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| On His Father's Silence, Because of the Plague of Hail.
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Oration XVI.
On His Father’s Silence, Because
of the Plague of Hail.
ThisOration
belongs to the year a.d. 373. A series
of disasters had befallen the people of Nazianzus. A deadly
cattle plague, which had devastated their herds, had been followed by a
prolonged drought, and now their just ripened crops had been ruined by
a storm of rain and hail. The people flocked to the church, and
finding S. Gregory the elder so overwhelmed by his sense of these
terrible misfortunes that he was unable to address them, implored his
coadjutor to enter the pulpit. The occasion gave no time for
preparation, so S. Gregory poured out his feelings in a discourse which
was in the fullest sense of the words ex
tempore. Its present form, however, as Benoît
suggests, may be due to a later polishing of notes taken down at the
time of delivery.
1. Why do you
infringe upon the approved order of things? Why would you do
violence to a tongue which is under obligation to the law? Why do
you challenge a speech which is in subjection to the Spirit? Why,
when you have excused the head, have you hastened to the feet?
Why do you pass by Aaron3048
and urge forward
Eleazar? I cannot allow the fountain to be dammed up, while the
rivulet runs its course; the sun to be hidden, while the star shines
forth; hoar hairs to be in retirement, while youth lays down the law;
wisdom to be silent, while inexperience speaks with assurance. A
heavy rain is not always more useful than a gentle shower. Nay,
indeed, if it be too violent, it sweeps away the earth, and increases
the proportion of the farmer’s loss: while a gentle fall,
which sinks deep, enriches the soil, benefits the tiller and makes the
corn grow to a fine crop. So the fluent speech is not more
profitable than the wise. For the one, though it perhaps gave a
slight pleasure, passes away, and is dispersed as soon, and with as
little effect, as the air on which it struck, though it charms with its
eloquence the greedy ear. But the other sinks into the mind, and
opening wide its mouth, fills it3049
with the
Spirit, and, showing itself nobler than its origin, produces a rich
harvest by a few syllables.
2. I have not yet alluded to the true and
first wisdom, for which our wonderful husbandman and shepherd is
conspicuous. The first wisdom is a life worthy of praise, and
kept pure for God, or being purified for Him Who is all-pure and
all-luminous, Who demands of us, us His only sacrifice,
purification—that is, a contrite heart and the sacrifice of
praise,3050
and a new creation
in Christ,3051
and the new
man,3052
and the like, as the Scripture loves to call
it. The first wisdom is to despise that wisdom which consists of
language and figures of speech, and spurious and unnecessary
embellishments. Be it mine to speak five words with my
understanding in the church, rather than ten thousand words in a
tongue,3053
and with the
unmeaning voice of a trumpet,3054
which does not
rouse my soldier to the spiritual combat. This is the wisdom
which I praise, which I welcome. By this the ignoble have won
renown, and the despised have attained the highest honours. By
this a crew of fishermen have taken the whole world in the meshes of
the Gospel-net, and
overcome by a word finished and cut short3055
the wisdom that comes to naught.3056
I count
not wise the man who is clever in words, nor him who is of a ready
tongue, but unstable and undisciplined in soul, like the tombs which,
fair and beautiful as they are outwardly, are fetid with corpses
within,3057
and full of
manifold ill-savours; but him who speaks but little of virtue, yet
gives many examples of it in his practice, and proves the
trustworthiness of his language by his life.
3. Fairer in my eyes, is the beauty which we
can gaze upon than that which is painted in words: of more value
the wealth which our hands can hold, than that which is imagined in our
dreams; and more real the wisdom of which we are convinced by deeds,
than that which is set forth in splendid language. For “a
good understanding,” he saith, “have all they that do
thereafter,”3058
not they who
proclaim it. Time is the best touchstone of this wisdom, and
“the hoary head is a crown of glory.”3059
For if, as it seems to me as well as
to Solomon, we must “judge none blessed before his
death,”3060
and it is uncertain
“what a day may bring forth,”3061
since our life here below has many turnings, and the body of our
humiliation3062
is ever rising,
falling and changing; surely he, who without fault has almost drained
the cup of life, and nearly reached the haven of the common sea of
existence is more secure, and therefore more enviable, than one who has
yet a long voyage before him.
4. Do not thou, therefore, restrain a tongue
whose noble utterances and fruits have been many, which has begotten
many children of righteousness—yea, lift up thine eyes round
about and see,3063
how many are its
sons, and what are its treasures; even this whole people, whom thou
hast begotten in Christ through the Gospel.3064
Grudge not to us those words which are
excellent rather than many, and do not yet give us a foretaste of our
impending loss.3065
| 3065 Loss, i.e., the
death of his father, which, from his age, could not be long
delayed. | Speak in
words which, if few, are dear and most sweet to me, which, if scarcely
audible, are perceived from their spiritual cry, as God heard the
silence of Moses, and said to him when interceding mentally, “Why
criest thou unto Me?”3066
Comfort this
people, I pray thee, I, who was thy nursling, and have since been made
Pastor, and now even Chief Pastor. Give a lesson, to me in the
Pastor’s art, to this people of obedience. Discourse awhile
on our present heavy blow, about the just judgments of God, whether we
grasp their meaning, or are ignorant of their great deep.3067
How again “mercy is put in the
balance,”3068
as holy Isaiah
declares, for goodness is not without discernment, as the first
labourers in the vineyard3069
fancied, because
they could not perceive any distinction between those who were paid
alike: and how anger, which is called “the cup in the hand
of the Lord,”3070
and “the cup
of falling which is drained,”3071
is in
proportion to transgressions, even though He abates to all somewhat of
what is their due, and dilutes with compassion the unmixed draught of
His wrath. For He inclines from severity to indulgence towards
those who accept chastisement with fear, and who after a slight
affliction conceive and are in pain with conversion, and bring
forth3072
the perfect spirit of salvation; but
nevertheless he reserves the dregs,3073
the last drop
of His anger, that He may pour it out entire upon those who, instead of
being healed by His kindness, grow obdurate, like the hard-hearted
Pharaoh,3074
that bitter
taskmaster, who is set forth as an example of the power3075
of God over the ungodly.
5. Tell us whence come such blows and scourges,
and what account we can give of them. Is it some disordered and
irregular motion or some unguided current, some unreason of the
universe, as though there were no Ruler of the world, which is
therefore borne along by chance, as is the doctrine of the foolishly
wise, who are themselves borne along at random by the disorderly spirit
of darkness? Or are the disturbances and changes of the universe,
(which was originally constituted, blended, bound together, and set in
motion in a harmony known only to Him Who gave it motion,) directed by
reason and order under the guidance of the reins of Providence?
Whence come famines and tornadoes and hailstorms, our present warning
blow? Whence pestilences, diseases, earthquakes, tidal waves, and
fearful things in the heavens? And how is the creation, once
ordered for the enjoyment of men, their common and equal delight,
changed for the punishment of the ungodly, in order that we may be
chastised through that for which, when honoured with it, we did not
give thanks, and recognise in our sufferings that power which we did
not recognise in our benefits? How is it that some receive at the
Lord’s hand double for their sins,3076
and the measure of their wickedness is doubly filled up, as in the
correction of Israel, while the sins of others are done away by a
sevenfold recompense into their bosom?3077
What is the measure of the Amorites
that is not yet full?3078
And how is
the sinner either let go, or chastised again, let go perhaps, because
reserved for the other world, chastised, because healed thereby in
this? Under what circumstances again is the righteous, when
unfortunate, possibly being put to the test, or, when prosperous, being
observed, to see if he be poor in mind or not very far superior to
visible things, as indeed conscience, our interior and unerring
tribunal, tells us. What is our calamity, and what its
cause? Is it a test of virtue, or a touchstone of
wickedness? And is it better to bow beneath it as a chastisement,
even though it be not so, and humble ourselves under the mighty hand of
God,3079
or, considering it as a trial, to rise
superior to it? On these points give us instruction and warning,
lest we be too much discouraged by our present calamity, or fall into
the gulf of evil and despise it; for some such feeling is very general;
but rather that we may bear our admonition quietly, and not provoke one
more severe by our insensibility to this.
6. Terrible is an unfruitful season, and the
loss of the crops. It could not be otherwise, when men are
already rejoicing in their hopes, and counting on their all but
harvested stores. Terrible again is an unseasonable harvest, when
the farmers labour with heavy hearts, sitting as it were beside the
grave of their crops, which the gentle rain nourished, but the wild
storm has rooted up, whereof the mower filleth not his hand, neither he
that bindeth up the sheaves his bosom,3080
nor have they obtained the blessing which passers-by bestow upon the
farmers. Wretched indeed is the sight of the ground devastated,
cleared, and shorn of its ornaments, over which the blessed Joel wails
in his most tragic picture of the desolation of the land, and the
scourge of famine;3081
while
another3082
| 3082 Another.
Either this is a wrong reading, or S. Gregory’s memory fails
him. The second quotation is also from Joel. | prophet wails, as
he contrasts with its former beauty its final disorder, and thus
discourses on the anger of the Lord when He smites the land:
before him is the garden of Eden, behind Him a desolate
wilderness.3083
Terrible
indeed these things are, and more than terrible, when we are grieved
only at what is present, and are not yet distressed by the feeling of a
severer blow: since, as in sickness, the suffering which pains us
from time to time is more distressing than that which is not
present. But more terrible still are those which the
treasures3084
of God’s
wrath contain, of which God forbid that you should make trial; nor will
you, if you fly for refuge to the mercies of God, and win over by your
tears Him Who will have mercy,3085
and avert by your
conversion what remains of His wrath. As yet, this is gentleness
and loving-kindness and gentle reproof, and the first elements of a
scourge to train our tender years: as yet, the smoke3086
of His anger, the prelude of His torments;
not yet has fallen the flaming fire,3087
the climax of
His being moved; not yet the kindled coals,3088
the final scourge, part of which He threatened, when He lifted up the
other over us, part He held back by force, when He brought the other
upon us; using the threat and the blow alike for our instruction, and
making a way for His indignation, in the excess of His goodness;
beginning with what is slight, so that the more severe may not be
needed; but ready to instruct us by what is greater, if He be forced so
to do.
7. I know the glittering sword,3089
and the blade made drunk in heaven, bidden
to slay, to bring to naught, to make childless, and to spare neither
flesh, nor marrow, nor bones. I know Him, Who, though free from
passion, meets us like a bear robbed of her whelps, like a leopard in
the way of the Assyrians,3090
not only those of
that day, but if anyone now is an Assyrian in wickedness: nor is
it possible to escape the might and speed of His wrath when He watches
over our impieties, and His jealousy,3091
which knoweth to devour His adversaries, pursues His enemies to the
death.3092
I know the
emptying, the making void, the making waste, the melting of the heart,
and knocking of the knees together,3093
such are the
punishments of the ungodly. I do not dwell on the judgments to
come, to which indulgence in this world delivers us, as it is better to
be punished and cleansed now than to be transmitted to the torment to
come, when it is the time of chastisement, not of cleansing. For
as he who remembers God here is conqueror of death (as David3094
has most excellently sung) so the departed have not in the grave
confession and restoration; for God has confined life and action to
this world, and to the future the scrutiny of what has been done.
8. What shall we do in the day of
visitation,3095
with which one of
the Prophets terrifies me, whether that of the righteous sentence of
God against us, or that upon the mountains and hills, of which we have
heard, or whatever and whenever it may be, when He will reason with us,
and oppose us, and set before us3096
those bitter
accusers, our sins, comparing our wrongdoings with our benefits, and
striking thought with thought, and scrutinising action with action, and
calling us to account for the image3097
which has been
blurred and spoilt by wickedness, till at last He leads us away
self-convicted and self-condemned, no longer able to say that we are
being unjustly treated—a thought which is able even here
sometimes to console in their condemnation those who are
suffering.
9. But then what advocate shall we
have? What pretext? What false excuse? What plausible
artifice? What device contrary to the truth will impose upon the
court, and rob it of its right judgment, which places in the balance
for us all, our entire life, action, word, and thought, and weighs
against the evil that which is better, until that which preponderates
wins the day, and the decision is given in favour of the main tendency;
after which there is no appeal, no higher court, no defence on the
ground of subsequent conduct, no oil obtained from the wise virgins, or
from them that sell, for the lamps going out,3098
no
repentance of the rich man wasting away in the flame,3099
and begging for repentance for his friends,
no statute of limitations; but only that final and fearful
judgment-seat, more just even than fearful; or rather more fearful
because it is also just; when the thrones are set and the Ancient of
days takes His seat,3100
and the books are
opened, and the fiery stream comes forth, and the light before Him, and
the darkness prepared; and they that have done good shall go into the
resurrection of life,3101
now hid in
Christ3102
and to be
manifested hereafter with Him, and they that have done evil, into the
resurrection of judgment,3103
to which they who
have not believed have been condemned already by the word which judges
them.3104
Some will be welcomed by the
unspeakable light and the vision of the holy and royal Trinity, Which
now shines upon them with greater brilliancy and purity and unites
Itself wholly to the whole soul, in which solely and beyond all else I
take it that the kingdom of heaven consists. The others among
other torments, but above and before them all must endure the being
outcast from God, and the shame of conscience which has no limit.
But of these anon.
10. What are we to do now, my brethren, when
crushed, cast down, and drunken but not with strong drink nor with
wine,3105
which excites and obfuscates but for a
while, but with the blow which the Lord has inflicted upon us, Who
says, And thou, O heart, be stirred and shaken,3106
and gives to the despisers the spirit of sorrow and deep sleep to
drink:3107
| 3107 Ps. lx. 2, 3; Isai. xxix. 10. | to whom He
also says, See, ye despisers, behold, and wonder and perish?3108
How shall we bear His convictions; or
what reply shall we make, when He reproaches us not only with the
multitude of the benefits for which we have continued ungrateful, but
also with His chastisements, and reckons up the remedies with which we
have refused to be healed? Calling us His children3109
indeed, but unworthy children, and His sons,
but strange sons3110
who have stumbled
from lameness out of their paths, in the trackless and rough
ground. How and by what means could I have instructed you, and I
have not done so? By gentler measures? I have applied
them. I passed by the blood drunk in Egypt from the wells and
rivers and all reservoirs of water3111
in the first
plague: I passed over the next scourges, the frogs, lice, and
flies. I began with the flocks and the cattle and the sheep, the
fifth plague, and, sparing as yet the rational creatures, I struck the
animals. You made light of the stroke, and treated me with less
reason and attention than the beasts who were struck. I withheld
from you the rain; one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon
it rained not withered,3112
and ye said
“We will brave it.”3113
I
brought the hail upon you, chastising you with the opposite kind of
blow, I uprooted your vineyards and shrubberies, and crops, but I
failed to shatter your wickedness.
11. Perchance He will say to me, who am not
reformed even by blows, I know that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is
an iron sinew,3114
the heedless is
heedless and the lawless man acts lawlessly,3115
naught is the heavenly correction, naught the scourges. The
bellows are burnt, the
lead is consumed,3116
as I once
reproached you by the mouth of Jeremiah, the founder melted the silver
in vain, your wickednesses are not melted away. Can ye abide my
wrath, saith the Lord. Has not My hand the power to inflict upon
you other plagues also? There are still at My command the blains
breaking forth from the ashes of the furnace,3117
by
sprinkling which toward heaven, Moses, or any other minister of
God’s action, may chastise Egypt with disease. There remain
also the locusts, the darkness that may be felt, and the plague which,
last in order, was first in suffering and power, the destruction and
death of the firstborn, and, to escape this, and to turn aside the
destroyer, it were better to sprinkle the doorposts of our mind,
contemplation and action, with the great and saving token, with the
blood of the new covenant, by being crucified and dying with Christ,
that we may both rise and be glorified and reign with Him both now and
at His final appearing, and not be broken and crushed, and made to
lament, when the grievous destroyer smites us all too late in this life
of darkness, and destroys our firstborn, the offspring and results of
our life which we had dedicated to God.
12. Far be it from me that I should ever,
among other chastisements, be thus reproached by Him Who is good, but
walks contrary to me in fury3118
because of my own
contrariness: I have smitten you with blasting and mildew, and
blight;3119
without
result. The sword from without3120
made you
childless, yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord. May
I not become the vine of the beloved, which after being planted and
entrenched, and made sure with a fence and tower and every means which
was possible, when it ran wild and bore thorns, was consequently
despised, and had its tower broken down and its fence taken away, and
was not pruned nor digged, but was devoured and laid waste and trodden
down by all!3121
This is what
I feel I must say as to my fears, thus have I been pained by this blow,
and this, I will further tell you, is my prayer. We have sinned,
we have done amiss, and have dealt wickedly,3122
for we have forgotten Thy commandments and walked after our own evil
thought,3123
for we have behaved
ourselves unworthily of the calling and gospel of Thy Christ, and of
His holy sufferings and humiliation for us; we have become a reproach
to Thy beloved, priest and people, we have erred together, we have all
gone out of the way, we have together become unprofitable, there is
none that doeth judgment and justice, no not one.3124
We have cut short Thy mercies and
kindness and the bowels and compassion of our God, by our wickedness
and the perversity of our doings, in which we have turned away.
Thou art good, but we have done amiss; Thou art long-suffering, but we
are worthy of stripes; we acknowledge Thy goodness, though we are
without understanding, we have been scourged for but few of our faults;
Thou art terrible, and who will resist Thee?3125
the mountains will tremble before Thee; and who will strive against the
might of Thine arm? If Thou shut the heaven, who will open
it? And if Thou let loose Thy torrents, who will restrain
them? It is a light thing in Thine eyes to make poor and to make
rich, to make alive and to kill, to strike and to heal, and Thy will is
perfect action. Thou art angry, and we have sinned,3126
says one of old, making confession; and it
is now time for me to say the opposite, “We have sinned, and Thou
art angry:” therefore have we become a reproach to our
neighbours.3127
Thou didst
turn Thy face from us, and we were filled with dishonour. But
stay, Lord, cease, Lord, forgive, Lord, deliver us not up for ever
because of our iniquities, and let not our chastisements be a warning
for others, when we might learn wisdom from the trials of others.
Of whom? Of the nations which know Thee not, and kingdoms which
have not been subject to Thy power. But we are Thy
people,3128
O Lord, the rod of
Thine inheritance; therefore correct us, but in goodness and not in
Thine anger, lest Thou bring us to nothingness3129
and contempt among all that dwell on the earth.
13. With these words I invoke mercy:
and if it were possible to propitiate His wrath with whole burnt
offerings or sacrifices, I would not even have spared these. Do
you also yourselves imitate your trembling priest, you, my beloved
children, sharers with me alike of the Divine correction and
loving-kindness. Possess your souls in tears, and stay His wrath
by amending your way of life. Sanctify a fast, call a solemn
assembly,3130
as blessed Joel
with us charges you: gather the elders, and the babes that suck
the breasts, whose tender age wins our pity, and is specially worthy of
the loving-kindness of God. I know also what he enjoins both upon
me, the minister of
God, and upon you, who have been thought worthy of the same honour,
that we should enter His house in sackcloth and lament night and day
between the porch and the altar, in piteous array, and with more
piteous voices, crying aloud without ceasing on behalf of ourselves and
the people, sparing nothing, either toil or word, which may propitiate
God: saying “Spare, O Lord, Thy people, and give not Thine
heritage to reproach,”3131
and the rest of the
prayer; surpassing the people in our sense of the affliction as much as
in our rank, instructing them in our own persons in compunction and
correction of wickedness, and in the consequent long-suffering of God,
and cessation of the scourge.
14. Come then, all of you, my brethren, let
us worship and fall down, and weep before the Lord our Maker;3132
let us appoint a public mourning, in our
various ages and families, let us raise the voice of supplication; and
let this, instead of the cry which He hates, enter into the ears of the
Lord of Sabaoth. Let us anticipate His anger by
confession;3133
let us desire to
see Him appeased, after He was wroth. Who knoweth, he says, if He
will turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him?3134
This I know certainly, I the sponsor
of the loving-kindness of God. And when He has laid aside that
which is unnatural to Him, His anger, He will betake Himself to that
which is natural, His mercy. To the one He is forced by us, to
the other He is inclined. And if He is forced to strike, surely
He will refrain, according to His Nature. Only let us have mercy
on ourselves, and open a road for our Father’s righteous
affections. Let us sow in tears, that we may reap in
joy,3135
let us show ourselves men of Nineveh, not of
Sodom.3136
| 3136 Gen. xix. 17, 23; Jonah iii. 5. | Let us amend
our wickedness, lest we be consumed with it; let us listen to the
preaching of Jonah, lest we be overwhelmed by fire and brimstone, and
if we have departed from Sodom let us escape to the mountain, let us
flee to Zoar, let us enter it as the sun rises; let us not stay in all
the plain, let us not look around us, lest we be frozen into a pillar
of salt, a really immortal pillar, to accuse the soul which returns to
wickedness.
15. Let us be assured that to do no
wrong3137
| 3137 To do no wrong.
etc. Clémencet quotes this as an aphorism from Demosth. de
Cor. | is really superhuman, and belongs to God
alone. I say nothing about the Angels, that we may give no room
for wrong feelings, nor opportunity for harmful altercations. Our
unhealed condition arises from our evil and unsubdued nature, and from
the exercise of its powers. Our repentance when we sin, is a
human action, but an action which bespeaks a good man, belonging to
that portion which is in the way of salvation. For if even our
dust contracts somewhat of wickedness, and the earthly tabernacle
presseth down the upward flight of the soul,3138
which at least was created to fly upward, yet let the image be cleansed
from filth, and raise aloft the flesh, its yoke-fellow, lifting it on
the wings of reason; and, what is better, let us neither need this
cleansing, nor have to be cleansed, by preserving our original dignity,
to which we are hastening through our training here, and let us not by
the bitter taste of sin be banished from the tree of life: though
it is better to turn again when we err, than to be free from correction
when we stumble. For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,3139
and a rebuke is a fatherly action; while
every soul which is unchastised, is unhealed. Is not then freedom
from chastisement a hard thing? But to fail to be corrected by
the chastisement is still harder. One of the prophets, speaking
of Israel, whose heart was hard and uncircumcised, says, Lord, Thou
hast stricken them, but they have not grieved, Thou hast consumed them
but they have refused to receive correction;3140
and again, The people turned not to Him that smiteth them;3141
and Why is my people slidden back by a
perpetual backsliding,3142
because of which it
will be utterly crushed and destroyed?
16. It is a fearful thing, my brethren, to
fall into the hands of a living God,3143
and fearful is
the face of the Lord against them that do evil,3144
and abolishing wickedness with utter destruction. Fearful is the
ear of God, listening even to the voice of Abel speaking through his
silent blood. Fearful His feet, which overtake evildoing.
Fearful also His filling of the universe, so that it is impossible
anywhere to escape the action of God,3145
not even by flying up to heaven, or entering Hades, or by escaping to
the far East, or concealing ourselves in the depths and ends of the
sea.3146
Nahum the Elkoshite was afraid before
me, when he proclaimed the burden of Nineveh, God is jealous, and the
Lord takes vengeance in wrath upon His adversaries,3147
and uses such abundance of severity that no
room is left for further vengeance upon the wicked. For whenever
I hear Isaiah threaten the people of Sodom and rulers of
Gomorrah,3148
and say Why
will ye be smitten any
more, adding sin to sin?3149
I am almost
filled with horror, and melted to tears. It is impossible, he
says, to find any blow to add to those which are past, because of your
newly added sins; so completely have you run through the whole, and
exhausted every form of chastisement, ever calling upon yourselves some
new one by your wickedness. There is not a wound, nor bruise, nor
putrefying sore;3150
the plague affects
the whole body and is incurable: for it is impossible to apply a
plaster, or ointment or bandages. I pass over the rest of the
threatenings, that I may not press upon you more heavily than your
present plague.
17. Only let us recognise the purpose of the
evil. Why have the crops withered, our storehouses been emptied,
the pastures of our flocks failed, the fruits of the earth been
withheld, and the plains been filled with shame instead of with
fatness: why have valleys lamented and not abounded in corn, the
mountains not dropped sweetness, as they shall do hereafter to the
righteous, but been stript and dishonoured, and received on the
contrary the curse of Gilboa?3151
The whole
earth has become as it was in the beginning, before it was adorned with
its beauties. Thou visitedst the earth, and madest it to
drink3152
—but the visitation has been for evil,
and the draught destructive. Alas! what a spectacle! Our
prolific crops reduced to stubble, the seed we sowed is recognised by
scanty remains, and our harvest, the approach of which we reckon from
the number of the months, instead of from the ripening corn, scarcely
bears the firstfruits for the Lord. Such is the wealth of the
ungodly, such the harvest of the careless sower; as the ancient curse
runs, to look for much, and bring in little,3153
to
sow and not reap, to plant and not press,3154
ten acres of vineyard to yield one bath:3155
and to hear of fertile harvests in
other lands, and be ourselves pressed by famine. Why is this, and
what is the cause of the breach? Let us not wait to be convicted
by others, let us be our own examiners. An important medicine for
evil is confession, and care to avoid stumbling. I will be first to do
so, as I have made my report to my people from on high, and performed
the duty of a watcher.3156
| 3156 Ib. xxi. 6; lxii. 6; Habak. ii. 1. | For I did not
conceal the coming of the sword that I might save my own soul3157
and those of my hearers. So will I now
announce the disobedience of my people, making what is theirs my own,
if I may perchance thus obtain some tenderness and relief.
18. One of us has oppressed the poor, and
wrested from him his portion of land, and wrongly encroached upon his
landmark by fraud or violence, and joined house to house, and field to
field, to rob his neighbour of something, and been eager to have no
neighbour, so as to dwell alone on the earth.3158
Another has defiled the land with
usury and interest, both gathering where he had not sowed and reaping
where he had not strawed,3159
farming, not the
land, but the necessity of the needy. Another has robbed
God,3160
the giver of all, of the firstfruits of the
barnfloor and winepress, showing himself at once thankless and
senseless, in neither giving thanks for what he has had, nor prudently
providing, at least, for the future. Another has had no pity on
the widow and orphan, and not imparted his bread and meagre nourishment
to the needy, or rather to Christ, Who is nourished in the persons of
those who are nourished even in a slight degree; a man perhaps of much
property unexpectedly gained, for this is the most unjust of all, who
finds his many barns too narrow for him, filling some and emptying
others, to build greater3161
ones for future
crops, not knowing that he is being snatched away with hopes
unrealised, to give an account of his riches and fancies, and proved to
have been a bad steward of another’s goods. Another has
turned aside the way of the meek,3162
and turned
aside the just among the unjust; another has hated him that reproveth
in the gates,3163
and abhorred him
that speaketh uprightly;3164
another has
sacrificed to his net which catches much,3165
and keeping the spoil of the poor in his house,3166
has either remembered not God, or remembered Him ill—by saying
“Blessed be the Lord, for we are rich,”3167
and wickedly supposed that he received these
things from Him by Whom he will be punished. For because of these
things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of
disobedience.3168
Because of
these things the heaven is shut, or opened for our punishment; and much
more, if we do not repent, even when smitten, and draw near to Him, Who
approaches us through the powers of nature.
19. What shall be said to this by those of us who
are buyers and sellers of corn, and watch the hardships of the seasons,
in order to grow prosperous, and luxuriate in the misfortunes of others, and acquire, not, like
Joseph, the property of the Egyptians,3169
as
a part of a wide policy, (for he could both collect and supply corn
duly, as he also could foresee the famine, and provide against it afar
off,) but the property of their fellow countrymen in an illegal manner,
for they say, “When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell,
and the sabbaths, that we may open our stores?”3170
And they corrupt justice with divers
measures and balances,3171
and draw upon
themselves the ephah of lead.3172
What shall we
say to these things who know no limit to our getting, who worship gold
and silver, as those of old worshipped Baal, and Astarte and the
abomination Chemosh?3173
Who give heed
to the brilliance of costly stones, and soft flowing garments, the prey
of moths, and the plunder of robbers and tyrants and thieves; who are
proud of their multitude of slaves and animals, and spread themselves
over plains and mountains, with their possessions and gains and
schemes, like Solomon’s horseleach3174
which cannot be satisfied, any more than the grave, and the earth, and
fire, and water; who seek for another world for their possession, and
find fault with the bounds of God, as too small for their insatiable
cupidity? What of those who sit on lofty thrones and raise the
stage of government, with a brow loftier than that of the theatre,
taking no account of the God over all, and the height of the true
kingdom that none can approach unto, so as to rule their subjects as
fellow-servants, as needing themselves no less loving-kindness?
Look also, I pray you, at those who stretch themselves upon beds of
ivory, whom the divine Amos fitly upbraids, who anoint themselves with
the chief ointments, and chant to the sound of instruments of music,
and attach themselves to transitory things as though they were stable,
but have not grieved nor had compassion for the affliction of
Joseph;3175
though they ought
to have been kind to those who had met with disaster before them, and
by mercy have obtained mercy; as the fir-tree should howl, because the
cedar had fallen,3176
and be instructed
by their neighbours’ chastisement, and be led by others’
ills to regulate their own lives, having the advantage of being saved
by their predecessors’ fate, instead of being themselves a
warning to others.
20. Join with us, thou divine and sacred
person, in considering these questions, with the store of experience,
that source of wisdom, which thou hast gathered in thy long life.
Herewith instruct thy people. Teach them to break their bread to
the hungry, to gather together the poor that have no shelter, to cover
their nakedness and not neglect those of the same blood,3177
and now especially that we may gain a
benefit from our need instead of from abundance, a result which pleases
God more than plentiful offerings and large gifts. After this,
nay before it, show thyself, I pray, a Moses,3178
or
Phinehas3179
to-day. Stand
on our behalf and make atonement, and let the plague be stayed, either
by the spiritual sacrifice,3180
or by prayer and
reasonable intercession.3181
Restrain the
anger of the Lord by thy mediation: avert any succeeding blows of
the scourge. He knoweth to respect the hoar hairs of a father
interceding for his children. Intreat for our past
wickedness: be our surety for the future. Present a people
purified by suffering and fear. Beg for bodily sustenance, but
beg rather for the angels’ food that cometh down from
heaven. So doing, thou wilt make God to be our God, wilt
conciliate heaven, wilt restore the former and latter rain:3182
the Lord shall show loving-kindness3183
and our land shall yield her fruit;3184
our earthly land its fruit which lasts for
the day, and our frame, which is but dust, the fruit which is eternal,
which we shall store up in the heavenly winepresses by thy hands, who
presentest both us and ours in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory
for evermore. Amen.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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