Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/182

 who scandalizes a brother with this sort of punishment, to signify that he is so hateful to the angels and saints, that they do not wish to recommend to God the man who has brought a soul to perdition. "He is declared unworthy not only to be assisted, but even to be seen." (Mansi. cap. iii. num. 4.) 8. St. John Chrysostom says, that scandal is so abominable in the eyes of God, that though he overlooks very grievous sins, he cannot allow the sin of scandal to pass without condign punishment. "Tam Deo horribile est scandalum, ut peccata graviora dissimulet non autem peccata ubi frater scandalizatur." God himself says the same by the prophet Ezechiel: "Every man of the house of Israel, if he ... set up the stumbling block of his iniquity ... I will make him an example and a proverb, and will cut him off from the midst of my people." (Ezec. xiv. 7, 8.) And, in reality, scandal is one of the sins which we find in the sacred Scriptures punished by God with the greatest rigour. Of Heli, because he did not correct his sons, who gave scandal by stealing the flesh offered in sacrifice (for parents give scandal, not only by giving bad example, but also by not correcting their children as they ought), the Lord said: "Behold, I do a thing in Israel: and whosoever shall hear it, both his ears shall tingle." (1 Kings, iii. 11.) And speaking of the scandal given by the sons of Heli, the inspired writer says: "Wherefore the sin of the young men was exceeding great before the Lord." (Ibid. ii. 17.) What was this sin exceeding great? It was, says St. Gregory, in explaining this passage, drawing others to sin. "Quia ad pecandum alios pertrahebant." Why was Jeroboam chastised? Because he scandalized the people: he”hath sinned, and made Israel sin." (3 Kings, xiv. 16.) In the family of Achab, all the members of which were the enemies of God, Jezabel was the most severely chastised. She was thrown down from a window, and devoured by dogs, so that nothing remained but her”skull, and the feet, and the extremities of her hands." And why was she so severely punished? Because "she set Achab on to every evil." 9. For the sin of scandal hell was created. "In the