Lecture 14

^4:14^ Nun. They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they were defiled with blood: and when they could not help walking in it, they held up their skirts. (The sense of the passage in Hebrew is different: they are so defiled with blood that no one dares to touch their garments.)

80. Second, he presents their lack of amendment, because they thought they were doing enough only by keeping away from the entrance of the temple: they have wandered, roving through the streets; as blind men: these things they thought, and were deceived: for their own malice blinded them (Wis 2:21); walking in it, the temple; their skirts (lacinias), cut in the style of jesters, which is called “lacerated” from lacero: in which it is shown that they did not give up their pleasures.

Or, according to a variant text, their wantonness (lascivias), and this is clearer. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity (Isa 59:3).

Or it can be explained concerning those captives who were physically blinded by their enemies, who could not enter their homes by themselves without holding the end of the garment of a guide; and this fits with what follows.