Verse 6. — They reap a field not their own, and gather the vintage of the vineyard of him whom they have oppressed by violence. 62. That heretics lay waste a field not their own, and another's vineyard. — By the name of a field can be signified the breadth of Holy Scripture, which the heretics reap though it is not their own, because from it they take meanings far diverse from its true senses. This same thing is also expressed by the appellation of a vineyard, because through the sentences of truth it brings forth the clusters of the virtues. The lord of this vineyard, that is, the author of Holy Scripture, they oppress as it were by violence, because they violently attempt to bend his meaning into the words of the sacred utterance — he who says: Thou hast made me to serve in thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thy iniquities (Isaiah 43:24).
And they gather the vintage of this same vineyard, because from it they heap up clusters of meanings according to the bent of their own understanding. By the name of field or vineyard can be designated the universal Church, which perverse preachers reap, and gather as vintage by oppressing its Author in his members, because, persecuting the grace of our Creator, while they snatch away certain of those who seemed upright, what else do they take away but the ears of grain or the clusters of souls? Concerning whom it is further subjoined: