約伯倫理 第 1265 章

78. Christ transformed even the proud into his own members. He converts those whom he beholds. — We take the mountains to be all the exalted of this world, who in their heart have swelled with earthly loftiness. But because the Lord incorporates even such, when converted, into the body of his Church, and changing them from their former exaltation transforms them into his own members, these are the mountains of his pasture, because indeed he is satisfied by the conversion of the erring and by the humility of the proud, as he himself says: My food is to do the will of him who sent me (John 4:34). And as, when the apostles were sent to preaching, he commanded, saying: Work not for the food which perishes, but for that which endures unto life eternal (John 6:27). Concerning these mountains it is said through the Prophet:

The Lord will not repel his people, for in his hand are all the ends of the earth, and he himself beholds the heights of the mountains (Ps. 94:4). For the heights of the mountains are indeed the exaltations of the proud, which the Lord is said to behold, that is, to change from their iniquity for the better. For the Lord converts him whom he beholds. Whence it is written: The Lord, turning, looked upon Peter, and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, as he had said: Before the cock crows, you will deny me thrice; and going forth he wept bitterly (Luke 22:61). And as Solomon says: The king who sits on the throne of judgment scatters all evil by his look (Prov. 20:8). Concerning this regard of the mountains again it is said through the prophet:

The mountains flowed like wax from the face of the Lord (Ps. 96:5), because after the hardness of their perversity, melted by divine fear, they were laid low from that formerly rigid swelling. 79. He is fed by the good works of the converted. Matthew made a great banquet for Christ—nay, he himself was one. — It is also to be considered that he does not say 'he inspects,' but 'he looks around' the mountains of his pasture. For in Judea the Lord was incarnate, which was set in the midst of the nations. And therefore he looked around the mountains, because he gathered the exalted of this world, set round about, from the whole of the Gentiles. In these mountains therefore he is fed, because he is satisfied by the good works of the converted as by green herbs.

Hence it is that in the voice of the bride in the Song of Songs it is said to him: Show me where you feed, where you lie down in the noonday (Cant. 1:6). For the Lord is fed when he is delighted by our good acts. But he lies down in the noonday when, from the ardent heart of the reprobate burning with carnal desires, he finds among the breasts of his elect the refreshment of good thought. For Matthew was a certain mountain, when he swelled amid the gains of the toll-booth; of whom also it is written that, after he believed, having invited the Lord into his house, he made a great banquet (Luke 5:29). This mountain therefore brought forth to this wild ass the herbs of green pasture, because both without he fed him with a banquet, and within with the feasts of virtues. Which is still most fully accomplished when it is added: