1 Samuel 5:12

And the wailing of each city went up to heaven. And the murmur and impatience and the clamor of Sodom, falsely significant among the faithful, in whichever places, or persons, or certainly senses of the body, which are five for the cities of the Philistines, can never escape the strict judge, who foretelling such times with a dreadful sentence says: Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Luke XVIII.)

13. Concerning the striking of the buttocks indeed, because we spoke of it above, it would not need to be discussed here, if nothing different were said here than was said there. What then is the meaning of what it says: "The men also who had not died were struck"? Were those who had died supposed to be bitten again as punishment for the ark? But also when the cry of the stricken is said to have ascended to heaven, it could be sufficiently shown that this was said of the living, and not of the dead. For the cry of dead men could not ascend to heaven. But because we referred the striking of the buttocks above to the knowledge of sins, there are indeed men who have not died. For they are men who, for the sake of the eternal life which they desire, have resolved to do brave deeds. But the men who have not yet died are those who resolve to do great things, and yet by no means weigh their past evils unto the pain of compunction. They are therefore bitten by mice, so that they may die: because they recall the things in which they wickedly fell, and believe that for their past deeds they deserve the loss of eternal life. Because therefore they are men, they do not despair of God's mercy: and because they are bitten so that they may die, they do not exalt themselves on account of the fact that they begin to be great. 14. Their cry indeed ascended to heaven because almighty God mercifully receives the groans of the converted. And because at the time of the conversion of the Gentiles there was a great rush to the faith, the cry is said to have ascended not from any one city but from many cities. Hence the prophet also pleads in the person of the universal Church, saying: "Attend to my prayer, from the ends of the earth I have cried to you" (Ps. 60:2–3). And showing that the cry of the one crying from the ends of the earth ascended to heaven, he says: "He heard my voice from his holy temple, and my cry came before him into his ears" (Ps. 17:7). When therefore each city is said to have cried to heaven, the universal penitence of conversion is commended. But if the striking is referred to conversion, while the cry is referred to the devotion of divine praise, then we certainly read in the mysteries of the Scriptures what we see. For each city cries out in the praises of almighty God, because the entire world by no means keeps silent about the proclamations of the…