Letter L

L.

LEMUEL [Lamuel], a Hebrew king, wrote a certain two-part instruction, which is recited in the last chapter of Proverbs: ¹ of which the former part has a brief instruction of a king; but the latter contains the instruction of a mother of a family, comprehended in twenty-two verses, namely according to the order and number of the Hebrew letters — so that the several verses begin with the several letters [an acrostic]. The Jews think ² that this Lemuel was Solomon, called therefore למואל Lamuel — that is, God [is] with us — because in his days God was with the Israelites, all worship of idols being shut out, especially in the time of his youth, when with great zeal he raised a temple to God Most High, and propagated the divine worship.

THE LAW INSCRIBED ON THE HEART (which God, through Jeremiah, promised to his faithful, saying: ³ AFTER those days, I will give my law in their bowels, and in their hearts I will write it) is the law of Evangelical grace ⁴ — that is, the living and ardent experience of divine love — written not on tablets of stone, as [was] that old law, of which the Jews so greatly glory; nor on perishable pages with deletable ink, but on the fleshly and soft tablets of the heart; not with a pen, but with the finger of the living God — that is, with the Holy Spirit: who has so impressed the precepts of love on the hearts of the faithful, that he who holds this law fulfills all the commands of the law (as Paul says), ⁵ and has no need of long exhortations, by which he might be kindled to living well and blessedly. For charity, of itself burning, and perpetually boiling with the fire of love toward God and neighbor, knows not how to be idle, ⁶ but of its own accord bursts forth into holy works. Chrysostom, feeling almost this same [thing], says that this writing of the law, of which the Prophet speaks, is a restoration and a clearer expression of that most ancient and first law of all, which God, in the first age of the human race, delivered to his elect without any writing. For since those most blessed men — Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Job — were strong in a most upright life, they needed no books or writings; but their hearts were to them in place of books; and in place of pages and parchments they had their minds and incorrupt intellects, in which God — not with ink, but by the grace of his illumination — wrote his laws, as in living and animate books, suggesting all [things] which would be necessary for a pious and holy life. But after that, in the progress of time, the human race had slipped down into the abyss of vices, it abolished from the heart every writing of the divine Spirit. Whence also tablets and books were afterward substituted in place of the abolished law ⁷, that through them men might be roused to the remembrance of the lost discipline. But, since these had profited little, our lawgiver Christ came at last, who — according to the prophecy of Jeremiah — would again engrave the law of God (delivered from the beginning of the world without writings) on human hearts, through the Holy Spirit.

THE BOOK DESIRED BY JOB. Job himself recalls this, in chapter 19, saying: ⁸ WHO will grant me that my words may be written down in a book, or engraved with an iron pen, and on a plate of lead, or graven with a chisel in flint? And again in the thirty-first chapter, repeating the same in other words, he adds: ⁹ WHO will grant me that the Almighty may hear my desire, and that He who judges may Himself write a book; that I may carry it on my shoulder, and put it around me like a crown, and through each of my steps pronounce it, and offer it, as it were, to a prince? This book, so greatly desired by blessed Job, signifies nothing else ¹⁰ than an open demonstration of his innocence, which he wishes to be laid open by God, the inspector of all things. For since he was striving to show that he was not tortured for committed crimes, but was exercised with tribulations for the proof of virtue and the trial of patience — and could not persuade of this [his] incredulous friends, who asserted that he, as a hypocrite, was being punished by the just judgment of God — he desires a book to be written by God: that is, he prays that an Apology and Justification of his integrity be committed to writing, God revealing [it], and be transmitted to the memory of posterity — not for the ostentation of glory, but for the consolation of the pious; that, these [things] being heard, they may recognize that God often sends adversities upon his elect for the exercise of piety. But it must be noted, as regards the phrasing, that the plate of lead is not so referred to the stylus that the meaning should be [that they were engraved] with a stylus of iron and of lead, or [engraved] with an iron and a leaden stylus, on flint: (since with a leaden stylus stones cannot be cut out) — but the meaning is that the letters are engraved with an iron stylus, [and] then are to be formed on the stone with a plate of lead. For he who inscribes letters on marble ¹¹ first hollows them out with a chisel or an iron stylus; then he fills up the empty spaces of the letters with plates of lead or bronze, that he may render their marks more conspicuous — as at Rome may be seen in the inscription of Marcus Agrippa, consul for the third time, which is still viewed on the frontispiece [pediment] of the temple of the Pantheon.

THE BOOK OF THE LAW, found by Hilkiah, ¹² of which it is written in the fourth book of Kings, chapter 22, and in the second [book] of Paralipomenon, chapter 34, was found on this occasion: When Manasseh, the impious king — who ruled the kingdom of Jerusalem fifty-five years — had utterly abolished the books of the law of the Lord, and had killed the Prophets and priests who taught it, and the other pious men who had refused to follow his impiety; a certain man, kindled with zeal for the holy laws, hid a copy of the divine law in the inner recesses of the temple. But when Josiah, the most pious king, in the 26th year of his age and the 18th of his reign, had sent to Hilkiah the high priest — father of Jeremiah the Prophet — that he might bring forth the money which was in the hidden places of the temple, for repairing the ruins of the temple: he [Hilkiah], diligently searching for the gold, found also the book of the sacred law, and sent [it] to the king. Who, when he had heard the divine threatenings and the imminent calamities of the city which were described in it, having rent [his] garment, commanded Hilkiah the high priest and Shaphan the scribe to go to consult Huldah the prophetess, [to learn] whether by any counsel or aid that disaster could be escaped. There are those who think that this book was not the codex of the Mosaic law, but some other prophetic volume. For since Manasseh — after his penance and having obtained liberty, having returned from the Babylonian captivity into [his] kingdom — purged the temple, cast away the idols, and restored the worship of God (as we read in the second [book] of Paralipomenon), nor is it likely that he did not restore the law of the Lord, which is the head and fountain of the whole divine worship: it is also credible that Josiah, as a most religious man, had not only often heard and read the law (already restored by Manasseh), but also knew [it] well. Wherefore, if the recently-found book — read before that [time] — had contained the Mosaic law, to whose reading the king was already accustomed, it would not have been necessary for him to be so vehemently disturbed at the words of the book, as at an unexpected thing and one heard then for the first time, as to tear [his] garment, and to send to Huldah the prophetess to inquire concerning the meaning of that scripture. Chrysostom, in the ninth homily on Matthew, and Rabbi Solomon [Rashi], think that this was the book of Deuteronomy — which Manasseh, weighed down by old age and prevented by death, could not find; the narration of which Josiah then hearing for the first time, when he had come to the words of chapter 28 (which foretold to the Jews the utmost destruction and a long captivity, if ever they should forsake God), was seized with such grief of mind that, with weeping and tears, he rent [his] garment, and compelled all the people to give an oath that they would thenceforth keep entire all the precepts of that book. The book of Deuteronomy, therefore, was found — hidden for many years before — in the three thousand three hundred fifty-eighth year from the founding of the world; which, when they had again lost [it] through the injury of the times, the Christians at length found overwhelmed with mud, a little before the age of Chrysostom ¹³ — which he himself also noted in the 7th homily on the former [epistle] to the Corinthians.

THE WRITING OF THE TWO STICKS. Concerning this it is read in Ezekiel, chapter 37, in this manner: ¹⁴ SON of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, [For] Judah, and [for] the sons of Israel his companions; and take another stick, and write upon it, [For] Joseph, [the stick of] Ephraim, and [of] all the house of Israel, and his companions; and join them, one to the other, for thee into one stick: and they shall be in a union in thy hand. This writing was a symbol of the conjunction, under one king, the Messiah, of the whole Hebrew people — [now] discordant among themselves, and dispersed, and torn asunder. The history is well known: that under Rehoboam, son of Solomon, the ten tribes went over to Jeroboam, son of Nebat, of the tribe of Ephraim, son of Joseph, as it is written in the third book of Kings, chapter 12. And after these there were two peoples — namely, Judah, and his companion the tribe of Benjamin; and [the] ten tribes, which were called Joseph, or Ephraim: and these two nations, after king Josiah, were dispersed among the nations; and after Zedekiah both kingdoms were exterminated. From this image, therefore, of the two sticks, ¹⁵ the Prophet foretells that these two peoples are not only to be delivered, but to be again joined into the one kingdom of the Messiah, and to come together, by the highest consent, into one lawful king, so that it may seem — and be — utterly one scepter. For by the stick was made the symbol of the scepter of the kingdom: on the former stick is inscribed Judah and [his] companions — that is, Benjamin; the inscription of the other was Ephraim. Now the Prophet wished to join this sign to the word of God, that he might move the ears more effectively through the sight of the eyes. For things seen procure attention to the speech of the one speaking. Thus in the old law many ceremonies were employed, that, moved by these rites, the simple and children might ask what they meant and signified. ¹⁶ So also many ceremonies were instituted in the Church, that from them the weakness of our understanding might come to know the inner and hidden will of God. Some hold that these two sticks coalesced into one by a miracle; which, if it be accepted, the parable will be more effective. This symbol of the union of the two sticks signified that — through the union of the two woods of the cross of Christ — the two peoples, Gentile and Jew, would come together into one Church, under one king, Christ, with the highest consent of minds. Whence Paul says: ¹⁷ HE MADE both one, reconciling the enmities in himself, [preaching] peace to those who were near, etc.

LINUS — one of the seventy-two disciples of Christ, by whose name Paul salutes Timothy in the latter epistle to him ¹⁸ — the first Pontiff of the Roman Church after Peter, an Etruscan by nation, wrote in the Greek tongue two books Of the contest [martyrdom] of Peter and Paul; and likewise several letters. He dies at Rome under the emperor Galba, in the year of Christ seventy, after having completed eleven years, three months, [and] twelve days of his pontificate.

THE LETTER THAT KILLETH (concerning which Paul, writing in the latter epistle to the Corinthians, says: ¹⁹ THE LETTER killeth, but the spirit quickeneth) is the law of Moses; to which the Apostle everywhere ascribes not only that it kills the soul, but also that it excites the tinder [fomes] of concupiscence to sin; that it begets an abundance of sins; that it induces wrath and indignation, and brings in death, and ministers damnation. For, writing thus to the Romans, he says: ²⁰ OCCASION being taken, sin, through the commandment, wrought in me all concupiscence. And again: ²¹ The law worketh wrath. For where there is no law, neither [is there] transgression. And: ²² The law entered in, that the offense might abound. Likewise: ²³ Sin, occasion being taken through the commandment, seduced me, and by it slew [me]. Likewise: ²⁴ The commandment wrought death for me, that sin might become exceedingly sinful. And in the second [epistle] to the Corinthians, he calls it the minister of death, and the ministration of damnation. ²⁵ And in the epistle to the Galatians he calls [it] a writing of malediction — not on this account, that the law is evil, and of its own nature noxious, or death-bringing by the malignity of its author (as of old the Manichaeans, destroyers of the law, said); but for other far different reasons, which the orthodox fathers learned from the doctrine of Paul. Origen says that by the letter which killeth is to be understood every tropical and figurative locution of the divine scripture, and every shadowy precept of the ancient ceremonies, understood according to the bare sense of the letter, just as its words sound. In which way indeed the letter kills those who, spurning the spiritual sense lying hidden in them, pursue only the external and carnal understanding. For, as Paul says in the eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, ²⁶ to be wise according to the flesh is death; but to be wise according to the spirit, [is] life and peace — as if anyone should take carnally all [things] which are written in the Song of Songs, according to the lustful concupiscence of carnal love, and not according to the affection of chaste and divine love: this one is killed by the perverse understanding of the letter. Or if anyone should believe that circumcision, sacrifices, and the other shadows of the law — which God commands to be kept by an everlasting covenant — are still to be done according to the letter, and not rather to be fulfilled according to the spirit: he slides down from the grace of Christ into Judaism, and it [the letter] slays him. But there is, as the same Origen says in the 7th homily on Leviticus, not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament, a letter of this kind that kills — which kills him who does not spiritually attend to the [things] which are said. For if, according to the letter, you follow this very [saying] which was spoken: ²⁷ He who has not a sword, let him sell his tunic, and buy a sword — behold, this too is a letter of the gospel; but it kills. But if you receive it spiritually, it does not kill; but in it is the quickening spirit. Chrysostom says that by the word the letter that killeth is signified the Mosaic law, but by the name the quickening spirit, the grace which is conferred through baptism. Because the law damns and punishes offenders; but grace absolves and justifies sinners. The law, if it catch a murderer, takes him from among the living; grace, if it receive a murderer, illuminates and quickens [him]. The killing letter of the law stones [him who is] gathering wood on the Sabbath. ²⁸ Grace of the quickening spirit receives innumerable murderers and robbers, and saves [them when] baptized. The law makes the living [man] dead: [him] whom grace catches, it makes from dead alive — saying, ²⁹ COME TO ME ALL YOU WHO LABOR AND ARE BURDENED, AND I WILL REFRESH YOU. He said not, I will punish you, but I will refresh you. For in baptism sins are blotted out, the former [sins] are blotted out, the man is quickened; and in his heart, as on a tablet, all grace is written. Augustine, in the book Of the spirit and the letter — in which he most copiously treats this sentence of Paul — by the law understands especially the law of the Decalogue itself: which, although it is just and best, is nevertheless said to kill, and to work wrath, and sin, and malediction: because, while it points out and prohibits sin, it gives occasion of spiritual destruction in two chief ways — that is, by increasing the desire of sinning, and by aggravating the transgression of sin. For first, when the law forbids sin, from this prohibition it increases concupiscence, the fountain of all evils; which by its own nature always strives after the forbidden, and desires the [things] denied. For just as the rush of water, if it does not cease to flow into that part to which it is carried by its own violence, becomes more vehement when a barrier is set against it — and when it has overcome the mass of it, hurled down in a greater heap, is rolled forward down the slopes: so this very thing which is coveted is more ardently desired while it is forbidden; torments more sharply while it is not had; and becomes more pleasant when it is obtained. And this is what Paul wished to indicate, when he said: ³⁰ OCCASION being taken, sin wrought in me all concupiscence. And again: ³¹ Sin, occasion being taken through the commandment, seduced me, and slew [me]. Then the law heaps up and aggravates the gravity of the crime committed, because it is much more grievous to have fallen into sin where the law has pointed out and prohibited sin, than before: because where there is no law, there neither is transgression, as the Apostle says. ³² But when through the law the knowledge of sin has been laid open, ³³ then he who knowingly and willingly sins is reckoned [guilty of] a greater and graver crime. And for this cause Paul said: ³⁴ THE LAW entered in, that the offense might abound. ³⁵ And through the commandment sin becomes exceedingly sinful. For these causes, therefore, the law is not undeservedly called a killing letter; but the spirit of grace is deservedly called quickening: because it lessens the concupiscence which the law increases, extinguishes the desire of sinning, and inspires the contrary desire of doing good through faith, and — through charity, poured out in our hearts — fulfills the good desire with good works.

THE LETTER OF LYSIAS — intimate and companion of Antiochus, king of Syria — to the people of the Jews, is had in the second [book] of Maccabees, chapter 11.

LUKE the Evangelist, writer of the gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles, was believed by very many of the ancients [to be] the author of the epistle which is inscribed, under the name of Paul the Apostle, to the Hebrews ³⁶; among whom [that] the chief was Tertullian, Jerome attests in the Catalog of ecclesiastical writers. Which opinion — utterly false — we shall show [to be so] in the seventh volume of this work. Tertullian has handed down to memory ³⁷ that a certain Asian presbyter, a devotee of Paul, out of a pious but lying zeal, feigned certain Acts of Paul and Thecla, falsely inscribed with the title of Luke; and that he, when they [i.e. these Acts] were convicted of falsity in judgment, confessed that he had done this, led by love of Paul. It is also said that Luke, after he had written the life of Christ the Saviour, also painted with brush and colors an image of him and of his mother ³⁸, and left the icons of both to the Church of Antioch. Making mention of which thing, Simon Metaphrastes, in the life of St. Luke, ³⁹ thus writes: THIS, moreover, among other [things], is most pleasing — that he also [portrayed] the very assumed type of the humanity of Christ, and the image of him of her who bore him — Luke, first of all, painting [them] in wax and outline, handed [them] down, so that even to these times they might be honored in the image; as though he thought it not enough to be, in mind and spirit, with those whom he loved, unless he might also be conversant with them through image and figure: which is a token of most fervent love. Thus far he [Metaphrastes]. Nicephorus Callistus, in the 14th and 15th books of the Ecclesiastical History, speaks in this manner concerning the image of the Virgin Mother of God painted by Luke: ⁴⁰ PULCHERIA Augusta built a temple in the city of Constantinople, called τῶν ὁδηγῶν, that is, [the temple] Of the Guides of the Way [Hodegon]: where she dedicated the image of the Mother of God sent from Antioch — which the holy Apostle Luke himself painted with his own hands, while she [Mary] was yet living and seeing the very panel, and imparting so great a grace to that likeness of her. This image was first in that place which is called the Tribunal; where those miracles were performed which even now also are done. ⁴¹ Thus Nicephorus. We once saw at Venice, in the house of Titian, the most celebrated painter of our times, a copy of this sacred picture, taken (as was believed) from the archetype of St. Luke: in which were seen all those features which the same Nicephorus expressed in the second volume of the same history; where, describing the stature and form of the most holy Virgin from the opinion of Epiphanius, ⁴² he brings these [things]: MARY the virgin was of middling stature, although there are those who say that she somewhat exceeded the middling stature. She was of a color resembling wheat, with fair [blond] hair, keen eyes, having in them somewhat-yellow pupils, and, as it were, of the color of the olive: her eyebrows were arched, and becomingly black: [her] nose rather long, [her] lips blooming, and full of the sweetness of words: [her] face not round or sharp, but somewhat longer: [her] hands and fingers longer. Finally, she was devoid of all pride, simple, and in no way affecting her countenance. She was content with garments of natural color — which also the holy veil of her head shows.