Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
A good name is better than riches: the shrewd man seeing evil hides himself: as the boy, so the old man: he who sows wickedness shall reap evils: the merciful shall be blessed; cast out the scoffer: the pure of heart shall be a friend of the king: the sluggard says: There is a lion in the way: the mouth of the adulteress is a pit: the folly of the boy is driven away by the rod; he who oppresses the poor shall be oppressed by a richer man. Verse 17, he exhorts to the study of wisdom: the wrathful and sureties are to be avoided: ancient boundaries are to be preserved; the swift man shall stand before kings.
Vulgate Text: Proverbs 22:1-29
1. A good name is better than great riches: above silver and gold, good grace. 2. The rich and the poor have met one another: the Lord is the maker of them both. 3. The shrewd man saw the evil, and hid himself: the innocent passed on, and was afflicted with loss. 4. The end of modesty is the fear of the Lord, riches and glory and life. 5. Arms and swords are in the way of the perverse: but the guardian of his own soul departs far from them. 6. It is a proverb: A young man according to his way, even when he is old, will not depart from it. 7. The rich man rules over the poor: and he who receives a loan is the servant of the lender. 8. He who sows iniquity shall reap evils, and the rod of his anger shall be consumed. 9. He who is inclined to mercy shall be blessed: for he has given of his bread to the poor. He who gives gifts shall acquire victory and honor: but he takes away the soul of those who receive them. 10. Cast out the scoffer, and contention shall go out with him, and quarrels and reproaches shall cease. 11. He who loves cleanness of heart, because of the grace of his lips, shall have the king for his friend. 12. The eyes of the Lord guard knowledge: and the words of the wicked are overthrown. 13. The sluggard says: There is a lion outside, I shall be killed in the midst of the streets. 14. The mouth of the strange woman is a deep pit: he with whom the Lord is angry shall fall into it. 15. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of discipline shall drive it away. 16. He who slanders the poor to increase his own riches, shall himself give to a richer man and shall be in want. 17. Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise: and apply your heart to my teaching: 18. which will be beautiful for you when you keep it in your heart, and it will overflow on your lips. 19. That your trust may be in the Lord, therefore I have shown it to you today. 20. Behold, I have described it to you in a threefold manner, in thoughts and knowledge: 21. that I might show you the certainty and the words of truth: to answer from these things those who sent you. 22. Do not use violence against the poor because he is poor, nor crush the needy at the gate: 23. for the Lord will judge his cause, and will pierce those who have pierced his soul. 24. Do not be a friend to an angry man, nor walk with a furious man: 25. lest perhaps you learn his paths, and take a stumbling block for your soul. 26. Do not be with those who pledge their hands, and who offer themselves as sureties for debts: 27. for if you have not the means to pay, what reason is there that he should take the covering from your bed? 28. Do not transgress the ancient boundaries which your fathers have set. 29. Have you seen a man swift in his work? He shall stand before kings, and shall not be before the obscure.
1. A GOOD NAME IS BETTER THAN GREAT RICHES: ABOVE SILVER AND GOLD, GOOD GRACE
In Hebrew: A name is to be chosen before wealth, before gold and silver grace is good, or a good thing; the Chaldean, Aquila, and Theodotion: chosen, or rather, a good name is to be preferred to riches. So also the Chaldean.
By "name" understand fame, by "grace" understand graciousness, favor, benevolence, friendship. The word "good" should be referred not so much to "grace," as if it were its epithet, but rather to the word "above." For it indicates the degree of comparison, by which he compares and prefers grace to gold and silver, meaning: Grace is good above silver and gold, that is, it surpasses gold and silver. Hence Vatablus translates: fame is to be preferred to great wealth, and grace is better than gold and silver; and Pagninus: a good name is more to be chosen than riches, and good grace, that is the benevolence of neighbors and citizens, is more to be chosen than gold and silver.
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Fame is a greater good than riches; fame surpasses wealth: similarly grace and benevolence surpass gold and silver. This latter part gives the reason for the former, meaning: A good name is better than great riches, because a good name wins the grace and favor of men, which surpasses gold and silver. For this grace is in itself an immense good, and more excellent than riches, and from it the necessities of life and wealth are easily obtained, as Joseph obtained them in prison, Genesis 39:29; Ruth in poverty, chapter 2:13; Esther in the condemnation of the Jews, chapter 3:9 and chapter 7:3. And indeed nothing is more frequent in Scripture than that the Saints desire to find grace in the eyes of God and men. For, as Antonius says in the Melissa, Part II, chapter 49: "Grace is like an abundant paradise." Hence the Blessed Virgin is greeted by the Archangel with this one title above all others, that she is "full of grace," in Greek kecharitomene, that is, made gracious, filled with grace.
Again, this grace wards off envy, which is a great evil and the mother of enormous losses; and it produces love and charity, which is the fountain and origin of all goods. Therefore the Wise Man here tacitly advises that riches should either be despised, lest they bring upon you envy and the reputation of a miser; or, if you have them, they should be distributed to the needy, so as to win the grace of men. For nothing wins that grace so well as almsgiving and generosity. Hence the Syriac translates: mercy is good above gold and silver. For the Hebrew word chen signifies both mercy and grace: and indeed the Latin word gratia is often taken to mean mercy. Hence the Author of the Greek Chain understands by "good grace" an honorable action, such as almsgiving. Therefore whoever seeks the grace of men, and indeed of God, and thereby a name and fame, let him devote himself to virtue, especially to mercy and generosity: for this is the root and foundation both of benevolence and grace, and of a good name and fame.
Third, this grace and fame endures, while riches flow away and end with life. For fame grows and lasts after death: especially because once a man has died, his fame can no longer be stained or disgraced by any crime. For these three reasons, then, grace and fame surpass riches, and compared to them are a good of a higher order. For the lowest good is riches, the middle is fame, the highest is life, especially life of the soul through grace and glory: for riches are merely an external and indifferent good, since we can use them just as badly as well; but fame is more intrinsic to a person, because it rests and is founded on his virtue, especially generosity and charity. Hence Cato: If you lose everything, remember to preserve your good name. And Plautus in the Mostellaria: "If I preserve a good reputation, I shall be rich enough." Hence R. Levi says: "It is agreed among all that fame is acquired by a man through uprightness of character and right actions; which is more excellent than being equipped with the most abundant resources. Benevolence also, which one wins for oneself from others, is to be preferred to gold and silver: for integrity of character, noble deeds, and charity are a greater protection and strength in calamities than being fortified with gold and silver, as the well-worn proverb says, that it is better to have a friend in the forum than gold hidden in a chest." Others say more elegantly: "Favor in the court is more useful than gold in the chest." So St. Cyril, Book 11 on John, chapter 18: "A good name, he says, is better than great riches, that is, the esteem of a name and glory is better than the splendor of riches; for 'name' is taken to mean glory, as in John 15: I have manifested Your name (that is, Your glory) to men; and in Isaiah 56: God promises to voluntary eunuchs a name better than sons: a name, that is, glory."
