約伯倫理 第 900 章

52. The abundance of the gifts and graces with which they were formerly adorned increases the fall of the Jews. — The proclamation of preceding glory increases the guilt of the ensuing fault. For each one's fall is of so much greater crime, by how much greater the virtue it could have been before it fell. Let Judea therefore be spoken of; let it be said what she was, and let the greatness of preceding virtues grow into the heap of ensuing offences. 'The sapphire stones are her stones, and her clods are gold' (Job XXVIII, 6). For what do we here take by the stones, save the minds of the holy and the strong? In Sacred Scripture, indeed, stones are wont to be taken sometimes in a bad sense, sometimes in a good. For when stone is put for insensibility, hard hearts are signified by stones.

Whence also it is said through John: 'God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham' (Matt. III, 9). For by the name of stones he plainly signifies the hearts of the Gentiles, then hard and insensible through unbelief. And through the prophet the Lord promises, saying: 'I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh' (Ezek. XI, 19). Again, by stones the minds of the strong are wont to be signified. Whence also it is said to the saints through Peter: 'And ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house' (1 Pet. II, 5). And through the prophet the Lord promises to the Church that is to come, saying:

'Behold, I will lay thy stones in order, and I will lay thy foundation with sapphires. And I will make thy bulwarks of jasper, and thy gates of graven stones, and all thy borders of desirable stones, all thy children taught of the Lord' (Isa. LIV, 11). For He laid its stones in order, because in it He distinguished the holy souls by a diversity of merits. He founded it upon sapphires, which stones indeed hold within themselves a likeness of the sky's colour, because the strength of the Church is made solid in souls that long for heavenly things.

And because jasper is of a green colour, He set its bulwarks of jasper, because those are set against the adversaries for the defence of the holy Church who, green with inward desires, wither with no dryness of reprobate lukewarmness. But its gates He set of graven stones. For those are the gates of the Church through whose life and doctrine the multitude of believers enters into her. And because they are mighty in great works, and by living display that which they assert in speaking, they are recorded to be not plain but graven stones. For in whose life we behold right action, as it were in those very ones is expressed what they did. Where also, enclosing the whole number of the saints in a general gathering, he added:

'All thy borders of desirable stones' (Ibid. LIV, 12). And, as though we who hear these things were pressing that He would point out these stones of which He spoke, He added: 'All thy children taught of the Lord.' Since therefore holy souls who might lead the heavenly life were never lacking from Judaea, it is said: 'The place of the sapphire is her stones.' And because she shone through faith with a great brightness of life and wisdom, there is added: 'And her clods are gold.' What is designated by clods but the gatherings and multitudes of the several orders? Now clods are pressed together out of moisture and dust.

All therefore who, being infused with the dew of grace, have confessed with true knowledge that by the debt of death they are but dust, while they shone with the strength of life, lay as it were like golden clods in her. This land had clods in the prophets, clods in the doctors, clods in the ancient Fathers, who held themselves in a great infusion of grace in oneness of profession and of work. Let it say, then: 'And her clods are gold,' because in her the multitude of the spiritual shone with a virtue the greater in proportion as it bound itself to God and to its neighbour with a greater unanimity. 53. The gold with which they gleamed was afterward darkened by the shadows of unbelief. But this gold was afterward darkened by the shadows of perfidy. Whose blackness the prophet Jeremiah, beholding it, laments, saying:

'How is the gold become dim, how is the most fine colour changed?' (Lam. IV, 1). For the gold became dim, because in them that ancient splendour of faith and innocence, as perfidy rushed in, was darkened by the night of malice. Since therefore we have heard what it was—namely, 'The place of the sapphire is her stones, and her clods are gold'—let us now hear why that people once beloved of God lost these so great goods. There follows: