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Ambrose of Milan, On the Duties of the Clergy
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We learn from the fact of the separation of the ten tribes from King Rehoboam what harm bad counsellors can do.
93. Justice, then, especially graces men that are set over any office;486 Cic. de Off. II. 22, § 77. on the other hand, injustice fails them and fights against them. Scripture itself gives us an example, where it says, that when the people of Israel, after the death of Solomon, had asked his son Rehoboam to free their neck from their cruel yoke, and to lighten the harshness of his father’s rule, he, despising the counsel of the old men, gave the following answer at the suggestion of the young men: “He would add a burden to the yoke of his father, and change their lighter toils for harder.”487 1 [3] Kings xii. 4 ff.
94. Angered by this answer, the people said: “We have no portion in David, nor inheritance in the son of Jesse. Return to your tents, O Israel. For we will not have this man for a prince or a leader over us.”488 1 [3] Kings xii. 16. So, forsaken and deserted by the people, he could keep with him scarce two of the ten tribes for David’s sake.
CAPUT XVIII.
Quantum iniqui consiliarii damni afferant, exemplo decem tribuum a rege Roboam desciscentium sat intelligi.
93. Egregie itaque viros alicui praesidentes muneri commendat justitia: contra iniquitas destituit atque impugnat. Exemplo nobis est Scriptura quae dicit quia cum populus Israel post mortem Salomonis rogasset filium ejus Roboam, ut relevaret cervices eorum a servitute dura, et paterni imperii temperaret austeritatem, illum spreto senili consilio de suggestione adolescentium responsum dedisse hujusmodi, quia et onus adjiceret super patrium jugum, et leviora gravioribus suppliciis mutaret 0128C (III Reg. XII, 4 et seq.).
94. Quo responso exasperati responderunt populi: Non est nobis portio cum David, neque haereditas in filiis Jesse. Revertere unusquisque in tabernacula tua, Israel (Ibid. 16); quoniam hic homo neque in principem, neque in ducem erit nobis. Itaque desertus a populo ac destitutus, vix duarum tribuum propter David meritum habere potuit societatem.