Ezekiel 33

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, speak to the sons of your people, and you shall say to them: A land, when I bring the sword upon it, and the people of the land take one man from the last of them (or one man from among them), and set him over themselves as a watchman, and he sees the sword coming upon the land, and sounds the trumpet and announces it to the people; but whoever he is who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take heed for himself, and the sword comes and takes (or seizes) him: his blood shall be upon his own head; he heard the sound (or voice) of the trumpet and did not take heed for himself, his blood shall be upon him. But if he guards himself, he has saved his soul. But if the watchman sees the sword coming, and does not sound the trumpet, and the people do not guard themselves; and the sword comes and takes a soul from among them: that one indeed has been taken in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from the hand of the watchman. And you, son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Hearing therefore the word from my mouth, you shall announce it to them from me. If, when I say to the wicked: Wicked one, you shall die by death; you have not spoken so that the wicked may guard himself from his way, that wicked one shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. But if, when you announce to the wicked that he should turn from his ways, he has not turned from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you will deliver your soul. Again the word of the Lord comes to the prophet — the word which had for a time been silent, because the prophet cannot, nor can human frailty, sustain within itself an unceasing and continuous prophesying —, and it speaks the same things that are contained in the earlier passages: 'Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel, and hearing the word from my mouth, you shall also threaten them from me; in that I shall say to the unrighteous: You shall die by death, and you did not announce it to him, nor did you speak so as to announce it to the unrighteous, that he might turn from his ways and live, that unrighteous man shall die in his iniquity and his blood I will require from your hand. And you, if you announce it to the unrighteous, and he has not turned from his iniquity and from his way, that unrighteous man shall die in his iniquity, and you will deliver your soul'; if you examine these words carefully, you will understand that they are indeed similar, but not the same, since they disagree in a great many points — and this we ought to observe in all the holy Scriptures: where there seems to be some similarity of meaning, not everything is said identically, but a great many things are either taken away or added, and the difference between the individual words has its reason —. And meanwhile, before we come to higher things, the sense must be briefly explained: 'If a watchman has been appointed among the people to announce the sword of the Lord and the wrath that is coming, and, when he announces it, the people are unwilling to hear, the watchman will be free, and he who has been overwhelmed by the sword will himself bear the guilt of his own blood; but if he has heard, he has saved his soul; if, however, the watchman has not sounded the trumpet and the people, not knowing that the sword is coming, have by no means taken heed for themselves, the people indeed will die in their iniquity; yet I will require the blood of the dying from the watchman's hand'; and so that the prophet Ezekiel might know that this general discussion pertained above all to himself: 'And you,' he says, son of man, not by the land and by the people of the land, as I said above, but by me you have been appointed watchman for the house of Israel: If therefore, when I say to the wicked: Wicked one, you shall die by death, you have not spoken to him so that he may guard himself and be delivered from destruction, he indeed will die in his iniquity, which he had committed before and from which, had you announced it, he could have been delivered: but his blood I will require from your hand. But if you declare it to the wicked, and command him to turn from his most evil ways, and he is unwilling to do this, he indeed will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul from the destruction of negligence'.

Do you see how dangerous it is to keep silent? He dies, and rightly dies; he dies in his own wickedness and sin; his own heedlessness kills him. Yes, the one who says "I live, says the Lord," would like to find a living shepherd. But since he has been heedless, not being warned by the one who was given charge and made a watchman for this very purpose of warning him, he will die justly, and the other will be justly condemned.… It is our business not to keep quiet; it is your business, even if we do keep quiet, to listen to the words of the shepherd from the holy Scriptures.

Mine is the burden that you just heard about when the prophet Ezekiel was read. It is not enough that the day itself admonishes us to reflect on the burden; in addition such a lesson was read to excite great fear in us, so we will think about what we are carrying. Unless the One who imposed the burden on us carried it with us, we fail.

How are we affected by Ezekiel, the beholder and expositor of the mighty mysteries and visions? By his injunction to the watchmen not to keep silence concerning vice and the sword impending over it, a course that would profit neither themselves nor the sinners, but rather to keep watch and forewarn and thus benefit at any rate those who gave warning, if not both those who spoke and those who heard.

We can, however, discuss this passage in a threefold way: so that the land which appoints a watchman for itself is either, according to the letter, the land of Judea, or, according to the spiritual understanding, the Church, which often chooses a watchman from the last of its people — namely that one whom the Apostle too, writing to the Corinthians, takes as judge —, or certainly the soul of the believer, which sets the mind and reason over the people and crowd of its thoughts — so that it may not admit every incitement of the thoughts, but may judge and discern which things it should pursue and which it should flee —. The watchman of the land of Judea can be understood as either the king or the prophet; but the watchman of the Church as either the bishop or the presbyter, who has been chosen by the people and, knowing and foreseeing through the reading of the Scriptures what is to come, is to announce it to the people and correct the one who goes astray. Hence we must greatly fear lest we approach this office unworthy, and, having been taken up by the people, give ourselves over to negligence and sloth, and, what is worse than these, serving delicacies and the belly and leisure, think that we have received an honor, not a ministry: For the Son of man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister, and he washed the feet of the disciples, to show that all the filth and vices in the disciples ought to be washed away and cleansed by the teacher; nor let us at once reply: 'What use is it to speak, if the hearer is unwilling to do what you have taught?', for each one is judged by his own intention and office: you, if you have not spoken; he, if he has been unwilling to hear; of negligent teachers Solomon speaks: Wisdom hidden and treasure hidden, what profit is there in either?; something of the kind is signified also in the Gospel: that for one who has caused one of the least of the Church to stumble, it would be better that a donkey's millstone be tied to his neck and he be cast into the deep, than that, set in the watchtower, he should harm very many.

These words teach that it is God who gives peace to people because of goodness and allows wars to happen because of the wickedness of people who bring disaster on themselves.

So it is necessary for you, the shepherd of Christ's sheep, to acquire, as we have said, every virtue of body and spirit. You are the head of the body of the church of Israel that is under your rule, so that the brothers may look to you as a good pattern and imprint on themselves those excellent and royal traits of character. May your trumpet never cease to resound! It should warn some of the sword that comes on the disobedient and stubborn, so that even if they ignore you, you may save your soul from the terrible wrath of God.

For this reason, overseers or rulers are set over the churches to reprimand sin, not to spare it. Nor is a person fully free from blame who is not in authority but who notices in those persons he meets in social life many faults he should censure and admonish. He is blameworthy if he fails to do this out of fear of hurting feelings or of losing such things as he may rightfully enjoy in his life but to which he is unduly attached.

And: "From the hand of the watchman I will require your blood." What blood does God demand from the hand of the watchman, if not that of which the sinner is deprived? So the heart of the foolish one is destroyed, according to the saying: "Listen to Me, you who have lost heart!" — because the sinner is deprived of the blood and vital force of the soul.

From these words we learn: that a man, though unrighteous and wicked, can be saved from his wickedness if he hears the words of the teacher and repents; and no less, that the teacher incurs peril if he is unwilling to teach, whether from fear of peril or from despair of the sinner, since he is guilty of the blood of one who could have been delivered and rescued from death, had he not fallen through the teacher's silence; and that in both free will is preserved, since it lies both in the teacher's will either to keep silent or to speak, and in the hearer's choice either to hear and do and be saved, or to despise and perish by his own contempt. Nor does it immediately follow that, because a prophet foretells something, what he foretold comes — for he does not foretell it so that it may come, but so that it may not come —; nor, because God speaks, must what he threatens necessarily happen; rather he threatens for this reason: that the one whom he threatens may turn to repentance, and that what is to come if the words of the Lord are despised may not happen.

In all this he thought of himself as a watchman set by the Lord over the house of Israel; he preached the word in season and out of season, convincing, exhorting, rebuking and teaching with unfailing patience and taking special care to teach in turn those fitted for teaching others. When asked by some to take a hand in their temporal concerns, he wrote letters to various persons for them, but he regarded this occupation as a kind of forced labor that took him away from more important things. His real delight was to speak of the things of God, whether in public addresses or at home in familiar converse with his brothers.

Although it is best for us to be ever aware of our unworthiness and to confess our sins before God, nevertheless it is good and necessary to speak when the times demand it, for I see the church that God founded on the apostles and prophets, its cornerstone being Christ his Son, tossed on an angry sea, beaten by rushing waves, shaken and troubled by the assaults of evil spirits. Impious people seek to rend asunder the seamless robe of Christ and to cut his body in pieces: his body, which is the Word of God and the ancient tradition of the church. Therefore I think it unreasonable to keep silence and hold my tongue.

You therefore, son of man, say to the house of Israel: Thus you have spoken, saying: Our iniquities and our sins are upon us, and we are wasting away in them; how then shall we be able to live? Say to them: As I live, says the Lord God; I do not want the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn back from his way, and live; and turn from your most evil ways; and why will you die, house of Israel? You therefore, son of man, say to the sons of your people: The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him on whatever day he sins, and the wickedness of the wicked shall not harm him on whatever day he turns from his wickedness; and the righteous shall not be able to live in his righteousness on whatever day he sins. Even if I say to the righteous that he shall live by life, and, trusting in his righteousness, he commits iniquity; all his righteous deeds shall be consigned to oblivion, and in his iniquity which he has wrought, in it he shall die. But if I say to the wicked: You shall die by death, and he repents of his sin, and does judgment and righteousness, restores the pledge, and gives back what he has robbed, walks in the commandments of life, and does nothing unjust, he shall live by life, and shall not die: all the sins which he has sinned shall not be imputed to him; he has done judgment and righteousness, he shall live by life. And the sons of your people have said: The way of the Lord is not of equal weight; and it is their own way that is unjust. For when the righteous withdraws from his righteousness and commits iniquities, he shall die in them; and when the wicked withdraws from his wickedness and does judgment and righteousness, he shall live in them. And you say: The way of the Lord is not right. I will judge each one of you according to his ways, house of Israel. If we read carelessly, it seems to us to be the same prophecy as the one above, in which it is said: Do I willingly desire the death of the unrighteous, says the Lord, and not rather that he turn from his evil way and live?, and at the end of the same prophecy: Turn and return from all your wickednesses, and they will not be to you a torment of iniquity; for there the word is addressed to those who wish to repent and would blot out their sins with righteousness, so that they may turn with confidence and repent with a full heart; here, however, he speaks to those who, because of the greatness of their sins, or rather of their wickednesses, despair of salvation and say: Our iniquities and our sins are upon us, and we are wasting away in them; how then shall we be able to live?; and the sense is: 'Since death has once been set before us, and no medicine can restore health to our wounds, what need is there to toil and be worn out in vain, and not to pass the present life in desperation, so that at least we may enjoy this one, since we have lost the future one?'; to them God answered that he does not want the death of the wicked, but that he turn back and live, and he makes an apostrophe to the despairing wicked: Turn from your most evil ways; and so that we may know who the wicked are to whom he speaks, the following word shows it: Why will you die, house of Israel? — but the life and death signified in this place is not this one by which all of us, by the law of nature common with the beasts, either live or are dissolved by death, but that of which it is written: I will please the Lord in the land of the living, and: The soul that sins, it shall die —.

You though, standing there, having made no decision to put yourself right—let me speak like this as though to a single person. Whoever you are, you do not want to put yourself right; what are you promising yourself?

We must prepare our hearts and bodies for the battle of holy obedience to his instructions. What is not possible to us by nature, let us ask the Lord to supply by the help of his grace.

Let your charity believe devoutly and firmly that God never abandons a person unless he is first deserted by him. Although a person may have committed serious sins once, twice and a third time, God still looks for him.

The ministers of the grace of God have, by the Holy Spirit, spoken of repentance; and the Lord of all things has himself declared with an oath regarding it, "As I live, says the Lord, I desire not the death of the sinner, but rather his repentance;" [Ezekiel 33:11] adding, moreover, this gracious declaration, "Repent, O house of Israel, of your iniquity." [Ezekiel 18:30] Say to the children of my people, Though your sins reach from earth to heaven, and though they be redder than scarlet, and blacker than sack-cloth, yet if you turn to me with your whole heart, and say, Father! I will listen to you, as to a holy people. [2 Chronicles 7:14] And in another place He speaks thus: "Wash you and become clean; put away the wickedness of your souls from before my eyes; cease from your evil ways, and learn to do well; seek out judgment, deliver the oppressed, judge the fatherless, and see that justice is done to the widow; and come, and let us reason together. He declares, Though your sins be like crimson, I will make them white as snow; though they be like scarlet, I will whiten them like wool. And if you be willing and obey me, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse, and will not hearken unto me, the sword shall devour you, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things." [Isaiah 1:16-20] Desiring, therefore, that all His beloved should be partakers of repentance, He has, by His almighty will, established [these declarations].

He who has thus satisfied God, who by repentance for his deed, who by shame for his sin has conceived more of both virtue and faith from the very sorrow for his lapsing, after being heard and aided by the Lord, will cause the church to rejoice, which he recently had saddened, and will merit not only the pardon of God but a crown.

He wished that Adam's transgression had not occurred. And because God knew beforehand the transgression, he commanded him beforehand not to eat of the fruit of the tree. And because he did not submit to the order, justly he was punished.

At whatever age a person will do true penance for his sins and change his life for the better under the illumination of God, he will not be deprived of the gift of forgiveness.

The mediæval mind turned centrally upon the pivot of Free Will. In their social system the mediævals were too much PARTI-PER-PALE, as their heralds would say, too rigidly cut up by fences and quarterings of guild or degree. But in their moral philosophy they always thought of man as standing free and doubtful at the cross-roads in a forest. While they clad and bound the body and (to some extent) the mind too stiffly and quaintly for our taste, they had a much stronger sense than we have of the freedom of the soul. For them the soul always hung poised like an eagle in the heavens of liberty. Many of the things that strike a modern as most fantastic came from their keen sense of the power of choice.

For instance, the greatest of the Schoolmen devotes folios to the minute description of what the world would have been like if Adam had refused the apple; what kings, laws, babies, animals, planets would have been in an unfallen world. So intensely does he feel that Adam might have decided the other way that he sees a complete and complex vision of another world, a world that now can never be.

This sense of the stream of life in a man that may turn either way can be felt through all their popular ethics in legend, chronicle, and ballad. It is a feeling which has been weakened among us by two heavy intellectual forces. The Calvinism of the seventeenth century and the physical science of the nineteenth, whatever other truths they may have taught, have darkened this liberty with a sense of doom. We think of bad men as something like black men, a separate and incurable kind of people. The Byronic spirit was really a sort of operatic Calvinism. It brought the villain upon the stage; the lost soul; the modern version of King John. But the contemporaries of King John did not feel like that about him, even when they detested him. They instinctively felt him to be a man of mixed passions like themselves, who was allowing his evil passions to have much too good a time of it. They might have spoken of him as a man in considerable danger of going to hell; but they would have not talked of him as if he had come from there. In the ballads of Percy or Robin Hood it frequently happens that the King comes upon the scene, and his ultimate decision makes the climax of the tale. But we do not feel, as we do in the Byronic or modern romance, that there is a definite stage direction "Enter Tyrant." Nor do we behold a deus ex machina who is certain to do all that is mild and just. The King in the ballad is in a state of virile indecision. Sometimes he will pass from a towering passion to the most sweeping magnanimity and friendliness; sometimes he will begin an act of vengeance and be turned from it by a jest. Yet this august levity is not moral indifference; it is moral freedom. It is the strong sense in the writer that the King, being the type of man with power, will probably sometimes use it badly and sometimes well. In this sense John is certainly misrepresented, for he is pictured as something that none of his own friends or enemies saw. In that sense he was certainly not so black as he is painted, for he lived in a world where every one was piebald.

