Commentaria in Isaiam
Whence, as St. Bernard says, sermon 39 on the Canticle, man by sin was made like to the beasts:
“Know then,” he says, “the beast, O man, whom thou knewest not. Adore in the stable him whom thou didst flee in paradise. Honour the manger of him whose rule thou didst despise. Eat the hay of him whose bread, even the bread of angels, thou didst loathe.” That these words pertain to Christ is plain from what goes before. For to him he bade the way be prepared by preaching penance, to which he urges us by thinking that all flesh is grass, and the flower that, when the spirit of the Lord, that is, the burning wind, blows, soon withers and dries up.
Moreover, he calls grass not mown and gathered, but living and growing in the meadow; for this in Hebrew is called chasir, and it soon dries up under the burning sun, especially when it is cut. This is what the Psalmist says, Psalm 89: “In the morning man shall grow up like grass; in the morning he shall flourish and pass away; in the evening he shall fall, grow dry and wither.” See what follows. And Psalm 101:12: “My days have declined like a shadow, and I am withered like grass.”
Morally, note here the vileness of flesh and of man, who is like grass or hay, and a flower soon vanishing. St. Jerome says beautifully: “Truly, if one considers the frailty of the flesh, and sees that in the moments of hours we grow and decrease, nor do we remain in the same state, and that the very thing we speak, dictate and write flies away from a part of our life, he will not hesitate to call flesh grass, and its glory as the flower of grass.” He proves it by induction: “He who was lately an infant is suddenly a boy, the boy suddenly a youth, and until old age he is changed through uncertain spaces; and he perceives himself an old man before he wonders that he is no longer young. The fair woman who drew after her flocks of young men has her brow wrinkled; and she who was before an object of love is afterwards one of disgust.”
Gather new flowers while the flower is new and the people new; and remember that thus your time hastens.
Truly it is said to man: “Thou art like the leaf of the podium, which is seen white in the morning, purple at midday, and blue in the evening.” The son of Adam is like the apple of Adam, as the Italians call it, which outwardly is large and handsome, inwardly vile and insipid. And St. Augustine on Psalm 101: “As a flower of the field so shall he flourish. All the splendour,” he says, “of the human race, honours, powers, riches, pride, threats, swellings, is the flower of grass. That house flourishes, and a great house; that family flourishes, and how many does it flourish among, or for how many years do they live? Many years to thee, a short time to God. In comparison with long and long-lived ages, every flower of any house is as the flower of the field; all the beauty of a year is scarcely a year long. Whatever flourishes there, whatever shines there, whatever is fair there, does not last; nay, it cannot be drawn out through the whole year.” He adds then: “In how short a time do flowers pass away, and this is what is beautiful in herbs. That which is very beautiful quickly falls. Since, therefore, the Father knew our frame, because we are grass and can flourish for a time, he sent us his Word, and the Word which remaineth for ever he made a brother to the grass that remaineth not for ever. Do not wonder that thou shalt be a partaker of his eternity: he was first made a partaker of thy grass. How great then is the hope of grass, when the Word was made flesh! That which abideth for ever did not disdain to take up grass, lest the grass should despair of itself.”
And St. Gregory, Moral. 11, book 26, on that text of Job chapter 14: Who cometh forth like a flower: “What are men born in the world, I ask, but flowers in a field? Behold, the world is as full of flowers as of men. The life of the flesh is therefore a flower in the grass; hence it is said by the Psalmist: Man, his days are as grass, as the flower of the field so shall he flourish. And Isaias also says: All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field.” He adds the reason: “For man, after the manner of a flower, comes forth from the hidden and suddenly appears in public, and is at once drawn back from the public by death into the hidden. The greenness of the flesh shows us, but the dryness of dust withdraws us from sight. Like a flower we appeared who were not; like a flower we wither who for a time were seen.” In like manner of the flower and the grass, Clement of Alexandria, book 2 of the Pedagogue, chapter 10, and his disciple Origen, homily 1 on Psalm 36, and St. Basil, homily 5 on the Hexameron, and from him St. Ambrose, book 3 of the Hexameron, chapter 7, devoutly philosophize; their words Delrio collects and recites, adage 165. For this reason St. James, in his epistle, chapter 4:15: “For what is your life?” he says, “It is a vapour which appeareth for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away”; and David, Psalm 101: “My days have declined like a shadow, and I am withered like grass.” True is that saying: “Man is a bubble, life a fable.” Homer compares the life of man to the falling leaves of trees; Pindar called man “the dream of a shadow”; Aeschylus compared the life of man not to smoke, but to the shadow of smoke, than which nothing is emptier or more fleeting.
The damned in hell feel this, but too late: “What hath pride profited us? Or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow, and like a post that runneth on, and as a ship that passeth through the waves, whereof, when it is gone by, the trace cannot be found; or as a bird that flieth through the air, of the passage of which no mark can be found; or as an arrow shot at a mark,” etc. How wise is he who is wise in this while he lives here! Why, wretch, dost thou seek the favour of a man who will die tomorrow? Thou art grass, and seekest grass. Why dost thou covet a beautiful woman? Thou covetest grass. Think: “All flesh is grass.” Why dost thou gape at the flesh of fowls at table? Thou gapest at grass; thou eatest grass like an ox: “For all flesh is grass.” Why dost thou cherish thy flesh and skin so daintily? Thou cherishest grass, nay, the ashes of grass. “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt soon return.” Oh, that today we had more Isaiases, who in the streets, the forums and the pulpits would cry out with a stentorian voice and spirit to mortals: “All flesh is grass: O ye sons of men, how long will you love vanity?” Why do you give your lusts their way? You heap up grass, but grass that will burn for ever in the eternal fire. Did not Democritus rightly laugh always, and Heraclitus weep continually and lament the vanity and folly of men, who, captured by these perishing pleasures and pomps, neglect and lose the future and eternal? “All flesh is grass”: therefore Princes, and Kings, and Emperors, and Bishops, and Cardinals, and Pontiffs are grass. This is why, when the Pontiff is inaugurated, tow is set alight, and while its flame quickly vanishes, it is proclaimed to him: “Most Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world; remember that thou art a man.” Shortly thou shalt die, and all glory with thee. St. Jerome says admirably in the Epitaph of Nepotian, dead in the flower of his age: “O miserable human condition, and without Christ all that we live is vain! All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. Where now is that comely face? Where the dignity of the whole body, with which the beauty of the soul was clothed as with a fair garment? The lily withered, alas, as the south wind blew, and the purple of the violet gradually passed into paleness.” And further on: “We ought, therefore, to consider beforehand in mind what we shall one day be, and what, whether we will or not, cannot be far off. Though we should exceed nine hundred years of life, and the years of Mathusalem be given us, yet the past length would be nothing, since it would have ceased to be. For between him who has lived ten years and him who has lived a thousand, after the end of life has come and the necessity of inevitable death, all that is past is as nothing; except that the old man departs more burdened with the load of sins.” Finally the Poet, in leonine verse indeed, but true:
Say, man, vessel of ashes, what avails the flower, or abundance of things? Death is the last goal of days. Flowers? Thou shalt wither. Hearest? Thou shalt grow deaf.