28. The converted heathen world is a raven, whose chicks are the holy preachers. — For what is designated by the name of the raven and its chicks, if not the heathen world black with sins? Of which it is said through the Prophet: 'Who gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that call upon Him' (Ps. 146:9). The beasts, indeed, receive food, when minds once brutish are made rational by the nourishment of holy Scripture. But to the young ravens, that is, to the sons of the nations, food is given, when their desire is refreshed by our manner of life. This raven was food, while the holy Church sought it out. But now it receives food, because it itself seeks out others for conversion. 29. These know that by their own power they can do nothing.
— Whose chicks, that is, the preachers brought forth from it, do not presume upon themselves, but upon the strength of their Redeemer. Whence it is well said: 'When its chicks cry to God.' For they know that by their own power they can do nothing. And although with pious desires they hunger for the gain of souls, yet they long for these things to be done by Him who inwardly works the increase. For with true faith they comprehend that 'neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase' (1 Cor. 3:7). 30. They burn with zeal for the winning of souls. — But as for what is said: 'wandering, because they have no food,' in this wandering nothing else is signified than the burning desires of the preachers.
Who, while they long to receive peoples into the bosom of the Church, being kindled with great ardor, now to these, now to those, send forth their desire to gather them. For the very ferment of thought is, as it were, a kind of wandering; and, as though passing to various places, they cross over with shifting inclinations, while for the uniting of souls they run to and fro in the mind in countless modes and in diverse directions, hungering. (Verse 13.) 31. Paul's solicitude for almost all the churches. Charity, which is wont to unite what is divided, divided the one heart of Paul through many. — This wandering the young ravens, that is, the sons of the nations, learned from the very teacher of the nations. For he himself, as with mighty charity he is aflame, so with an exceeding wandering of the mind changes himself from place to place;
he desires to pass from some to others, because the very charity which fills him impels him. Placed far from human beings, he writes: 'I make mention of you always in my prayers, beseeching that by some means at length I may have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come to you; for I long to see you' (Rom. 1:9-10). Detained at Ephesus, he writes to the Corinthians: 'Behold, this is the third time I am ready to come to you' (2 Cor. 12:14). Again, dwelling at Ephesus, he speaks to the Galatians, saying: 'I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my voice' (Gal. 4:20). At Rome too, shut up in the confinement of prison, because he is not permitted to go to the Philippians in person, he promises to send a disciple, saying:
'I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, that I also may be of good courage, when I know the things concerning you' (Phil. 2:19). Bound also with chains and detained at Ephesus, he writes to the Colossians: 'For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit' (Col. 2:5). Behold how by holy desire he, as it were, wanders: here he is held in body, thither he is led in spirit; and he displays the affection of fatherly love to those present, he shows it to those absent; to those set before him he expends his labors, to those hearing he expresses his desires, being effectively present with those with whom he was, and yet not absent from those with whom he was not. His wandering we know better, if we still weigh his words to the Corinthians. For he says:
'I will come to you when I shall have passed through Macedonia. For I shall pass through Macedonia; but with you perhaps I shall remain, or even spend the winter' (1 Cor. 16:5). Let us consider, I pray, what this wandering is. Behold, meanwhile he remains in one place, he declares he will go to another, and he promises to turn aside to yet another. What is it that he thus divides himself so anxiously through so many places, unless that he is bound about all of them with one charity? For charity, which is wont to unite what is divided, compels the one heart of Paul to be divided through many. Which, nevertheless, it so much the more closely gathers together in God, as it more widely scatters through holy desires.
Preaching, therefore, Paul wishes to say all things at once; loving, he wishes to see all at once, because both by remaining in the flesh he wishes to live for all, and by passing out of the flesh through the sacrifice of faith he wishes to profit all. Let the young ravens, then, wander, that is, let the sons of the nations imitate their master, let them shake off the sluggishness of sloth, and, when they by no means find the gain of souls, that is, their own food, let them not rest; let them extend themselves to advancement from their attainments, and, burning in the profit of many, let them, as it were, wandering, hunger for their refreshment. But because, running about through the works of preaching, they do not cease to satisfy the heathen world with the refreshment of faith, let it be rightly said:
'Who prepares for the raven its food, when its chicks cry to God, wandering because they have no food?' (Verse 14.) 32. By the name of the raven the Jewish people also is signified. The life of the heathen will one day, at their conversion, recover its senses and blush at its own folly. — By the name of the raven the Jewish people, black through the demerit of unbelief, can also be designated. For its chicks are said to cry to God, that food may be prepared by the Lord for that same raven, because indeed the holy apostles, born of the flesh of the people of Israel, while they poured out prayers to the Lord for their own nation, like the young of ravens, fed with spiritual understanding the parent people from whom they were carnally brought forth.
Therefore, while its chicks cry, food is prepared for the raven, because while the apostles pray, the people once perfidious is led to the knowledge of faith, and by the preaching of the sons, as by the voice of the chicks, it is satisfied. Yet in this verse we ought carefully to observe that food is said to be prepared for this raven first when the chicks cry, and afterward when they wander. For when the chicks cried, food was prepared for the raven, when, the apostles preaching, the hearing Jewry, now in three thousand, now in five thousand, was satisfied with spiritual understanding. But when, through the multitude of the reprobate, it exercised its cruelty against the preachers, and, as it were, slew the life of the chicks, those same chicks were dispersed into all the spaces of the world.