King John would be represented in a modern play or novel as a kind of degenerate; a shifty-eyed moral maniac with a twist in his soul's backbone and green blood in his veins. The mediævals were quite capable of boiling him in melted lead, but they would have been quite incapable of despairing of his soul in the modern fashion. A striking a fortiori case is that of the strange mediæval legend of Robert the Devil. Robert was represented as a monstrous birth sent to an embittered woman actually in answer to prayers to Satan, and his earlier actions are simply those of the infernal fire let loose upon earth. Yet though he can be called almost literally a child of hell, yet the climax of the story is his repentance at Rome and his great reparation. That is the paradox of mediæval morals: as it must appear to the moderns. We must try to conceive a race of men who hated John, and sought his blood, and believed every abomination about him, who would have been quite capable of assassinating or torturing him in the extremity of their anger. And yet we must admit that they would not really have been fundamentally surprised if he had shaved his head in humiliation, given all his goods to the poor, embraced the lepers in a lazar-house, and been canonised as a saint in heaven. So strongly did they hold that the pivot of Will should turn freely, which now is rusted, and sticks.

For we, whatever our political opinions, certainly never think of our public men like that. If we hold the opinion that Mr. Lloyd George is a noble tribune of the populace and protector of the poor, we do not admit that he can ever have paltered with the truth or bargained with the powerful. If we hold the equally idiotic opinion that he is a red and rabid Socialist, maddening mobs into mutiny and theft, then we expect him to go on maddening them--and us. We do not expect him, let us say, suddenly to go into a monastery. We have lost the idea of repentance; especially in public things; that is why we cannot really get rid of our great national abuses of economic tyranny and aristocratic avarice. Progress in the modern sense is a very dismal drudge; and mostly consists of being moved on by the police. We move on because we are not allowed to move back. But the really ragged prophets, the real revolutionists who held high language in the palaces of kings, they did not confine themselves to saying, "Onward, Christian soldiers," still less, "Onward, Futurist soldiers"; what they said to high emperors and to whole empires was, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?"

The heart of the true Middle Ages might be found far better, for instance, in the noble tale of Tannhauser, in which the dead staff broke into leaf and flower to rebuke the pontiff who had declared even one human being beyond the strength of sorrow and pardon.

Let us consider the grace of merciful God, and let us condemn the multitude of our own guilt. Behold, he sees sinners and endures them, tolerates those who resist, and yet daily calls them mercifully through the Gospel. He desires our confession from a pure heart, and has forgiven all that we have done wrong. The mercy of the Redeemer has tempered for us the severity of the law. For in it was written: If anyone does this or that, let him surely die. If anyone does these or those things, let him be overwhelmed with stones. Our Creator and Redeemer appeared in the flesh, promising not punishment but life to the confession of sinners; he receives the woman confessing her wounds, and sends her away healed. He bent the hardness of the law toward mercy, because those whom the law justly condemns, he himself mercifully frees. Hence it is also well written in the law that the hands of Moses were heavy; therefore taking a stone, they placed it underneath, upon which he sat; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands. Moses indeed sat upon a stone, when the law rested upon the Church. But this same law had heavy hands, because it did not mercifully bear with sinners, but struck them with severe punishment. Aaron means mountain of strength, and Hur means fire. Whom therefore does this mountain of strength signify, if not our Redeemer, of whom it is said through the prophet: "In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains"? Or who is figured by fire, if not the Holy Spirit, of whom the same Redeemer says: "I came to cast fire upon the earth"? Therefore Aaron and Hur support the heavy hands of Moses, and by supporting them render them lighter, because the Mediator of God and men, coming with the fire of the Holy Spirit, showed us through spiritual understanding that the heavy commandments of the law, which could not be borne while held carnally, are tolerable for us. For he rendered the hands of Moses light, as it were, because he turned the weight of the law's commandments to the power of confession. He indicated this promise of mercy for us who follow, when he says through the prophet: "I do not desire the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live." Hence again under the figure of Judea it is said to every sinful soul: "If a man puts away his wife, and she departs and marries another man, will he return to her again? Will not that woman be polluted and contaminated? But you have fornicated with many lovers; nevertheless return to me, says the Lord." Behold, he gave the example of a shameful woman. He showed that after such shame she cannot be received back. But he overcomes by mercy this very example that he set forth, when he says that a fornicating woman can by no means be received back, and yet he himself waits to receive the fornicating soul. Consider, brothers, the weight of such great tenderness. He says what cannot be done, and demonstrates that he himself can do this even against custom. Behold, he calls, and those whom he declares to be defiled, he also seeks to embrace, those by whom he complains he has been abandoned. Let no one therefore waste the time of such great mercy, let no one cast away the offered remedies of divine tenderness.

Nothing makes God so angry as when people from despair of better things cleave to those which are worse; and indeed this despair in itself is a sign of unbelief. One who despairs of salvation can have no expectation of a judgment to come.

This is really what the Prophet Amos says: 'For three crimes and for four, I will not revoke my word, says the Lord.' Moreover, he says this same thing eight times. Now, this is what he actually is saying: you have entertained sin, I have pardoned you; you have done evil, I have forgiven you; you have not repented of your sins, I have excused you: did you also have to teach evil? What the Scripture implies is this: For three sins and for four, I shall not be angered against you, says the Lord.

How can we imagine without grievous blasphemy that he does not generally will all men, but only some instead of all to be saved?

And yet God is gracious and merciful. He is called a God "of mercies and a God of comfort"; good as none else is good, and kind, and gentle, and full of pity, Who "willeth not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live." Whence then, whence is that Day so full of agony and anguish? A stream of fire is rolling before His face. The books of our deeds are opened. The day itself is burning as an oven, the angels are flying around, and many furnaces are prepared. How then is He good and merciful, and full of lovingkindness to man? Even herein is He merciful, and He shows in these things the greatness of His lovingkindness. For He holds forth to us these terrors, that being constrained by them, we may be awakened to the desire of the kingdom.

For the wickedness of the wicked shall not hurt him in the day that he turns from his wickedness. If he acts righteously and walks in the statutes of life, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of his sins that he committed shall be remembered against him. Because he has made the decree of righteousness, he shall live by it.

As a result, dearly beloved, it was necessary (by the designs of a secret plan) for the unchangeable God (whose will cannot be separated from his goodness) to complete by a deeper mystery the first intentions of his love. It was necessary that human beings, tricked into sin by the devil's wickedness, should not perish in opposition to God's plan.

You, I say, who are timid after being shameless, who are bashful after sinning! You who are not ashamed to sin but are ashamed to confess! You who with an evil conscience touch the holy things of God and do not fear the altar of the Lord! You who approach the hands of the priest and who come within the sight of the angels with the boldness of innocence! You who insult the divine patience! You who bring to God a polluted soul and a profane body, as if, because God is silent, he does not know! Hear what the Lord has done and then what he has said.

Now therefore, Christians, since we know from the holy Scriptures and from divine revelations how great is the grace that God dispenses to those who truly run to him for refuge and who blot out their sins through repentance, and also how, according to his promise, he rewards them with good things and neither takes vengeance according to what is just nor bring on people a punishment for their sins, let us not be in despair of our lives.

For this reason the Lord descended so that he might save sinners, raise up the dead and bring new life to those wounded by death and to enlighten those who lay in darkness. The Lord truly came and called us to be God's adopted children, to enter into a holy city, ever at peace, to possess a life that will endure forever, to share an incorruptible glory. Let us each strive to come to a good end after a good beginning. Let us persevere in poverty, in our pilgrimage, living in affliction and petitions to God without any shame as we continuously knock at the door.

We are naturally obliged to state our opinion clearly to such people, and to reply: O, you! Why do you reason to your own perdition rather than your salvation? And why do you pick out for yourselves the obscure passages of inspired Scripture and then tear them out of context and twist them in order to accomplish your own destruction? Do you not hear the Savior crying out every day: "As I live … I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezekiel 33:11)? Do you not hear Him Who says: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" [Matthew 3:2]; and again: "Just so, I tell you, there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents" [Luke 15:7, adapted]? Did He ever say to som: "Do not repent for I will not accept you," while to others who were predestined: "But you, repent! because I knew you beforehand"? Of course not! Instead, throughout the world and in every church He shouts: "Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" [Matthew 11:28]. Come, He says, all you who are burdened with many sins, to the One Who takes away the sin of the world; come all who thirst to the fountain which flows and never dies. - "Second Ethical Discourse"

Come now, you tightrope walker, walking on a tightrope of purity and chastity and every sort of sexual asceticism, you who, on the slender cord of a discipline like this, far from the path of truth, advance with reluctant feet, balancing the flesh by the spirit, moderating your desires by the faith, guarding your eyes through fear, why do you watch your step so anxiously?

Having considered God's generosity, we pray next for his indulgence. For of what benefit is food if, in reality, we are bent on it like a bull on his victim? Our Lord knew that he alone was without sin. Therefore he taught us to say in prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses." A prayer for pardon is an acknowledgment of sin, since one who asks for pardon confesses guilt. Thus, too, repentance is shown to be acceptable to God, because God wills this rather than the death of the sinner.

We must press on and persevere in the faith and virtue and in the consummation of heavenly and spiritual grace, that we may be able to arrive at the palm and the crown.

When God offers us conversion on whatever day one may be willing to practice it, why do they not instead crown with grateful praises him who aids them, instead of foolishly and (we might say) contumaciously opposing him? For by so doing they bring condemnation on their own heads and call down on themselves inevitable wrath.

But behold, while we search out the secrets of the heavenly citizens, we have digressed far from the order of our exposition. Let us therefore sigh toward those of whom we speak, but let us return to ourselves. For we ought to remember that we are flesh. Let us be silent meanwhile about the secrets of heaven, but before the eyes of our Creator let us wipe away the stains of our dust with the hand of repentance. Behold, divine mercy itself promises, saying: There shall be joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance; and yet through the prophet the Lord says: In whatever day the just man shall sin, all his righteousnesses shall be in oblivion before me. Let us consider, if we can, the dispensation of heavenly loving-kindness. To those who stand, if they should fall, he threatens punishment; but to the fallen, that they might desire to rise, he promises mercy. He terrifies those, lest they presume upon their good works; he comforts these, lest they despair in their evils. You are just—fear wrath, lest you fall; you are a sinner—trust in mercy, that you may rise.

In the lives of Christians we look not to the beginnings but to the endings. Paul began badly but ended well. The start of Judas wins praise; his end is condemned because of his treachery.

And from the particular admonition with which he was speaking to the house of Israel, he passes to a general discussion: that past acts of righteousness do not save the righteous man if he has become taken up with new crimes, and old sins do not destroy the sinner or the wicked if he has amended his old errors by works of righteousness, and that God in both cases judges not past things but present ones: 'If I say,' he says, 'to the righteous: You shall live by life, and promise him the rewards of righteousness, and he, trusting in this, sins, all his former righteous deeds will be consigned to oblivion and he will die in his present iniquity; nor has my sentence changed, since I cannot render to the same man, now a sinner, what I had promised to the righteous man; on the contrary, if I threaten the sinner and the wicked — and say: Yet three days and Nineveh shall be overthrown —, and he repents and amends his old error by good works, so that he does judgment and righteousness, restores the pledge, and gives back what he has robbed, walks in the commandments of life, and does nothing unjust: ought he not to live by life, which is Christ, and by no means die, since the threat made to the sinner ought not to punish the righteous man?' — something of the kind the divine word says to Jeremiah when he goes down into the potter's house and hears that God's promises or threat aim at this: either to call men forth to salvation or to deter them from sin — 'hence those who say: The way of the Lord is not fair, are convicted of this, that it is their own judgment that is unfair, since they have a most evil eye and judge by no means the new things but the old'. By all these things it is shown that neither ought the sinner to despair of salvation if he repents, nor the righteous to trust in his righteousness if he has carelessly lost what he had acquired with great labor. We pass quickly over what is plain, in order to linger over what is more obscure; but in what points the present prophecy differs from the earlier one, and in what it says similar things, a comparison of the two will be able to show. Moreover, what it is to do judgment and righteousness, to restore the pledge, to give back what was robbed, to walk in the commandments of life, and the rest, we have said above in this same prophet.

If you are righteous, fear his wrath lest you slip; if you are a sinner, believe in his mercy so that you can arise. But see, we have already fallen, we are not strong enough to stand, we lie prostrate in our evil desires. He who created us to be upright still waits, and he appeals to us to rise. He opens up his heart of love and seeks to get us back to himself again through repentance.

Remember God, that He too might always remember you; and when He has kept you in His memory and preserved you safe to the end, you will receive every blessing from Him. Do not forget Him, your mind being distracted with futile concerns, lest He forget you in the time of your warfare. When you enjoy abundance, be obedient to Him, so that in the time of your afflictions you may have boldness before Him through the heart's persevering prayer to Him.

We are taught that we ought not obstinately stick to our determination, but that we should with gentle pity soften down the threats which derived from some necessity.

And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the tenth month, on the fifth of the month of our exile (or captivity), there came to me one who had fled (or who had been saved) from Jerusalem, saying: The city has been laid waste (or taken). Now the hand of the Lord had come upon me in the evening, before he who had fled came; and he opened my mouth until he came to me in the morning, and, my mouth being opened, I was silent no longer. In the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah, in the fifth month, the city of Jerusalem was taken. But this prophecy is dated the twelfth year, the tenth month, the fifth of the month, of the captivity or exile, when he was taken captive with Jeconiah. From this it is shown that one year, four months and twenty-five days after Jerusalem was taken, one of the citizens of Jerusalem came to Babylon to report that the city had been taken and laid waste.

This is according to the letter; but according to the ἀναγωγὴν [anagogy, the higher sense]: if 'Hiezechiel' [Ezekiel] means 'strength of God' — and Christ, moreover, is the power of God and the wisdom of God! —, this is to be understood: that, Jerusalem having been taken and overthrown, whoever has been able to escape the faithlessness of the Jews — such as were the apostles and the remnant that was saved —, he himself announces to Christ that all the ceremonies of the Jews have been overthrown — which certain people think must be observed even to this day, not hearing that saying of the Apostle: You have fallen from grace, you who are justified in the law. And I marvel at the obstinacy of men in wishing to defend in word what they do not dare to fulfill in deed, unless perhaps Jewish wolves are hiding under the skin of sheep, that is, of Christians. Why does a defender of the Synagogue make his voice resound in the churches of Christ? —. Jerusalem, therefore, having been taken and overthrown, the mouth of the Lord is opened through the apostles and apostolic men — who can say: My mouth is opened to you, O Corinthians, and: A great and effective door has been opened to me, and that saying: I opened my mouth and drew in the spirit —, a mouth which will never be able to keep silent, nor to hear — along with Israel: Hear, Israel, and be silent —, but will resound in the whole world and will lay open the Gospel of Christ to the nations. Hence, according to this sense, the 'twelfth year' refers to the twelve tribes, and the 'tenth month' to the time of the Jewish propitiation, which in Greek is called ἱλασμὸς, and the 'fifth day of the month' to the fleshly senses — all of which, Jerusalem having been taken and the Gospel succeeding, we have shown to have been abolished and to have passed away —, and 'in the evening', that is, at the consummation of the world, to the hand of the Lord having come upon the true Ezekiel, who had sung of the future ruins of the city through the prophets and in the morning showed that they had been fulfilled.

