Jerome

The Savior also wept over the city of Jerusalem because its inhabitants had not repented; and Peter washed out his triple denial with bitter tears, thus fulfilling the words of the prophet: “rivers of waters run down my eyes.” Jeremiah too laments over his impenitent people, saying, “O that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for … my people!” And farther on he gives a reason for his lamentation: “do not weep for the dead,” he writes, “neither bemoan him, but weep bitterly for him that goes away, for he shall return no more.” The Jew and the Gentile therefore are not to be bemoaned, for they have never been in the church and have died once for all (it is of these that the Savior says, “Let the dead bury their dead”15); weep rather for those who by reason of their crimes and sins go away from the church and who, suffering condemnation for their faults, shall no more return to it. It is in this sense that the prophet speaks to ministers of the church, calling them its walls and towers and saying to each in turn, “O wall, let tears run down.” In this way, it is prophetically implied, you will fulfill the apostolic precept: “Rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that weep.” By your tears you will melt the hard hearts of sinners until they too weep. However, if they persist in evildoing they will find these words applied to them: “I … planted for you a noble vine, wholly a right seed; how then are you turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to me?” He says again, “saying to a stock, you are my father; and to a stone, you have brought me forth; for they have turned their back to me, and not their face.” He means they would not turn toward God in penitence but in the hardness of their hearts turned their backs on him to insult him. Wherefore also the Lord says to Jeremiah, “Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She is gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree and there has played the harlot.” And I said after she had played the harlot and “had done all these things, Turn to me, but she returned not.”19How hardhearted we are, and how merciful God is! Even after our many sins, he urges us to seek salvation. Yet not even so are we willing to turn to better things.

Need we be surprised that, when saints are compared, some are better, some worse, since the same holds good in the comparison of sins? To Jerusalem, pierced and wounded with many sins, it is said, “Sodom is justified by you.” It is not because Sodom, which has sunk forever into ashes, is just in itself, that it is said by Ezekiel, “Sodom shall be restored to its former estate,” but that, in comparison with the more accursed Jerusalem, it appears just. For Jerusalem killed the Son of God; Sodom through fullness of bread and excessive luxury carried its lust beyond all bounds. The publican in the Gospel who struck his breast as though it were a collection of his worst thoughts and, conscious of his offenses, dared not lift up his eyes, is justified rather than the proud Pharisee. And Tamar in the guise of a harlot deceived Judah, and in the estimation of this man himself who was deceived, was worthy of the words, “Tamar is more righteous than I.” All this goes to prove that not only in comparison with divine majesty are people far from perfection, but also when compared with angels and other people who have climbed the heights of virtue. You may be superior to someone whom you have shown to be imperfect and yet be outstripped by another; and consequently you may not have true perfection, which, if it is perfect, is absolute.