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On the Ruin of Britain

St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899

What shall I say of Isaiah, the first of the prophets? He began his prophecy or his …

What shall I say of Isaiah, the first of the prophets¹? He began his prophecy or his vision by saying: Hear ye heavens, and understand with your ears, O! earth, since the Lord hath spoken; I have nourished and brought up children, but they have despised me. The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass its master’s crib: but Israel knoweth me not, and my people hath not understood. A little further, adding fit threatenings for such a folly, he says: The daughter of Sion shall be left like a tent in a vineyard, and as a booth in a garden of cucumbers, like a city that is racked. And when he particularly summons the princes, he says: Hear the word of the Lord, ye princes of Sodom; know the law of the Lord, ye people of Gomorrah. It is certainly worthy of observation that unjust kings are called princes of Sodom. For, by way of forbidding the offering of sacrifices and gifts to him by such men (whilst we greedily accept² things that from every nation are displeasing to God, and to our own destruction prevent the distribution of those same things to the needy and penniless), so does the Lord speak unto men burdened with immense riches, and yet having the mean purposes of sinners. Bring no more a sacrifice in vain; incense is an abomination unto me. Again he declares: And when ye stretch forth your hand, I will turn away from you; and when ye multiply prayer, I will not hear. Why He does this is set forth: Your hands are full of blood.

Showing at the same time how he might be appeased, he says: Wash ye, be ye clean; put away, the evil of your thoughts from before mine eyes; cease from perverse doing; learn to do good; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless. As if assuming in addition the part of reconciler, he says: If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow; and if they be red like a worm, they shall be white as wool. If ye be willing and hear me, ye shall eat the good of the land. Because if ye refuse and provoke me to anger, the sword shall devour you.

Notes

Esaia. The extensive quotations that follow from Isaiah and Jeremiah are according to the Vulgate version. Four times the form Esaias, reproduced in the old Welsh and English Esay, occurs in this work, though the codices A and D vary between Ysaias and Isaias. The familiar Isaias of the Sixtine and Clementine Vulgate is abandoned for Esaias in the new Oxford edition of the New Testament Vulgate.
Auctor prophetarum is a curious epithet. It may mean that in the new codices of the Vulgate, which were coming into fashion, the book of Isaiah stood first of all the prophetical books, instead of after the twelve minor Prophets. This fact itself may have deepened the conviction which all felt, that in him we have the prince of prophets.
Nos inhiantes suscipimus: we with cupidity receive. It is difficult to decide who is meant by this we. The reference may be to the clergy, of whom Gildas himself was one, in their love of gifts, which, by being selfishly withheld from the needy, will bring about the deserved reprobation and ruin. The use of the words sacrificia et dona in the previous sentence supports such a view: et may, in this way, take the meaning although.