One day before the one who was to tell these things came, in the evening the hand of the Lord came upon the prophet Ezekiel, and it opened his mouth, which had long been closed; and whatever that man was going to say, this one recounted beforehand as already done, and he was silent no longer, seeing his prophecy fulfilled in deed, and that the people who were in Babylon, or those who were captives, by no means doubted the prophetic oracle; for the mouth of the prophet is opened at the moment when he has shown accomplished in deed what he had announced before; and he proclaims with all freedom who points out not future things at all, but things either present or past.

Jerusalem having been taken, as we have said, and the temple overthrown, the poor of the land, of whom Jeremiah writes, had alone been left in Jerusalem, to tend the vineyards and the fields and to dwell in the ruins of the burned city; and though they ought to have repented over the things on account of which the captivity had come, deceiving themselves with an empty hope, they said: 'Our father Abraham was one, and yet he possessed this land by inheritance — not that he himself possessed it, but that his seed received the land of promise; if therefore that one man was multiplied into such great peoples, we, who are many more, who have been left in the land of Judea and dwell in deserted and ruined cities, shall surely be multiplied much more, so that we, being many, may possess what that one man possessed'.

Now let us come to the tropology and, according to our custom, draw the broad discussion together rather than spread it out. Every heretic dwells among crumbling walls and in deserts, and thinks that he possesses the land of Israel: 'If Abraham, one man, by his faith came to such great blessedness that his seed was multiplied like the sand of the sea and like the stars of heaven, how much more shall we, being many, possess the land of 'Israel', that is, 'of those who see God', and 'Iudaea' [Judea], 'of the Lord's confession'?'; to them the Lord answered: 'He possessed the land by the merit of faith; but your unbelief, or rather blasphemy, will not be able to possess the land of Israel, that is, the Church.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, those who dwell in these ruins upon the soil of Israel speak, saying: Abraham was one, and he possessed the land; but we are many, to us the land has been given as a possession. Therefore you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord God: You who eat in blood, and lift up your eyes to your uncleannesses, and shed blood, shall you possess the land by inheritance? You have stood upon your swords, you have done abominations, and each of you has defiled his neighbor's wife, and shall you possess the land by inheritance? These things you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord God: As I live, those who dwell in the ruins shall fall by the sword, and he who is in the field shall be given to the beasts to be devoured, but those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die of pestilence. And I will give the land into solitude and into desert, and its proud strength shall fail, and the mountains of Israel shall be made desolate, because there is no one who passes through them; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have made their land desolate and deserted, because of all their abominations which they have wrought. And you, son of man, the sons of your people talk about you beside the walls and in the doorways of the houses, and they say one to another, a man to his neighbor, speaking: Come, and let us hear what is the word that comes forth from the Lord. And they come to you as if a people were entering (or as a people is accustomed to gather), and my people sit before you; and they hear your words and do not do them, for they turn them into a song of their mouth, and their heart follows its avarice. (or, as is contained in the Seventy, for they make a lie in their mouth, and their heart walks after their abominations. It follows:) And you are to them like a musical song which is sung with a sweet and pleasing sound, and they will hear your words and will not do them. And when what has been foretold comes — for behold, it is coming —, then they will know that you prophesied in their midst. First it must be known that some eight lines, more or less, from the place we have set down: You who eat in blood, and lift up your eyes to your uncleannesses, up to the place where it is written: These things you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord God, are not found in the Seventy, who omitted these too along with many others; or else, having been translated by them, they were gradually removed through the fault of copyists. And our Latins, or rather envious Christians, and, to speak more openly, heirs of the Grunnian faction, bark against us: why do we expound according to the Hebrew — as though food were to be forced upon the unwilling, and the banquet were not being prepared for those who receive it with thanksgiving; surely, if they do not trust us, let them read the other editions: of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion; let them question Hebrews — not of one place, lest they keep boasting that they were bought by me, but of different provinces; and when they see that all agree with my error or inexperience, then let them understand that they are excessively wise, and desire to sleep rather than to learn —, and let them dwell in the seventy little cells of the Alexandrian Pharos, lest they lose the sails from their ships and sigh over the loss of their ropes. So much against the envious; now let us discuss what we have set before us.

