Commentaria in Isaiam
But third, note: for “according to their order” the Hebrew is kedaberam, which St. Jerome, on Micheas 2:12, translates “in the midst of the folds”; Pagninus and Vatablus, according to their manner. Now by the lambs and strangers he understands the just and innocent of the Gentiles, reborn in Christ through baptism, whom St. Peter calls “newborn infants”; and the “waste places” he calls the pastures of the Church, that is the pastures of faith, of the Gospel, of the Sacraments, and of the heavenly gifts promised to Abraham and his descendants the Jews, all of which the Jews themselves abandoned and the Gentiles occupied; as if to say: When the Jews, not having the knowledge of God and of Christ, slain by Titus, shall descend into hell, then the Gentile Christians, like strangers and like newborn lambs, shall be fed in the richest pastures of Jerusalem and spiritual Sion, that is of the Church, and shall enjoy those magnificent promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, from which the Jews fell by their impiety.
The Septuagint translate otherwise, namely: The plundered shall feed like bulls, and the lambs shall eat the waste places of those who have been taken. Which Sanchez explains thus, as if to say: Those powerful plunderers of the poor, who are to be plundered by men, destined as it were to altars and slaughter, shall feed, and shall be as in a fattening-pen, while they grow fat on others’ wealth, that being made fat they may be slain: as cattle destined for the shambles are nearer to the knife the fatter they grow. And “the lambs,” that is the poor, harassed by them with violence and insult, shall use their possessions, indeed their own, as though restored to them by right of return. H. Pintus explains the Septuagint otherwise: “Christians,” he says, “who in innocence are lambs, in fortitude are bulls, especially the Martyrs, who like bulls in circuses and theatres were harried by tyrants up to martyrdom; as here at Rome in the amphitheatre St. Ignatius and many thousands of Martyrs harried by wild beasts.” Forerius also translates otherwise from the Hebrew, thus: The lambs shall feed according to their order, and droughts or swords shall devour the fat ones that chew the cud; as if to say: The poor, plundered by the powerful, shall grow rich; but the powerful, fattened and gross, shall be devoured by the sword and famine; and then it will appear both in the poor and in their oppressors that the judgment of God is just, who will render to these a just punishment, to those a just reward.
18. Woe to you that draw iniquity with cords of vanity!
This is the third wild grape, obstinacy, or impenitence, as if to say: Woe to you in whom ambition, covetousness, drunkenness, lust and so on have plainly settled, and who are bound by them as by cords, and have grown a callus, so that, with it strengthened by long delay and custom, you cannot extricate yourselves from it! As oxen accustomed to the straps draw a cart continually, so the ambitious, the covetous, the drunken and the rest draw continually a long cord and a cart of sins; for to obtain what they have set before their ambition or covetousness, they heap sins upon sins, and that for empty and most vain things, as St. Basil shows beautifully.
Where note: He calls sin vanity, “because to those who commit sin it is easily woven, and is so empty in itself and futile as are the webs of spiders; but when we wish to go out of it, we are bound with the most solid chains,” says St. Jerome. As therefore the spider draws long threads from its own bowels and weaves a useless web, which afterward, thickened like a cord and net, entangles itself: so the sinner disembowels himself with vain labours and cares, and in them spends and exhausts his strength, spirit, sap and blood, to satisfy his pleasure; and finally entangles himself in them so that he seems bound as with a snare and cords, as the Wise Man says, Proverbs 5:22. Sins, therefore, are cords, for four reasons: first, because they are made of threads, that is, of the vainest and lightest things and pleasures; second, because they are twisted, like cords; third, because they are strong, like cords; fourth, because they are joined and entangled with one another, like cords. This Samson represented, who, yielding to his Dalila, and revealing to her the secret, that his strength was in his hair, was shorn by her, and thence enfeebled and unwarlike, was bound with cords by the Philistines and blinded. For what is Dalila but concupiscence? what are the Philistines but the impulses of the soul? When therefore man gives himself up to concupiscence, soon the devil, the world and the flesh put out the eyes of his soul, and bind him with the chains of sins. If the sinner wishes to be loosed from these bonds, let him be contrite and confess, and hear the priest saying: “I absolve thee from all thy sins,”
Second, St. Cyril and Sanchez take by “iniquity” and sin, by metonymy, the punishments of sin, because they draw after them the punishment of their sins, like cart-bonds, with which, like oxen, they are tied, so that they cannot break them! So it is said in Lamentations 1:14: “The yoke of my iniquities hath watched: they are folded together in his hand, and put upon my neck.” This sense is apt, and connected with the former; for punishment is the inseparable companion of guilt: hence sinners are bound by the same cords of punishment as of guilt.
And as the rope of a cart, sin.—As a cart is drawn by oxen by a rope or strap, so you draw sin, which like a heavily laden cart sinks the soul into hell. Similar is Psalm 27:5, and Zacharias 5:7, where there is a beautiful emblem and hieroglyph of iniquity, which is set forth as a woman shut in a measure, and cannot get out, because the mouth of the jar is closed with a leaden talent: she is therefore dragged captive to Babylon. Hence the Chaldee here translates: Woe to those who begin sins little by little, and increase them till they grow, and become strong as the cord of a cart! The Syriac: Woe to those who draw out their sins like a long rope, and their sin like the cord of a chariot! The Arabic of Antioch: Woe to those who multiply their sins and prolong them (or continue and extend them at length) like a long rope, and revolve their sins in a circle, as a wheel goes round!
The Arabic of Alexandria: Woe to those whom their sins follow like a long rope, and their iniquities like the tread of chariots!
Tropologically, three kinds of men are here represented: first, those who strive to cover a former sin with another of another kind: for example, a bad Religious has sinned; he denies that it is sin, a lie is added; he spurns correction, obstinacy is added; he is sought for the prison, he runs away, behold apostasy; he is excommunicated, he becomes a minister of the Calvinists; behold heresy. So St. Augustine, treatise 10 on John.
Second, those who, to accomplish one great thing which they have set before themselves, send many others before as means; as he who has proposed to grow rich lies, slanders, practises usury, steals: he who thinks of corrupting a virgin adorns himself superfluously, employs music, banquets, dances, sends little letters, go-betweens and procuresses, and often falls even into magic. So St. Basil.
Third, those who, as St. Gregory says, Morals book 33, chap. 12, prolong guilt by increase, that is, increase it by the continuation and extension of the same sin, for example drunkenness, luxury, usury and so on; for by custom a habit is formed, and is as it were turned into nature. For as a twig can easily be plucked up; but if it is allowed to grow, it becomes a vast and strong tree which can hardly be cut down with an axe: so also sin and its concupiscence at the beginning is like a thread; but if it is indulged, it thickens like a thong or a cable. So Basil. Rightly, therefore, the Poet:
Resist the beginnings: medicine is prepared too late, when evils have grown strong through long delays.
So Delrio, adage 693. How strong these bonds of evil custom were, namely of concubinage, in St. Augustine before his conversion, he himself teaches, Confessions book 8, chap. 5: “I sighed,” he says, “bound not by another’s iron, but by my own iron will. The enemy held my will, and from it had made a chain for me, and had bound me. For of a perverse will came lust, and while lust was served, it became custom, and while custom was not resisted, it became necessity. By which, as by certain links (whence I called it a chain), a hard bondage held me bound.” See what was said on Jeremias 13:23. As therefore an ox or horse, when first it is put to the cart and tied, leaps, kicks back, and tries to shake off the yoke and remain free: but when it has come under the yoke and is accustomed to it, it goes under it of its own will, indeed from habit goes to it as soon as it is loosed from the stall, although in it it must sweat and groan: so man at the beginning shrinks from the burden of sin; but when he has grown accustomed to it, he takes it up of his own will, and, as it were laughing in his grief and groaning, runs to it from habit.