and of Herod it is written: Tell this fox; and of these same foxes, which deceive the little and simple ones and lay waste the vineyard of Christ, Solomon speaks: Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards; and in the psalm it is sung concerning those who are tripped up by their deceitfulness: They will go into the lower parts of the earth, they will be handed over into the hands of the sword, they will be the portions of foxes.

Like foxes in the deserts were your prophets, Israel. You do not go up from the opposite side, nor did you set up a wall for the house of Israel, that you might stand in battle on the day of the Lord. They see vain things and divine a lie, saying: Says the Lord, when the Lord has not sent them; and they persisted in confirming the word. Have you not seen an empty vision, and spoken a lying divination, and do you say: Says the Lord, when I have not spoken? (LXX: "As foxes in the deserts are your prophets, Israel. They did not stand on the firmament, and they gathered flocks upon the house of Israel; they did not rise up, those who speak on the day of the Lord, seeing lies, divining vain things, who say: The Lord says, and the Lord did not send them; and they began to raise up the word. Have you not seen a false vision, and spoken vain divinations, ※ and you were saying: The Lord says, and I have not spoken?⁚") Let us speak first according to the Hebrew: the prophets of Israel are like foxes, daily committing thefts of domestic fowl, who dwell, according to Aquila and the Seventy, 'in the deserts', according to Symmachus and Theodotion 'in broken walls' and 'ruins'; who cannot go up from the opposite side, nor set up a wall for the house of Israel — we read that Aaron ran to meet the fire that was devouring the people of Israel, and stood in the midst, and set up a wall for the safety of the people; to Jeremiah also it is said that he should not run to meet the Lord, nor stand against his wrath by perseverance in prayer: for just as a wall is set against an enemy, and one is accustomed to meet an adversary from the opposite side and to confront one who is coming on, so the sentence of God is broken by the prayers of the saints; whence also it is said to Moses: Let me go, and I will blot out this people: for in the one to whom it is said: Let me go, it is shown that he has the power of holding back —. These cannot stand in battle on the day of the Lord, so as to fight for the people with prayers and to resist the sentence of God with supplications.

The fox is an animal good for nothing, sly, wild, ferocious.

To such men it is rightly said through the prophet: "You have not gone up against the enemy, nor have you set up a wall for the house of Israel, to stand in battle on the day of the Lord." To go up against the enemy is to oppose with the free voice of reason any powers that act wickedly. And we stand in battle on the day of the Lord for the house of Israel and set up a wall if we defend the faithful and innocent against the injustice of the perverse with the authority of justice. Because the hireling does not do this, when he sees the wolf coming, he flees.

Whence it is well said to Ezekiel, "Take unto thee a tile, and thou shalt lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the dry Jerusalem." And immediately it is subjoined, "And thou shalt lay siege against it, and build forts, and cast a mount, and set camps against it, and set battering rams against it round about. And do thou take unto thee an iron frying-pan, and thou shalt set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city."

But although the ruler may nicely insinuate all these things, he procures not for himself lasting absolution, unless he glow with a spirit of jealousy against the delinquencies of all and each. For by the frying-pan is denoted a frying of the mind, and by iron the hardness of reproof.

To such men it is rightly said through the prophet: "You have not gone up against the enemy, nor have you set up a wall for the house of Israel, to stand in battle on the day of the Lord." To go up against the enemy is to oppose with the free voice of reason any powers that act wickedly. And we stand in battle on the day of the Lord for the house of Israel and set up a wall if we defend the faithful and innocent against the injustice of the perverse with the authority of justice. Because the hireling does not do this, when he sees the wolf coming, he flees.

These prophets, who are like foxes, did not stand on the firmament; nor did they deserve to hear with Peter: You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; nor are they like Moses, to whom it was said: But you, stand here with me, nor like him who says: He set my feet upon a rock, but they are tossed about by every wind of doctrine; nor did they stand on the firmament of which we read in Psalm 18 (19): The heavens tell the glory of God, and the firmament announces the works of his hands. These gathered all sorts of irrational people, who on account of their excessive innocence are like cattle, against the house of God; hence it is now said: And they gathered flocks upon the house of Israel; nor did they themselves rise up, nor could they raise up others, but whatever they have done and are doing is full of lies.

Whom does he mean by all those who have come before me? Those who say, "Thus says the Lord!" But the Lord has not sent them; they who have come on their own authority and have not been sent are the thieves and robbers.

Since, therefore, they behold vain things and divine a lie and say that they have been sent by the Lord, when they have not been sent by him, and persist in their errors and desire to make their own word firm, they are convicted that all the things they preach are empty, since they say that their own lie is the word of the Lord.

And what follows: And they began to raise up the word, signifies this: that they wish indeed to rise up and to lift themselves to the heights, but cannot fulfill what they desire; and it is said to them: Have you not seen a false vision, and spoken vain divinations? — and what follows: And you were saying: The Lord says, and I have not spoken, is not found in the Seventy —.

All that they want is false, and they can never see the truth. Take an example. To read the Scripture and to hear something other than what is written is to have an untruthful picture of Scripture; but to hear Scripture and interpret it in accordance with the truth, that is to see the truth.

Pray for us that our words may not be false.

This is what we are looking for, that the Lord will be present as a witness to my words, that he may himself confirm what is said by witness of his holy Scriptures.

Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have spoken vain things and seen a lie, therefore behold, I am against you, says the Lord God; and my hand shall be upon the prophets who see vain things and divine a lie: in the council of my people they shall not be, and in the writing of the house of Israel they shall not be written, nor shall they enter into the land of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord God. (LXX: "Therefore say: Thus says Adonai the Lord: Since your words are lies and your divinations vain, therefore behold, I am over you, says the Lord God; and I will stretch out my hand upon the prophets who see a lie and who speak vain things: in the discipline of my people they shall not be, nor shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, and into the land of Israel they shall not enter, and they shall know that I am Adonai the Lord.") Under the person of the prophets, the speech is against the heretics who speak vain things and see a lie, and persist in making their own doctrine firm: that the Lord himself comes against them and rises up and stretches out his hand over them to strike, and does not draw it back to spare; and he threatens that they will not be in the council of the people of the Lord, nor in his Church but in the synagogue of the devil, nor will they be written in the house of Israel — of whom it is said in another place: Let them be written upon the earth: not into the land of Israel, which is the land of the living, of which it is now said: Nor shall they enter into the land of Israel, but into the land of the dead and the shadow of death — so that, after they have suffered these things, separated from the assembly of the people of God, they may understand that he himself is the Lord. Where we have rendered: In the council of my people they shall not be, the Seventy translated: In the discipline (or in the correction) of my people they shall not be: for the correction of adversaries is one thing, that of sons another; whence also Jeremiah: Correct, he says, us, O Lord, but in judgment, and not in fury, so that you may by no means make us few. Pour out your fury upon the nations which have not known you, and upon the kingdoms which have not called upon your name.

Because [Judas] was corrupted by the plague of covetousness and had his name struck out from that heavenly list, it is suitably said of him … "They shall not be in the counsel of my people, nor shall they enrolled in the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel."

For there is a peace that does not have an offense, and there is one that has it: which is from love, it does not have an offense; which is from deceit, it has. Therefore, the Prophet also says: Peace, peace; but where is peace (Ezekiel 12:10)? Therefore, let us seek the refuge of peace for sinners; for they conspire against the innocent, they gather together to oppress the righteous, to destroy the widow, or to assault her modesty.

They who choose to declare their own honor have refused to dwell in [God's] house; and therefore they do not sing a new song with all the earth. For they do not share it with the whole world; and hence they are not building in the house but have erected a whitened wall. How sternly does God threaten the whitened wall?… What is the whitened wall but hypocrisy, that is, pretense? Outside it is bright; inside it is dirt.

How is the cause helped by the people who dance attendance on these people with itching ears who know neither how to hear nor how to speak? They confound old mire with new cement and, as Ezekiel says, daub a wall with untempered mortar; so that, when the truth comes in a shower, they are brought to nothing.

Because they have deceived my people, saying: Peace, peace, and there is no peace; and he himself was building a wall, but they were daubing it with mud without straw. Say to those who daub without tempering that it will fall; for there will be a flooding shower, and I will give very great stones rushing down from above, and a wind of tempest scattering it. For behold, the wall has fallen; will it not be said to you: Where is the daubing with which you daubed? Therefore thus says the Lord God: And I will make the spirit of tempests burst forth in my indignation, and there will be a flooding shower in my fury, and great stones of wrath in consummation; and I will destroy the wall which you daubed without due mixture, and I will level it with the earth, and its foundation will be uncovered, and it will fall and be consumed in its midst, and you shall know that I am the Lord. And I will fulfill my indignation on the wall and on those who daub it without due mixture, and I will say to you: There is no wall, and there are none who daub it; the prophets of Israel who prophesy to Jerusalem, and see for her a vision of peace, and there is no peace, says the Lord God. (LXX: "Because they deceived my people, saying: Peace, peace, and there was no peace; and this one builds a wall, and these daub it with folly. Say to those who daub with folly: It will fall; there will be a flooding rain, and I will give great stones into their joints and they will fall, and a spirit carrying away, and it will be broken apart. And behold, the wall has fallen; and will they not say to you: Where is your daubing with which you daubed? Therefore thus says Adonai the Lord: And I will make a spirit carrying away break forth in my fury, and there will be a flooding rain in my wrath, and I will bring great stones in fury unto consummation; and I will dig under the wall which you daubed, and it will fall, and I will set it upon the earth, and its foundations will be uncovered, and it will fall, and you will be consumed with rebukes, and you will know that I am the Lord. And I will fulfill my fury upon the wall and upon those who daub it it will fall, and I said to you: There is no wall, nor those who daub it; the prophets of Israel who prophesy over Jerusalem, and who see peace for her, and there is no peace for them, says the Lord God.") The prophets of Israel, who will not be in the council of the people of God, nor be written in the writing of the house of Israel, nor enter the land of promise, will suffer these things because they deceived my people, wrongfully announcing to them peace and prosperity instead of the rigor of penitence and conversion, according to that which is said elsewhere: Peace, peace: and where is peace? God, then, was building for them μεταφορικῶς [metaphorically], through the commandments of the law and the utterances and threats of the holy prophets, an enclosure — for this is what the Hebrew word 'his' signifies — so as to keep from them every incursion of beasts and every hostile assault, as long as, converted to God, they were girded by this as by a bulwark and a most solid wall —; but the false prophets promised them peace not once but often: for this is what the repeated word of peace signifies. And that very wall, which in what follows is called 'cir', the false prophets were daubing 'without due mixture' — as Symmachus translated, that is, 'with pure mud', which had no straw and could not supply any strength; but as the Seventy and Theodotion have it, they daub it 'with folly'; while Aquila translated the Hebrew word 'thaphel' by ἀνάλῳ, which means 'without salt', passing from one metaphor to another metaphor, so that, just as food without salt has no flavor, so also mud without the straw by which it is made firm and bound together can provide no strength to the wall —.

Also that which we read above: He himself was building (or builds) a wall, many refer to the people of Israel, which was promising itself vain help, either from the Egyptians or from peace.

That which the Seventy translated: And upon their joints, is not found in the Hebrew; and it signifies the joints of the stones in a wall, or the supports of timber by which walls are strengthened.

'Say,' he says, 'to those who promise them vain things and pledge empty help, that this wall, this enclosure, will fall, and I will send a most violent shower, that is, most savage enemies — and he means the Babylonians and Chaldeans —, and these same enemies as stones of hail rushing down from above', all by μεταφορὰν [metaphor], so that a sudden whirlwind may overturn and undermine the unstable enclosure; and that afterward it may be said to them — that is, to the false prophets —: 'Where is the daubing with which you daubed? and where is the help you promised?'.

The words that follow describe and condemn some sin that has been committed. The judgment contained in these words is just, for it is as if he were giving notice in the words of the prophet that, if you had not sinned, he would not have made these threats.… The inspired Word exists because of both obedience and disobedience: that we may be saved by obeying it and educated because we have disobeyed.

But whatever we have said of the false prophets can be referred also to the heretics: that all their fabrications are dissolved by the wrath of God, and the building of the worst dogmas, which does not have the seasoning of the Holy Spirit, collapses and slides down to its foundations and to dust, and the enclosure itself is leveled with the earth and falls, and both the prophets who were promising and the people to whom it was promised are consumed in its midst, so that, after he has fulfilled his indignation and has said to them: There is no such wall — that is, 'you have no defense' — and there are none who daub it, but all things are vain and come to nothing, then you will know by deed that I am the Lord.

And so that we may know who those are who daub the wall, there follows: The prophets of Israel — that is, the false prophets — who prophesy to Jerusalem, and see for her a vision of peace; these are the cause of sin and ruin and foolish security: For there will be no peace, says the Lord, because the Lord did not send them nor did he speak to them.

