e all the things that are commanded you, say, We are
unprofitable servants" (Lk 17, 10).

110. True the raven is sent out. God desires the Law to be taught. He
reveals it from heaven; yea, he writes it upon the hearts of all men,
as Paul proves (Rom 2, 15). From this inherent knowledge originated
all writings of the saner philosophers, of Esop, Aristotle, Plato,
Xenophon, Cicero and Cato. And these are not unfit to set before
untrained and vicious persons, that their vile tendencies may be
curbed to some extent.

111. If, however, you seek for peace of conscience and for certain
hope of eternal life, such philosophers are like the raven, which
wanders around the ark, finding no peace outside, but not looking for
it within. Paul says of the Jews, "Israel, following after a law of
righteousness, did not arrive at that law" (Rom 9, 31). The reason for
this is in the fact that the Law is like the raven; it is either the
ministry of death and sin or it produces hypocrites.

112. Now, let those who wish, follow out this allegory by studying the
nature of the raven. It is an impure bird, of somber and funereal
color, with a strong beak and a harsh, shrill voice. It scents dead
bodies from a great distance, and therefore men fear its voice as a
certain augury of an impending death. It feeds upon carrion and enjoys
localities made foul by public executions.

113. Though I would not apply each and every one of these
characteristics to the Law, yet who does not see how well they fit the
servants of the Pope, the mass-priests and the monks, who were not
only richly fed upon the slaughter of consciences by their false
doctrines, but also used the dead bodies to obtain their livelihood,
since they made a paying business out of their vigils, their
anniversaries, their purifying water used in burials, and even of
purgatory itself. And surely, this devotion to the dead was more
profitable to them than their care of the living.

Truly, then, they are ravens, feeding on corpses and sitting upon them
with wild cries. Not only may the popish priests be fitly likened to
the ravens, but indeed the whole ministry of the papacy, where it is
at its best, does nothing but to gash and murder consciences. It does
not show the way to true righteousness, but merely makes hypocrites,
as does the Law.

114. Among other crimes of false prophets, Ezekiel enumerates (ch 13,
19) the fact that, for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread,
they sl