To them the Lord answered that Abraham, one man, had possessed the land of promise by faith — For Abraham believed, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness —, but that these, taken up with unbelief and crimes, even if they are more, cannot possess it; and at the same time he enumerates by what deeds they offend God, namely six kinds of sins: 'You who eat in blood, and lift up your eyes to uncleannesses, that is, to your idols, and shed blood, that is, commit homicide; doing these things, will you be able to keep the land by inheritance? Nor are you content with this limit of crimes, but you stand upon your swords daily, ready to kill and imitating Esau, who stood, and lived by his sword; you do incredible abominations, namely the foulnesses of lusts; and each one defiles his neighbor's wife, so that he is the more wicked in this, that he had defiled the wife of a friend and neighbor. Would you do these things,' he says, 'and suppose that you will hold the land by inheritance?

For first, you eat in blood, pouring out the blood of those whom you cause to stumble; next, you lift up your eyes to uncleannesses or to your abominations which you have fabricated out of your own mind — when you ought to have imitated the man of the Church and said: To you I have lifted up my eyes, you who dwell in the heavens —; third, you shed blood, not giving life to those whom you have led astray, but killing them; nor is it enough for you to have done these three things, but you stand upon your swords, that is, you persevere in the depravity of your opinion, and are ready for slaughter; and you have done abominations, doing in bedchambers things that are shameful to speak of; and you have defiled the wife of your neighbor, hastening, namely, to snatch away daily from the embrace of Christ, by deceiving them, those of the Church's way of life. And when you have done these things, do you think that you will hold the land of Israel by inheritance?'

Answer them therefore, O prophet, and bring forth this sentence upon them from my word: I swear by myself that those who dwell in the ruins and the crumbling walls shall fall by the sword, and those who are in the fields — or in the open country — shall be devoured by beasts, and those who are in walled places — or in strongholds — and in caves shall not be able to escape the wrath of God, but shall die by famine and pestilence.

To them God says that whoever has dwelt in the ruined conventicles of the heretics shall fall by the sword of the Church — of which it is written: And two-edged swords in their hands, and in the Gospel: I did not come to send peace, but a sword, and: 'The servant who gives himself over to luxury and leisure shall be divided, that is, shall be struck with the blade, and his portion shall be placed with the unbelievers' —, and he who is in the field, or in the open country, shall be given to the beasts to be devoured — the beasts which the prophet, desiring to avoid them, prays against: Do not give to the beasts the soul that confesses to you —, but he who is in strongholds and in walled places — of which it is written: The righteous man went up against the strongest cities and destroyed their fortifications, in which the wicked trusted — and lingers in caves — of which it is said: It is written: The house of my Father shall be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of robbers —, that one shall die by famine of the word of the Lord and by pestilence; and the whole land of the heretics shall be given into solitude, so that their pride may be broken and the mountains which promised themselves the loftiness of knowledge may be reduced to solitude — mountains that are called of Israel because under the name of Christ they trip up all whom they deceive —, and no one shall pass through them — nor will anyone be able to say what Moses said: Passing over, I will see this great vision; for they are inhabitants of the perverse mountains, not pilgrims and sojourners —, so that, when they have suffered these things, they may then know that he himself is the Lord, who has given their land into solitude because of the abominations which they have wrought.

And I will give,' he says, 'the land of Judea into solitude, and its proud strength shall fail — which had once been strength: The proud, however, God resists, and gives grace to the humble —; the mountains too and everything shall be deserted, and they shall come into such solitude that no one passes through them; and then the few who had remained shall by no means trust in their multitude, but shall know, by the greatness of the solitude, that I am the Lord, who gave the land into desert because of all the abominations which they have wrought'. Let these things be said against those who, Jerusalem having been taken and the whole region of the Jews laid waste, dwelt, a few of them, in the ruined and deserted cities and little villages.

There follows — on the same day indeed and at the same time, that is, in the twelfth year, the tenth month, on the fifth of the month, when the one who had fled from Jerusalem came, and when the prophet spoke to those who were in the land of Judea and promised themselves the hope of an everlasting possession — and he commands the prophet to speak to the people that lives in Babylon and dwells with him, and to rebuke them for their flattering snares, those who desire to hear the words of the prophet not for the salvation of the soul but for the pleasure of the ears; these walk beside the walls and in the doorways of the houses, by no means desiring to enter into the prophet's meaning, but they urge one another on and say: Come, and let us hear what is the word that comes forth from the Lord.

'And so they come like a people entering the Church of God, and they sit before you, my people, which says that it is mine, and they are unwilling to do what they have heard; people of this sort seem to me like those who are beguiled by theatrical songs and listen either to tragedians or to comedians and are there caressed with pleasure, so that, when they have gone out from you, they repeat these things and sing them over and deceive themselves with the sweet sound: And they will hear,' he says, 'your words and will not do them'. Such, even to this day, are many in the churches, who say: 'Come, let us hear this man and that man', as he rolls out the words of his preaching with marvelous eloquence; and they stir up applause and shout and wave their hands; and the things they had neglected in deeds, once they learn that these have come — for what the prophet pronounces by the word of God must come —, then they will begin to acknowledge, and to know that all that they had heard were not the words of a man, but of the Lord, who spoke through the prophet and the man of the Church.