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XX. God Refuses To Accept the Sacrifice from the Hands of the Unclean
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XX GOD REFUSES TO ACCEPT THE SACRIFICE FROM THE HANDS OF THE UNCLEAN And if almighty God himself disdains to receive the sacrifice from your hands, who are you to presume to throw yourself importunately on him who refuses? "In fact, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord."95 But you who are angry with me and who hate to listen to this writer, at least hear him who speaks to you with a prophetic voice;hear him, I say, preaching, thundering, rejectingyour sacrifices, publicly crying out against your offerings. For Isaiah, the greatest of the prophets, says—indeed, the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Isaiah says: Hear the word of the Lord, princes of Sodom! Listen to the instruction of our God, people of Gomorrah! What care I for the number of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I have had enough of whole-burnt rams and fat of fatlings; in the blood of calves, lambs, and goats I find no pleasure. When you come in to visit me, who asks these things of you? Trample my courts no more! Bring no more worthless offerings; your incense is loathsome to me. New moon and sabbath, calling of assemblies, octaves with wickedness: these I cannot bear. Your new moons and festivals I detest; they weigh me down, I tire of the load. When you spread out your hands, I close my eyes to you; though youpray the more, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.96 95 Prov. 15:8. 96 Isa. 1:10-15. 74 God Refuses the Sacrifice of the Unclean 75 So take note that although the judgment of divine correction bears on all evil vices together, nevertheless it is principally hurled down on the princes of the Sodomites and the people of Gomorrah. Consequently , if it perhaps shrinks from believing a human witness as to how mortal a vice this is, at least let the rashness of the complainers give in to divine testimony. Perhaps someone will use as an objection against us that it is the divine intention97 that the prophet's words, "Your hands are full of blood," are to be understood to refer to homicide and not to impurity of the flesh. However, such a one should realize that all sins are called blood in the divine writings. David is a witness to this when he says, "Free me from blood guilt, O God, my saving God."98 Indeed, if we apply ourselvesto examine the nature of this vice carefully and recall to memory the statements of the physicists,99 we find that a flow ofsemen originates from blood. For just as the water of the sea is changed to foam by the agitation of the winds, so blood isexcited to the humour of semen by the contracting of the genitals. Therefore, it is rightly believed to be consistent with a sound understanding if the statement, "your hands are full of blood," should seem to be said of the plague of impurity. And this was perhaps the case because the punishment against Joab arose from no other fault than from the shedding of blood so that the one who willingly shed another's blood was struck down with a just punishment if he was unwilling to bear the shedding of his own blood. But since we have arrived, through a long disputation, at the point where we have clearly shown the Lord himself condemning and legally prohibiting the sacrifices ofthe impure, why are we sinners surprised if our admonition is rejected by them? If we see the command of the divine voice taken lightly by the puffed up heart of the reprobate, why is it surprising if we who are on earth are not believed? 97 The Latin text reads "divinae inventionis" (PL 145, 181C). 98 Ps. 51:16. See Peter Damian, Opusc. 34 (PL 145, 579B); Opusc. 56 (PL 145, 818A). 99 See Isidore, Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, ed. by W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), Book 6.4. ...