Therefore following Solomon in his usual way, Sirach says in Ecclesiasticus 41:15: "Have care for a good name; for this will remain with you more than a thousand precious and great treasures." See what was said there. And Ecclesiasticus 7:2: "A good name is better than precious ointments." Hence it is said of Josiah in Ecclesiasticus 49:1-5: "The memory of Josiah is like a composition of sweet fragrance made by the work of a perfumer. In every mouth his memory will be as sweet as honey." Following these, Isocrates, writing to Nicocles: "Consider it more desirable, he says, to leave your children an honorable reputation than great riches; for the latter are mortal, but the former is immortal; money can be acquired, but fame cannot be bought with money; riches may come to the wicked as well, but only those most outstanding in virtue can gain glory." For, as Cicero says in Tusculan Disputations II, and De Inventione II: "Glory is the concordant praise of good men, the uncorrupted voice of those who judge well concerning outstanding virtue."
Anagogically, the name of the just, the religious, the saint, the son of God, is better than every abundance of things: for the latter is corporeal, the former spiritual; the latter is perishable, the former is stable; the latter is temporal, the former is eternal.
Again, it is better to enter into the grace of God than to amass all the gold and silver in the world: for the grace of God produces eternal happiness and glory. So Bede says: "A good name, he says, is the name of Religion, which is rightly preferred to worldly riches. For even if someone were to gain the whole world, he would rightly despise it, provided only that his name were written in heaven, and his memory were fixed eternally among the Angels and among holy men. Above silver and gold, good grace: this signifies that grace by which a person is praised by good men for a good work, and indeed the Father who is in heaven is glorified for the gifts of merits bestowed upon him."
The a priori reason is first, because grace is a supernatural good, and therefore transcends riches and all goods and gifts. Second, because grace brings with it the virtues and charity, which is the supreme good of this life. Third, because grace is the seed of glory: hence just as from a seed grows a harvest and fruit, so from grace is born glory. Fourth, because grace makes us holy, friends, children, and heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ. Fifth, because grace is the highest participation in God and in the divinity, according to 2 Peter 1:4: "By whom He has given us most great and precious promises, that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature." And Psalm 81:6: "I said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High."
2. THE RICH AND THE POOR HAVE MET ONE ANOTHER (mutually, says the Chaldean), THE LORD IS THE MAKER OF THEM BOTH
The Syriac: the Lord made (Arabic: created) both; the Hebrew: the Lord making all of them: all of them, that is, both. It is a Hebraism, similar to Ecclesiastes 3:20: "All things go to one place;" all things, that is, both, namely man and beasts, as preceded. The Hebrews therefore attribute the word "all" even to two things, while the Latins and Greeks attribute it to three. Hence that saying of Aristotle: "Three are all things," namely the first to which the word "all" is given.
First, Aben-Ezra refers this maxim to the preceding one, as if confirming and proving it, meaning: "Both grace and an honorable name are to be preferred to riches; for the rich and the needy have met one another. And you will understand it thus: since the causes of things come down from heaven to earth, men who are affected by them encounter them, meaning that riches come from heaven to one, and poverty to another, as those words indicate: The Lord is the maker of them both, since riches and poverty are bestowed by God, and men are made wealthy and needy; but an honorable fame does not come by lot: for mortals acquire it for themselves by noble deeds, as also the grace which they will enter into from those who have contemplated their glorious deeds; therefore these things are to be preferred to an abundance of riches."
R. Levi also refers this maxim to the preceding one, but for a slightly different reason and in a different arrangement: In order, he says, to declare that riches are not so much to be preferred, it happened and the more contemptible they are in this world, the more honored they are in heaven." He adds the reason from the deepest foundations, and the a priori argument: "They serve them, so that considering the will of God, they may be rich not only in this world, but also in heaven, lest riches of a short time exclude eternal riches; but those whom they think should be despised because of their poverty, if they contemplate God's future judgment, will always be rich there, where the rich of this age were in want, regretting that they had not been poor."
Fourth, our Pineda, in Book 6 of De Rebus Salomonis, chapter 11, at the end, presses the word "met;" that is, they encountered each other; they went to meet each other; as if it signified that the poor and needy should be helped in their need, not only by not fleeing, but by voluntarily approaching them, contrary to what those did who "stood at a distance" from the poor man's cry; Psalm 37:12; for the needy should not be left to complete the whole journey by himself before he can reach you to plead; but part of the way should also be undertaken by you, to seek him out and run to meet him, as it is written in Proverbs 22:2: "The poor and the rich have met one another, the Lord is the maker of them both." In a not dissimilar manner indeed, the best prince and lover of piety, or any other upright head of a household, should voluntarily go out to meet the needy; not when asked; not when summoned; but impelled only by his own piety and duty, either to reward the voluntary services of his subjects with the due payment, or to relieve their hardships, or even to avert impending losses with a timely remedy. This was holy and piously done by Solomon, that excellent prince and lover of piety, both in his own capacity and in the name of his father. These are Pineda's words. Hence David, in 3 Kings 2:7, dying, commanded Solomon thus: "And you shall repay kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and they shall eat at your table; for they came to meet me when I fled from Absalom your brother."
Fifth, others take "the rich man" to mean the creditor, so that the same thing is said here as in chapter 29:13: "The poor man and the creditor (Hebrew: man of usury; Septuagint: money-lender) have met one another; the Lord is the illuminator (protector, guardian, most beneficent provider);" for the rich commonly lend at interest to the poor, and by their usury bind them to themselves and make them debtors, on which see more at chapter 29:13.
Sixth, Baynus in another sense presses the word "met," meaning: It can happen and often does happen that, as the wheel of fortune turns, the rich man descends from wealth to poverty, and the poor man rises from poverty to wealth: in this turning of the wheel and change of fortune they seem to encounter one another; while one rises, the other descends, and yet "the Lord is the maker of them both," meaning: No one should be judged by riches or by poverty; neither the fame of a name, nor grace with God or men, should depend on these things; but these things which are most to be desired are acquired through obedience to the Creator and Maker. "The Lord is the maker of them both," meaning: When the rich and the poor meet one another, in external appearance a vast difference seems to exist between them, and one is far more esteemed than the other among men, and yet both are made in the image of God: and if the poor man has kept that image intact through purity of life, he will not be inferior before God his Maker in fame of name or in grace, compared to the rich man, however splendid the latter may be, clothed in fine linen and purple, while the former is squalid and full of sores, according to the Gospel parable, Luke 16. "The Lord therefore is the maker of them both," that is, God assigns to each his own lot, so that the rich man may not despise the poor, and the poor man may not envy the rich, but each may live content with his lot and station, knowing that it came to him not by chance, but by the wise counsel and determined will of God, which therefore all ought to respect and revere.
Seventh, others take the word "met" in the opposite sense: for taking the metaphor from combatants encountering one another with hostile or opposing intent, they understand it to signify the contrariety that exists between the rich and the poor; hence they translate: the rich and the poor are opposites, namely in condition and status, and frequently also in spirit, since the one grows arrogant in spirit, while the other is humbled and bears himself submissively; but "The Lord is the maker of them both (in Hebrew ose, that is, the shaper, fashioner, and painter)," meaning: The fact that one is poor and the other rich is not a condition of a different nature, but a different quality of the same nature; or, to use the metaphor, a different painting: for just as a painter paints and fashions one image nude, and clothes and adorns another; and just as in the nude painting the art of the painter and the beauty of the painting appear more clearly, since in clothing they are governed and obscured: so in the poor man the art of God and the equality of nature appear more clearly than in the rich man, whom riches surround and veil. Therefore the poor man is a man painted, but nude; the rich man painted, but clothed: remove the painting, and the same equal human nature remains, which in both is equally to be revered as the image of God. So St. Chrysostom, Homily 4 on Lazarus; and on Psalm 48, on the words "Together in one, the rich and the poor": "For, he says, our nature is common; I call all alike; our mother is common; I call alike; our city is the whole world. But if from poverty and riches you have introduced some difference and inequality, I in turn cast it out, not calling the rich and expelling the poor, but both these and those, and not only these and those (for example): these, that is the rich, first; those, that is the poor, second; but together in one, that the assembly may be common, the prayer common, and the hearing also common. Even if you are rich, you were born from the same clay, you had the same entrance as the poor man, and the same origin, and you are a son of man, and so is he;"
"Since then you share equally the things that are principal and most important, and equal in honor; why do you swell with pride over shadows and dreams, over things that are nothing, making distinctions in what is common — common nature, common origin and generation, common kinship and connection? Why do you bring in external clothing to make a distinction thereby? I do not bear it, I do not tolerate it, and therefore I call you together with the poor man; together, I say, in one, the rich and the poor."
Eighth and best, meaning: In the same city and commonwealth some are rich and others poor, because God so established and arranged it, that one should be helped by the aid of the other, and thus the commonwealth should coalesce into one civil and political body, and abound in every art and provision; for the rich with their wealth support the poor, so that some may be tailors, others cobblers, others bakers, others smiths, others may practice another mechanical art: for poverty invented all these, and ensured that the commonwealth would lack nothing; for if all were rich, no one would want to work, and thus all mechanical arts would cease, to the great harm of mankind; therefore the rich man should support the poor, and the poor man should serve the rich and labor for him: in this matter the wisdom and arrangement of God were wonderful, in uniting and almost equalizing two things so disparate and seemingly contrary, making it so that neither the rich man can live without the poor, nor the poor without the rich. Admiring this, Aristotle says in Politics Book 4, chapter 1: "It is necessary, he says, that there be two cities in one city, and these indeed contrary to one another, namely one of the poor, the other of the rich;" but God bound and joined both together in such harmony that they produce a wonderful concord and concert. Hence St. Augustine, Sermon 25 on the Words of the Lord: "The rich man and the poor man, he says, are two contraries to each other; but again they are two necessities to each other: no one would be in want if they supported one another; and no one would labor if both helped each other: the rich man was made for the poor, and the poor for the rich. It is the role of the poor to pray, and of the rich to give."
Note the word "met," namely not so much by chance as by design, that is, they went to meet one another, seeking each other, meaning: The rich man and the poor man go out to meet each other by deliberate purpose, because each needs the help of the other, and requires and requests it. For the rich man asks the poor man for his labor, to mend, bake, build, plow, sow, etc. for him; the poor man in turn asks the rich man for money and sustenance. The rich man therefore seeks the poor man and goes to meet him, to hire his labor; the poor man in turn goes to meet the rich man, to obtain food and earnings from him: and thus God supports and enriches the rich through the poor, and the poor through the rich.
By this maxim, therefore, Solomon signifies first, that it was done by the most wise counsel of God, that in this world corrupted by sin some are poor and others rich; so that the rich might help the poor, and the poor might labor for the rich, and thus they might be mutually united, and love, help, and support one another. Hear
Second, by this maxim Solomon signifies that both are the work of God, both as to substance, namely human nature, and as to the condition of poverty or wealth; for God makes one poor and the other rich for the most just reasons. Let everyone therefore acknowledge, revere, and praise this work of God. He says therefore: "The rich and the poor have met one another," that is, everywhere they encounter each other, unequal in wealth but equal in creation, and therefore the rich man should not be proud, nor the poor man sorrowful: both because by nature, as I said, they are equal; and because the Lord so willed that this life should be sustained by mutual assistance and services, not all being rich (for then no one would labor) nor all poor (for then they could not support themselves); and finally because both poverty and riches are a gift of God. For just as God gives riches to the rich as material for charity and almsgiving, so He gives poverty to the poor as material and merit for labor and patience, with grace proportionate to each. And the Wise Man seems to intend all these things here.
Third, both should be content with their lot, and rest in the good pleasure of God who distributes in this way, especially because God often makes the poor in possessions rich in understanding and wisdom, as was evident in the Apostles and the first faithful, as St. James testifies in his epistle, chapter 2:5: "Has not God, he says, chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God has promised to those who love Him?" Indeed, God Himself coming in the flesh led a poor life. Hence St. Chrysostom, cited by Maximus, Sermon 12: "O how great, he says, is the dignity of poverty! It takes the role of God (or bears the person of God); God is hidden in poverty. And it is the poor man who extends his hand, but it is God who receives." And Plutarch in the same place: "In war, he says, for one's own defense, iron is more useful than gold; but in life, reason surpasses riches. Full-length robes impede the body; excessive riches impede the soul." And Aristotle: "Poverty lacks many things: insatiable desire lacks everything." Democrates, when asked how "one could become rich," replied: "If he will be poor in desires; if you do not desire many things, even a few will seem like much: for a small appetite makes poverty equal to wealth. As far as nature is concerned, we are all rich; but as far as it depends on us, we are all poor. The poor have escaped the greatest evils — plots, envy, hatred — in which the rich are daily entangled." Aristides, surnamed the Just, to someone reproaching him for his poverty: "Poverty, he said, has shown me nothing evil; but riches have brought you no small troubles." Musonius: "We shall condemn the treasures of Croesus and Cyrus, he says, as subject to extreme poverty; but we believe the wise man alone is rich, since he can find everywhere as much as need requires." Xenophon: "Poverty is philosophy; for what the latter persuades by word, the former accomplishes in deed."
Fourth, Solomon admonishes the rich not to despise the poor, but to embrace, nourish, and support them as brothers and sons of the same God the Father; for to this end God has given them riches. Hence Philo, cited by Maximus, Sermon 12: "The beauty of riches, he says, is not in the purse, but in helping the needy." And Moschion: "Just as the adornment of horses and the nest of birds do not make them rise up and exult, but rather in the one case the swiftness of their feet, in the other their wings: so for man it is not adornment, not luxuries, but goodness and beneficence that produce glory." Menander: "Blessed is he who has both wealth and understanding. For he uses them honorably where it is fitting. The soul ought to be rich; but those monies are nothing else than ostentation and the external ornament of life." Dion: "Those are to be ridiculed, he says, who pursue that kind of riches which fortune bestows, generosity preserves, and kindness takes away."
Finally, by this maxim he tacitly advises that the poor should strive by labor and endurance, and the rich by self-restraint and generosity, toward the future life, which abounds in solid and eternal riches; for to this end God created, called, and destined both. Hence Isocrates: "Be content, he says, with what you have, and seek better things." And Philistion: "Even if you were the lord of ten thousand cubits of land, when dead you will occupy only three or four."
3. THE SHREWD MAN SEES THE EVIL, AND HIDES HIMSELF: THE INNOCENT PASSES ON, AND IS AFFLICTED WITH LOSS
"The shrewd man," in Hebrew arum, that is, astute, is taken in two ways: first, in a bad sense for crafty, deceitful, and fraudulent; second, in a good sense for prudent, cautious, and circumspect. "The innocent," likewise, opposed to the shrewd, in Hebrew pethi, that is, simple, is also taken in two ways: first, in a good sense for sincere, candid, upright, free from evil and deceit; second, in a bad sense for inexperienced, ignorant, imprudent, foolish, of whom it is said in chapter 14:15: "The innocent man believes every word."
First, Bede and Hugh, according to the former sense of "shrewd" and "innocent," explain it thus: "The shrewd man," that is, the hypocrite, crafty and false, who is faithful and upright with the faithful and upright, but when he sees persecution threatening them for their faith and uprightness, withdraws and hides himself; but "the innocent," that is, the sincere and upright man, proceeds with firm step, and bravely exposes himself to loss and death for faith and virtue. Hence Bede explains with an example thus: "Many of the rulers believed in the Lord, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess, lest they be cast out of the synagogue. For they were shrewd; they saw the evil of persecution that was imminent, and hid the faith of piety that they had briefly conceived. But the innocent Apostles passed on by the straight path of the profession they had begun, and were afflicted with beatings, chains, prison, and even punished with death itself. Both examples are followed to this day by many, both in the struggle of faith and in ordinary affairs." So he. Here also applies the parable of the shepherd and the hireling proposed by Christ, John 10. For the hireling, like a hypocrite and shrewd man, when the wolf comes, in order to avoid danger to his life, human nature, as well as the condition of poverty or wealth; for God makes one poor and the other rich for the most just reasons. Let everyone therefore acknowledge, revere, and praise this work of God. He says therefore: "The rich and the poor have met one another," that is, everywhere they encounter each other, unequal in wealth but equal in creation, and therefore the rich should not be proud nor the poor sorrowful: both because by nature, as I said, they are equal; and because the Lord so willed that this life should be sustained by mutual assistance and services, not all being rich (for then no one would labor) nor all poor (for then they could not support themselves); and finally because both poverty and riches are a gift of God. For just as God gives riches to the rich as material for charity and almsgiving, so He gives poverty to the poor as material and merit for labor and patience, with grace proportionate to each. And the Wise Man seems to intend all these things here.
Third, both should be content with their lot, and rest in the good pleasure of God who distributes in this way, especially because God often makes the poor in possessions rich in understanding and wisdom, as was evident in the Apostles and the first faithful, as St. James testifies in his epistle, chapter 2:5: "Has not God, he says, chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God has promised to those who love Him?" Indeed, God Himself coming in the flesh led a poor life. Hence St. Chrysostom, cited by Maximus, Sermon 12: "O how great, he says, is the dignity of poverty! It takes the role of God (or bears the person of God); God is hidden in poverty. And it is the poor man who extends his hand, but it is God who receives." And Plutarch in the same place: "In war, he says, for one's own defense, iron is more useful than gold; but in life, reason surpasses riches. Full-length robes impede the body; excessive riches impede the soul." And Aristotle: "Poverty lacks many things: insatiable desire lacks everything." Democrates, when asked how "one could become rich," replied: "If he will be poor in desires; if you do not desire many things, even a few will seem like much: for a small appetite makes poverty equal to wealth. As far as nature is concerned, we are all rich; but as far as it depends on us, we are all poor. The poor have escaped the greatest evils — plots, envy, hatred — in which the rich are daily entangled." Aristides, surnamed the Just, to someone reproaching him for his poverty: "Poverty, he said, has shown me nothing flees: but the good shepherd, like the innocent, that is, the sincere and upright man, opposes the wolf, indeed "lays down his life" for the sheep, as Christ did.
Second, others more commonly, according to the second sense of "shrewd" and "innocent," explain it thus, meaning: "The shrewd man," that is, the prudent and cautious man, looks far ahead to the future; hence foreseeing that some evil is imminent, he skillfully avoids it, and prudently hides himself, and thus escapes the evil; but "the innocent," that is, the inexperienced, imprudent, foolish man, who does not foresee the future, goes his way securely; hence he often incurs no slight losses, so that here nearly the same thing is said as in chapter 14:15: "The wise man fears and turns away from evil; the fool passes on and is confident." For the Hebrew word pethi properly signifies a raw, inexperienced, incautious, reckless, foolish person, as the Septuagint, the Chaldean, the Syriac, and others translate, who like a stupid sheep voluntarily throws himself into danger and runs into it, while he willingly goes to meet the wolf or the butcher, and peacefully allows himself to be led by him to the slaughterhouse.
This maxim is general and broad; hence it can be applied to various cases, such as penal laws, exactions, fines, ambushes, dangers, attacks of enemies, etc.; for in these things the cautious and prudent withdraw and hide themselves, as St. Athanasius did in the Arian persecution, and indeed Christ in the persecution of the Pharisees; but the foolish, rashly transgressing these or boldly passing through with blind eyes, are punished and suffer losses.
Therefore the Septuagint, narrowing this maxim to penal laws, to which it properly applies, translates thus: the shrewd man, seeing the wicked man punished, is greatly instructed; but the imprudent, passing by, were afflicted with loss; or, as the Author of the Greek Chain more forcefully paraphrases: When prudent men see wicked men punished with a deserved penalty, they take from it a powerful example of instruction; but the foolish, who pass by with closed eyes, will incur detriment. The Syriac follows the Septuagint: The shrewd man, he says, saw the wicked man scourged, and was strongly corrected; but the foolish passed over him, and were afflicted with loss. The Chaldean: The foolish passed on, and were punished. R. Solomon: The prudent man, he says, observed the penalty imposed on the wicked and hid himself, that is, lest he incur the sin and thereby the punishment appointed for it, he greatly restrains himself: but the imprudent and reckless man boldly rushes forward, and voluntarily throws himself into danger and loss.
