Volume III, Treatise V, Chapter XIV

That God Looks on Disobedience and Disrespect to @ Supertor as an Injury Done to Himself

As when we obey a superior we obey God, whose representative and vicegerent the superior is, in like manner, when we fail to pay the respect and obedience we owe a superior, we fail at the same time in our duty and respect to God. The same reason proves both, and therefore the Saviour of the world, when he said, ‘‘ He that hears you hears me”, presently added, “He that despiseth you despiseth me”’ (Luke 10:16) St. Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, says the same; for, having exhorted them to submit to higher powers, “because all power is from God”, he draws this consequence, “therefore he that resists lawful power resists God” (Romans 13:1,2) The authority of holy Scripture in several places confirms what I say. When the Israelites were in the desert of Sinai, fear to die of hunger made them repent that they had left Egypt, and caused them to murmur against Moses and Aaron, who had brought them from thence by God’s orders; whereupon Moses and Aaron said to the children of Israel, ‘‘ We have heard your murmuring against the Lord; for who are we, that ye murmur against us? Know ye not that your murmuring is not against us, but against God himself?” (Exodus 16:6), etc. When the same people rejected Samuel, and wished to have a king like other nations, God said to Samuel, “They have cast me off, not you. They are unwilling I should reign over them”. And in this sense they interpret these words of Isaias, “Do you think it nothing to trouble men, that you are also thus troublesome to my God?”—Isa., xvii. 13. Do. you think it a small matter to oppose those men whom God has appointed to govern you? Know that it is a heinous crime, for it is God you resist, it is God to whom you offer the injury.

In fact, the rigour with which God has punished all offences offered superiors proves how careful and tender he is of their authority, by making their interest his own. What a dreadful punishment followed the murmuring of Core, Dathan, and Abiron, against Moses and Aaron, whom they reproached with arrogating to themselves too much power and authority over the people! The earth opened and swallowed them alive, with all their riches and family; and fire from. Heaven destroyed a hundred and fifty abettors of their rebellion. St. Thomas, treating this subject, observes, that God chastised those that murmured against their leaders far more rigorously than those who directly offended himself by worshipping the golden calf. For he only put part of the latter to the sword; but of the former he destroyed some by fire from Heaven, and the earth swallowed up the others alive; and this shows, says St. Thomas, how sensible God is of the injuries done to those who are in authority and who hold his place.

Hence you.may infer why Samuel, in his speech to Saul, compares the sin of disobedience to idolatry. “To resist God’s orders”, says he, “is like the sin of witchcraft, and not to submit, is like the crime of idolatry”—ings, xv. 23. St. Gregory and St. Bernard infer from these words that disobedience is a very enormous crime, since holy writ compares it to idolatry and magic. The reason they give to prove the comparison is drawn from the nature of idolatry and witchcraft, which rob God of the worship due to him in the same manner as disrespect and disobedience to a superior deprive him of the honour and deference due to the person who represents him. Besides, as by idolatry we adore an idol of wood or stone, instead of the true God to whom that adoration alone is due, so by the spirit of disobedience ye stray from the true rule, which is God, and follow a deceitful one, which is that of our own judgment and of the maxims of the world.

But to resume our subject. The children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, upon which God immediately sent serpents, which killed a great number of them. And at another time he almost cut off at once all this disobedient generation for murmuring against the same persons, upon the return of those who had been sent to view the land of promise. At Moses’ intercession he granted a pardon to all except to those who had been the authors of the rebellion. ‘They were struck dead before the Lord” (Numbers 14:37),—as holy writ declares; and it is on this account that St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, “Do not murmur as those did who were struck dead by the exterminating angel”—I. Cor., x. 10. Was not Mary the sister of Moses likewise punished for speaking against her brother? She was upon the spot covered over with a filthy leprosy; nor would God remit her sin, or cure her disease, for all Moses could do or say, till she had been seven days outside the camp, and separated from the rest of the people. He who had restrained the arm of vengeance which had been raised to destroy an idolatrous generation, could not obtain pardon of his own sister’s murmuring till she had done penance for it. St. Basil followed this example in chastising murmurers and detractors in his monasteries. He would have not only the persons themselves, but all that belonged to them, separated from the rest of the monks, nor would he permit them to work together. Just as, in time of contagion, they remove from the society of men not only the infected person, but, through fear of infection, cast away all his clothes and everything belonging to him; even so St, Basil would have all murmurers separated from the rest of the community. He would have nobody speak to them—nobody have any communication with them, either in eating, drinking, sleeping, working, or even in praying, in order that this great confusion might help to correct their fault, and cause an entire reformation in them.

Pope Nicholas the First, writing to the emperor Michael, who had defamed some bishops, relates what David did when flying from his persecutor Saul. He found him all alone in a cave, where, if he pleased, he could despatch him. Saul had frequently endeavoured to murder David, and at this very instant he was in search of him; yet David, though he had him now in a place where he could easily despatch him, would attempt nothing against him; for he thought that he should offend the Divine Majesty by laying violent hands upon the Lord’s anointed, though at this time Saul was his mortal enemy and reprobated by Heaven; he contented himself with only cutting off a piece of his royal robe in secret, and for which even he was afterwards very much concerned. The Scripture says, “that he struck his. breast for having cut away a piece of the hem of Saul’s garment” —I. Kings, xxiv. 6. Learn hence, says this holy pope, how a Christian, who ought to see God in his bishops, should act. He is not so much as to touch the hem of their garment; and if at any time he chance, by negligence, human frailty, or passion, to cut off a piece from it, that is, if he should speak ill of them, he ought immediately, like David, enter into himself, and be sorry for having touched their reputation. We ought not employ the sword of the tongue-to cut in pieces the actions of superiors, however censurable they may appear, because they hold the place of God, who honours them with the title of gods, and forbids all people “to speak ill of the gods” (Exodus 22:28)

Besides, we are to consider that, in detracting a superior, we not only offend God and injure the superior, but we likewise do great prejudice to the subjects; because this detraction lessens the esteem and affection his subjects had for him, and gives them an aversion to him. So that by this means their obedience grows cold, and they reap no profit from anything coming from him, which is properly to put a stop to all the spiritual good they might have acquired through him. We therefore ought to take all manner of care “that no root of bitterness”, as St. Paul calls it, “spring up amongst us, to the prejudice of their souls’ (Hebrews 12:15) We can never be too careful in this point; for though the thing be light and trivial in itself which we say or do, yet we must reflect that it is a matter of no small importance to destroy in your brother’s heart the esteem, confidence, and respect which he had for his superior. This, however, is the ordinary effect of all murmuring and detraction, and consequently it is our duty to take into consideration not only the malice of these sins in themselves, but likewise the evil effects they may produce.

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