than all others of your condition? Have you not come to me to get my help, and bribed me to procure that appointment for you, for which you had neither capacity nor merit, and to which you wished to be raised through sheer ambition? Did not I see thee, avaricious man, unjust man? Have we not worked together, and studied all sorts of tricks by which we might deceive others and get possession of what we had no right to? Have you not given stolen goods to me to sell them for you? Do you recognize your own handwriting? Here are the usurious contracts we made; the papers referring to that lawsuit against that poor person, which we protracted unnecessarily for such a long time, being bribed to do so by the opposite party, until all hope of obtaining justice vanished, and the case was abandoned? Did not I see thee, O impure man? Was I not witness of the abominations you committed? I am the person whom you sought to lead astray by your flatteries and caresses; here are the letters you sent me; here the presents you made me. I am the one with whom you committed adultery, whom you robbed of my maidenly honor, whom you kept for so manyyeais in unlawful intimacy, and with whom you committed so many sins. Did not I see thee, O drunkard? How often have we not spent the whole night drinking in your house, in mine, in that other place, and robbed ourselves of reason by our excesses? How often have we not gloried in making others drink more than they could bear? How often have we not made ourselves incapable of performing properly the duties of our state? How often have we not neglected our households and ill-treated our wives and children, consuming what should have gone to their support? Did not I see thee, O vindictive man? Did we not agree to insult publicly with gross abuse this or that person, whom you did not like? Have you not in my presence often abused and threatened him? How often have you not cursed him and wished him all kinds of evil?
Of the sins he committed secretly in action. According to St. John Chrysostom, the lifeless creatures that the sinner abused to offend God shall testify against him; they will accuse him of those sins that he committed in solitude by outward action. “On that day,” says the holy Doctor, “the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon, the day and night, and the whole world shall stand against us to convict us of our sins.”[1]
- ↑ In ilia die cœlum et terra, sol et luna, dies et noctes, et totus mundus stabunt adversum nos in testimonium peccatorum nostrorum.
