{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4898","native_reference":{"book_number":330,"chapter_from":2,"chapter_to":2,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":10,"verse_to":10},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: \"And there were written in it lamentations, a song, and woe.\" There is no doubt that \"song\" (carmen) is sometimes used in a good sense and sometimes in a bad sense, because we can speak of both a joyful song and a mournful song. But following the usage of Sacred Scripture, which almost always uses \"song\" in connection with prosperity, we take \"song\" in this passage as said in a good sense. For when almighty God had delivered His people from the Red Sea, it is written: \"Then Moses and the children of Israel sang a song to the Lord.\" And when David had achieved victory over his enemies, it is written: \"David spoke to the Lord the words of this song.\" Solomon also says: \"Like vinegar on soda is one who sings songs to a wicked heart.\" For if vinegar is poured on soda, the soda immediately fizzes and bubbles up. And when a perverse mind is rebuked through correction, or is urged toward good through the sweetness of preaching, it becomes worse from the correction; and it is inflamed thereby into the wickedness of murmuring, when it ought to have been restrained from wickedness. Through Elihu also it is said concerning the ungrateful man who despairs of himself: \"And he did not say, 'Where is He who made me, who gives songs in the night?'\" For a song in the night is joy in tribulation. We receive a song in the night when amid present afflictions we are consoled by future joys. The Apostle was showing us a song in the night when he said: \"Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.\" David indicates that he has a song in the night, saying: \"You are my refuge from the distress that surrounds me; my exultation, deliver me from those surrounding me.\" For he who recounts that he is surrounded by distresses, and yet declares that God is his exultation, without doubt sings a song in the night. Therefore, since Sacred Scripture has almost always been accustomed to use \"song\" in a good sense, it ought to be understood by us in this passage in the same way.<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 9</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: But \"woe\" in Sacred Scripture is more often understood of eternal grief than of present grief. Whence it is written: \"Woe to the wicked unto evil; for the retribution of his hands shall be made to him.\" And blessed Job speaks, saying: \"If I be wicked, woe unto me; but if I be just, I shall not lift up my head, being filled with affliction and misery.\" For the affliction of the just is temporal. Therefore the woe which he spoke he distinguished from temporal affliction, since he declared that the just man has affliction, and the wicked man has woe. Truth also says through herself: \"Woe to the world because of scandals,\" and, \"Woe to you who laugh, for you shall weep.\" And, \"Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing in those days.\" Therefore we must consider how these three things are written in the sacred volume: lamentations, song, and woe.<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 9</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: Lamentations, that is, because repentance for sins is written in it. Song, because there the joys of the righteous are foretold. Woe, because there the damnation of the reprobate is expressed. Therefore, that you may punish your sins, read the lamentations written in this volume: \"Rend your hearts, and not your garments.\" And again: \"Be miserable and mourn; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to sorrow.\" But that you may rejoice in the promise of following joy, learn the songs of eternal praise written in this volume: \"Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord, they shall praise you forever and ever.\" And as it is said by a certain wise man concerning the heavenly Jerusalem: \"And all its streets shall be paved with precious and pure stone, and through all its lanes alleluia shall be sung.\" The citizens of the heavenly homeland had come to announce this song to us, who cried out in harmony: \"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.\"<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 9</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: But if you still cling in mind to the present age, if you still delight in earthly pleasures, you cannot love the eternal joys you hear about. Therefore learn the woe that is written in this volume, and drive from your soul through fear what you love, so that from the judgment you may be able to love the song you read. For there under the figure of one condemned the whole multitude of the reprobate is represented, when it is said by the voice of Truth: \"Binding his feet and hands, cast him into the outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.\" For then the reprobate fall into outer darkness, because now they cast themselves down into inner darkness of their own will, so that they would follow the light of truth neither by believing nor by doing good. Bound in feet and hands they are commanded to be cast out, because now while it is the time for working and running, they refused to have free hands and feet for good action. There the woe of the reprobate is written: \"Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched.\" There it is said to the damned and rejected: \"Depart from me, you cursed, into eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.\"<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 9</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: In this volume, therefore, all things that edify, all things that instruct, are contained in writing. For you have sinned, and now you repent of having committed unlawful deeds—that you may be taught to do penance, there you find lamentations. You desire to refresh your mind with hope of heavenly joys—there you find a song for your consolation. But if you have both committed evils and do not repent of having committed them, but raise the neck of your mind, bow down to no lamentations of penance, and are corrected by no expectation of heavenly joys, whether you will or not, you shall hear the woe written there, so that he whom neither fear humbles to repentance nor hope exalts to heavenly rewards may now foresee the punishment of his damnation and fall into eternal torment without excuse.<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 9</i></p><p><b>Gregory the Dialogist</b>: What then, brothers, what must we wretched ones do, except that we awaken to the words of this book and punish with tears the evils we remember having committed, so that through the laments of repentance we may arrive at the song of life? Lest, if we are unwilling to be afflicted now by repenting, we feel woe afterward without end. Nor should the multitude of our wounds cast us down into despair, because the power of the physician is greater than the magnitude of our weakness. For what is there that he cannot restore to health, who was able to create all things from nothing? For he is the Only-begotten, coeternal with the almighty Father, who lives and reigns with him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God through all ages of ages. Amen.<br/><i>— Homilies on Ezekiel, Book 1, Homily 9</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: I take it to be similar in the case of the book mentioned by Ezekiel, in which had been written lamentation, mourning and woe. The whole book contains the \"woe\" of those perishing, and the \"mourning\" of those being saved and the \"lamentation\" of those in between. John, too, who eats one roll on which there is writing on the back and the front, considered the whole Scripture as one book, which is thought to be sweet at the start, when one chews it, but bitter in the perception of each of those who come to know it.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF John 5:7</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"9df36001f1119af1011caf6f26f78f2b655427949926266d49bb34f75d5f1780","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4898,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"82faf6d641e074cc25b287fbc7534fb88a1f6a79a2f80f3052d3bf41154d4904","translator":null,"work":null}