fectly whole, and the most blessed Virgin withdrew herself again into her own glory.

i. 5.

Certainly, my brethren, the hearts of sinners are darkness; but the light shineth in darkness, and the St. John i. 5. darkness comprehended it not. God is Light, as the Apostle John saith; and in Him is no darkness at all. 1 St. John That Light shineth in the reprobate, it shineth also in the elect, but in the reprobate in the way of judgment, in the elect in the way of mercy, according to that word of the prophet; Of mercy and judgment will Ps. ci. 1. I sing unto Thee, O Lord. And elsewhere he saith; My Ps. lix. 17. God is my mercy. Behold, brethren, Christ in the voices of the poor is crying at your doors. Shelter ye the needy Christ, lest ye should have to dread the rich Judge, when He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world, Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, world without end. Amen.

(In Assump. B. V. M. Serm. iv. 8. Opp., I. col. 1011, F.) "Who, O blessed one, can search out the length and breadth, the height and depth, of thy mercy? For its length succoureth all those who call upon it, even unto the last day. Its breadth filleth the universe, so that all the earth is full of thy mercy. So also its height hath found out a way of restoring the Heavenly City, and its depth hath obtained redemption for those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. For by thee heaven is filled, hell is emptied, the ruins of the heavenly Jerusalem are raised up, and everlasting life, which was lost, is given to the wretched ones who wait for it."

This glowing description is perfectly true of "the Love of Christ, which passeth knowledge" (see Eph. iii. 18, 19); and it is deeply to be regretted that the passage of Scripture on which it is founded should receive any other application.

Title in red letters.

IV.

SERMO

IN .IIII. FERIA ANTE QUADRAGESIMAM.

Cum ieiunatis nolite fieri sicut ypocrite tristes.

*

f. 222 b, exterminant enim facies suas ut appareant hominibus ieiunantes. Amen dico vobis? receperunt

col. 2.

66

* “ for they disfigure their faces”—ἀφανίζουσι γὰρ τὰ πρόσωπα αὐτῶν exterminant enim facies suas.

Our Authorized Translation of ἀφανίζουσι τὰ πρόσωπα cannot be improved. In the Greek of Josephus, as Krebsius shews in a valuable note on the passage (pp. 24, 25), ápavíęw has the meaning of abolishing all trace of a thing, so that it cannot be recognised. In this sense it is used of the devastation of the country bordering on the cities of the Plain, and again of the destruction of the features of a country by cutting down the trees and shrubs and filling it with stones. In this very chapter of St. Matthew (vi. 20) it is used of the wasting and disfigurement of cloth or metal by moth or rust. To cause to vanish, make to disappear, is of course the primary sense; (in James iv. 14 it is applied to the vanishing away of a vapour;) but this may be not only by annihilation or dispersion (as in the case of the vapour) but by obliteration of former features. In the passage before us, then, it signifies to disguise or disfigure the countenance by leaving on it the traces of tears, sprinkling ashes over the head and face, letting the beard grow, and generally cultivating an unkempt appearance.

The Vulgate translation of åpavíšw, extermino, is by no means so easily explained. The same word, however, is translated in the same way in the passage of St. James (iv. 15); "Quæ est vita vestra? vapor est ad modicum parens, et deinceps exterminabitur (àpavišoμévn). But in the other two instances of its occurrence in the New Testament we have quite different, and more accurate renderings; in Acts xiii. 41, disperdor (“Videte, contemptores, et admiramini, et disperdimini”—àpavíoente); and in Matt. vi. 19, 20, demolior ("ubi ærugo et tinea demolitur”— àpavíšeı).

In the Vulgate as we have it at present, the word extermino is used of the destruction of the accursed nations before the children of Israel (Amos ii. 9, and I Kings ix. 21); of the wasting or rooting up of a vine by a boar out of a wood (Ps. lxxix. 14); of God's cutting off the prey of Nineveh from the earth (Na. ii. 13); as the Latin equivalent of the Hebrew Abaddon and the Greek Apollyon (Rev. ix. 11); of God's destruction of those who should destroy the earth (Rev. xi. 18); of the cutting off of evil doers (Ps. xxxvi.

IV.

A SERMON

ON THE WEDNESDAY BEFORE LENT.

For St. Matt. vi. 16.

unto

WHEN ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. they disfigure their faces, that they may appear men to fast. Verily, I say unto you, they have received their reward.

9); of the cutting off from the people of those who made an imitation of the holy anointing oil (Exod. xxx. 33), and so Num. ix. 13; and of the destruction from among the people of those who would not hear the Great Prophet (Acts iii. 23) —twelve passages in all, that from St. Matthew, which we are illustrating, and that from St. James being counted in.

In the Vulgate version of the Apocryphal Scriptures the word occurs twenty-five times; out of which twenty-five texts the Books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, I and 2 Maccabees, and Baruch contain just twenty. Now, in reference to the passage we are about to quote from Jerome, it is to be observed that those five Books form that part of the present Vulgate which Jerome did not even revise, and which we have therefore in the unrevised old Latin Version current in the Church at a very early period. Hence Jerome is not responsible for the translation of those five Books, and takes the liberty in the case before us to censure the translation. (By Ecclesiastical Scriptures he means those which are not canonical-as we should call them, Apocryphal Books.)