Solomon therefore by this saying, says Jansenius, indicates the fruits of wisdom and of foolishness, in order to invite to wisdom and call away from folly: and just as in temporal affairs what the Wise Man says here seems to hold true in experience, so much more should it be observed in spiritual matters. For he who is truly prudent according to God, through faith and knowledge of the Scriptures sees the evils that will sometime befall sinners, and therefore hides himself from sinners, among whom he refuses to associate; he hides himself by distancing himself from those things through which he could fall into those evils; he hides himself by sheltering under the shadow of God's wings; but the foolish and imprudent man passes on confidently, advancing in his desires and worldly enticements. He will therefore be afflicted at some point, whether in this life or in the future, by the evil which he refused to foresee and guard against; in this respect the wise man imitates the cunning of the serpent, who in Genesis 3:1 is called arum, that is, shrewd. For the serpent in winter, to avoid the damage of cold, hides itself in caves and hiding places where the air is warmer; and thus preserves its warmth and life until spring and summer arrive. Again, when men pursue it, it hides under grasses and leaves in the forests, and thus escapes death. The prudent man does the same.
Nature has taught this cunning of fleeing and hiding when danger threatens to beasts and animals, especially the weak and feeble, whose entire safety lies in flight and in hiding places, so that from them men may learn the same. Thus shellfish hide themselves in their shells against octopuses and similar predators; hence "octopuses lie in wait for open shells, and placing a small stone, thus securely attack and extract the flesh," says Pliny, Book 9, chapter 30. The octopus likewise in turn, when it fears an enemy, "sits hidden under rocks, and changes its color to match theirs, so that it appears to be a rock:" thus it escapes larger fish; but deceives smaller ones; for "it catches these as they swim unsuspecting toward it as toward a rock, with its arms as with nets," says Aelian, Book 1 of Varia Historia. The same is taught by Aristotle, Book 9 of Historia Animalium, chapter 37, Pliny, Book 9, chapter 29, Oppian, and others. Oysters or shellfish, when they sense the crab, their enemy, sense it, they close their shell and hide within it: hence the crab lying in wait for them "watches, says St. Ambrose, Book 5 of the Hexameron, chapter 8, for when the oyster in remote places, sheltered from every wind, opens its double shell against the rays of the sun, and unlocks the barriers of its shells, to take a certain delight of its flesh in the open air; and then secretly inserting a pebble, it prevents it from closing, and thus finding the barriers open, safely inserts its claws and feeds on the interior flesh." Crabs likewise, when they shed their shell, as serpents shed their skin, lie and hide in the sand, bearing the likeness and appearance of the dead, until the shell grows back, and then, covered and armed, having lost their fear, they come out confidently, says Aelian, Book 9, On Animals, chapter 45. Tortoises, house-carriers, hide in their shell as in a conch; snails do the same. Again, Aelian, Book 10, chapter 5, writes that partridges and herons are recognized as enemies by snails, and they take care to flee from them. And from the genus of snails some are called ariones, which by a certain natural shrewdness deceive and elude the aforementioned birds; for they go out of their shells and feed without fear; but the birds fly in vain to the empty shells, and seeing them hollow, discard them as useless and go elsewhere; then the snails return, each to its own house, now sated with food and safe through their trickery. The porcupine or hedgehog, the garden pig, steals apples from the garden; and when it sees a hunter, it draws itself inward, and covers and hides itself entirely with its spines as with its own lances. Let the cautious and prudent man do the same, and especially when he has no other hiding places, let him flee to the secret of his mind, and there call upon God for help, and hide himself in Him, as St. Catherine of Siena used to do: so like a hedgehog, whatever plots he has sensed, he will be enclosed by his spines, and will gather himself into his own armor, so that whoever thinks to touch him will be wounded, says St. Ambrose, Book 6 of the Hexameron, chapter 4, and St. Basil, Homily 9 on the Hexameron. Crocodiles sense the flooding of the Nile; hence before it comes, with wonderful providence they transfer their eggs to places inaccessible to the Nile. Hence those who find them easily deduce how great the Nile's flood will be and how great the fertility of the land. The kite, as naturalists teach, and indeed Jeremiah, chapter 8:7, hides during the winter months, and knows when it is time to come out, namely when the air is milder; the same may be said of the turtledove, the swallow, the cuckoo, the cranes, and the stork, for whom it is customary to understand that in winter time they must depart from us and retreat to sunny places. Moreover, the turtledove protects its nest, lest the wolf attack its young, by throwing squill leaves over it. Bees sense rain and cold, and when they surmise by conjecture that one or both of these are imminent, they do not fly far from the hive but flutter around it, as if brooding at the doors. Finally, cranes sense storms: hence they fly from the sea to the interior: so too oxen, horses, sheep, and other animals foresee them, and flee to their stalls or safe places.
Learn Providence from this, O man, and by reason foresee the dangers of body and soul, and guard against them by fleeing: foresee, I say, the fires of Sodom, that is, the world burning with lusts and every crime, and with Lot flee to the mountain, to retreat, I say, to a safer and more perfect state. "For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" says eternal Truth. See St. Ambrose, treatise On Flight from the World. Well known is the voice of the Angel to St. Arsenius, tutor of the Emperors Arcadius and Honorius: "Arsenius, flee, be silent, be at rest, and so you shall be saved."
4. THE END OF MODESTY IS THE FEAR OF THE LORD, RICHES, AND GLORY, AND LIFE
For "end" the Hebrew is ekeb, which first signifies the heel and the sole of the foot: hence Jacob was named, that is, the Supplanter, because at birth he held the sole of his brother Esau, and afterwards supplanted him by seizing his right of primogeniture; second, the end, because the heel is the last and lowest part of the human body; third, reward and fruit: for reward is the end of a work.
Now first, Lyranus takes "modesty" to mean the moderation of actions and passions, namely self-control; for this produces the fear of the Lord, riches, glory, long life, and eternal life. For modesty is derived from "mode" (measure), says Cicero in De Officiis, and Isidore, Book 10 of Etymologies, letter M: "Modest, he says, is derived from measure and temperance, doing neither too much nor too little." And Nonius Marcellus: "Modesty, he says — moderation, measure, moderateness, mediocrity — is the basis of virtue, from which is born moderation, which tempers and guides the measures in deeds and words." Others say: "Modesty is so called as if it were the measure of honesty; and honesty is the beauty of virtue."
Second, Bede takes "modesty" to mean constancy: "By modesty, he says, he means the constancy of good works, and by the fear of the Lord, that fear which endures forever; because the perfection of the virtues is to ascend to that state of soul in which we fear to offend the grace of our Creator even in the slightest thing, placing nothing whatever before the remembrance of Him, which is elsewhere called perfect charity, casting out fear — namely the servile and foolish fear, by which one is afraid lest by sinning he deserve to be subjected to punishments. What he then adds — Riches, and glory, and life — signifies the future. The end of modesty therefore is the fear of the Lord, riches and glory and life; because the perfection of the virtues in this life is that we may fear the Lord with holy fear, that is, that we may worship Him with sincere love; the end of the virtues in the future is that by the riches of the promised inheritance of the heavenly kingdom we may receive glory and life without end from the Lord. Hence Peter: Therefore when you have seen, you will exult with unspeakable and glorified joy, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls," 1 Peter 1.
Third and genuinely, modesty is humility and meekness, by which one bears himself modestly, that is, humbly and meekly; for in Hebrew this is called anava. Hence anav means gentle and meek. For humility is the foundation, root, and parent of the fear of the Lord and of all virtues; for it subjects the humble person to God and men, so that he may revere, fear, worship, and love God, keep His laws, and obey Him in all things. Therefore it produces the fear of the Lord and its increase, and through it the grace of God, through which one merits and obtains from God riches, glory, long life, and finally eternal life, according to chapter 3: "Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left riches and glory." Where "length of days" and long life are set forth as the first and chief good; hence they are attributed to the right hand. "Riches and glory" follow, and are attributed to the left hand, as accessory goods of life. And in chapter 10, length of days is attributed to the fear of God: "The fear of the Lord, he says, will add days." And in chapter 19: "The fear of the Lord" is said to be "unto life;" and these three things — humility and the fear of the Lord — bring to a man generally even in this life, but always more abundantly and perfectly in the future life. In order that our text may bear this meaning, it is to be understood that modesty leads a man to firmly and holily fearing God, and through this fear to bring also riches, glory, and life to a man. So Jansenius. Sirach says very similar things, Ecclesiasticus 1:11ff. See what was said there.
Hence the Chaldean translates: the reward of meekness (the Syriac: of extreme humility) is the fear of the Lord, riches, glory, and life; R. Solomon says: through modesty, divine fear is instilled. Others, supplying a conjunction from the Hebrew, translate thus: the reward of modesty and the fear of the Lord is riches, glory, and life, because modesty is joined to the fear of the Lord, and as it produces it, so in turn it is produced and increased by it, and thus as much as one grows, so much does the other grow as well.
The Septuagint translates "modesty" as wisdom, because modesty and humility is true wisdom, just as pride is folly. Hence the humble man is practically wise, while the proud man is foolish. They therefore translate: the generation, or progeny, of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and riches, and glory, and life, that is, as the Author of the Greek Chain translates and explains: "The fear of the Lord produces wisdom, and glory, and spiritual riches. Moreover, through the origin of wisdom he indicates that all the virtues are interconnected, as all have wisdom for their mother. Or on the contrary, it means that the fear of the Lord is the parent of wisdom, or it suggests that the generation of wisdom includes the fear of the Lord; since the fear of the Lord is riches, and glory, and life for those who possess it." This therefore is the progeny and lineage of wisdom: wisdom or prudence generates the fear of the Lord; this generates riches; these generate glory; glory generates long and eternal life.
Others, by hypallage or metathesis, transposing the words, translate thus: the progeny of the fear of the Lord is modesty, or meekness, riches, glory, and life, according to Isaiah 26, in the Septuagint: Because of Your fear, O Lord, we conceived in the womb, and were in labor, and brought forth the spirit of Your salvation, which we wrought upon the earth.
Second, Cajetan translates the Hebrew ekeb, that is, end, as "heel"; hence he transfers by the metathesis already mentioned: The heel of the fear of the Lord is meekness, riches, honor, and life, which Cajetan explains thus: The force of meekness, how great and of what kind it is, is described relative to God, possessions, honors, and life: for the meaning is that true meekness tramples upon all things — relative to God, by fearing the supreme God; relative to possessions, by meriting the richest; relative to honors, by rendering what is due to them; and finally relative to the life of the soul, by preserving it: although it can also be extended to the life of the body, because the meek man tramples especially on his own and others' anger, and thereby averts harm to bodily life. The force of meekness is described by the "heel" both to designate the virtue of meekness as perfect down to the last extremity, signified by the heel; and to signify the act of meekness, which is to trample: for it is the duty of the meek to conquer, and to trample upon all things with tranquility of soul; but unless that trampling is done with filial fear of God, it is not virtue, but the appearance of virtue; but when it is done with the fear of God, it merits all the goods of possessions, honors, and life, and frequently brings them in a well-ordered commonwealth; for such men are willingly chosen and promoted by others. These are Cajetan's words.
Therefore by this translation is signified first, the magnanimity and loftiness of the wise, humble, and meek man, namely that with his mind fixed on heaven and God he tramples underfoot with his heels all the riches, honors, and pomps of the earth, as well as every pride, lust, and desire of the soul, according to Ecclesiasticus 25:14: "The fear of the Lord has placed itself above all things."
What Pliny writes in Book 29, chapter 20, is relevant here: that the heel of a wolf has such power that if a horse treads upon its track, it halts as if stupefied and fixes its foot. Naturalists give the physical reason: that the horse, scenting its enemy the wolf from the track, is struck with fear, and therefore as if terrified it shudders, and breaks and tames its spirits and anger; in like manner the fear of the Lord, striking the mind, breaks and tames all its pride and desire. It is told of a fierce and untamed horse that it was tamed and domesticated by this method. A lion was let loose against it; the fierce horse, placing its head in a corner, turned its hooves toward the lion, and by striking them into its head killed the enemy; but from the fear conceived in this duel, laying aside its ferocity, it became tame, and endured the bridle and a rider: so likewise the fear of the Lord tames the fierce, proud, and desirous spirits of the mind, and by meekness subdues and domesticates them.
Furthermore, the "heel" signifies the meek man, who by treading upon riches and honors dominates them, and enters upon their dominion and possession by, as it were, placing his foot and heel through meekness. For the possession of things is taken by the placing of the foot and heel. Hence grammarians derive "possession" from the "sitting of the feet." Meekness therefore is like a heel, by which the possession both of the body and passions, and of riches and honors, is obtained, according to that promise of Christ, Matthew 5: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land." And rightly, says Salazar, the heel is assigned to meekness, because with the heel footprints are pressed down and the path is worn; and no men press their footprints more tenaciously into virtue, and thereby offer the worn and open path for others to take, than the meek. Hence Psalm 24:9: "He will guide the meek in judgment, He will teach the meek His ways," so that others may follow in their footsteps and take the path that they have worn.
Finally R. Solomon translates: the heel of modesty is the fear of the Lord: "Because, he says, modesty is the chief part of the matter, and as it were the foundation; but fear is that which is considered of lesser account when it follows after: for fear walks at the feet of modesty," both because modesty, derived from "measure," so disposes the mind and places it in the mean of virtue: hence it commands fear and the other passions of the soul and affections, which it makes obedient to itself and, as it were, walking at its feet; and also because this is the fitting reward of modesty and humility, and therefore owed to it and attributed by God, so that the more one subjects oneself to all, the more one rises above and dominates all, and thus it is not only the foundation and base of all the virtues, but also their summit and peak; for it contains the other virtues, indeed generates and governs them, so that like daughters they walk at its feet.
5. ARMS AND SWORDS ARE IN THE WAY OF THE PERVERSE: BUT THE GUARDIAN OF HIS OWN SOUL DEPARTS FAR FROM THEM
For "arms" the Hebrew is tsinnim, which signifies something very sharp; hence first, it signifies thorns, stakes, and thistles, because they are sharp; second, lances, shields, and sharp weapons; third, cold, as is clear from Proverbs 25:13, because cold penetrates and stings the flesh like a sharp thorn. Again, for "swords" the Hebrew is pachim, that is, snares; also metal plates, which are extended and spread out like snares, as is clear from Exodus 39:3; Numbers 17:3. Also swords; for these are extended metal plates, and by the Belgians and other nations they are called plates. Hence
First, R. Levi translates: cold and snares are in the way of the perverse; some read: of the proud, meaning: The way by which the perverse and proud proceed to their crimes is troublesome and dreadful, as if rigid and frozen with cold, and beset with snares — namely it is laborious, steep, dangerous, and full of troubles, cares, anxieties, and pains. Consider the way and life of robbers in the forests, who suffer cold and all the injuries of the weather, constant fears and terrors, and daily dangers, and think that the life of any wicked person is similar. Again, just as heaps of ice and snow grow and pile up high from the cold, so pride continually raises the proud on high. "For as ice raises up heaps, so pride raises up fools," says St. Augustine on Psalm 147. Finally, just as cold hardens ice and solidifies it into crystal, so malice hardens the hearts of the perverse.
Second, others more commonly translate: thorns and snares. So the Septuagint: Thistles, he says, and snares are found in crooked ways; but he who is guardian of his soul will abstain from them; the Syriac: nets and snares are in the perverse way; the Chaldean: traps and snares, meaning: The perverse pay a double penalty for their perversity: first, that it stings and torments them like thorns; second, that the same, like a snare, entangles and binds them, so that they cannot free and extricate themselves from it. Thus the glutton is stung and tormented by his own gluttony and excess, and the lustful man by his own debauchery as by a thorn, when through it he incurs the French disease and other diseases, anxieties, and dangers, and is held by that very thing as by a snare, so that he cannot free himself from it and devote himself to chastity, as St. Augustine confesses of himself in the Confessions. So the avaricious, gaping after profit and riches, are stung by them as by thorns, and ensnared by them as by snares, since on account of them they commit frauds and usuries, by which they entangle and suffocate their soul. Hence Cajetan and Baynus understand by thorns and snares in this place riches, just as Christ called the same "thorns" in Matthew 13:22: "For they are thorns, says St. Gregory, because by the pricking of their thoughts they tear the mind, and when they drag it to sins, they wound it as if inflicting a bloody blow."
Third, and more forcefully, for "thorns and thistles" our translator renders: arms and swords; and these both actively, namely that they strike others, and passively, namely that they themselves are struck by them, or which the wicked unknowingly prepare both for others and for themselves. Hence Bede says: "It must be understood in two ways, because the perverse are always armed to harm their neighbors by wicked word or deed, and the vengeance of divine judgment always stands ready for them. But he who cares for the eternal salvation of his soul flees far from such arms and swords, because he both restrains his mind and hand from harming his neighbors, and carefully guards lest he be struck by the punishment of the strict Judge."
And more clearly, Jansenius says: This maxim can be understood in two ways; for "in the way of the perverse," that is, in his manner of living, are "arms and swords, thorns and snares," either because the perverse man strives to harm others by word and deed, and as it were to attack with arms and swords, and to sting with thorns, and to entangle with snares of fraud and deceit; or because by his own perverse life he brings evils upon himself, and is as it were pierced by swords, and stung by the thorns of a remorseful conscience, and entangled in the snares of the devil, by whom he is held captive at his will. This agrees with: "Destruction and misery are in their ways." So also what follows can be taken in two ways: "But the guardian of his soul departs far from them." For he who diligently strives to preserve his soul restrains his mind and hand from every injury to his neighbor, and lest his conscience be wounded here as by swords and thorns, or lest at some point he be struck by the sword of divine vengeance, he guards against it with his whole mind's attention. Hence Irenaeus, Book 3, chapter 3, relates of St. John that when going to bathe at Ephesus he saw Cerinthus inside, he leaped out of the bath unwashed, saying that he feared lest the bath collapse, because Cerinthus the enemy of truth was in it.
Finally, the word "guardian" signifies the wise man who has care of his soul, as a sentinel keeping watch at his post, and from there looking afar to see the enemy's ambushes, weapons, devices, and deceits, in order to fortify himself against them, or to escape by fleeing, according to the saying: "The life of mortals is a vigil." Hence R. Solomon, translating the Hebrew tsinnim, that is, arms, as robbers: "Robbers, he says, and snares are hidden in the way of the profligate," that is, calamities and punishments threaten him; but the guardian of his soul, who looks after his own affairs and properly directs his actions, will escape such perils. He alludes to Psalm 10: "He will rain snares upon sinners; fire and brimstone are the portion of their cup."
Mystically, Hugh says: Arms and swords are secular power and wealth, by which the perverse prevail and press upon the just, and often oppress them; but he who is vigilant and the guardian of his soul, by his vigilance and shrewdness avoids and escapes them.
6. IT IS A PROVERB: A YOUNG MAN ACCORDING TO HIS WAY, EVEN WHEN HE IS OLD, WILL NOT DEPART FROM IT
Some think that the phrase "it is a proverb" is not in the Hebrew, the Chaldean, the Greek, or the Syriac; but is understood implicitly. For Solomon here cites this maxim as a well-worn proverb that commonly circulated in popular speech. But they are mistaken, as will soon be evident.
The Hebrew reads thus: Dedicate, or initiate the boy at the mouth of his way; even when he grows old, he will not depart from it. The Greek of the Complutensian and Royal editions (for in the Roman editions this verse is missing), enkainison, that is, dedicate or renew the boy according to his way; and even if he grows old, he will not depart from it; some read: The dedication of a youth according to his way; the Chaldean: instruct the young man; the Syriac: he who corrects a boy according to his ways, even if he grows old, will not depart from them; Pagninus: imbue the boy; Cajetan: accustom the boy. For the Hebrew chanoch signifies to initiate, dedicate, imbue, instruct, accustom. Therefore just as chanuchchath habbaith is called the dedication of a house, so chanuchchath hannaar is called the dedication, that is, the first training of a boy. The Greeks call it paideuon. Hence among the Hebrews there exists: Sepher chinnuch, on the first education of children, meaning: a catechism, or teaching for children.
