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On the Ruin of Britain
St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899
Little do you think or do what the holy prophet Joel also has said in admonition of lazy …
Little1 do you think or do what the holy prophet Joel also has said in admonition of lazy priests2, and lamenting the people’s loss through their iniquities: Awake ye that are drunk through your wine, and weep and lament all who drink wine unto drunkenness, because joy and gladness is taken away from your mouth. Mourn, ye priests, that serve the altar, because the fields have become wretched. Let the earth mourn because the corn is become wretched and the vine dried up, the oil is diminished, the husbandmen have become languish. Mourn, ye estates, for the wheat and barley, because the vine harvest is perished from the field, the vine is dried up, the fig-trees have become fewer: the pomegranates, palms, apple-tree, and all trees of the field are withered, because the sons of men have thrown joy into confusion. All these words must be understood by you in a spiritual sense3, lest your souls be withered by so destructive a famine for the Word of God.
Again: Weep ye priests that serve the Lord4, saying, Spare, Lord, thy people; give not thine inheritance to reproach, and let not the Gentiles rule over them, lest the Gentiles say, Where is their God? Yet ye in no wise hear these things, but permit all things by which the indignation of the divine anger is kindled.
Notes
- At this point, where Gildas makes lengthened extracts from the Minor Prophets, the Vulgate version is abandoned, his codices being Old Latin. On this curious and interesting fact, see Additional Notes, pp. 94,95. The order of the prophetic books is, as indicated on p. 97, Joel (Habakkuk), Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah (Haggai), Zechariah, Malachi, Ezekiel (Daniel). The books placed in brackets are not quoted, but, judging from the order of Gildas’ previous quotations, and from lists of scriptural books, we are probably correct in assigning them the position indicated (see p. 137). As in cc. 38-62, the peculiarities of words and constructions found here, cc. 83-91, belong not to Gildas himself, but to the awkward, unwieldy literalness of the Old Latin version, with its frequent Graecisms and provincialisms. We are, in fact, reading a production of the second century. A. reads: quid quoque sanctus Johel propheta.
- Inertes sacerdotes. This application of Biblical language proves that Gildas regarded the “priesthood” of the Christian church, as priesthood in the Jewish sense.
- Spiritaliter intelligenda erunt vobis. By the method of interpretation, to which allusion has been already made, Gildas will have the desolation described by the prophet understood in a spiritual sense: but the best motive of his work is also made evident thereby: he warns lest the souls of the priests themselves should become dried up in such a general spiritual drought.
- Qui deservitis Domino. As in qui deservitis altario, the original here is οἱ λειτουργοῦντες, denoting ritual service.