The prophet, then, is ordered to set, or to make firm, his face against the daughters of his people. And first we must say what the face 'set' or 'directed' and 'made firm' means: namely that which is written of the Lord: The face of the Lord is upon those who do evil, to destroy their memory from the earth. As indeed wax melts before the face of the fire, so let sinners perish before the face of God; according to which sense it is said in this same prophet: Son of man, make your face firm upon Theman and Darom and Nageb, and again: The word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, make your face firm upon Jerusalem, and a little after: The word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, make your face firm upon the Ammonites, and again: Make your countenance firm upon Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and again: Son of man, make your face firm upon Gog and Magog, and in another place: I will make my face firm upon that man, and I will put him into the desert and into dissipation, and I will take him away from the midst of the people, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

And you, son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people who prophesy from their own heart, and prophesy over them, and say: Thus says the Lord God: Woe to those who sew cushions under every elbow of the hand, and make pillows under the head of every age to catch souls; and when they caught the souls of my people, they made their souls alive. And they profaned me before my people for a handful of barley and a fragment of bread, to kill souls which do not die, and to make alive souls which do not live, lying to my people who believe lies. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against your cushions, with which you catch flying souls, and I will tear them from your arms, and I will let go the souls which you catch, souls to fly, and I will tear your pillows, and I will free my people from your hand, and they shall no longer be in your hands for plunder; and you shall know that I am the Lord. Because you made the heart of the righteous grieve falsely, whom I did not sadden, and strengthened the hands of the wicked, so that he should not turn back from his evil way and live, therefore you shall not see vain things, and you shall divine divinations no more, and I will rescue my people from your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord. (LXX: "And you, son of man, make your face firm upon the daughters of your people who prophesy from their own heart, and prophesy over them, and you shall say: Thus says the Lord God: Woe to those who sew pillows under every elbow of the hand, and make veils over every head of every age to pervert souls; the souls of my people have been overturned, and they were saving souls. And they defiled me before my people for a handful of barley and a fragment of bread, to slay souls which ought not to die, and to save souls which ought not to live, while they speak vain words to a people that listens. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am over your pillows, upon which you have gathered souls, and I will tear them from your arms, and I will let go the souls which you pervert, their souls into dispersion, and I will tear your veils, and I will free my people from your hands, and they shall no longer be in your hands for gathering; and you shall know that I am the Lord. Because you were perverting the soul of the righteous unjustly, and I was not perverting him, and you were strengthening the hands of the unjust, so that he should not be converted at all from his most evil way and live, therefore you shall see lies no more, and you shall by no means divine divinations any longer, and I will free my people from your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.") Above, the divine word was directed to the prophets, who were daubing the wall with mud, because it had no straw and could give no strength to the wall or enclosure; now he is ordered to set his face, or to direct it, or, as the Seventy translated, to make it firm, against the daughters of the people, the prophetesses. And just as other, false prophets were inspired against the prophets by a diabolical spirit, to overturn the commandments of God, so against the prophetesses — such as were Deborah and Huldah and, in the Acts of the Apostles, the four prophesying daughters of Philip the evangelist — other women of the same sex were inspired by a demonic spirit, such as were Prisca and Maximilla, to overturn the faith of the truth by the prophesying of a lie. These, the Hebrews say, were trained in magic arts through necromancies and a pythonic spirit, such as was she who seemed to have raised up the soul of Samuel, and, in the Acts of the Apostles, she whose divination brought much income to her masters, out of whom the unclean spirit was cast at the command of the apostle Paul. But we say this: that some heretics, by the falsity of their dogmas, preach virtue — of whom were Pythagoras, and Zeno, from whom come the Stoics, the Brahmans of the Indians and the Gymnosophists of the Ethiopians, who because of the continence of their diet win the admiration of the nations — and rightly are they said to daub a wall and to promise some strength —, but because they lack the seasoning of Christ, their labor is vain and their building will perish: Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have labored in vain; others, however, teachers of pleasures and of lust, are said to sew cushions and to place them under every elbow of the hand: the Epicureans and the Pyrrhonists, and among us Jovinian and Eunomius, who say: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.

This face, that is to say the ruling faculty in our soul, if it is not fixed toward what it should understand in the manner that it sees, it announces to its hearers that what it looks at has not in fact been seen.

It should have a face that wants to be fixed toward what it is striving to understand, and for this reason the order is always first given to those who want to prophecy to make their face firm.

Soft are the souls and intentions of those leaders who always compose resonant and harmonious words.

