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On the Ruin of Britain

St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899

The people, certainly, whom you guide, or rather whom you deceive, have need of hearing. …

The people, certainly, whom you guide, or rather whom you deceive, have need of hearing. Listen to the words of the Lord when he speaks to the apostles and the multitudes, words which, as I hear¹, you are not ashamed to put forth publicly and frequently. The Scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; all things, therefore, whatsoever they say unto you, observe and do; but after their works do not, for they say and do not themselves. The teaching that is darkened with evil deeds is certainly full of peril, and useless for priests. Woe unto you, hypocrites, who shut the kingdom of heaven before men, but enter not in, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter. For you shall have penal suffering inflicted upon you, not only on account of such huge crimes of sins as you bear for future time, but also because of those who daily perish by your example. The blood of these men in the day of judgment shall be required at your hands. Observe what evil is set forth in the parable of the servant who said in his heart: My Lord tarrieth. Before this probably he had begun to beat his fellow servants, eating and drinking with the drunken. The Lord of that servant, it is said, shall come in a day when he expecteth not, and in an hour when he knoweth not, and shall separate him—that is to say, from the holy priests—and place his portion with the hypocrites (with those, no doubt, who beneath a veil of priesthood conceal much wickedness); there, says he, shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, unto men to whom it does frequently come in this life, because of the daily loss of sons brought upon the mother church, or because of defections from the kingdom of heaven².

Notes

Ut audio. The monk is here retailing scornfully words which bishops were wont to quote as supporting authority in the Church.
Desideria regni caelorum. The first clause of this passage probably refers to the mother, Rachel, weeping for her children (fletus Rachel plorantis filios suos); then the second desideria will correspond to “because they are not” (quia non sunt). For such a sense of desiderium = need, want, loss, one may compare: “Nec desiderium absentiae eius ferre non possumus, non illius sed nostram vicem dolentes” (Jerome, Ep., 60, 7). These men have no experience of tears shed in this life on account of the daily ruin of the Church’s children, or the grave losses visible everywhere. Rönsch, on the verb desiderare, notices how it has the meaning “to suffer loss” or “to have need” = mangel leiden, χρείαν ἔχειν, as in 1 Thess., iv, 12: “have need of nothing;” and 1 Jo., iii, 17, as quoted by Cyprian: “et viderit fratrem suum desiderantem.”