Because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding.
Read Chapter 39
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Understanding. This bird has a head disproportionately small; insomuch, that Heliogabalus served up the brains of 600 at one supper. It greedily eats iron, which may help its digestion, as sand does that of other birds. (Calmet)
When it is hunted, it hides its head only, as if this would be a sufficient defence, (Pliny, x. 1.) and is taken alive by a man, clothed in the skin of an ostrich, who moves the head with his hand. (Strabo xvi.)
All which proves its stupidity. (Calmet)
41. For strict is the enquiry of secret retribution; and because it knowingly lost its humility, it also lost, unwittingly, the understanding of the truth. But the wounds, which it inflicted on the faithful at the coming of the Redeemer, are much less than those with which it still aims to smite the Church, by the coming of Antichrist. For it is preparing itself for that time, in order to oppress the life of the faithful with accumulated strength.
26. Although to deprive is one thing, and not to give is another, yet His first expression ‘deprived,’ He repealed by subjoining, ‘hath not given.’ As if He were saying, My expression ‘deprived’ means not that He has unjustly taken away wisdom, but that He has justly not given it. Whence the Lord is described as having hardened the heart of Pharaoh, not because He Himself inflicted hardness, but because, according as his deserts demanded, He softened it not by any sensibility of heaven-infused fear. But now, because the hypocrite pretends that he is holy, and conceals himself under the semblance of good works, he is kept down by the peace of Holy Church, and is therefore, before our eyes, arrayed with the appearance of religion. But if any temptation of his faith springs up, the rabid mind of the wolf strips itself of its garb of sheep’s skin; and shews by persecution, how greatly it rages against the holy.
