約伯倫理 第 902 章

55. The apostles and their successors forsook Judaea and toiled at the conversion of the Gentiles. — In all the Latin manuscripts we find 'institutores' (instructors), but in the Greek we find 'negotiatores' (traders). From which fact it can be gathered that in this place certain writers, through ignorance, put 'institutores' (instructors) for 'institores' (peddlers). For we call peddlers traders, for the reason that they persist in plying their work. But each word, though it differ in sound, does not disagree in meaning, because all who instruct the minds of the faithful carry on a spiritual trade, so that while they offer preaching to their hearers, they receive from them likewise right works, even as it is written of the holy Church: 'She made fine linen and sold it' (Prov. XXXI, 24);

of whom also a little after it is there said: 'She perceiveth that her merchandise is good' (Ibid. XXXI, 18). Who in this place are called 'instructors' but the holy prophets, who took pains by prophesying to instruct the manners of the synagogue unto faith? Of whom without doubt are named the holy apostles, who, that men might believe God to be man, were begotten unto that same faith from their preaching. Concerning whom it is said to the Church through the Psalmist: 'Instead of thy fathers children are born to thee; thou shalt make them princes over all the earth' (Ps. XLIV, 17). But because the apostles, being repulsed, went out from the borders of the synagogue, it is now rightly said: 'The children of the peddlers have not trodden it.'

For the children of the peddlers would tread it, if the holy preachers were to press down the vices of that same synagogue with the heel of virtue. But if we take the peddlers to be the preachers of the holy Church themselves, there is nothing to hinder us from understanding the children of the peddlers to be the pastors and doctors who followed the way of the apostles. Who had by no means trodden the synagogue, because while their fathers, that is the apostles, were repulsed from her, they too ceased from her calling. 56. The synagogue being left, the Church devoted itself to the gathering of the nations. — Through which synagogue indeed the lioness did not pass through, because the holy Church, being devoted to the gathering of the Gentiles, in no way occupied itself any longer with that people of Judaea.

Now the Church is rightly called a lioness, because it slays those who live ill in vices with the mouth of holy preaching. Whence also to the chief pastor himself, as if to the mouth of this lioness, it is said: 'Kill and eat' (Acts X, 13). For that which is killed is slain from its life, but that which is eaten is changed into the body of the eater. 'Kill therefore and eat' is said, that is: slay them from the sin in which they live, and convert them from themselves into thy members. And because this Church is the body of the Lord, the Lord Himself also, under the figure of Jacob, is called by voice a lion from Himself, and is called a lioness from His body, when it is said to Him under the type of Judah: 'Thou art gone up to the prey, my son; resting thou hast couched as a lion, and as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?' (Gen. XLIX, 9).

This lioness therefore is by no means said to pass through, because she did not pass through Judaea, but she did pass over it. For when the apostles preached, first three thousand out of it believed, afterward five thousand. Thus the Church passed through the synagogue, but did not pass wholly through, because out of it she snatched a few unto faith, yet did not utterly extinguish that unbelieving people from their perfidy. But, as we have often already said, being repulsed by the unbelief of the Jews, she turned aside to the calling of the Gentiles. Whence it is further said of the same lioness: