Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues to exhort and incite his disciple to the study of wisdom and virtue, both by his own example and by recounting the advantages of wisdom. Secondly, at verse 14, he teaches that the way of the wicked, as a dark way, must be avoided, while the way of the just, as a shining way, must be pursued. Thirdly, at verse 23, he treats of the guarding of the heart, the mouth, the eyes, and the steps.
Vulgate Text: Proverbs 4:1-27
1. Hear, O children, the instruction of a father, and attend that you may know prudence. 2. I will give you a good gift; do not forsake my law. 3. For I too was a son of my father, tender, and an only child before my mother: 4. and he taught me, and said: Let my words be received into your heart; keep my commandments, and you shall live. 5. Get wisdom, get prudence: do not forget, nor turn aside from the words of my mouth. 6. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you: love her, and she will preserve you. 7. The beginning of wisdom: get wisdom, and with all your possession, acquire prudence: 8. seize her, and she will exalt you: you will be glorified by her, when you have embraced her, 9. she will give to your head an increase of graces, and a noble crown will protect you. 10. Hear, my son, and receive my words, that the years of your life may be multiplied. 11. I will show you the way of wisdom; I will lead you through the paths of equity: 12. which when you have entered, your steps will not be straitened, and running you will have no stumbling-block. 13. Hold fast to discipline, do not let her go: guard her, because she is your life. 14. Do not delight in the paths of the wicked, nor let the way of the evil please you. 15. Flee from it, do not pass through it: turn aside, and forsake it. 16. For they do not sleep unless they have done evil: and sleep is snatched from them unless they have tripped someone up; 17. they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of iniquity. 18. But the path of the just, like a shining light, goes forward and increases until the perfect day. 19. The way of the wicked is dark: they do not know where they will fall. 20. My son, listen to my words, and incline your ear to my speech. 21. Let them not depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart: 22. for they are life to those who find them, and health to all flesh. 23. With all watchfulness keep your heart, because from it proceeds life. 24. Remove from yourself a perverse mouth, and let detracting lips be far from you. 25. Let your eyes look straight ahead, and let your eyelids go before your steps. 26. Direct the path for your feet, and all your ways will be established. 27. Do not turn to the right or to the left: turn your foot from evil; for the Lord knows the ways that are on the right hand, but those that are on the left are perverse. He Himself will make your courses straight, and will bring your journeys forward in peace.
First Part of the Chapter
Verse 1: Hear, O Children, the Instruction of a Father
1. HEAR, O CHILDREN, THE INSTRUCTION OF A FATHER (Vatablus: paternal correction), AND ATTEND (receive these my teachings with an attentive and intent mind), THAT YOU MAY KNOW PRUDENCE. — In Hebrew: that you may know understanding; the Septuagint: that you may know thought; Aquila: intellect: namely, so that you may put into practice and actually carry out the dictates of prudence concerning virtue and good morals. "Instruction," in Hebrew musar, that is, correction, training, discipline, by which the frivolity of children is corrected and restrained. Whence the Septuagint translates: hear, children, a childlike instruction. Wherefore, because this discipline is burdensome to children and to those who follow their desires after the manner of children ("for it matters little whether you are a child in age or in character," says the Philosopher), he therefore repeatedly urges them to embrace it, by setting before them its fruits and advantages. "Of a father," that is, of myself, who here conduct myself as a father severely but truly and rightly instructing his children. That Solomon is speaking here is clear from what he adds: "For I too was a son of my father." Less correctly, therefore, Hugo, Bede, and others consider these to be the words of God.
The sense is, as if to say: O children, O disciples, hear my instruction about correcting your morals and forming them according to the rule of virtue, which indeed is burdensome and unwelcome to the flesh, but is useful and necessary for the spirit; and therefore it is handed down to you from me as your father, with fatherly affection and love, so that I may make you not so much my own children as children of wisdom, namely, so that you may practice prudence: for prudence consists not so much in hearing as in doing and putting into practice what has been heard: "For it is not the hearers of the law who are just before God, but the doers of the law who shall be justified," Romans II, 13. Hear me, therefore, who by God's command speak these things and, as it were, as the divine mouth, proclaim the commands of God.
Verse 2: I Will Give You a Good Gift
2. I WILL GIVE YOU A GOOD GIFT; DO NOT FORSAKE MY LAW. — So also the Septuagint. But Vatablus and Pagninus translate: for I set before you a good teaching; do not abandon my law; Galatinus, book II of the Secrets of the Faith, chapter v: "I have given you a good lesson," that is, the law, he says, for there is nothing good except the law; R. Levi: "I have given you a good possession." For in Hebrew lecach, from the root lacach, that is, he received, properly means a thing received or to be received, namely a gift that is accepted; and because among gifts the law and doctrine hold the first place, it is commonly taken for them. The good gift, therefore, is the teaching of the divine law already delivered and hereafter to be delivered, which as an outstanding gift and good must by no means be forsaken. Wherefore "an equal return cannot be made to the gods, parents, and teachers," says Aristotle, because parents conferred nature, others doctrine.
For 'tribuam' the Hebrew is nattati, that is, I have given, I have delivered; but the Hebrews frequently take the past tense for any tense. Nattati therefore is the same as I have given, I give, and I will give, as if to say: If you receive, ruminate upon, and carry out in practice my laws and counsels, you will perceive how great a gift they are, how much wisdom they contain, and what great fruits they produce.
Verse 3: For I Too Was a Son of My Father
3 AND 4. FOR I TOO WAS A SON OF MY FATHER, TENDER AND AN ONLY CHILD BEFORE MY MOTHER: AND HE TAUGHT ME, AND SAID. — In Hebrew: tender and the only one before the face of my mother; the Septuagint: beloved in the presence of my mother. The Hebrew ad liphne, that is, in the face of or before the face, has in the margin libne, that is, among the children, and so Galatinus wants it to be read, book II, chapter v, as if to say: I was the only one among the children, or among the sons of my mother. "And he taught me," not the mother, for in Hebrew the verb is masculine ioreni, that is, a man taught me, namely my father; but under the father, by syllepsis, understand the mother also. Whence the Septuagint translates: who (father and mother) led and taught me; Aquila: they enlightened me; the Chaldean: and they taught me; and the Lord said to me.
Morally, St. Ambrose, on chapter 1 of St. Luke, teaches that it is proper to those who are born of noble lineage to draw piety equally with their blood, so that there may appear in them "the inherited legacy of immaculate purity. Thus Isaac received from his parents the nobility of piety, which he left to his posterity." In virtues and vices there is a certain inheritance, says Chrysostom, sermon III: "The fault of the parent demands an accounting from the children. Is not the whole tree in the seed? Therefore the defect of the seed is the defect of the whole tree." On the other hand, St. Paul argues: "If the first-fruit is holy, so also is the lump; and if the root is holy, so also are the branches," that is, as Theophylactus explains, it is a certain thing that the lump will turn out similar to the leaven, the branches to the root, the children to the parents, Romans chapter XI.
The question is asked here, first, in what sense and for what reason Solomon is called rach, that is, tender or delicate? I answer first, because he was of a young and tender age, as if to say: My father David, a wise and holy king, instructed me Solomon from my tender years and taught me wisdom, namely to fear and worship God. Therefore you too, O parents, instruct your children from childhood and teach them the fear of God; and you, O children, drink in the same from childhood and learn to be wise. So say Lyranus, Cajetan, and others. Cajetan and some others add that Solomon was a child when David his father died, as if to say: I heard and met my father David only when I was tender and young; for he died before I reached adolescence, and yet the precepts that he instilled in me as a boy, I retain as an old man. For this is a mark of great virtue: often children, when the father by whose discipline they were restrained has died, cast off wisdom and give themselves over to their desires. St. Jerome supports this, in his epistle to Vitalis, where he asserts that Solomon begot Rehoboam in his eleventh year and began to reign in his twelfth. Therefore David the father had already died by then. And St. Ignatius, epistle 8 to the Magnesians, where he says Solomon performed the judgment of the harlots while he was still a boy. But the contrary is far more true, namely that Solomon began to reign around his twentieth year, and therefore lived with his father for nearly twenty years and was instructed by him, as I showed from Abulensis, Pineda, Salianus, and indeed from Sacred Scripture itself at Sirach XLVII, near the beginning. Moreover, that David gave Solomon sharp admonitions of wisdom and salvation not only in life but also in death, is clear from III Kings II, 1.
Secondly, others consider that Solomon is called tender, that is, tenderly nourished in delights. Whence the Chaldean translates: I was a delicate son of my father, as if to say: Although I was raised amid royal delights, nevertheless I applied myself to wisdom and virtue. For there is a great struggle between virtue and pleasure, just as between chastity and beauty, according to the saying: There is a great contest between beauty and modesty.
Thirdly, others explain "tender" as unformed, inexperienced, unlearned. "For nothing, says Bede, raises the mind more to the hope of acquiring wisdom than when we remember that those whom we admire as already shining in wisdom were once small and unlearned." In this sense David says, II Kings III, 39: "I am still delicate and an anointed king," that is, tender, unaccustomed to the labor of prolonged governance. And Rehoboam is called "untrained and faint of heart;" in Hebrew: a boy and tender of heart, II Chronicles XIII, 7.
Fourthly, Pineda takes this tenderness to mean a tender upbringing, full of care and solicitude. So he says in book III of the Deeds of Solomon, chapter IV. Add also a tender and delicate bodily constitution. For Solomon had a delicate and excellent bodily temperament, and thence was docile and capable of wisdom. For, as Aristotle says, book II of On the Soul, text 49: "Those who are hard in the flesh are inept in intellect; but the soft," that is, the tender, "are well fitted."
Fifthly, you may rightly interpret "tender" as soft, flexible, pliable, docile, like soft wax that can quickly be shaped, says Hugo. For such was Solomon, both on account of his good spirit and natural disposition, which he says he received from God in Wisdom chapter VIII, 19, both on account of David's formation, and on account of the exercise and study of wisdom, and therefore he quickly reached its summit. For on the other hand, there are certain children of so hard, refractory, dull, and unteachable a nature that they neither wish nor are able to learn anything, so that parents and teachers seem to lose their oil and labor in teaching them. Whence the Septuagint translates: for I was an obedient son to my father. Here applies that saying of the Poet: While the child is tender, instruct him in noble character.
Hence also Blessed Antiochus, in his homily On Obedience, reads: "I too was an obedient son to my father, and (therefore) beloved in the sight of my mother;" for mothers love obedient children.
Hence St. Basil, in his Longer Rules, question 15, wisely teaches that parents and teachers should teach and form children from their tender years, when they are soft like wax and most easily receive and retain the form impressed upon them. Wherefore we read that most of the outstanding Saints began to devote themselves to holiness from childhood: I have reviewed many of their examples at II Timothy III, 14. The pagans held the same view, such as Plato, book VI of the Laws, Aristotle in Laertius, book V, chapter 1, where he asserts that educated children differ from uneducated ones as the living differ from the dead. Again, that sight receives light from the surrounding air, but the mind from learning. Cleanthes in Laertius, book VI, chapter VI, says that children and uneducated people differ from beasts only in appearance. Demades in Antonius's Melissa, part 1, discourse 50, asserts that the learned differ from the unlearned as much as gods from men. Seneca says excellently, epistle 69: "As the immortal gods, he says, have learned no virtue, being born with every one, and it is part of their nature to be good, so certain young people, having been allotted an excellent natural disposition, arrive at what is usually taught without a long apprenticeship, and embrace honorable things as soon as they hear them." Even more excellently St. Bernard, in his tract On the Order of Life, or on the Instruction of Children, past the middle:
"Children, he says, derive their name from purity, and it is fitting that simplicity, innocence, and purity, that is, virginity, should reign in them; that they may grow up with these and persevere in them, so as to merit following the Lamb wherever He goes." The same, sermon 3 on the Epiphany: "Children, he says, have a natural simplicity, and a modesty akin to that of virgins."
The question is asked secondly, in what sense and for what reason Solomon is called "only-begotten"? For Scripture seems to say the contrary. For I Chronicles chapter III, verse 5, besides Solomon, numbers three other sons of David by Bathsheba, namely Shimea, Shobab, and Nathan. Briefly stated, says our Salianus, volume III of the Annals, year of the world 2989, number 3, it seems probable that Shimea, Shobab, and Nathan were sons of Bathsheba by Uriah, her former husband. So hold Abulensis, on chapter III, verse 1 of Chronicles, Lyranus and Vatablus, Torniellus at the place cited, Hugo the Cardinal on chapter V of II Kings, and it is not displeasing to Salmeron, tract 28, in volume III. It is proved, first, because if David had received many children from Bathsheba, since the first of them, setting aside the unnamed infant born from adultery, was Solomon, both in order of nature, as is clear from II Kings XII, verse 14, and in dignity of royal succession, he would certainly have been named first among the sons of Bathsheba, not last. For that the order of birth is preserved by Scripture can be understood from both passages, II Kings III, 2, and I Chronicles III, 1, in which the sons of David are numbered: for in both places Amnon is reckoned first as the firstborn, then Daniel or Chileab, third Absalom, and so on. Since therefore those three are named first, they were born first: not from David, who from Bathsheba first received that unnamed infant, then Solomon: therefore from Uriah, whose children David for that reason made his own by adoption, because in this way he repaired the injury done to the father. For since, having corrupted his wife, he had tried to make Uriah unwittingly believe the child was his, he himself knowingly and prudently assigned Uriah's children to himself by adoption; he also repaired the injury done to the children, from whom he had taken their father, by giving them in place of a private man a king for a parent. Finally, in this way he greatly pleased his most beloved Bathsheba, whose Solomon is called "only-begotten."
More probable, nevertheless, is the opinion that those three, and in addition Solomon, were begotten by David and Bathsheba. For most clear is the reasoning of Scripture affirming this, I Chronicles III, 3: "Moreover in Jerusalem, it says, there were born to him, that is to David, sons: Shimea, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon, four from Bathsheba the daughter of Ammiel." How were four born to David if three of them were born to Uriah? Truly a great abuse of words would be admitted if, for one who was truly born to David, four were said to have been born to him. Retaining, therefore, the simple meaning of the words, without obscuring it by a violent interpretation, all must be said to be natural sons of David, begotten by him. Moreover, if Nathan was not a true son of David, but an adoptive one, whereas the true
He is nevertheless called only-begotten.
First, because he was uniquely beloved. son of Uriah, then certainly the genealogy of Christ would not correctly be traced through Nathan himself back to David by St. Luke, since he would not have been David's son but Uriah's. This opinion is approved by all who hold that Nathan was a natural brother of Solomon, of whom Pineda numbers very many, book I, chapter VIII, number 3, and book VII, chapter XXVI. For the reasoning is the same for the other two, and for those who hold that Solomon was born four years after David's adultery. Followers of the same opinion are Theodoret and Procopius on I Chronicles, and that same Pineda, Salazar, Baynus, Arboreus, Jansenius, Cajetan at this passage, and Clichtovaeus on Damascenus, book IV, chapter XV, Salmeron, tract 28, volume III, Barradius, volume I, book V, chapter IX: they also add the biblical Philo of Annius, and others if any.
Therefore Solomon is called only-begotten, in Hebrew 'unique,' that is, uniquely beloved by his mother. Whence in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek it is not 'the only one of his mother' or 'to his mother,' but 'the only one before his mother,' that is, as the Septuagint translates, beloved in the presence of his mother, that is, because he was the only one through singular love, care, and solicitude, just as if he were alone and an only child. It is thus signified that Solomon was of a most placid and peaceful disposition, who, like Jacob, remained at home with his mother, who instilled in him the love and precepts of wisdom, and did not, like Esau, hunt in the fields. Furthermore, that he was most loving to his mother, and she in turn to him. Only-begotten, therefore, before his mother, that is, as if an only child, most dearly beloved, nourished not with another's but with his own mother's milk, always in the arms, in the lap, in the sight of his mother. Whence his mother says to him, chapter XXXI, verse 2: "What, my beloved? what, beloved of my womb? what, beloved of my vows?" Thus Psalm LXXXV, 11 says: "Let my heart rejoice, that it may fear Your name." For which Jerome and the Chaldean properly read: unite my heart, that it may fear Your name. Which some refer to the effect of praying and beseeching: "Grant this one thing to my heart, that it may fear You;" others to the greatness and perfection of fear: "may my heart fear You uniquely;" others to the intimate union of the heart with divine fear: "unite my heart with Your fear." But better: unite, that is, gather all the powers of my heart, that I may love You with my whole heart, with my whole soul, with all my strength, that I may attend uniquely to Your fear and love, that nothing outside of You may be mine in heaven, and without You I may wish for nothing on earth; let this be my one care and solicitude. Thus Psalm XXI, 21 says: "From the hand of the dog, my only one," as if to say: The love and concern for one life alone pierces me; this alone remains to me, namely life: preserve and protect this even when all other things have been taken away. Thus Solomon says he was the only one before his mother, on whom alone his mother fixed both her eyes and her heart, whom alone she loved and cared for; so Pineda, book I of the Deeds of Solomon, chapter VIII. Thus in Canticles VI it is said: "She is the only one of her mother (that is, beloved and) chosen of her that bore her."
