He might also have been betrayed by any stranger, did I not find that even here too he fulfilled a psalm: He who did eat bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.^[1] And without a price might he have been betrayed. For what need of a traitor was there in the case of one who offered himself to the people openly and might quite as easily have been captured by force as taken by treachery? This might, no doubt, have been well enough for another Christ but would not have been suitable in one who was accomplishing prophecies. For it was written, The righteous one did they sell for silver. The very amount and the destination of the money, which on Judas’s remorse was recalled from its first purpose of a fee and appropriated to the purchase of a potter’s field, as narrated in the Gospel of Matthew, were clearly foretold by Jeremiah: And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him who was valued, and gave them for the potter’s field.^[2]

The example of the patriarch seemed injurious to many who indulged their flesh so far as to live with sisters in their lifetime. What ought to be my course? To quote the Scriptures, or to work out what they leave unsaid? In the Pentateuch, it is not written that a father and son ought not to have the same concubine, but in the prophet, it is thought deserving of the most extreme condemnation. A man and his father, it is said, will go in unto the same maid. It makes one reflect upon how many other forms of unclean lust have been found out in the devil’s school, while divine Scripture remains silent about them, not choosing to befoul its dignity with the names of filthy things and condemning their uncleanness in general terms! Recall that the apostle Paul says, Fornication and all uncleanness . . . let it not be one named among you as become saints.^[1] This includes the unspeakable doings of both males and females under the name of uncleanness. It follows that silence certainly does not give license to voluptuaries.

They so multiplied their ill-gotten gains as to betray the rights of the needy for the basest profit (the meaning of the phrase sandals trampling the dust of the earth, which was clear proof of their setting no store by justice, especially as they easily did so for base profit). They pummeled the heads of the poor. Of the same people he says that they not only failed to vindicate their claim on justice but even belabored them without risk—hence his going on, and strayed from the path of the lowly. Though their behavior was correct, they changed the verdict to a negative one, scorning them for their lowliness.

Cain was the first murderer. Afterwards a deluge engulfed the earth because of the exceeding wickedness of humanity. Fire came down from heaven upon the people of Sodom because of their corruption. Subsequently God elected Israel, but even Israel became perverse, and the chosen people were wounded. For while Moses stood on the mountain before God, the people worshiped a calf in the place of God. In the days of their lawgiver Moses, who said, You shall not commit adultery, a man dared to enter a brothel and be wanton. After Moses, prophets were sent to heal Israel, but in their exercise of healing they deplored the fact that you could not overcome evil. One of them says, The faithful are gone from the earth. Among men the upright are no more!^[1] and again, All alike have gone astray; they have become perverse; there is not one who does good, not even one.^[2] And again, Cursing and theft, and adultery, and killing have overflowed^[3] upon the land. They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.^[4] They engaged themselves in auguries and enchantments and divinations; and again, They fastened their garments with cords and hung veils next to the altar.

[This was the reason why] the Lord accused the Israelites more severely and showed that they deserved greater punishment, because they sinned after receiving the honors that he had bestowed on them. He said, You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will visit upon you your iniquities,^[1] and again, I took of your sons for prophets and of your young men for consecration.^[2] And before the time of the prophets, when he wanted to show that sins received a much heavier penalty when they were committed by the priests than when they were committed by ordinary people, he commanded as great a sacrifice to be offered for the priests as for all the people.^[3] This explicitly proves that the priest’s wounds require greater help, indeed as much as those of all the people together. They would not have required greater help if they had not been more serious, and their seriousness is not increased by their own nature but by the extra weight of dignity belonging to the priest who dares to commit them.

Samson and Samuel drank neither wine nor strong drink, for they were children of promise and conceived in abstinence and fasting. Aaron and the other priests when about to enter the temple refrained from all intoxicating drink for fear they should die.^[1] From this we learn that they die who minister in the church without sobriety. And hence it is a reproach against Israel: You gave my Nazirites wine to drink.

He sometimes compares himself with deep condescension, on account of our infirmity, to objects without sense, as he says by the prophet, Behold, I will shriek over you as a cart creaks when laden with hay. For since the life of the carnal is hay (as it is written, all flesh is hay),^[1] in that the Lord endures the life of the carnal he declares that he carries hay as a cart. And to creak under the weight of the hay is for him to bear with murmuring the burdens and iniquities of sinners. When therefore he applies to himself very unlike resemblances, we must carefully observe that some things of this kind are sometimes spoken of concerning God, on account of the effect of his doings, but sometimes to indicate the substance of his majesty.