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On the Ruin of Britain
St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899
To you also there is signified an alienation of this kind from the Lord by the prophet …
To you also there is signified an alienation of this kind from the Lord by the prophet Amos, when he says: I have hated and thrust away your feast-days, and I will not accept a sweet savour in your solemn assemblies, because, though ye offer your burnt offerings and sacrifices, I will not accept them. And I will not regard the salvation proclaimed by you. Take away from me the sound of thy songs, and the (psalm) melody of thy instruments I will not hear, because famine of Gospel food, the very fare1 which eats away the bowels of your soul, is raging among you, as the prophet named above has foretold. Behold, he says, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send a famine in the land—not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord, and the waters shall be moved from sea to sea, and from the north unto the east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord and shall not find it.
Notes
- Culina ipsa. This phrase gives good sense if taken as in apposition to fames: the very food which they, in wicked thoughts, consume, is itself spiritual hunger.