Page:Ninety-nine homilies of S. Thomas Aquinas upon the epistles and gospels for forty-nine Sundays of the Christian year (IA ninetyninehomili00thom).pdf/131

 works in appearance but not in truth, 2 Tim. iii. 5, “ Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” Job viii. 12, 13, “Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite’s hope shall perish.” (3) That which brings forth fruit, but it is wholly useless, Wisd. iv. 5, “ Their fruit shall be unprofitable, and sour to eat, and fit for nothing.” Jude 12, “Trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.” But, alas, to such trees, for they are cut down with the axe of the Divine judgment, and they will be sent into the eternal fire of hell. S. Matt. iii. 10, “And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees, therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.” From which fire may the Lord deliver us.

The Apostle here sets forth two things. Firstly, he admonishes that we should flee from spiritual idolatry, “Neither be ye idolaters.” For he was speaking to the faithful who now had no idols ; whence it, is manifest that he was advising them to avoid that idolatry which consists in vices. Secondly, he compares the spiritual idolatry with bodily idolatry, “As were some of them,” who adored a calf and other idols.

I. Of the bodily idolatry, it is known that it was threefold—(1) in the stars; (2) in the elements. Of these two, Wisdom xiii. 2, “Either the fire or the wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the great water, or the sun and moon,” &c. In the former of these is seen the idolatry of the elements; in the latter, that of the stars. (3) Idolatry in animals, Rom. i. 23, “And change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image,” &c. The idolatry in the