Et alibi[1] iterum: Nutrit ergo ipse infirmus infirmos, tanquam Gallina pullos suos. Huic enim se similem fecit. Quoties volui, inquit ad Hierusalem, congregare filios tuos sub alas tanquam Gallina pullos suos, et noluisti? Videtis autem, {patres} <fratres>, quemadmodum Gallina infirmetur cum pullis suis{;}<.> Nulla enim alia avis, quod sit mater agnoscitur. Videmus nidificare Passeres quoslibet ante oculos nostros, Hirundines, Ciconias: Columbas quotidie videmus nidificare, quas nisi quando in nidis videmus parentes esse agnoscimus. Gallina vero sic infirmatur in pullis suis, ut etiam si pulli ipsi non sequantur, filios, non videas, matrem tamen intelligas, ita fit alis demissis, plumis hispida, voce rauca, omnibus membris demissa, et abiecta, ut quemadmodum dixi etiamsi filios non videas, matrem tamen intelligas.

And again - Saint Augustine - elsewhere: Then, He himself weak, nourishes the weak like the hen her chicks. In fact He likened Himself to her. How many times have I wanted, He said to Jerusalem, to gather your children under the wings as a hen does with her chicks, and you didn’t want it? But you look, brethren, as the hen is weakening together with her chicks. For no other bird is recognized to be a mother. We see any sparrow to nest in front of our eyes, the swallows, the storks: every day we see the doves to nest, which we don’t realize to be parents except when we see them in the nests. But the hen weakens so much because of her chicks that if they don’t also follow her and you don’t see her children, nevertheless you realize that she is mother, and this happens because of lowered wings, ruffled feathers, hoarse voice, so humble and neglected in all her parts that, as I said, even if you don’t see her children, nevertheless you would realize that she is mother.

Postremo illum etiam Psalmistae locum exponens, ubi Propheta ait: Si me non protegas, quia pullus sum, Milvus me rapiet. Dicit enim, ait, quodam loco Dominus noster ad Hierusalem quandam civitatem illam, ubi crucifixus est Hierusalem, Hierusalem, quoties volui filios tuos congregare, tanquam Gallina pullos suos, et Noluisti? Parvuli sumus; ergo protegat nos Deus sub umbraculo alarum suarum. Haec omnia D. Augustinus.

Finally, expounding also that passage of the psalmist where the prophet says: If you don’t protect me, since I am a chick, the kite will abduct me. For he says: Elsewhere our Lord says to Jerusalem, that certain city where he was crucified: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how many times have I wanted to gather your children as the hen does with her chicks and you didn’t wish it? We are babies, therefore let God protect us under the sunshade of His wings. All these drags by Saint Augustine.

Alloquebatur autem Dominus procul dubio sub civitatis nomine ipsos cives (dixerat enim Hierusalem, Hierusalem, quae occidis Prophetas, etc.) unde postea facta mutatione dicit: Relinquetur domus vestra deserta: sequitur quod insigne est charitatis divinae iudicium. Quoties volui congregare filios tuos, quemadmodum avis nidum suum sub alis, et noluisti? Magnae charitatis fuit, quod non semel tantum, sed multoties adeo cupiverit eius filios, hoc est, inhabitatores, omnesque Iudaeos, qui ad eam tanquam matrem confluebant, ad se congregare, idque ea semper reluctante, sed id adhuc magis Dei charitatem argui, quod non simpliciter filios eius congregare voluerit, sed eo modo, quo avis nidum suum, id est, ut interpretes omnes fere vertunt, pullos suos sub alas, hoc est summo cum desiderio, et solicitudine. Est autem Graecis pro dictione avis, ὄρνις, quam dictionem ancipitem esse diximus[2] ad avem, et Gallinam. Et quidem uti paulo ante D. Augustinus dicebat, mirus est amor omnibus fere avibus, ad confovendos, et protegendos pullos, sed praecipue Gallinis: unde magis conveniebat vertere Gallinam, quemadmodum D. Matthaei interpres optime fecit.

Without doubt the Lord using the name of the city was addressing the inhabitants themselves (for he said Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Which kills the prophets etc.) whence subsequently, having made the exchange, He says: Your house will be desert: it follows what is the great verdict of the divine love. How many times have I wanted to gather your children like a bird does with its offspring under the wings, and you didn’t want? It was sign of a big love, since not only once, but to such an extent He would have desired many times to gather near Himself Its children, that is, the inhabitants and all the Jews who were there converging as if It were a mother, and being It always reluctant in this regard, but I have so much more inferred that this is the love of God, since He would not have liked simply to gather Its children, but likewise a bird does with its offspring, that is, as almost all the expounders translate, Its chicks under the wings, that is with high desire and care. In fact among Greeks for the word avis there is órnis, and we said that this word is ambiguous, referring itself both to bird and hen. And besides as a little before Saint Augustine was saying, admirable is the love in almost all the birds turned to heat and protect the chicks, but especially in hens: then it was more fitting to translate hen like excellently has done the translator of St. Matthew.

Porro quam apte Dominus se Gallinae comparavit, ex eodem D. Augustino partim demonstravimus, et Hylarius, et D. Chrysostomus etiam innuunt. Ille enim enarrans illum versum: Semitam meam, etc. Quod autem, inquit, per tritam praedicationis semitam ambulaverit, audiamus ipsum dicentem: Hierusalem, Hierusalem, etc. quoties volui congregare, etc. frequentiam numerosae significationis ostendit. Nihil ergo novi et egit, et passus est, cum per nolentem congregari filios suos Hierusalem, toties inauditus, et inhonoratus est in Prophetis. D. vero Chrysostomus[3] ad illa D. Matthaei verba: Quoties volui congregare, etc. Hinc patet, inquit, quod semper se ipsos peccando disseminabant, amorem autem suum ab imagine significavit. Ferventi nempe amore aves pullos diligunt suos. Crebro autem haec imago avis, et alarum apud Prophetas invenitur, et in cantico et in Psalmis mirabilem providentiam, et eximiam protectionem denotans, sed noluistis ait.

Moreover how much appropriately the Lord compared himself to a hen we have partly shown from Saint Augustine himself, and both Saint Hilary and Saint John Chrysostomus are also giving an indication of this. For the former, expounding that verse My path etc. says: In fact since he would have walked on a beaten path of preaching, we would hear himself to say: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, etc. how many times I wanted to gather etc. it shows the frequency of a manifold meaning. Therefore He has done or suffered nothing new, since through Jerusalem which didn’t want its children be gathered, so many times He is not heard and not honored in the prophets. But Saint John Chrysostomus towards those words of Matthew How many times I wanted to gather, etc. says: From this it is evident that, since sinning they always propagated themselves, He pointed out His love through an image. For birds love of an ardent love their chicks. For this image of a bird and the wings is often found in prophets, and in Song of Songs and Psalms it represents an admirable providence and an extraordinary protection, but He says you didn’t want it.

Et rursus[4] secundum alteram expositionem in Matthaeum: Quoties, inquit, volui congregare, etc. Quum te in Aegypto quasi sanguinarius Accipiter {persequabatur} <persequebatur> Pharao, nisi super te {Mosen} <Mosem>, et Aaron, quasi duas mollissimas pennas misericordiae meae, et liberatos vos de unguibus eius rapui in desertum, et noluistis sequi me, facientes vobis vitulum in Horeb ut serviretis potius idolo mortuo quam Deo viventi. Quoties volui congregare, etc. Percurre si vis Iudicum librum quoties peccaverunt, et tradidit illos Deus, et iterum liberavit. Gallinam posuit ecclesiae similitudinem. Sicut enim pulli Gallinarum pastum suum quaerentes, per diversa vagantur, et maternis vocibus congregantur, sic et populus Dei per malam voluptatem et mundialem concupiscentiam sequentes, per diversos vagantur errores, quos Ecclesia mater per sacerdotes modo increpationibus, modo blandimentis, qui si quibusdam vocibus congregare et allectare festinat. Et quemadmodum Gallina habens pullos vocando illos non cessat, ut assidua voce vagositatem corrigat pullorum suorum. Sic et sacerdotes in doctrina cessare non debent, ut studio, et assiduitate doctrinarum suarum negligentiam populi errantis emendent. Et quemadmodum Gallina habens pullos non solum suos calefacit, sed etiam cuiusque volatilis filios exclusos a se, diligit, quasi suos, ita et Ecclesia non solum Christianos suos studet vocare, sed sive Gentiles, sive Iudaei si suppositi illi fuerint, omnes fidei suae calore vivificat, et in baptismo regenerat, et in sermone nutrit et materna diligit charitate.

And again, according to another commentary to Matthew: How many times, He says, I wished to gather etc. When the Pharaoh in Egypt pursued you like a bloodthirsty hawk, if there had not been above you Moses and Aaron, as if they were two soft feathers of my mercy, and after having freed you from its claws I dragged you in the desert, and you didn’t want to follow me, building for you a calf in the locality of Horeb - perhaps the Sinai - in order to serve rather a dead idol than a living God. How many times I wished to gather etc. If you will, read the Book of Judges to see how many times they sinned and God bestowed it on them, and again he freed them. He fixed as similarity of the Church the hen. In fact as the chicks of the hens when looking for their food stroll about everywhere and gather at the signal of the maternal voices, so act also the people of God, in following through a bad voluptuousness and a worldly lust wander in errors of every sort, that the mother Church hastens to gather and to attract through the priests as if they were voices now of reproach now of flattery. And likewise a hen having chicks doesn’t stop calling them, in order to correct with her continuous shouting the strolling about of chicks. So also the priests don’t must stop in teaching, to be able to put a shelter to the negligence of the wandering people through the study and the continuous practice of their teachings. And like the hen having chicks doesn’t heat her owns only, but she loves as if they were her owns also the children of any bird she hatched, so also the Church is not only pledging itself to recall its Christians, but if the Pagans or the Jews were subdued to it, it vivifies all of them with the heat of its faith, and it regenerates them in the baptism, and it nourishes them with the sermons and loves them with maternal love.

Et paulo post. Quotiescunque enim, ut diximus inter haereticos, et fideles fidei movetur certamen, evidenter vult illos Dominus congregare sub veritate alarum suarum, id est, sub duorum testamentorum, quotiescunque leguntur apud eos verba prophetarum et Apostolorum: illi autem non quasi domestici pulli Gallinae, quae est Ecclesia, sed quasi sylvestres pulli sanguinarii Vulturis, aut Accipitris, non solum ad veritatem duorum testamentorum venire non acquiescunt, sed adhuc irruunt super ipsam Gallinam, id est, Ecclesiam, et diripiunt, et dispergunt pullos eius, et evellicant eam: toties vult illos congregare, illi autem nolunt. Hucusque ille, proverbialis igitur istaec allegoria facile nobis malum diligendi iuvandique nostros ante alios, praescribit.

And a little more ahead. For every time that, as we said, a contrast gets going between heretics and believers on matter of faith, the Lord clearly wants to gather them under the truth of his wings, that is under the wings of the two Testaments, every time that the words of the prophets and the apostles are read to them: the formers - the heretics - not as domestic chicks of a hen, that is, the Church, but like wild chicks of a vulture or of a bloodthirsty hawk not only don’t agree to adhere to the truth of two Testaments, but even they rush upon the hen herself, that is, the Church, and they tear asunder and scatter her chicks, and eradicate her: as many times she wants to gather them but they don’t want it. Until here his words, therefore this proverbial allegory easily prescribes us to love a bad person and to help ours before the others.