Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Another old man saw one laughing, and said to him: “Before the Lord of heaven and earth we are to render account of our whole life, and thou laughest?”
Piously St. Bernard, sermon On the Apostles Peter and Paul: “O that they were wise, etc.,” he says, “that the image of eternity might be reformed in us; namely that we may govern present things by wisdom, judge past things by understanding, foresee the last things for caution!”
The same, epist. 292: “O that thou wert wise in the things that are of God, understood those of the world, foresaw those of hell! surely thou wouldst abhor the things of hell, seek those above, despise those of the world.” So wise was Abbot Olympius in the Spiritual Meadow, chap. cxli: asked, How sittest thou in this cave? how bearest thou the heat and the gnats? he said: “I bear these that I may be freed from future torments; therefore I suffer gnats, that I may escape the immortal worm; so too I suffer heat, fearing the eternal fire: for these things are temporal, but those have no end.” So wise also was Abbot Moses in the Lives of the Fathers, book VII, chap. xxvi, saying: “To mortify thyself, think that thou hast been three years already in the sepulchre.” And another, chap. xliv, whose daily exercise this was: “I,” he says, “behold angels ascending and descending for the calling of souls, and always await my end, saying: My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready.” And another in the same place: “I,” he says, “since I renounced the earth, have said to myself daily: Today thou art born anew, today thou hast begun to serve God; so be daily a pilgrim, and one to be freed tomorrow.” More I have brought on Leviticus xvi, near the end of the chapter.
30. HOW SHOULD ONE PURSUE (so it is to be read with the Roman texts, not “pursued”) AFTER A THOUSAND, AND TWO CHASE TEN THOUSAND?—as if to say: Even from this which I shall say they ought to have been admonished of their impiety, and roused to wisdom, and to learn and note the judgments of God: for how could it be that one of the enemies should pursue a thousand Israelites, and two put to flight ten thousand of them, unless because God delivered them, and as it were sold them, to their enemies, and shut them up in their hands?
31. FOR OUR GOD IS NOT AS THEIR GODS,—who suffer many sins of their worshippers, and who are powerless to avenge themselves and theirs, to do good or harm to anyone, of which even our enemies are witnesses, who have experienced the power and severity and justice of our God beyond their idols, as the Egyptians, Amalecites, Amorrhites, and the other nations through which we passed, and which hereafter shall experience the same.
32 and 33. THEIR VINE IS OF THE VINEYARD OF SODOM (as if to say: Deservedly God delivered, that is, will deliver, the Jews to their enemies, because this people, who was to me as a chosen vineyard, degenerating has become of the vineyards of Sodom, and of the suburbs and fields of Gomorrha, as if to say: It has become the worst, imitating the Sodomites and Gomorrhites, as if it had sprung from them, and not from holy fathers. Whence also) THEIR GRAPE IS THE GRAPE OF GALL (as if to say: The grapes of such a vine, that is, the fruits and works of the Jews, are gall-like, most bitter and worst. Hence also) THEIR WINE IS THE GALL OF DRAGONS, AND THE VENOM OF ASPS, WHICH IS INCURABLE,—as if to say: “Wine,” that is, the doctrine pressed out and flowing from such impious men, which they give others to drink, to pour their crimes into them, is poisonous and deadly, like the gall of dragons, and cruel and incurable venom, which destroys and kills all who drink.
So Isaias, chap. i, verse 10, calls the princes of the Jews princes of Sodom, and the people he calls the people of Gomorrha. So Ezechiel xvi, 3, addressing the impious Jews, says: “Thy father was an Amorrhite, and thy mother a Cethite.” On the contrary, those are called sons who imitate the faith and works of Abraham. So Procopius.
Aptly that honourable man, when someone objected to him an ignoble family, answered: “My race is a reproach to me, but thou art a reproach to thy race,” as blessed Gregory Nazianzen relates, in his oration against a Noble of bad morals.
Somewhat differently Abulensis applies these: “Sin,” he says, “is consummated in three: first in the heart; secondly in the mouth; thirdly in the deed; therefore three things are put here, namely the vine, as to the first; the grape, as to the second; the wine, as to the third: and there is an order among these, because from the vine proceeds the grape, and from the grape wine; so from sin of the heart proceeds sin of the mouth, and thence sin of deed.”
Morally St. Gregory, book IV on 1 Kings, chap. iv: “By the name of vines,” he says, “concupiscences of the mind are rightly figured, because they inebriate the hearts of the reprobate and estrange them from kinship with truth. He draws his vine from the vineyard of Sodom, his branch from Gomorrha, who fills his mind with most nefarious desires; for he makes as it were a vineyard, who forgets eternal things in that wherein he is made drunk by concupiscences: and he who as under the shade of a vine, and in the pleasantness of evil delight, refreshes himself, prepares for himself the recompense of eternal fire; whence the fruits of this vine are the grape of gall, and the cluster of bitterness; for the grape is in sight, the gall in taste; delighting the sight, embittering the taste: because to the reprobate mind what it desires greatly pleases, but in eternal punishment what is now sweet to it turns bitter.”
Finally St. Ambrose, in his book On Elias and Fasting, chap. xiv, understands the wine and drunkenness here literally, and notes that they are called a poison, not so much of the body as of the mind.
34. ARE NOT THESE THINGS STORED UP WITH ME,—as if to say: Think not that I by lapse of time shall forget these things. … mouth of the Jordan; it is thorny, and its leaves are slender and fine; its fruit is wholly like in colour and form the small lemon of Egypt. When this fruit is not yet ripe, it is swollen, with a corrosive and salty sap; when dried, it yields a blackish seed which may be compared to ashes, and whose taste resembles bitter pepper.” For the memory of those faults, which are signified by the name of vine, grapes and wine, remains with me hidden and laid up deep in mind.
As the things that are in treasuries, that is, diligently shut up, that no one may steal them: so all that the Jews do and shall do are kept in the secret of my knowledge, science and memory, as it were sealed, stamped and shut up, that in its own time I may punish and avenge the same. (For) REVENGE IS MINE,—as if to say: Vengeance belongs to me, pertains to me, it is mine to avenge, and I will not defer it: because the day of your destruction is at hand, and the times of vengeance.
From this place Abbot Sisois, in the Lives of the Fathers, book V, chap. xvi, On Patience, persuaded a monk who had been wronged and wished to avenge himself to leave vengeance to God; and when he would not, he said: “Let us pray, brother.” And rising he says: “God, we have no more need that thou think of us, since we ourselves take our own vengeance.” Hearing this the brother fell at his feet, saying: “I no longer contend with that brother; but I beg, forgive me.” Ours then it is to call down on enemies not the vengeance of God, but blessing: for it is God’s to avenge, Psalm xciii: “The Lord is the God to whom revenge belongeth, the God of revenge hath acted freely. Lift up thyself, thou that judgest the earth: render a reward to the proud.”
Memorable is what Valerius Maximus writes of M. Bibulus, a most eminent man, book IV, chap. i: “He,” he says, “when staying in Syria, learned that his two sons of excellent disposition had been killed in Egypt by Gabinian soldiers. Their slayers queen Cleopatra sent to him in chains, that he might exact at his own will vengeance for the grievous disaster. But he, the kindness offered, than which none greater could be granted to one mourning, made grief yield to moderation, and ordered the executioners of his own blood to be led back unharmed forthwith to Cleopatra, saying that the power of this vengeance ought to be not his own, but the senate’s.” So a Gentile prince resigns a private injury, and the vengeance of it, though most grievous, to the senate; and shall a Christian not resign the same to his God?
THAT THEIR FOOT MAY SLIDE,—that they may fall into all evils and plagues, especially before their enemies (4).
36. THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE,—as if to say: Justly will the Lord avenge and punish the sins of His people.
AND HAVE MERCY ON HIS SERVANTS.—When He shall have punished them, and they by this punishment shall have returned to the Lord, then again the Lord shall be moved with mercy towards them as His servants.
HE SHALL SEE (for) THAT THEIR HAND IS WEAKENED (that is, their strength and power, so that) THEY THAT WERE SHUT UP (even in towers) HAVE FAILED (and those few who were), THE REST (almost entirely) ARE CONSUMED.—In Hebrew, ki azelat iad, that is, that the hand is gone, that is, that they are without hand, that they can do nothing, that they are dissolved in strength, and failing, as if they were maimed in their hands. Whence the Septuagint render it so (1). Seeing therefore this extreme misery of theirs, He will have mercy. “For here,” says Abulensis, “the tribulation of the Jews is described after the manner of a city besieged by enemies, in which first those defending the walls are wearied and die; then, the city being taken, those who shut themselves up in strong forts and impregnable towers are killed by hunger and thirst,” and at last the unwarlike remainder of the multitude is captured and consumed.