Secondly, the same Pineda says: "Only," he says, when said of a king's son, seems to look to the succession of the kingdom, so that he is the only one among many brothers by succession and inheritance of the kingdom. Thus Genesis XXII, 2: "Take your only-begotten son;" the Septuagint understood it as if it said: "Take your beloved son;" St. Ambrose: take your beloved; Symmachus: your only one. But since he also had Ishmael, he does not mean the one begotten, but by succession and designation for lineage and sovereignty. Just as David himself seems to explain, saying I Chronicles XXIX, 1: "Solomon my son, the one (Septuagint: only) whom God has chosen, still a boy and tender," as if to say: As far as the succession of the kingdom is concerned, I have no other who should share in the reign.
Thirdly, our Salazar and Francis Suarez, III part, volume II, Question XXVII, disputation 2, section 3, interpret only-begotten as firstborn, as if to say: Although firstborn sons are accustomed to abuse the love and indulgence of their parents and to behave insolently, I nevertheless so subjected myself to discipline that I stood as a child "before my mother," and allowed myself to be taught, governed, bent, and formed by her, subjecting myself to her in all things and depending on her will. For although a son conceived from the adultery of David with Bathsheba was prior to Solomon, nevertheless he expired as soon as he saw the light, and therefore, as if unborn, does not enter the reckoning, says St. Thomas from the Gloss, III part, Question XXVII, article 2, ad 3.
If you object that Solomon does not seem to be the firstborn of David by Bathsheba, since three sons are named before him and he himself is the fourth and last, I Chronicles III, 5; I answer that often in Scripture in listing sons the order of time and generation is not preserved. Thus Genesis XI, 27 says: "Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran," and yet Haran was older than Abram; for Abram married Haran's daughter.
Some add that Solomon was a son of repentance, namely begotten by David and Bathsheba who were repentant of their adultery, and therefore beloved above the rest, as one who was a pledge of divine reconciliation and the fruit of grace received from God. Listen to our Lorinus on chapter 1 of Ecclesiastes, verse 1. Perhaps also Solomon, who after the death of the infant born from adultery was conceived through legitimate marriage and the subsequent repentance of both parents, was for this reason especially beloved, and was either nursed by the mother herself or in her presence, while the others were outside the home and with nurses; and therefore David loved him exceedingly, as one begotten by himself after grace had been recovered, as the successor to the kingdom, and as the one concerning whom God had so abundantly promised so many things; and in turn Solomon gloried in this title, that he both was and was called a son of David.
Mystically, or allegorically, Solomon here represents Christ, who was tender and the Only-begotten of the Eternal Father, and of the Virgin Mary the Mother of God, and uniquely beloved and subject, Luke II, 51. So Galatinus, book II of the Secrets of the Faith, chapter v, and book III, chapter XXII,
Allegorically, concerning Christ.
Secondly, because he was the firstborn.
Thirdly, because he was the firstborn.
Solomon was beloved, because he was a son of repentance. who thinks this is the literal sense, but from what has been said it is clear that it is the mystical sense. Moreover, Christ was properly the only Son of His Heavenly Father, because He was begotten from Him alone, as God and the Word; and the only Son of His Mother, because as man He was conceived from her alone without the agency of a man, by the Holy Spirit: whence just as in heaven He is without a mother, so on earth He is without a father. And this was the cause of the unique and singular reciprocal love, both of the Virgin for Christ and of Christ for the Virgin Mother; for the love of children is usually divided between father and mother, and therefore diminished toward each: but in Christ filial love was undivided and concentrated; for it was wholly and entirely directed toward His Mother alone, as if she were both father and mother to Him: it was therefore immense and ardent. In turn, the Virgin Mother of God did not divide her love for her Son with a husband, since he contributed nothing to it, but she alone possessed it entirely. That love was therefore also great and exceptional, because with both maternal and paternal love she loved Him as both mother and father, Him, I say, whom she knew to be God as well as man, and therefore to be loved in return with immeasurable love.
Christ, therefore, was tender in body because He had a soft and most excellent bodily temperament, and thence a tender and flexible spirit, and therefore one well disposed to discipline, says Galatinus, and most capable of all wisdom. Again, Christ is called tender because in Him there was an unspeakable tenderness of piety, and thus an insertion of the most merciful divinity into the trunk of humanity, and a fruitful planting. He Himself, finally, gave the law to the Jews through Moses, to Christians through Himself, and concerning it He said: "Do this, and you shall live," Luke X.
Verse 4: Let Your Heart Receive My Words
4. LET YOUR HEART RECEIVE MY WORDS, KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS, AND YOU SHALL LIVE. — Pagninus translates the Hebrew word for word: let your heart prop up or sustain my sayings: which Baynus explains by hypallage thus, as if to say: Let my sayings prop up your tender and wavering heart; the Septuagint: let our word be established in your heart; the Chaldean: let your heart apprehend (Symmachus: hold) my words; the Syriac: let my words reside in your heart.
These are the words not of God, as the Chaldean and Bede suppose, as though alluding to God's conversation with Solomon, III Kings III, 5; but of David to Solomon, as is clear from what has been said, as if to say: O son, receive my admonitions with the ears not only of the body but also of the mind, and not only receive them but also make them firm, so that they may never fall away and no temptation may dislodge them. For the imaginations and minds of children tend to be wandering and fluid, and therefore they easily let what they hear slip away and fall out. "The mind of the young is restless and unstable, and the spirit always wavers," says Aristotle, II Politics. He therefore commands that it be made firm with the anchor of constancy, and of constant love and fear of God, so that it may constantly retain these lessons of the father and of wisdom, and may prop them up, that is, protect and defend them against flatterers and seducers, lest it allow itself to be led astray by them and drawn off into vices.
KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS, AND YOU SHALL LIVE, as if to say: If you keep my commandments, you will live long both in the life of nature, in the life of grace, and in the life of glory for eternity. Whence the Syriac translates: keep my commandments and life and the law, as the pupil of your eye, as if to say: As much as you love your life, so much love the keeping of my commandments; as much as you love your soul, so much love my discipline; as much as you love and guard the pupil of your eye, so much love and guard my law, because this is the life, the soul, and the pupil of your eye.
Verse 5: Get Wisdom, Get Prudence
5. GET WISDOM, GET PRUDENCE: DO NOT FORGET, NOR TURN ASIDE FROM THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH. — The Hebrew kene, firstly, means buy, purchase, acquire; secondly, possess, because by buying one acquires possession of a thing, and what we buy we possess. Whence Vatablus translates: purchase wisdom, purchase understanding; Pagninus: buy wisdom, buy understanding. The sense, therefore, is: Purchase for yourself practical wisdom, or prudence and virtue, at the price of all your wealth and the expense of all things; for wisdom itself far exceeds every price and every loss. But when you have acquired it, firmly retain and possess it, so that you allow it to be snatched from you by no flatteries, promises, threats, or terrors, according to that saying of chapter XXIII, verse 23: "Buy the truth, and do not sell wisdom;" for all these things pertain to perseverance and constancy in wisdom and virtue, and therefore our translator most aptly renders it 'possess'; for possess by metalepsis is, first, the same as buy, acquire, according to that saying of Eve in Genesis chapter IV, verse 1: "I have possessed, that is, acquired, a man (Cain, her son) through God." Secondly, possess properly means to buy up, hold, keep possession, as if to say: With every effort take care that you acquire and possess wisdom as a thing of the highest value, just as a merchant is eager to buy and possess precious merchandise.
Morally, learn here that parents ought to provide their children more with wisdom and virtue than with wealth and estates. Worldly people do the opposite, and therefore they err and give their children the worst counsel. For what good are riches to a man who does not know how to use them well, or rather for whom they are instruments of pride, gluttony, and lust? What else is this than to give a sword to a fool and a madman, with which he kills both others and himself? Whence St. Basil, Prosper, and others severely reproach this perverse care of parents.
