約伯倫理 第 899 章

51. The Synagogue, which ministered the bread of the law and of the Scriptures, blazing with envy, was destroyed. — Judea was accustomed to give bread, she who brought forth the words of the law. Which law, because the reprobate could no longer understand nor expound it, the prophet Jeremiah bewails in his laments, saying: 'The little ones asked for bread, and there was none to break it unto them' (Lamentations IV, 4). But this earth was overthrown by fire in its own place, because, beholding the signs of the faithful, it consumed itself with the torch of envy. For because envy is ever wont to be born of pride, it perished by fire in its own place, which therefore burned with envy, because it did not forsake pride.

The earth, therefore, which before had bread, was afterward overthrown by fire, since the Synagogue, which brought forth the commandments of God through the law, persecuting the nascent Church, consumed itself with the fire of envy. Did she not burn with the torches of her own jealousy, when, beholding the signs of our Redeemer, she said through certain of her own: 'What do we, for this man doth many signs?' or indeed: 'You see that we prevail nothing; behold, the whole world is gone after Him' (John XI, 47-48). They saw the very thing whereby they ought to have been converted, and thereupon became more perverse. They sought to extinguish Him whom they saw raising the dead. In their mouth they held the law, but they persecuted the Author of the law.

The earth, therefore, from which bread arose, was overthrown by fire in its own place, because Judea in her very self both before had the law which might refresh, and afterward the envy which might consume. Of whose description there is further subjoined: