Chapter VII.
Adolescence is the most slippery of all ages: we will give an account of even those sins which we could not avoid; our hardships are not adequately expressed by the troubles of the sea and land; the heavens and the earth must be renewed, and the future resurrection will not happen before the coming of him who will make all things new.
21. Again adding, he says: Why have you written evils against me, and have appended the sins of my youth? He has well seized hold of the opportunity of his age for complaint, which is accustomed to be more slippery towards vice. For childhood has innocence, old age has prudence, youth itself, neighboring to adolescence, has a sense of good reputation, and a sense of shame in wrongdoing: only adolescence is weak in strength, feeble in judgment, burning with vice, disdainful of advisers, enticing with pleasures. In such a great and turbulent whirlwind of this world, why are so many shipwrecks attributed to imprudent age? And indeed, David requested forgiveness for all his time from the Lord, saying: Do not remember the sins of my youth and my ignorance, O Lord (Psalms 25:7), because at that time the heat of the body burns most intensely, and the heat of the evaporating blood ignites.
22. But let us hear him again: Man, he says, that is born of a woman, is short-lived, and full of wrath; who blossomed like a flower and withered, departed like a shadow, and does not resist. Is it not for this reason that reason is sought? And you have made him enter into judgment under your gaze. But who is clean from filth? But no one, even if his life on earth is only of one day. Truly a pitiable condition, that he is compelled to give an account of his own sin which he cannot avoid, to enter into judgment, to undergo the sight of the Almighty Lord, to reveal the reasons for his actions, which he has traveled through in so many ages of his life, whereas no one can be free from sin, so that guilt creeps upon us from our very cradle before there is any sense of error. And how wretched is this, that his life is short, a sweet allure, a manifold burden, daily anger. And so in fleeting delight there is perpetual bitterness.
23. There is, he says, hope for the tree. If it is cut down, it will sprout again; its shoots will not cease growing. If its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the soil, at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a young plant. But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more. As the waters ebb, the sea grows calm. We have seen that the sequence of prophetic discourse concerns the two lower elements, earth and sea, which are subject to all kinds of damage and frequent storms: what powerful evidence does this provide for our distress? He said that earthly shrubs and the groves of trees, even when they are dead, rise again for vital purposes. The sea itself also is accustomed to fluctuate with the changes of the seasons. But truly our flesh always boils up, and it is its own storm, and is never affected by the motions of storms and miserable shipwrecks.
24. But when a man falls asleep, he does not rise until the heaven is sewn (Ibid., 12). This seems to indicate that until the heaven is renewed; for there will be a new heaven and a new earth, as it is written (Isaiah LXV, 17). For what is sewn is old: what is old will be changed. Lastly, listen to David saying: In the beginning you founded the earth, O Lord, and the works of your hands are the heavens. They will perish: but you endure, and all will grow old like a garment, and you will change them as a covering, and they will be changed (Psalm CI, 26 and 27). We can also add this, that what is old is patched; what is new is forced. But from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven is forced, and those who force it plunder it. Therefore, the Synagogue was accustomed to this in few, the Church forces it in thousands. Or because now the sky seems patched with clouds and fog, with nocturnal darkness and with the diverse and variegated appearance of the rising saffron-colored day, often woven together. But then there will be no more night, and lamps will not need light, nor sunlight; because the Lord will illuminate them, as John says (Apoc. II, 23). Woe to those who take pillows to destroy the souls of the people (Ezekiel 13:18).
25. The Holy Spirit poured out upon the prophet lamenting the misfortune of our frailty, which neither had rest in this life nor retained anything in the sudden encounter with death, that humanity would not rise again until the one came who did not patch the new onto the old nor put a new piece of cloth on an old garment; but rather made all things new, as he himself said: Behold, I make all things new. For he is the resurrection, he is the firstborn from the dead, in whom we have indeed received a foretaste of the future resurrection, yet he alone has already risen with eternal resurrection.