The Holy Spirit poured out upon the prophet lamenting the misfortune of our frailty, which neither had rest in this life nor retained anything in the sudden encounter with death, that humanity would not rise again until the one came who did not patch the new onto the old nor put a new piece of cloth on an old garment; but rather made all things new, as he himself said: Behold, I make all things new. For he is the resurrection, he is the firstborn from the dead, in whom we have indeed received a foretaste of the future resurrection, yet he alone has already risen with eternal resurrection.

For from love of himself the ruler's mind is inclined to softness, because, when he observes those that are under him sinning, he does not presume to reprove them, lest their affection for himself should grow dull; nay sometimes he smooths down with flatteries the offence of his subordinates which he ought to have rebuked. Hence it is well said through the prophet, "Woe unto them that sew cushions under every elbow, and make pillows under the head of every stature to catch souls"; inasmuch as to put cushions under every elbow is to cherish with bland flatteries souls that are falling from their uprightness and reclining themselves in this world's enjoyment. For it is as though the elbow of a recumbent person rested on a cushion and his head on pillows, when the hardness of reproof is withdrawn from one who sins, and when the softness of favour is offered to him, that he may lie softly in error, while no roughness of contradiction troubles him.

Woe, then, to these heresies and to these doctrines, which, promising rest, deceive every age and sex, to catch the souls of the wretched and to defile me before my people, while I am believed to love pleasure; and this not for a corus and a hemicorus of barley, as we read in Hosea, but for a handful of barley, on which brute animals feed, and a fragment of bread: not a whole loaf, nor the solid testimonies of the Scriptures, but those which have been broken and cut short and diminished by heretical depravity, so as to deceive all the holy and drag them to death, while they strive to make sinners alive with vain promises.

The Word of God must proclaim what is for the salvation of the hearer, what exhorts him to continence, to the practice of sensible actions, to all the things to which the person who is assiduous in works and not pleasures must apply himself in order to be able to obtain what God has promised.

When the work of the speaker is deployed in licentious talk, a veil is placed on the head of everyone regardless of age, not just the children and the young but also the elderly.

Allow me, O Christ, to break all pillows made for the luxury of souls.

It often happens that a Pastor is moved by hatred or favor toward any neighbor; but those who follow their own hatreds or favor in the cases of their subjects cannot judge worthily concerning their subjects. Whence it is rightly said through the prophet: They were putting to death souls that do not die, and giving life to souls that do not live. For he puts to death one who is not dying who condemns the just. And he strives to give life to one who will not live who attempts to absolve the guilty from punishment.

Therefore the causes must be weighed, and then the power of binding and loosing must be exercised. It must be seen what fault preceded, or what repentance followed after the fault, so that those whom almighty God visits through the grace of compunction, the sentence of the pastor may absolve. For then the absolution of the one presiding is true, when it follows the judgment of the internal Judge.

There were, it is likely, in the time of our forefathers also, some who "weakened the hands of the people," and brought into practice that which is mentioned by Ezekiel,—or rather who did the works of the false prophets, who "profaned God among His people for handfuls of barley"; a thing, by the way, done methinks by some even at this day. When, for example, we say that he who calleth his brother a fool shall depart into hell-fire, others say, "What? Is he that calls his brother a fool to depart into hell-fire? Impossible," say they. And again, when we say that "the covetous man is an idolater," in this too again they make abatements, and say the expression is hyperbolical. And in this manner they underrate and explain away all the commandments.

Therefore the clement and merciful God does not slay the prophetesses themselves, but will tear their cushions, which like nets catch flying souls, so that, after these have been torn, the souls may have free power of flying; and he will rend the veils, or pillows, on which the ruling part of the soul was reclining and with which the heads of the deceived were covered; since the apostle teaches that the heads of men are not to be veiled, but that the glory of the Lord is to be contemplated with unveiled face: 'For you,' he says, 'were breaking the spirits of those who serve God with false terrors, and were keeping the wicked shut in with fraudulent promises, lest by doing penance they should recover the life which they had lost; therefore you shall by no means see vain visions, nor will I call your lies prophecies, but divinations, of which it is written: There is no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel, so that I may rescue my people from your hands, and you may know by deed that I am the Lord, who have freed the lost'.

We flee what is bitter, even though it is good for us, and we do not want to labor, because we are softened by pleasures, because we do not know that it is impossible to be a friend of pleasure and at the same time a friend of God.

Let us pray that God will deliver us even from the hand of such leaders who, wherever they are, speak to please their hearers and cut and divide the church, because many are more fond of pleasures than they are of God.