Whence also, to those same carnal fathers resisting the spiritual preaching, they say: 'It was necessary that the Word of God should first be spoken to you; but because you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the nations' (Acts 13:46); knowing assuredly that after the heathen world had believed, Judea too would come to the faith. Whence also it is written: 'Until the fullness of the nations should come in, and so all Israel should be saved' (Rom. 11:25). Since, therefore, the holy apostles most earnestly both strove first to preach to those who would hear, and afterward to show to those resisting the examples of the converted heathen world, like hungry chicks they sought their food from this raven first by crying and afterward by wandering.
For whence the chicks wander, thence the raven finds food, because while the Jewish people beholds the heathen world converted to God through the labor of the preachers, at the last it at some time blushes at the folly of its unbelief; and then it understands the sentences of holy Scripture, when it recognizes that these first became known to the nations before it did to itself, and, the wandering of the chicks being completed, it opens the mouth of the heart to receive the sacred oracles; because, the courses of the apostles into the world being accomplished, it late perceives spiritually those things from which, while perfidy long constrained it, it fasted. And since the power of divine might alone works all these things, it is rightly said: 'Who prepares for the raven its food, when its chicks cry to God, wandering because they have no food?'
You are to understand: none but I, who both endure the unbelieving people while its sons pray, and feed it while they preach, and sustain it, to be converted at some time in the end, while they wander to others. (Or, Verse 25.) 33. Perverse teachers withdraw the food of loftier doctrine from disciples who do not think humbly enough of themselves. — There is still another thing that can be morally understood concerning the raven. For when its chicks are brought forth, it is said to neglect to furnish them food fully, before by growing feathers they turn black, and it suffers them to be afflicted by hunger, until in them, through the blackness of their plumage, its own likeness may be seen.
These wander this way and that in the nest, and with open mouth beg for food from beneath. But when they have begun to grow black, it seeks to furnish them nourishment the more ardently, the longer it deferred to feed them. The raven, assuredly, is every learned preacher, who cries with a loud voice, while he bears, as it were a certain blackness of color, the memory of his own sins and the recognition of his own weakness. To him are born certain disciples in the faith, but perhaps they still know not how to consider their own weakness, perhaps they turn away the memory from their past sins, and through this they do not display that blackness of humility which ought to be assumed against the glory of this world.
They, as it were, open their mouths to receive food, when they seek to be taught concerning secret and sublime things. But their teacher bestows on them the nourishment of sublime doctrines so much the less, the less worthily he knows them to bewail their past sins. For he waits and admonishes that they should first, through the laments of penitence, grow black from the brightness of the present life, and then at last receive the fitting nourishments of the most subtle preaching. The raven regards in its chicks the gaping mouths, but it also seeks that their bodies be clothed in the blackness of feathers. So the discreet teacher does not minister the inward mysteries to the understandings of those whom he perceives to have as yet in no way cast themselves off from this world.
In proportion, therefore, as the disciples are outwardly less black, as it were, through the cultivation of the present life, so much the less are they filled with the food of the inward word; and in proportion as they do not empty themselves of bodily glory, so much do they fast from spiritual refreshment. 34. It is otherwise if they are humbled in the confession of their sins. — But if in the confession of their past life they bring forth, as it were blackening feathers, the groans of their lamentation, at once the teacher, in contemplation, to bring down food from the sublime things — as a raven thinking of the refreshment of its chicks — flies, and to them gaping with open mouth brings back food, while out of that understanding which he has begun to grasp, he ministers by speaking the nourishments of life to his hungering disciples.
Whom he refreshes from things on high the more ardently, the more truly he knows them to grow black from the brightness of the world by the lamentation of penitence. 35. The greater the humility, the greater also the hope of advancement. — But the chicks, while they clothe themselves in the black color of their feathers, promise flight of themselves also, because the more the disciples think abjectly of themselves, the more, despising themselves, they afflict themselves, the more do they hold out hope of their own advancement to higher things. Whence the teacher takes care to feed the more hastily those whom he already, through certain signs, foresees able to profit others also. For hence Paul admonishes Timothy, as fledging chicks, to nourish the more solicitously, when he says:
'The things which you have heard from me through many witnesses, these commit to faithful men, who will be fit to teach others also' (2 Tim. 2:2). And when this discretion of doctrine is cautiously kept by the preacher, a more abundant supply of preaching is given him from God. For while through charity he knows how to have compassion on afflicted disciples, while through discretion he understands the fitting time for doctrine, he himself receives greater gifts of his own understanding, not only for himself, but also for those on whom he expends the labors of his toil. Whence here too it is fitly said: 'Who prepares for the raven its food, when its chicks cry to God, wandering because they have no food?'
For when the chicks cry that they may be filled, food is prepared for the raven, because while good hearers hunger for the word of God, greater gifts of understanding are bestowed on the teachers for the refreshing of them. There follows: