'But these also have erred through wine, and through drunkenness have gone astray; the priests have erred through drunkenness, they are swallowed up with wine, they have wandered in drunkenness, they have not known the seer, they have been ignorant of judgment. For all tables are filled with the vomit of filthiness, so that there is no more place. Therefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, who rule over my people that is in Jerusalem. For ye have said: We have struck a covenant with death, and with hell we have made a pact. When the overflowing scourge shall pass, it shall not come upon us, for we have made a lie our hope, and by a lie we have been protected' (Isaiah 28:7, 8, 14, 15). And after some words: 'And the hail shall overturn the hope of the lie, and waters shall overflow its shelter.'
'And your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your pact with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass, ye shall be trodden down by it; whenever it shall pass over, it shall carry you away' (Isaiah 28:17-19). And again: 'And the Lord said: Forasmuch as this people draw near with their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from me; therefore, behold, I will proceed to make this people wonder with a great and astounding miracle. For wisdom shall perish from its wise men, and the understanding of its prudent shall be hidden. Woe to you who are deep of heart, that ye may hide your counsel from the Lord; whose works are in darkness, and they say: Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? For perverse is this your thought' (Isaiah 29:13-16).
And after some words: 'Thus saith the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool of my feet. What is this house that ye will build for me? and what shall be the place of my rest? All these things my hand hath made, and all these things were made, saith the Lord. But to whom shall I look, except to the poor little one and contrite in spirit, and trembling at my words? He who slaughters an ox is as one who slays a man; he who kills a beast is as one who brains a dog; he who offers an oblation is as one who offers swine's blood: he who burns incense is as one who blesses an idol. All these things they have chosen in their ways, and their soul hath delighted in their abominations' (Isaiah 66:1-3). CHAPTER 10. From Jeremiah.
— Hear also what Jeremiah, the virgin and prophet, says to foolish shepherds: 'Thus saith the Lord: What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and have become vain? (Jeremiah 2:5). And a little after: 'And entering in, ye defiled my land, and made my inheritance an abomination. The priests said not: Where is the Lord? and those who held the law knew me not, and the shepherds transgressed against me. Therefore will I yet contend with you in judgment, saith the Lord, and with your children will I plead' (Jeremiah 2:7, 9). Likewise after some words: 'Astonishment and wonders have been done in the land.'
'The prophets prophesied a lie, and the priests applauded with their hands, and my people loved such things. What then shall be done in the latter end thereof?' (Jeremiah 5:30-31). 'To whom shall I speak and testify, that he may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot hear. Behold, the word of the Lord is become to them a reproach, and they receive it not' (Jeremiah 6:10): 'for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord. For from the least even to the greatest all are bent on covetousness, and from the prophet even to the priest all deal falsely. And they healed the breach of the daughter of my people with shame, saying: Peace, peace; and there was no peace. They were confounded, because they committed abomination;'
'but rather they were not ashamed with confusion, and they knew not how to blush. Wherefore they shall fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the Lord' (Jeremiah 6:12-15). And again: 'All these princes of them that turn aside walk deceitfully; they are brass and iron; all of them are corrupted. The bellows have failed in the fire; the founder hath melted in vain; for their wickednesses are not consumed. Call them reprobate silver, because the Lord hath rejected them' (Jeremiah 6:28-30). And after a few words: 'It is I, it is I; I have seen, saith the Lord. Go to my place in Shiloh, where my name dwelt from the beginning; and see what I have done to it because of the wickedness of the people of Israel. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord;'
'and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, and ye heard not; and I called you, and ye answered not: I will do to this house, in which my name is invoked, and in which ye put your trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh; and I will cast you out from my face' (Jeremiah 7:13, 15). And again: 'My children have gone forth from me, and they remain not; and there is none to stretch out my tent any more, and to set up my curtains. For the shepherds have acted foolishly, and have not sought the Lord; therefore they have not understood, and their flock is scattered' (Jeremiah 10:20-21). And after some words: 'What is it that my beloved hath done many crimes in my house?'
'Shall the holy flesh take away from thee thy wickednesses, in which thou hast gloried? The Lord called thy name a rich olive tree, fair, fruitful, beautiful; at the sound of the speech a great fire was kindled in it, and its branches were burnt' (Jeremiah 11:15-16). And again: 'Come, be gathered together, all ye beasts of the earth, hasten to devour. Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have given my desirable portion into a desert solitude' (Jeremiah 12:9-10). And likewise it speaks: 'Thus saith the Lord to this people, which loved to move its feet and rested not, and pleased not the Lord. Now will he remember their iniquities, and visit their sins' (Jeremiah 14:10). 'The prophets say to them:'
'Ye shall not see the sword, and famine shall not be among you, but the Lord shall give you true peace in this place. And the Lord said to me: The prophets prophesy falsely in my name; I sent them not, and I commanded them not; a lying vision, and divination, and fraud, and the seduction of their own heart they prophesy to you. Therefore thus saith the Lord: By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. And the peoples to whom they prophesied shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of famine and sword; and there shall be none to bury them' (Jeremiah 14:13-16). And again: 'Woe to the shepherds who scatter and tear the flock of my pasture, saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel to the shepherds who feed my people:'
'Ye have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit upon you the wickedness of your endeavours, saith the Lord' (Jeremiah 23:1-2). 'For both the prophet and the priest are polluted; and in my house I have found their evil, saith the Lord. And therefore their way shall be as a slippery place in the darkness; for they shall be driven on, and shall fall therein; for I will bring evils upon them, the year of their visitation, saith the Lord. And in the prophets of Samaria I saw folly; and they prophesied in Baal, and deceived my people Israel. And in the prophets of Jerusalem I saw the likeness of adulterers, and the way of lying; and they strengthened the hands of the most wicked, that no man should turn back from his wickedness;'
'they are all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah. Therefore thus saith the Lord to the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and give them gall to drink; for from the prophets of Jerusalem pollution has gone forth over all the earth. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Do not hear the words of the prophets who prophesy to you and deceive you; for they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. For they say to those who blaspheme me: The Lord hath spoken: Peace shall be to you. And to all who walk in the perversity of their own heart, they have said: No evil shall come upon you. For who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and seen and heard his word? Who hath considered his word and heard it?'
'Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord's indignation goeth forth, and a tempest bursting forth shall come upon the head of the wicked. The fury of the Lord shall not return until he hath done it, and until he hath fulfilled the thought of his heart. In the latter days ye shall understand his counsel' (Jeremiah 23:14-20). CHAPTER 11. From Joel, Hosea, Amos. — For little do ye consider or do what holy Joel also, admonishing the slothful priests and bewailing the loss of the people because of their iniquities, declared: 'Awake, ye who are drunk with your wine, and weep and lament, all ye who drink wine to drunkenness, because gladness and joy are taken away from your mouth' (Joel 1:5). 'Mourn, ye priests who serve the altar, because the fields are made wretched.'
'Let the land mourn, because the grain is made wretched, and the wine is dried up, the oil is diminished, the husbandmen are withered. Mourn for your possessions over the wheat and barley, because the vintage hath perished from the field, the vine is withered, the figs are diminished: the pomegranate, and the palm, and the apple, and all the trees of the field are withered, because the sons of men have brought confusion upon joy' (Joel 1:9-12). All these things ye must understand spiritually, lest your souls should wither away by so deadly a famine of the word of God. And again: 'Weep, ye priests who serve the Lord, saying: Spare, O Lord, thy people, and give not thine inheritance to reproach, that the nations should not rule over them, lest the nations should say: Where is their God?' (Joel 2:17).
But these things ye by no means hear, but ye admit everything by which the indignation of divine fury may the more readily be kindled. Mark also pointedly what the holy prophet Hosea said to priests of your stamp: 'Hear this, ye priests, and let the house of Israel and the house of the king attend, fix it in your ears: for to you is the judgment, because ye have become a snare to the watch-post, and like a net spread over Tabor which the trackers of the hunt have set up' (Hosea 5:1). Let an estrangement of this sort also be directed against you from the Lord through the prophet Amos, saying: 'I have hated and rejected your feast days, and I will not accept the savour in your solemn assemblies:'
'for even if ye offer me your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, I will not accept them (and the salvation of your manifestation I will not regard). Take away from me the noise of thy songs, and I will not hear the psalm of thy instruments' (Amos 5:21-23). For the very kitchen of the famine of the gospel food, eating up the very inward parts of your soul, rages in you, just as the aforesaid prophet foretold: 'Behold,' he says, 'the days come, saith the Lord: and I will send a famine upon the land, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of God. And the waters shall be moved from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east they shall run about, seeking the word of the Lord, and shall not find it' (Amos 8:11-12). CHAPTER 12. From Micah.
— Take also into your ears holy Micah, as it were sounding a kind of heavenly trumpet more cuttingly against the deceitful princes of the people. 'Hear now,' he says, 'ye princes of the house of Jacob. Is it not for you to know judgment, who hate good and seek evil things, who pluck their skins from off them, and their flesh from off their bones? Even as they ate the flesh of my people, and flayed their skins off them, broke their bones, and tore them in pieces as flesh in a pot. They shall cry out to God, and he will not hear them, and he will turn away his face from them in that time, because they have done wickedly in their devices against them.'
'Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who bite with their teeth, and proclaim peace to him, and there is not given into their mouth: I have stirred up war against him. Therefore night shall be to you instead of vision, and darkness shall be to you instead of divination: and the sun shall set upon the prophets, and the day shall be darkened over them. And they that see dreams shall be confounded, and the diviners shall be derided, and they shall all rail against them: because there shall be none to hear them. Unless I shall have filled up strength in the spirit of the Lord and in judgment and in power, to declare to the house of Jacob their impieties and to Israel their sins.'
'Hear this, therefore, ye leaders of the house of Jacob and remnant of the house of Israel, who abhor judgment and pervert all that is right, who build Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquities. Its leaders judged for bribes, and its priests answered for hire, and its prophets divined for money, and they leaned upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord among us? No evils shall come upon us. Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a heap of an orchard, and the mountain of the house as the thickets of a forest' (Micah 3:1, 12). And after some words: 'Woe is me, for I am become as one who gathers stubble in the harvest, and as a cluster in the vintage, when there is no grape-cluster to eat of the firstfruits.'
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Heume, animaquiaperiitterrenisoperibus: semperreverentiaexoriturreverensaterra: etquicorrigatinterhominesnonest. Omnesinsanguinemjudiciocontendunt, etunusquisqueproximumsuumtribulationetribulat, inmalummanussuaspræparat (Mich. VII, i, 3). CAP. XIII. ExSophonia, Zacharia, Malachia. — QuidSophoniasetiamprophetaegregiusdevestrisolimcomessoribusdisceptaverit, attendite: deJerusalemnamqueloquebatur, quæspirituaiterEcclesiavelanimaintelligitur. 0, inquiens, quœeratsplendidaetliberatacivitas, confidenscolumba, nonobaudiitvocemnecpercepitdisciplinam; inDominononconfisaest, etadDeumsuumnonaccessit (Sophon. III, I, 2).
'Woe is me, my soul, because it has perished by earthly works: a reverence ever rises up reverencing from the earth: and there is none to set right among men. All contend in judgment for blood, and each one afflicts his neighbour with tribulation; he prepares his hands for evil' (Micah 7:1-3). CHAPTER 13. From Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi. — Mark what Zephaniah also, that excellent prophet, once disputed concerning your fellow-gluttons: for he was speaking of Jerusalem, which is understood as the spiritual Church or the soul. 'O,' he says, 'that splendid and liberated city, the trusting dove, has not obeyed the voice nor received instruction; it has not trusted in the Lord, and has not drawn near to its God' (Zephaniah 3:1-2).
And he shows why: 'Its princes are like roaring lions: its judges like the wolves of Arabia, they left nothing till the morning: its prophets, men carrying a spirit, are despisers: its priests profaned holy things, and acted impiously against the law. But the Lord is just in the midst of it, and he will not do iniquity: morning by morning he will give his justice' (Zephaniah 3:3-5). But hear also blessed Zechariah admonishing you in the word of God: 'For thus saith the Lord Almighty: Judge just judgment, and do mercy and compassion, each one toward his brother: and the widow, and the orphan, and the stranger, and the poor, oppress not by your power: and let no man remember in his heart the malice of his brother.'
'But they refused to attend, and turned their back in stubbornness, and made their ears heavy that they should not hear: and they made their heart unpersuadable, that they should not hear my law, and the words which the Lord Almighty sent in his Spirit by the hands of the former prophets: and great wrath came from the Lord Almighty' (Zechariah 7:9-12). And again: 'Because those who spoke, spoke vexations, and the diviners saw false visions and spoke false dreams, and gave empty comfort: therefore they were made withered like sheep, and were afflicted, because there was no health. My anger was exasperated against the shepherds, and against the lambs will I visit' (Zechariah 10:2-3). And after a few words:
'A voice of the wailing of the shepherds, because their greatness is made wretched. A voice of the roaring of lions, because the pride of Jordan is made wretched. Thus saith the Lord Almighty: Those who possessed them slew them, and repented not; and those who sold them said: Blessed be the Lord, for we have been made rich: and their shepherds suffered nothing for them. Therefore I will no longer spare the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord' (Zechariah 11:3, 5-6). Hear, moreover, what holy Malachi the prophet has announced to you: 'You,' he says, 'priests who despise my name, and have said: Wherein do we despise thy name? By offering polluted bread upon my altar, and ye have said: Wherein have we polluted them? In that ye have said:'
'The table of the Lord is contemptible. And the things set upon it ye have despised: for if ye bring a blind beast for a victim, is it not evil? If ye offer the lame or the sick, is it not evil? Offer it therefore to thy governor, whether he will accept it, whether he will regard thy person, saith the Lord Almighty. And now entreat the face of your God, and beseech him: in your hands these things have been done, whether I will accept your persons from you' (Malachi 1:7, 8, 9). And again: 'And ye brought of plunder the lame and the sick, and brought a gift. Shall I accept it from your hand, saith the Lord?'
'Cursed is the deceitful man who has a male in his flock, and making a vow sacrifices a feeble one to the Lord; for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is terrible among the nations' (Malachi 1:14). 'And now to you is this commandment, O priests. If ye will not hear and lay it to heart, to give glory to my name, saith the Lord of hosts: I will send want upon you, and I will curse your blessings, because ye have not laid it to heart. Behold, I will cast at you the arm, and I will scatter upon your face the dung of your solemnities' (Malachi 2:1-3). CHAPTER 14. Again from Malachi.
— But meanwhile, that ye may the more eagerly prepare instruments of wickedness for good ends, hear what He says concerning the holy priest (if any whit of inward hearing yet remains in you): 'My covenant,' He says, 'was with him (for He was speaking of Levi, or of Moses according to the history) of life and of peace: I gave him fear, and he feared me: he was in dread before the face of my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: in peace and in equity he walked with me: and he turned many away from iniquity. For the lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law from his mouth: for he is the angel of the Lord of hosts' (Malachi 2:5-7). Now likewise He changed His meaning, and ceases not to rebuke the wicked:
'You,' He says, 'have departed from the way, and have caused many to stumble in the law: and ye have made void the covenant with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. Wherefore I also have made you contemptible and base before all peoples, inasmuch as ye have not kept my ways, and have accepted persons in the law. Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why then doth every man despise his brother?' (Malachi 2:8, 10). And again: 'Behold, the Lord of hosts shall come: and who shall be able to consider the day of his coming? and who shall stand to see him? For he shall go forth as a burning fire, and as the herb of the fullers:'
'and he shall sit refining and purifying silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall strain them as gold and as silver' (Malachi 3:1-3). And after a few words: 'Your words have prevailed against me, saith the Lord: and ye have said: He that serves God is vain: and what profit, that we have kept his commandments, and that we have walked sorrowfully before the Lord of hosts? Therefore now we shall call the arrogant blessed: since indeed those who work iniquity are built up: they have tempted God, and have been saved' (Malachi 3:13-15). CHAPTER 15. From Ezekiel. — But mark what Ezekiel the prophet has said: 'Woe,' he says, 'shall come upon woe, and rumour shall be upon rumour:'
'and they shall seek a vision from the prophet, and the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders' (Ezekiel 7:26). And again: 'Thus saith the Lord: Because your words are lies, and your divinations vain; therefore behold I am against you, saith the Lord: I will stretch out my hand against the prophets who see lies, and those who speak vain things: they shall not be in the instruction of my people, and they shall not be written in the writing of the house of Israel, and into the land of Israel they shall not enter: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Because they have seduced my people, saying: The peace of the Lord; and there is no peace of the Lord. One builds a wall; and they themselves daub it, and it shall fall' (Ezekiel 13:8-10). And after some words:
'Woe to those who sew cushions under every elbow of the hand, and make veils over every head of every age to subvert souls. And the souls of my people are subverted, and they possessed souls, and they defiled me toward my people for my sake — for a handful of barley and for a fragment of bread, to slay the souls which ought not to die, and to keep alive the souls which ought not to live, while ye speak to a people that hearkens to vain utterances' (Ezekiel 13:18-19). And below: 'Son of man, say: Thou art the land which is not rained upon, neither has rain been made upon thee in the day of wrath; in which the princes in the midst of it are like roaring lions, snatching plunder, devouring souls in power, and receiving prices:'
'and thy widows are multiplied in the midst of thee, and its priests have despised my law, and have polluted my holy things. Between the holy and the polluted they did not distinguish, and between the unclean and the clean they did not divide: and they hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and they were polluted in the midst of them' (Ezekiel 22:24-26). And again: 'And I sought from among them a man living uprightly, and standing before my face altogether in the time of wrath, that I should not destroy it in the end: and I found none. And I poured out my soul upon it in the fire of my wrath, to consume them: I have given their ways upon their own head, saith the Lord' (Ezekiel 22:30-31). And after some words: 'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, speak to the children of my people, and thou shalt say to them:'
'The land upon which I shall bring a sword, and the people of that land shall have taken one man from among themselves, and shall have set him for themselves as a watchman; and he shall have seen the sword coming upon the land, and shall have blown the trumpet, and shall have warned the people: and whoever hears the sound of the trumpet, and does not heed it; and the sword comes, and takes him: his blood shall be upon his own head; for because he heard the sound of the trumpet, and heeded not: his blood shall be on himself: but this man, because he kept his soul, has delivered it. And if the watchman shall have seen the sword coming, and shall not have given the warning by the trumpet; and the people shall not have heeded; and the coming sword takes a soul from among them; that soul, indeed, is taken for its own iniquity, but I will require the blood from the hand of the watchman.'
'And thou, son of man, I have set thee a watchman to the house of Israel, and thou shalt hear the word from my mouth, when I say to the sinner: Thou shalt surely die; and thou speakest not, that the wicked may turn himself from his way, and that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require from thy hand. But if thou shalt have foretold to the wicked his way, that he may turn himself from it, and he turns not himself from his way: this man shall die in his impiety, but thou hast delivered thy soul' (Ezekiel 33:2-9). CHAPTER 16. From the Gospel of Matthew. — But let these few out of the many testimonies of the prophets suffice, by which the pride or the cowardice of stubborn priests is beaten back, lest they suppose that we denounce such things to them rather by our own invention than by the authority of the law and of the saints.
Let us therefore see what the gospel trumpet, sounding to the world, declares to disordered priests: for our discourse is not concerning those, as we have already said, who lawfully hold the apostolic seat, and who well know how to dispense spiritual food in due season to their fellow-servants (if indeed there be many such at present), but concerning the unskilled shepherds, who forsake the sheep and feed on vanities, and have not the words of a skilled shepherd. It is therefore a plain sign that he is not a lawful shepherd, but indeed a mediocre Christian, who has refused or denied these decrees, not so much ours (who are very small), as those of the Old and New Testament, just as one of our own has well said:
«We earnestly desire that the enemies of the Church be also our enemies without any treaty, and that our friends and defenders be held not only as allies, but even as fathers and lords.» For let individuals examine their own conscience by a true scrutiny, and so they will discover whether they sit upon the priestly chair according to right reason. Let us see, I say, what the Saviour and Maker of the world says: 'You are,' he says, 'the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more, but to be cast out and trodden underfoot by men' (Matthew 5:13). This one testimony might suffice abundantly to confute any of the shameless.
But that it may be proved by the words of Christ, with still more evident corroborations, with how great and intolerable burdens of their own these false priests oppress themselves, some things must be added. For it follows: 'You are the light of the world. A city cannot be hidden, set upon a mountain. Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all who are in the house' (Matthew 5:14). Which priest, then, of this time is so possessed by the blindness of ignorance, that, like the light of a most brilliant lamp, he shines in some house to all who reside there by night with the torch of knowledge and of good works at once?
Who among all the sons of the Church is held to be a safe, open, and conspicuous refuge, such that he might be to the citizens a most secure city set upon the summit of a lofty mountain? But as for what follows: 'So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven' (Matt. 5:16) — which of them can fulfil this even for a single day? Rather, a certain most dense cloud of theirs, and the black night of sins, so weighs upon the whole Island that it turns nearly everyone away from the straight path, and causes them to wander through the trackless and obstructed byways of wickedness; by whose works the heavenly Father is not only not praised, but is even intolerably blasphemed.