"The word exterminare, so often used in the Ecclesiastical Scriptures through a blunder of the translators, has [here] a quite different meaning from that in which it is commonly understood. It is properly said of exiles who are sent beyond the boundary of their country. Instead of this word it would seem better to use the word demoliri, to destroy, in translating the Greek apaview. The hypocrite destroys his face, in order that he may feign sorrow, and with a heart full of joy, wears sorrow in his countenance." (Jerome, Opp., iv. 21.)

Maldonatus considers that Jerome's rendering demoliuntur is not altogether satisfactory. Hilary's word, conficiunt, (which must be taken in the sense of "they waste," ," "they consume,") he thinks is better. What the hypocrites did, he says, with his usual point, is the opposite of what ladies do when they use rouge. (Maldon, Comm. in quatuor Evangg., i. 204, in Matt. vi. 16.)

How apavica came in the Old Latin Version to be represented by exter

mercedem suam. Attendite dilectissimi fratres verba dominica. et ex eorum admonitione vestra colorate ieiunia. Amat Deus ieiunia. amat elemosinas vestras. set si eas simplex præcesserit intentio. Unde alibi dicit. Si oculus tuus fuerit simplex. totum corpus tuum lucidum erit. Si vero nequam fuerit? totum etiam corpus tenebrosum erit. Et apostolus. Si distribuero inquit omnes facultates meas in cibos pauperum. caritatem autem non habeam. nichil mihi prodest. Ieiunant Christiani ieiunant et pagani. ieiunant iudei. ieiunant heretici et scismatici. ieiunant hypocrite. ieiunant et carnales Christiani. Eadem actio. set ieiunantium dispar affectus. Christiani ieiunant ut carnem castigent. et spiritum roborent. Pagani vero et cetere supradicte pestes ieiunant ut carnem impinguent. et suum spiritum suffocent. Ieiunant ad oculos hominum. et false religionis nundinas ©

mino, there is no saying. Very likely extermino is a scribe's blunder for some Latin word of rather similar sound which was a more exact equivalent of apavicw. But it will amuse the reader to see how out of an avowedly wrong rendering our author gets, lower down, a good practical application. b On special occasions public fasts were ordered at Rome. Thus in Livy xxxvi. 37, it is mentioned that in consequence of certain prodigies which disturbed the public mind, the decemviri, in pursuance of a decree of the senate, consulted the Sibylline books, and were directed to institute a fast to Ceres, and to cause the same to be observed every fifth year; and in Horace the superstitious folly of a mother is exposed, who vows that if her child is recovered from a quartan ague by Jupiter, he should stand naked in the Tiber on the morning of the day when a fast is proclaimed to that god. (Sat. ii. 3, 291.) There was a fast to Demeter also in the course of the Greek Thesmophoria. "The second day, called vŋoreía, was a day of mourning, during which the women sat on the ground around the statue of Demeter, and took no other food than cakes made of sesame and honey." (Smith's Dictionary of Ant.)

"falsæ religionis nundinas exercentes." And so in Sermon III. "odit Deus vestrarum nundinas falsitatum."

The word nundina (quasi novemdinæ) means in the classical writers the

...

vi. 22, 23.

I

and 3. Christians

Give heed, dearly beloved brethren, to the Lord's words, and let your fasting be after the fashion which He enjoins. God loves fasting, he loves your almsgivings, but only if a single intent go before. Whence he says in another place; If thy eye be single, thy whole St. Matt. body shall be lightsome. But if thy eye be evil, thy whole body also shall be darksome. And the Apostle saith; If I 1 Cor. xiii. should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. fast; Heathens also fast; the Jews fast; Heretics and Schismatics fast; Hypocrites fast; and carnal Christians fast. The act is one and the same in all; but the affection of the doer different. Christians fast that they may chastise the flesh, and strengthen the spirit. Heathens, and the other pestilent fellows aforesaid, fast in order that they may make the flesh wanton, and stifle their spirit. They fast to the eyes of men, and making an open show of their false de

ninth day, on which the country folks came up to Rome to bring their produce to market, and have their disputes settled. Hence, even in classical Latin, the word came to mean the market or fair held on such days, and more generally, sale or traffic of any kind. In later Latin, the word is frequently used to signify the great fairs of the Middle Ages. But it was also applied to Tournaments, and such like trials of military skill, probably from the concourse of people which such spectacles attracted, and the fair-like aspect which they wore. Ducange gives a decree of Pope Eugenius (A.D. 824-827), in which he utterly, and on pain of anathema, forbids the rash audacity of many who "for the display of their own strength are wont to come together by appointment to these detestable Tournaments (ad detestabiles Nundinas)," and sentences those who should die at a tournament to deprivation of rites of burial. It is with this last meaning that Herbert's use of the word in this place connects itself. The sense of it seems to be "parade or exhibition before the eyes of men." In the next Sermon (on Palm Sunday) it seems to mean simply markets ; "Fugite fraudulentorum negotiorum nundinas," Flee ye the markets where there be deceitful dealings. And in the Sermon on Easter Day; "[Judas] exivit, et pecuniam accepit, et Dominum prodidit, vili nundinatus pretio" -having bartered him away at a low price.

It is a curious instance of the transition of a word to a meaning very remote from that which originally belonged to it, that St. Bernard, as quoted by Ducange, applies the word (maledictas illas nundinas) to bonâ fide civil war. In this application of it, the notion of display is altogether dropped. (See Ducange, sub voce.)