Verse 6: Do Not Forsake Her, and She Will Keep You
6. DO NOT FORSAKE HER, AND SHE WILL KEEP YOU: LOVE HER, AND SHE WILL PRESERVE YOU. — The Septuagint: and she will cling to you; the Chaldean: and she will protect you; the Syriac: that she may free you; St. Jerome, epistle 2 to Nepotian: and she will lay hold of you; the same, on chapter XVIII of Ezekiel, reads thus: "Love her, and she will embrace you; cherish her, and she will guard you;" the Arabic: desire her, and she will defend you. David, as a concerned father, repeats the same thing again and again, and impresses it on his son with ever new words, as a matter of the highest importance, on which his happiness and every good depends, as if to say: Join wisdom to yourself, O son, as a spouse with the indissoluble bond of marriage, and do not give her a bill of divorce, so as to dismiss her: so in turn she will be faithful to you and will firmly cling to you; indeed, she will protect you from all evils of guilt and punishment, and will preserve you in every good. The spouses of men do the opposite, for they often desert their husbands and go over to adulterers; or if they remain faithful, they do not nourish or guard their husbands, but are nourished and guarded by them.
Verse 7: The Beginning of Wisdom: Get Wisdom
7. THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM: GET (Baynus: to get, and so it can be translated from the Hebrew) WISDOM; AND WITH ALL YOUR POSSESSION, ACQUIRE PRUDENCE. — These words seem on the surface to be contradictory and to contain an antithesis: for the possession of wisdom is not the beginning but the end and completion of wisdom. Wherefore the Zurich Bible translates from the Hebrew thus: before all knowledge, acquire wisdom; Vatablus: the beginning of wisdom: acquire wisdom; the Syriac and Chaldean: at the beginning of wisdom, acquire wisdom; the Hebrew literally has: the beginning of wisdom, buy, or possess understanding.
Therefore first, 'possess' can be taken in an inchoate or destined act, as if to say: The beginning of wisdom is to possess, that is, to acquire wisdom, namely to buy it, to study it, to hear and meditate upon it, so that you may thus acquire and possess it, according to Wisdom VI, 18: "The very true beginning of it (wisdom) is the desire for discipline," as if to say: You will begin to be wise when you have begun to love and pursue it, and to devote yourself to it and study it. For he explains himself by adding: "And with all your possession, acquire (in Hebrew it is the same word kene, which our translator a little before rendered 'possess') prudence," as if to say: The beginning, way, and manner of acquiring wisdom and truth is if with all effort, all endeavor, at every cost, even if you had to spend all your wealth, you strive to acquire it for yourself. Thus Seneca says: "A great part of being good is to will to become good." So say Dionysius, Jansenius, Hugo, Cajetan, and others.
The sense, therefore, is, as if to say: The beginning of wisdom is not a dry speculation and contemplation of wisdom, but a heartfelt will and diligent effort toward wisdom, namely so that, moved by the fear of the Lord, which is also the beginning of wisdom, we may strive in every way and manner to acquire wisdom.
Secondly, others say, as if David says to Solomon: The beginning of wisdom is to conceive, comprehend, and possess it in the mind; for from this it will come about that in due time he will exercise it in practice. You therefore, O son, even now from your tender years impress it upon your mind, so that when you are older and have become king you may carry it out, and live and govern according to it. Or, as Baynus says: The sense of the proverb is: Make wisdom your first care; and not, as the saying goes: "Money must be sought first, virtue after coins." "And with all your possessions acquire prudence," so that you may be willing neither to possess nor to learn anything that is foreign to prudence. Or, as the same, as if to say: At the beginning of wisdom, possess and learn wisdom from others, according to James 1: "Let every man be swift to hear." And afterwards you will be more fit to handle all things with intelligence and prudently, and you will increase understanding by your own talent.
Thirdly, our Salazar explains it thus: "possess" or buy "wisdom," that is, join wisdom to yourself in marriage. For in ancient times marriages were made by co-purchase, by which the bridegroom would buy the bride from her parents at a fixed price, as Hosea bought Gomer, chapter III, verse 2: "I dug for her, he says, that is, I bought her for fifteen pieces of silver." Now join in marriage, that is, bind wisdom and virtue to yourself most tightly, so that you may not allow yourself to be torn from her. Whence St. Augustine considers this spiritual marriage to be represented in the marriage of Adam with Eve, book II of On Genesis against the Manichees, chapter XIII; for of that it was said in Genesis II: "This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. He says bone of my bones, perhaps on account of fortitude, and flesh of my flesh on account of temperance. For these two virtues are taught to pertain to the lower part of the soul, which prudence as rational governs."
Fourthly, for 'principium' the Hebrew is reschit, in Greek arche, which signifies both the summit, head, sovereignty, and the beginning, as if to say: The sovereignty of wisdom lies in the possession of wisdom: you will hold the first place in wisdom if you take care to possess it; the highest perfection and completion of wisdom consists in its possession.
Fifthly, as if to say: Wisdom and virtue lie not in reading, hearing, or speculating about them, but in their occupation and possession; if therefore you have begun to possess wisdom, you have the beginning of wisdom: if you have progressed in its possession and expanded it, as much as you have in possession, so much will you also progress in wisdom: if you possess it fully, you will likewise have full and perfect wisdom; moreover, this possession lies in the use and practice of wisdom, or virtue. For he has and possesses virtue who exercises it and makes use of it: for virtue lies in its use, practice, and exercise. In sum, the sense is, as if to say: Virtue does not consist in knowing or speculating about it, but in exercising and practicing it: for as much as you have exercised it, so much will you possess of it. By a similar phrase one might say: The beginning of wealth is to possess riches. The beginning of honor is to possess honors. Thus this maxim agrees with, and is in substance the same as that of chapter I, verse 7: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," because the fear of God spurs us to acquire and possess wisdom, that is, virtue. Therefore the beginning of fear is the progress of wisdom and virtue; the progress of fear is the beginning of wisdom and virtue; the completion of fear is the completion of wisdom and virtue. See what was said on chapter I, verse 7.
Finally, the Hebrew literally has: the beginning of chochma, that is, of wisdom, buy or possess bina, that is, understanding or prudence; and so some manuscript codices of the Latin Vulgate edition read, which you may explain thus: If you wish to attain true wisdom, not speculative but practical, acquire for yourself the prudence of things to be done; for this is true, indeed the very essence of wisdom, which I here proclaim. This sense, equally with the first, fourth, and fifth, seems to be the most literal and genuine among the rest.
Tropologically, Baynus says, as if to say: Before you indulge in the study of wisdom and contemplation, take pains to acquire that wisdom which consists in good morals and integrity of life: for Martha leads to Mary, the active life to the contemplative. Those who wish to enter immediately into the contemplative life before their passions have been calmed through the labors of the active life, do the same as those who wish to learn Rhetoric without first studying Grammar; whence St. Sabas says: "As the flower precedes the fruit, so the cenobitic life precedes the anchoritic." So Cyril reports in the Life of St. John the Silentiary.
Anagogically, Lyranus says: The beginning of possessing wisdom in the heavenly homeland is the possession of wisdom on the way, namely in this life.
Symbolically, some say, as if to say: The beginning of wisdom is to possess or acquire wisdom, that is, a teacher and master of wisdom who may train and teach you, without whom you will never become skilled in wisdom or virtue and perfection: for this sublime and divine art is not learned without a teacher.
Verse 8: Seize Her, and She Will Exalt You
8. SEIZE HER, AND SHE WILL EXALT YOU: YOU WILL BE GLORIFIED BY HER, WHEN YOU HAVE EMBRACED HER. — that is, when you hold her in a tighter embrace within your arms and your bosom, says St. Jerome on Sirach chapter III. For 'seize her' the Hebrew is salseleha, which properly means: Pave the way for her, raise and level the road for her by heaping up an embankment or mound of earth, elevate and exalt her; for thence solela is called an embankment, rampart, earth heaped into a mound. Whence Psalm LXVII, 3: sollu larocheb baarabot; which our translator renders: make a way for Him who ascends above the west. Likewise Abraham, Marinus, and others translate: raise up or pave the way for Him who rides into the heavens. The Septuagint here translates: pericharaxoson auten, that is, surround her with embankments or encircle her with walls, that is, hold her most firmly and share her. Hence Maximus, Century V, chapter (Oeconomica chapter LXXXIII), reads: "Besiege her, and she will exalt you." For just as soldiers, by besieging a city, capture it and are enriched with its spoils, so likewise those who besiege wisdom are enriched and exalted by its riches. Symmachus: carry her; Aquila: avalate, that is, receive, seize, or retain her; the Chaldean: love her; Pagninus: exalt her, and she will exalt you; others: heap up and pile upon her; the Zurich Bible: lift her up, and she will lift you up; R. Abraham: praise her; others: tread upon her, that is, assiduously work upon, press, and turn her over: for Dan sala means to tread; but from sala, salal (whence sollu) sometimes borrows its tenses.
Hence also R. Levi explains thus: If you make a journey of wisdom and walk constantly in the law, it will bring you honor and bring you honor. And R. Solomon says: Examine it thoroughly, he says, and dwell upon it with prolonged study, so that you may weigh even the smallest details, just as when someone searching through the remnants of a vintage runs here and there to carry off overlooked clusters of grapes. Among the Talmudists, salsel means to separate and examine the hairs. Baynus, however, explains these as the words of David to Solomon, as if to say: Pave the road of wisdom and make for it an open and elevated way, so that it may easily travel throughout your kingdom, and it will exalt you; for the Hebrew salseleha signifies that the way of wisdom and virtue is steep and lofty, and therefore must be paved with labor, exertion, and straining of both body and mind. He speaks of wisdom as of a noble bride, indeed a queen, for whom a road must be paved and leveled, so that she may be conveyed by chariot along it and brought to the house of the bridegroom, namely of the one who loves and courts her.
Our translator renders not word for word but according to the sense: seize; so that first, it may signify that wisdom must be pursued with great desire and zeal, so that it is not so much asked for as snatched. Secondly, that it must be closely joined to the mind: for to seize is to snatch to oneself. Thirdly, that it must be firmly held and guarded; for what we seize we hold firmly, lest some rival or enemy snatch it from us. And so 'seize wisdom' is in substance the same as what preceded, 'possess wisdom'; but it suggests the manner of possessing, namely snatching, just as the Romans snatched the Sabine virgins for wives. Whence fourthly, 'seize' signifies that force must be applied to obtain wisdom and virtue on account of our desires, which resist it, according to that saying of Christ: "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent seize it," Matthew XI, 12. Whence Hugo says: Seize it, he says, that is, snatch it to yourself like a bird of prey, such as a hawk, which swoops with all its strength upon the noblest quarry and attacks it to catch it; or like a robber who captures it with a violent hand. Fifthly, 'seize' signifies speed, as if to say: Hasten to it, run to it, fly to it. So says Lyranus. So much does wisdom wish to be loved and courted.
Moreover, the author of the Greek Catena explains the Septuagint version thus: "Surround her with embankments, he says, that is, confirm her by the constant use and meditation of the divine Scriptures; for it is not enough to be wise just to love wisdom or to have tasted it in passing, but there is furthermore need of great custody and care, lest you lose again what you have acquired. The embankment or rampart he calls the moral virtues in this place: for these are what elevate the mind to the knowledge of God and defend it against every adversity." Whence from this passage St. Isidore, book III of the Sentences, chapter IX, teaches that assiduous reading of Sacred Scripture is necessary for the student of wisdom: "No one, he says, can know the meaning of Sacred Scripture without familiarity through reading;" and he demonstrates this throughout the whole chapter with various reasons and comparisons.
AND SHE WILL EXALT YOU, -- both in the present life, as she exalted Solomon, and in the future. Whence a certain Hebrew Gloss paraphrases it thus: "And she will lead you riding into the heavens."
YOU WILL BE GLORIFIED BY HER, WHEN YOU HAVE EMBRACED HER. -- The Septuagint: honor her, that she may embrace you; the Chaldean: embrace her, that she may glorify you; the Syriac: that she may honor you with distinction. For there is a reciprocal embrace between wisdom and the studious person, as well as a reciprocal glorification; for the bridegroom shares his goods with the bride in marriage, and the bride in turn shares hers with the bridegroom. Therefore if you embrace wisdom, she will in turn embrace you; if you glorify her, she will in turn glorify you. "When you have embraced her with the two arms of action and contemplation," says Hugo. This same thing St. Jerome wishes for himself in the preface to book II of the Commentary on Amos, addressed to Pammachius: "O Pammachius, he says, with your now grey head together with mine, obtain from the Lord for me that I may deserve to have wisdom as my companion, of whom it is written: Love her, and she will guard you; honor her, and she will embrace you, so that with her help and companionship I may complete the work begun on Amos." We too wish and pray for the same.
Verse 9: She Will Give to Your Head an Increase of Graces
9. SHE WILL GIVE TO YOUR HEAD AN INCREASE OF GRACES, AND A NOBLE CROWN WILL PROTECT YOU. — like a shield, or rather a helmet. In Hebrew: she will give you a wreath of grace (Cajetan: a society of grace), and with a diadem of splendor she will encircle you; the Septuagint: that she may give to your head a crown of graces, and a crown of delights (Aquila: of glorification; Symmachus: of glory; Theodotion: of beauty) will protect you; the Chaldean: she will place on your head the beauty of grace, a crown of beauty will be upon you; the Syriac: she will place on your head the beauty of charity, and with a crown of praise she will satisfy you; St. Jerome, on chapter XLIV of Ezekiel, reads: "Your head shall receive a crown of graces;" and by it he understands the priestly mitre; the Zurich Bible: she will give to your head an addition (Pagninus: a conjunction) of grace; Vatablus: an elegant garland, and she will fortify you magnificently with a crown; following Solomon, the Arabs say: "Knowledge is a diadem for a youth, and understanding is a golden necklace."
By "the crown of graces," says the author of the Greek Catena, understand a chain of virtues and a heap of divine gifts; by the diadem of delight, the adornment of divine knowledge: although others take these two as the same thing, so that 'and' means 'that is,' about which more shortly.
The sense is, as if to say: If you have embraced wisdom, she will give you heaps of graces, and with them, as with a crown, she will both adorn and protect you against all temptations and attacks of men; for she will procure for you grace not only from men but also from God, and from Him she will obtain every grace and virtue, adorned with which, as with a most beautiful crown, you may be gracious and fair, as well as strong and renowned in the sight of God, the Angels, and men, both through grace in this age and through glory in the future. Therefore liviat chen, that is, a wreath of grace (which our translator renders: an increase of graces), can be taken as meaning the same as a diadem of beauty, or a noble crown; because just as in a crown ring is linked to ring, flower to flower, gold to gold, so also in wisdom and virtue one law is linked to another, one virtue to another, one honorable deed to another in a continuous series, so as to form a crown and chain, indeed a capstone of all the virtues. Furthermore, wisdom will cause you to increase and grow daily in the virtues, and thus to enlarge, polish, and weave this crown of yours, and to complete its circle.
Moreover, this crown will be manifold; for first, as a teacher of wisdom, a doctoral laurel will be given to you; secondly, as one outstanding in every virtue, a laurel of virtue will be given to you; thirdly, as a conqueror of your passions, a triumphal crown will be given to you; fourthly, as a bridegroom who has betrothed wisdom to yourself as a bride, a nuptial crown will be given to you. For in ancient times both the bridegroom and the bride were crowned (as is still done), according to Isaiah LXI, 10: "As a bridegroom adorned with a crown." And Canticles III, 11: "Go forth and see, daughters of Zion, King Solomon in the diadem with which his mother crowned him on the day of his betrothal, and on the day of the gladness of his heart;" fifthly, a royal crown will be given to you, so that as a king through wisdom you may administer not only yourself but also the entire kingdom piously and wisely. Solomon obtained all these crowns through wisdom, and every zealous student of wisdom and virtue obtains them. For he becomes a king, even if he is a private person and poor, both because he rules the kingdom of his soul, and because he knows how to direct others, and because he will obtain an eternal kingdom through it. Thus that wise beggar, when asked by Tauler who he was, replied: "I am a king;" where is your kingdom: "In my soul. For I know how to govern my external and internal senses so that all the powers of my soul are subject to me. That this kingdom is indeed more excellent than all the kingdoms of this world, no one doubts." I recounted this conversation of his at length at Romans XII, 2, toward the end. I have said more about this crown at chapter I, 9, and Sirach I, 22, and chapter VI, 32.
Morally, learn here how great is the excellence of wisdom and virtue, which promises to its devotees an honor greater than that of kings and emperors. For, as our Alvarez de Paz says, On the Dignity of Perfection, book IV, page 3, chapter XXXII: Worldly nobility exalts a man temporarily, holiness eternally. Nobility makes one a friend of kings, perfection a friend of God and equal to the Angels. The former burdens those who embrace it with cares and laborious business; the latter, because it makes great without burden, glorifies those who embrace it. The former usually adds to the head, that is, to the mind, of nobles an increase of vices through opportunity; for from their nobility they become proud and fall into all those vices of which pride is the principle; the latter adds daily to the minds of the perfect an increase of gifts and spiritual graces, because from their perfection they humble themselves and attain those virtues that always adhere to humility. Nobility, finally, surrounds them with a plotting crown, because many envy the nobles, many lie in wait for their prosperity and riches; but perfection girds the heads of the perfect with a protecting crown: for all serve the perfect and supply their needs; and so far are they from harming him that they flee to him as to a refuge and acknowledge him as their helper. St. Basil teaches the same thing excellently in the preface to the Ascetica.
Verse 10: Hear, My Son, and Receive My Words
10. HEAR, MY SON, AND RECEIVE (the Chaldean: receive from me, who am a most wise king and teacher) MY WORDS, THAT THE YEARS OF YOUR LIFE MAY BE MULTIPLIED. — Up to this point were the words of David to Solomon; now Solomon with his own words confirms and impresses the same things upon the student of wisdom. By "years of life" understand both the present life promised to the Jews, and the eternal life prepared for the faithful who are wise, that is, for the Saints. See what was said on chapter III, 16. St. Augustine excellently, in sermon 90 on the Seasons, assigns three ways to life and heaven, namely "to think good, to speak good, and to do good;" likewise three to death and hell, namely "to think evil, to speak evil, and to do evil." And St. Ambrose, sermon 74 on the Birthday of Martyrs: "The Lord, he says, made known to me the ways of life, when He taught me faith, mercy, justice, chastity; for by these paths one arrives at salvation." Whence the Septuagint here adds: that there may be many ways of life for you, that is, many honorable actions that lead to the true knowledge of God and the immortality of life, says the author of the Greek Catena, who also adds: Life, he says, signifies three things, namely the time of life, the plan of life, and the sustenance of life.
Verse 11: I Will Show You the Way of Wisdom
11. I WILL SHOW YOU THE WAY OF WISDOM (the Septuagint: I teach you; Aquila: I have led you; the Zurich Bible: I will direct you; Vatablus: I will teach you to walk in the way of justice), I WILL LEAD YOU THROUGH THE PATHS OF EQUITY. — In Hebrew: I will make you walk in the tracks of uprightness; the Septuagint: straight ones; Aquila: in the paths of uprightness. "The ways or paths and trails are approaches to virtue, whose beginning is the acquisition of wisdom," says Gregory of Nyssa, oration 2 Against Eunomius. The Chaldean and Symmachus: in a straight path; Pagninus: I have made you tread straight paths. The paths of equity, therefore, are smooth, level, straight paths, without rocks and stones, so that you may nowhere stumble. Such are the paths of wisdom and virtue. See what was said on Isaiah XXVI, 7.
Moreover, the author of the Greek Catena says: The tracks of wisdom, he says, are ways that lead from one good and honorable deed to another; for one deed paves the way and invites to another, one virtue to another, as if to say: I will show you how you must never stand still in the way of virtue, but must make continual progress.
Verse 12: Your Steps Will Not Be Straitened
12. WHICH WHEN YOU HAVE ENTERED, YOUR STEPS WILL NOT BE STRAITENED (the Syriac: will not totter; Symmachus: will not be troubled; others: will not be constricted), AND RUNNING YOU WILL HAVE NO STUMBLING-BLOCK. — The Septuagint: your steps will not be closed in; but if you run, you will not labor, or will not grow weary; Aquila: you will not be scandalized; the Syriac: you will not stumble; others: you will not trip, you will not fall. He explains the paths of equity of wisdom or virtue, that is, smooth and level, as if to say: So smooth and open is the plain of virtue that in it your feet and steps cannot be cramped or strike against rocks, but through it you can run with all your strength as through a level expanse, without any fear or danger of stumbling; for one who cannot extend his steps because of a narrow or rocky road is close to falling, says R. Solomon.
For although the way of salvation and virtue is narrow for the beginner, as Christ says, Matthew VII, 14, if indeed you look at the freedom of the flesh and desire -- for virtue constrains and narrows this -- yet if you progress in it and persist steadfastly, you will feel it becoming level and open; nor will your steps be straitened in it so as to collide, stumble, or be injured by the narrowness; but you will run joyfully and eagerly, straight and swiftly toward the greatest advantages and the true freedom of conscience and glory, expanded and strengthened both by the constant exercise of virtue and by the good habit of doing good, which becomes like a second nature; and by the sweetness of grace and the breezes of consolation which the Holy Spirit will breathe upon you. See what was said on chapter II, verse 9; wherefore you will sing with the Psalmist: "I ran the way of Your commandments, when You enlarged my heart," Psalm CXVIII, 32. Therefore the exercise of virtue continually adds greater strength to the spirit, namely habit and grace, and thence greater facility, by which it happens that one is not exhausted but gains new and greater vigor for running in the way of the Lord; it is different in bodily running, in which the sinews and arteries by which motion and running are accomplished are strained, weakened, and exhausted, and therefore less strength remains for running. The same happens in the course of vices, of which the wicked say in Wisdom chapter V: "We have wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, we have walked through difficult ways, and have not known the way of the Lord;" while on the other hand, regarding the devotees of virtue, to whom fervor adds strength just as torpor diminishes it, Isaiah clearly proclaims, chapter XL, verse 31: "But those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall take wings like eagles; they shall run and not labor; they shall walk and not faint." See my notes there.
In virtue, therefore, this paradox is true: "Labor does not exhaust but strengthens; rest does not strengthen but exhausts; labor increases strength, idleness diminishes it. Labor begets labor, rest begets rest; sleep attracts sleep, languor begets languor, torpor begets torpor, but vigils beget vigils, and virtue begets virtue," as St. Dominic Loricatus used to say. Add that virtue properly consists in the act of the will, which by acting and willing is not wearied but is intensified and strengthened. "You walk," says St. Augustine (or whoever is the author) in On the New Song, chapter III, if you love. For we run to God not by steps but by affections. This way of ours, then, seeks walkers; there are three kinds of men that it hates: the one who stays still, the one who turns back, and the one who strays." For virtue requires a continual course of the mind, because it has no end or limit, but like a flame grows immeasurably. Wherefore Barlaam says to Josaphat in Damascenus, in the History, chapter XIX: "The way to heaven, he says, is downhill and easy; and even though because of bodily affliction it has been called narrow and strait, yet because of the hope of future things it is straight and clear for those who do not walk foolishly but understand the will of God exactly, and put on His armor for fighting against the wiles of the devil, and in prayer and supplication with patience and hope watch for this very thing." For, as that Abbot says in the Lives of the Fathers, book V, booklet 7, On Patience, number 22: "From the patient man God takes away the war of temptation." Whence at the same place, number 25, that Ascetic says: "All the labor that I endure here cannot be compared with one day of the torments that are prepared for sinners in the world to come." And at number 47, to another who was severely tempted and thinking of departure, the grace of God appeared by night in the form of a virgin, saying: "Go nowhere, but sit here with me, for no evil will come from those things you have heard. And he, believing her words, sat there, and immediately his heart was healed." Here is relevant the apothegm of R. Nechonia the son of Akana in Pirke Avoth, that is, in the Sayings of the Fathers, chapter III: "Whoever submits his neck to the yoke of the law frees himself from another, harder yoke, the yoke of human government; and whoever casts off the yoke of the law from his neck, prepares it for the yoke of the world and government, which is certainly more difficult."
Verse 13: Hold Fast to Discipline
13. HOLD FAST TO DISCIPLINE, DO NOT LET HER GO: GUARD HER, BECAUSE SHE IS YOUR LIFE. — both formally, because the act of virtue is life, that is, a vital act, either natural or supernatural; and causally, because virtue is the cause of long life, as was said at chapter III, 16. The same is the cause of a holy life through grace, and of a blessed life through the glory that it confers. Whence the Hebrew has: seize instruction, do not grow faint; guard her, because she is your life, that is, she will confer many lives upon you; the Septuagint: guard her for yourself unto your life; the Syriac: persevere steadfastly in discipline; others: be strong in discipline, or strengthen and invigorate yourself in retaining, carrying out, defending, and spreading discipline, just as a boxer in the arena and a soldier in battle strengthens himself and gathers all his forces to overcome the enemy and emerge victorious.
Cyril demonstrates the truth of this maxim with an elegant fable of the sheep and the stag, furnished with fine examples, in book II of the Moral Apologues, chapter IX, whose title is: Against the desire for proud liberty. "A sheep, he says, eager for its own freedom, left the social flock and fled from the dominion of its shepherd. And when a stag wandering through the wilderness found it straying and fugitive, the pious creature began to inquire into the reason for its solitude and wandering. To which the sheep soon replied: Having long endured a most harsh servile yoke, I now wish to enjoy, as you do, the liberty most welcome to all, and to escape a rather harsh master, who not only milked me even to the point of blood, but also every year deprived me of my timely fleece. Then the stag, feeling compassion for her: I am grieved enough, dearest, he said, about your wandering journey, but much more about your erring counsel. Indeed, liberty is sweet and an incomparable treasure, but not for all alike." Then the same makes it plain by the example of the people, the body, a ship, and the ant: "For there are many things for which peace, life, and the security of safety come from due subjection, and for this reason liberty is nothing other for them than the salvific loss of liberty. For the liberty of a people whom kingdoms do not restrain perishes through its very liberty. Likewise, the body lives when subject to the soul, and as soon as it is freed from it, it dies. A ship subject to its sailors is preserved from the waves, but if freed from them, it is immediately destroyed by shipwreck. An ant too, poised on its wings, when it rises from its hole, is captured by its final misery. For these, therefore, liberty is the certain captivity of destruction. In this way, my dearest, believe that the matter stands with you as well. For consider how and in what condition you now walk, without a guide, ignorant of the path of pasture, without a protector, armed with no strength of your own, wandering alone among enemies, and destitute amid the miseries that surround you. Indeed, for you the road is error, the precipice is your guide, hunger is your pasture, destruction your companion, and your own cruel death is the final end. I, to be sure, armed with horn, hoof, size, and agility, am scarcely safe from the wild beasts of this wilderness." Then he overcomes her with this dilemma and shows more clearly than the sun: "Since, then, liberty naturally delights you, tell me, pray, is it for doing good or for doing evil? For if you intend to do good, this is the very thing your shepherd demands of you; why then do you flee from him? If you wish to act without reason, that very liberty will be for you the captivity of fatal servitude. For to an evil will, liberty to sin is a cause by which its wickedness is indeed consummated, but captivity soon follows. Thus the more free an evil will is, the more enslaved it is; the more powerful, the weaker; and the more exalted, the more humbled. Hear then my counsel, and return as quickly as possible to your master, lest you perish in your freedom and give yourself over to be devoured by wolves. For if your master milks or shears you, you receive from him the very things you give, because he guards and feeds you; for it is surely more desirable to give milk and fleeces than to lose your life together with everything else. Having heard these things, the sheep joyfully returned to its shepherd."
Second Part: The Way of the Wicked Must Be Avoided
Verse 14: Do Not Delight in the Paths of the Wicked
14. DO NOT DELIGHT IN THE PATHS OF THE WICKED, NOR LET THE WAY OF THE EVIL PLEASE YOU. — For 'delecteris' our translator read tobe, that is, you may wish, acquiesce, as he translates in chapter I, 10, desire, delight. Now with other vowel points they read tabo, that is, you may enter. Whence the Septuagint: do not enter the ways of the wicked; the Chaldean: do not walk in the way of the wicked. Now the sense is, says Dionysius, as if to say: Do not delight in the vicious acts of the wicked, likewise in spectacles, tournaments, jousts, dances, and similar vanities, which are empty and often connected with sin, or are occasions of sins.
Again, for 'placeat' the Hebrew is teascer, which properly means: do not bless or beatify yourself, that is, do not consider yourself blessed in the way of the wicked. So Aquila, Theodotion, and Vatablus. Pagninus, however: do not call the wicked blessed in their way. Improperly, however, the same word means to walk, to direct, to lead, so that ascar is the same as iascar; for the letters aleph and ayin are interchanged. Whence Pagninus translates: do not walk in the way of the wicked; the Septuagint: do not emulate the ways of the wicked; others: do not set your foot or step firmly in the way of the wicked, namely, do not walk firmly in their way, nor think that you stand on firm ground among them, because soon a storm will overthrow and cast them down. Hugo says wittily: "Let not the way of the wicked please you," because, he says, it is muddy for the lustful, dark for the wrathful, thorny for the avaricious, rocky for detractors, full of caverns for dissemblers, and mountainous for the proud." More beautifully and more piously St. Bernard says in his Sentences: "The ways that lead to death, he says, are divided on a threefold basis. One is wretched, another laborious, another delightful. The wretched is found among the proud poor, the laborious among the covetous and avaricious, the delightful among the self-indulgent rich. The way that leads to life is likewise distinguished by a similar division. For one is bloody, another purple, another milky. The bloody is found among the Martyrs, who washed the garments of their bodies in the blood of the Lamb, and through the road of martyrdom reached the throne of triumphant glory. The purple is found among the Confessors, who in their flesh expressed the marks of the Lord's passion through abstinence, and bore in their bodies the stigmata of Christ's wounds. The milky is found among the Virgins, who consecrated in themselves the spotless whiteness and virtues of angelic purity and holiness, and through the way of purity happily flew on the wings of virtues to the embraces and chambers of the true Bridegroom.
Verse 15: Flee from It, Do Not Pass Through It
15. FLEE FROM IT, DO NOT PASS THROUGH IT: TURN ASIDE, AND FORSAKE IT. — For 'flee from it' the Hebrew is peraehu, which various translators render variously. Pagninus: withdraw or cease from it; Vatablus: forsake it; the Chaldean: depart, do not pass along with them; Baynus: abominate or execrate it; the Septuagint: in whatever place they have pitched camp, do not come upon them; R. Solomon: turn away and make light of it; R. Levi: abolish it and make it void, as if to say: If your strength suffices, go against their plans and scatter them, lest they carry out the crime they have plotted. For 'do not pass through it,' the Syriac translates: do not pass through the place where they have dwelt; the Chaldean: do not pass along with them. For 'turn aside and forsake it,' the Hebrew has: withdraw from it and pass on; the Chaldean: turn aside and pass away from them; the Septuagint: turn aside from them and depart; Lucifer in his Apology: avoid them; Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion: pass on. Solomon joins all these nearly synonymous expressions to show how much the company of the wicked must be avoided, to such a degree that we should not endure having even a common road with them, much less conversation: "Lest the foot catch contagion," says St. Augustine on Psalm LXXVI, lest, that is, from a common road we be drawn to companionship, from companionship to conversation, from conversation to sharing in vice. Yet Hugo distributes and distinguishes the individual terms thus: "Flee from it, namely in deed; do not pass through it in the delight of thought; turn aside from occasions; leave the place;" of which the first two are mystical, and the latter two literal. Similarly, Cajetan considers that here it is commanded that the way of the wicked must be fled on account of the occasion and danger of sin.
Pliny writes, book XXVIII, chapter X, that the footprints of a wolf stupefy horses: "So great is the power of the animal (the wolf), he says, that its tracks when trodden upon cause torpor in horses." Greater torpor and harm are caused by the footprints and companionship of the wicked. A formidable example to the letter is found in III Kings XIII, where the Prophet, commanded by God to go to Bethel and reprove the worshippers of the golden calf, was likewise commanded neither to take food with the idolaters nor to return by the common road of the wicked, but by another; and because, deceived by another Prophet, he took food at Bethel, therefore upon returning he was killed by a lion.
Mystically, by the ways of the wicked and of wickedness, understand wicked and impure thoughts and suggestions; for through these, as through paths, wickedness enters the soul and destroys and kills it; wherefore they must be entirely fled from and driven away: for these are the fiery darts of the devil, by which he inflames the passions of the soul toward evil. So says the author of the Greek Catena.
Verse 16: For They Do Not Sleep Unless They Have Done Evil
16. FOR THEY DO NOT SLEEP UNLESS (the Syriac: until) THEY HAVE DONE EVIL: AND SLEEP IS SNATCHED (incorrectly, the Complutensian edition and Dionysius read 'capitur') FROM THEM UNLESS THEY HAVE TRIPPED SOMEONE UP. — The Septuagint: for they do not take sleep unless they have done evil; their sleep has been taken away, and they do not sleep; the Chaldean: their sleep is divided until they set a stumbling-block; the Syriac: until they have fulfilled their will; the Zurich Bible: sleep flees from them unless they have caused some ruin; Vatablus: unless they have made someone stumble, as if to say: They are so eager for crimes, they watch and gape for them so much, that they do not take sleep unless they have committed evil deeds, and therefore they often keep vigil far into the night, indeed the entire night, so that their villanies and plots, which they contrive, may be carried out, and from their plunder they may set up feasts in which they sumptuously eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of iniquity, as follows. These are like those serpents of which Pliny writes, book VIII, chapter XXIX: "Who are sleepless throughout the entire summer, as long as their venom is strong; but afterwards, deprived of their venom by the cold, they sleep through the entire winter." Furthermore, 'they do not sleep' indicates that they contrive and carry out their frauds, deceits, and crimes by night, as children of darkness who hate the light, according to that saying of the Poet: Night, and love, and wine counsel nothing moderate: Night is free of shame, Bacchus and Love free of fear.
So R. Levi says: Not even at night, he says, can they enjoy restful sleep unless they perpetrate some crime, tripping someone up. These are like hyenas and evening or nocturnal wolves, who prey and prowl by night, of which I spoke on Habakkuk chapter I, verse VIII. For he contrasts these wicked night-prowlers with the pious, whose "shining light advances and grows until the perfect day."
Note: Some codices, instead of 'rapitur' (is snatched), read the contrary, 'non rapitur' (is not snatched); for they consider that the negation which preceded in the former clause, 'they do not sleep,' must be repeated in the latter clause, 'and sleep is snatched,' just as it must be repeated in chapter XXX, 3, when it says: 'I have not learned wisdom, and I know (that is, I do not know) the knowledge of holy things.' The sense, however, of this reading (says Franciscus Lucas in his Notes here): 'And their sleep is not snatched,' or 'from them,' is the same as that of the preceding part, 'and they do not sleep;' for the same thing is said again with a change of expression. Yet something more is signified by this repetition, namely that even when the wicked have already overthrown or circumvented someone, they do not so much take sleep as snatch it. They snatch sleep because either they sleep during the day, having plotted destruction for the innocent by night, or they sleep a brief and, as it were, furtive sleep, so that they may return as soon as possible to their business. For those who have such constant occupations, which easily consume both days and nights, do not think they should spend time sleeping: the days, so that plans may be formed; the nights, so that plans once formed may be carried out. Moreover, when it is read without the negation: 'And sleep is snatched from them,' it does not seem so much to signify that they themselves snatch sleep (for that could perhaps be signified), but rather that sleep is violently torn from them by the desire for doing evil with which they burn. But even though the reading 'And their sleep is not snatched from them' can conveniently both be understood and translated from the Hebrew, it should not for that reason be received into the text of the Vulgate edition, since, as the more trustworthy codices attest, it was not the writing of the Vulgate translator.
Moreover, if the eagerness of the wicked for evil is so great, how great should be the eagerness of the pious for good, so that they do not sleep unless they have done some notable good deed; and, if at any time it should happen otherwise, let them say with the Emperor Titus and with St. John the Almsgiver: "I have lost the day;" indeed, with that valiant woman of Proverbs XXXI, 13, who "rose in the night and gave prey to her household, and food to her handmaids," if they have not done so, let them say: "I have lost the night." Such were formerly the monks called Acemetae, that is, non-sleepers, or sleepless and watchful, because they persisted in the praises of God and in good works by night as well as by day. The Essenes, dedicating the day to prayer, labor, and study, took only a little food and sleep at night, as Eusebius, Philo, and others attest.
Verse 17: They Eat the Bread of Wickedness
17. THEY EAT THE BREAD OF WICKEDNESS, AND DRINK THE WINE OF INIQUITY. — The Chaldean: for their food is the food of the wicked; Lucifer of Cagliari in his Apology: they feed on the foods of wickedness. He gives the reason and purpose why the wicked do not sleep unless they have done evil, namely because they set up their feasts from their plunder and crimes; and they do not wish to sleep unless they have dined sumptuously. Thus we see robbers lurking in the forests all day and lying in wait for travelers, and going out at night to remote lodgings known to them, and there dining splendidly and drinking heavily, and then falling into a drunken sleep. For they live by plunder. They eat, therefore, "the bread of wickedness," namely bread, that is, food, acquired by wickedness and crime, and they drink "the wine of iniquity," in Hebrew the wine of chamasim, that is, of plundering and violence, that is, stolen and extorted by force. Whence Vatablus translates: for they live on food wickedly obtained, and drink wine extorted by force; others: wine of oppressions; Symmachus and Aquila: of injustices; the Chaldean: they drink wine of the plunderers.
R. Levi says: Their foods, he says, and their drink consist of crimes and robbery; which seem so pleasant and delightful to them that they need no other thing to feed on. But they enjoy these spoils of theirs for only a short time. For, as it is said in Job XX, 15: "The riches that he has devoured, he shall vomit up, and God shall draw them out of his belly;" the Septuagint: riches unjustly obtained shall be vomited up. Whence Gregory of Nazianzus, oration 9, and Nicetas there: "He who has taken noxious food, he says, vomits up the good together with it; so he who strives to heap up wealth unjustly, for the most part loses not only that wealth but also what he formerly possessed by right."
Secondly, Bede, Hugo, and Jansenius explain it thus by hypallage: They greedily eat wickedness as if it were bread, and drain iniquity like a cup of wine with full mouth: for they desire and thirst so much to do evil that they cannot quench this thirst, but sharpen it more by doing evil; for one act of wickedness arouses the thirst and desire for another, so that having perpetrated one, with a new thirst they thirst for another and another, just as heavy drinkers, the more they drink, the more they thirst and desire to drink, until they are completely drunk. Whence the Septuagint translates: and they shall be made drunk with the wine of iniquity. See St. Chrysostom beautifully comparing the wicked to drunkards, homily 34 on Genesis, and homily 13 on the epistle to the Romans. It alludes to Job XV, 16: "Who drinks iniquity like water."
Mystically, Hugo applies these words to those who receive Communion unworthily; for they eat the Eucharistic bread impiously and drink the most holy wine wickedly; for them, therefore, the Eucharist is the bread of wickedness and the wine of iniquity, because they impiously and sacrilegiously abuse it and profane and pollute it, and therefore they eat and drink judgment upon themselves, not discerning the Body of the Lord, I Corinthians XI, 29.
Verse 18: The Path of the Just, Like a Shining Light
18. BUT THE PATH OF THE JUST, LIKE A SHINING LIGHT, GOES FORWARD AND INCREASES UNTIL THE PERFECT DAY. — The word 'but' marks the antithesis between the way of the pious and the wicked, namely that the way of the pious is bright and light, while that of the wicked is dark and gloomy, as follows. In Hebrew: the path of the just is like a shining light, going forward and illuminating until the formed or strengthened and established day. There is a beautiful paronomasia between orach, that is, path, and or, that is, light, as if to say: The orach of the just is or, the way and law of life of the just is light. The Zurich Bible: but the way of the just grows bright, which becomes ever more illustrious until the perfect day; Vatablus: the way of the just advances and shines until the perfection of the day, that is, until noon; the Septuagint: the ways of the just shine like light, they advance and illuminate until the day directs itself (Lucifer: corrects itself); Theodotion: like a shining light, going and illuminating until the establishment of the day; Aquila: until the prepared, that is, formed and established, day; Symmachus: until the established day; the Arabic: but the ways of the just shine with light in this form (or image), and they will give light until the day is directed, or the day becomes perfect; the Syriac: the light advances until the day is established; the author of the Greek Catena: the just advance and shine until this day is happily completed.
And he explains it thus: The present life, he says, full of errors, dangers, and temptations, is darkness rather than life; wherefore in these its shadows, God has placed the just as lights to illumine it, until the night of all temptations is wholly passed, so that St. Paul alludes to this, Philippians II, 15: "That you may be blameless and simple children of God, without reproach, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." The sense is, as if to say: The "path," that is, the holy life and conduct of the just, is like the dawn or the morning star, shining and illuminating the world; for just as the light of dawn is gradually intensified and grows until the full day, that is, until noon, when all mists and darkness are dispelled and golden, clear, and full light shines throughout the whole hemisphere: so likewise the justice and holiness of the just gradually grows until, when all the mists of ignorance and desire have been scattered, it shines forth pure and full, which happens in an inchoate way in this life, but will happen perfectly in heaven, where it can no longer increase, whereas in this life it always increases. Whence Bede explains it thus, as if to say: "The justice of the just person advances from virtue to virtue, from the dawn of grace to the full day of glory; for the sun advances from its rising, etc., nor is there anyone who can hide himself from its heat" (Psalm 18:8). Therefore when in the morning we behold the dawn and the sun rising and growing, let us consider that we ought to strive and press forward with just as many steps, as if by swift motion, toward the summit of virtue.