Our translator renders it: "It is a proverb;" but on what basis, in what respect? I answer: because he took chanoch not as an imperative, as the others already cited, but as an infinitive, which often takes the place of a noun: chanoch therefore means the same as to dedicate and to make common, meaning: It is a dedication, or it is a common saying, that is, widespread among the common folk and household members, and consecrated as it were by the universal usage of all — "it is a proverb." Lannaar, that is, of the boy, or concerning the boy.
The meaning is therefore clear, as if to say: It is a proverb commonly received, and confirmed and established by common usage and constant experience, and therefore most true, that a boy will retain the way, that is, the manner of living which he was taught from his earliest years, which he absorbed and imbibed, so that he became accustomed to it, all the way to old age, indeed to the end of life. Understand that this commonly happens, but not always: for some degenerate from the habits of childhood in adulthood, and through the influence of companions, or of honors and offices, or a similar occasion, completely change their habits, indeed their character and nature. Others, touched by God's efficacious grace, and strenuously cooperating with it in adulthood or old age, correct the vices of youth. But these are very few, and this is the power of grace, not the force of nature.
One may ask first, what is meant by "according to his way," or, as it is in Hebrew, "according to the mouth of his way"? First, Pagninus interprets "mouth of the way" as manner. "Imbue, he says, the boy according to his manner," meaning: Instruct the boy according to his capacity, so that you instill easy things first into his tender mind, and then gradually harder things. For the mind of a boy is like a vessel with a narrow mouth, into which liquid must be instilled gradually: otherwise, if you pour it all in at once, it will overflow at the sides and be lost. In like manner, good thoughts and habits must be gradually and as it were drop by drop instilled into a child's mind: if this is done, the boy will grow as his judgment gradually increases, and will grow in eagerness for learning, so that even in old age he will desire and rejoice to learn and make progress.
Second, Vatablus interprets "mouth of the way" as a crossroads: Initiate, he says, the boy at the crossroads of his way, that is, train and educate the boy from the cradle, meaning: If you properly train a young man, he will persevere in his original uprightness until old age: for the boy is at the crossroads of virtue and vice, so if he enters the way of virtue, he will persevere until old age; but if he takes the way of vice, he will not abandon it in old age. The "mouth" is rightly called a crossroads, because just as the mouth is split (for it is divided into two lips), so a crossroads is split: for it is divided and cut into two ways, just as here the crossroads of youth is divided into the way of virtue and the way of vice.
Third, R. Levi takes "mouth of the way" to mean inclination, meaning: Train the boy according to his inclination: see which way, that is, where his natural bent leads, and train him according to it. For some are inclined to studies, others to agriculture, others to mechanical arts, etc. Examine therefore what your boy is naturally drawn to, and direct and train him accordingly, so that he may properly and prudently arrange his life according to it. For if you try to force him against his inclination to something else, from which he recoils, you will waste your effort, according to the saying: You will do and say nothing against the will of Minerva.
Fourth, Cajetan takes "mouth of the way" to mean the opening, or beginning, of reason and judgment: for just as through the mouth there is an entrance and entry into the human body, and into any vessel: so likewise through the opening of reason there is an entrance and entry into the mind of the boy. Hence "mouth" for the Hebrews metaphorically signifies beginning and entrance, meaning: As soon as the boy's judgment and use of reason opens, imbue him with discipline and good habits: because the mind of a boy is like a blank slate, which easily receives whatever is first imprinted on it, and tenaciously retains it, just as wool absorbs the first color with which it is dyed and firmly retains it. Indeed, even before the use of reason, accustom the boy to good habits. Solomon admonishes, says Cajetan, that the instruction of the boy should not be delayed; but at the mouth (he says) of his way (that is, at the very beginning of the boy's way) when entrance into the boy's mind begins to open, accustom him: for although he is not capable of doctrine, he is nevertheless capable of habit; that is, see to it that he begins to grow accustomed to good actions, words, and manners. And he adds the reason: because what we first imbibe, we retain even in old age.
And he speaks truly according to the common principles of human development: for nothing is taken away by this saying from the efficacy of divine grace, or even from some rare effort to change the habits of a person of any age. Nor does the word of the Apostle contradict this saying of Solomon: "When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child; but when I became a man, I put away the things of a child," because the Apostle speaks of conditions that follow upon different ages, but Solomon speaks of habits and dispositions that are added by our practice to the age of boyhood and youth. Hence symbolically, just as a mouth is narrow in itself, then the narrowness of the mouth widens out in a vessel, and ends in the great capacity of the vessel: so likewise the strict discipline of the boy ends in a great breadth of happiness and delight; for exercise and habituation produce this.
Fifth and plainly, our translator renders "at the mouth of the way" as "according to the way": for al phi or lephi, that is, "at the mouth," for Hebrews is the same as "according to" or "beside," as Hebraists know, and as can be proved by a thousand examples from Sacred Scripture. The meaning is therefore, as if to say: A boy according to his way, that is, according to the manner of acting and method of living which he absorbs and imbibes in boyhood, and to which he becomes accustomed, will continue thenceforth in the same, so that not even in old age will he depart from it. Hence our translator renders "boy" as "young man," which word, as Jansenius notes, is here a participle from the verb "to grow" rather than a noun, meaning: A boy, growing and increasing in a certain way of life, whether that be good and upright, or wicked and base, will so imbibe it that not even in old age will he allow himself to be removed from it. Such was Joseph, for whom therefore his father Jacob, blessing him on his deathbed, said: "Joseph is a growing son, a growing son and beautiful in appearance," Genesis 49:22, where the Septuagint reads: Joseph is an increased son, an increased son, desirable, my youngest son, return to me. Therefore whoever gives a boy free rein, hoping to restrain him when he is older, is deceived: for in later life he will do what he did when he was a boy, nor will he change his way of life, and he will be like an untamed horse. For a boy is like an animal, say a horse, ox, lion, or hare, which whatever path it took at the beginning, it always keeps thereafter. Our translator took lannaar, that is, the boy in the accusative, for hannaar, that is, the boy or young man in the nominative. For thus the articles are sometimes interchanged among the Hebrews. Or rather, as I said a little before, lannaar is in the genitive or ablative case, meaning: It is a proverb of the boy or about the boy, namely that the boy or young man will not abandon in old age the way he trod in boyhood.
Note: The Hebrew chanoch can first be translated as "dedicate the boy," or "the dedication of the boy"; for just as an altar or temple is dedicated to God, so the boy and his boyhood, as something pure and untouched, should immediately be dedicated to God, so that through it all the remaining years of his life may be dedicated to God as its author and lord. See St. Chrysostom, Homily on Anna and Samuel: for Anna dedicated the boy Samuel to God; where among other things he says: "Is it not absurd that we shore up a house threatening to collapse, spending money, summoning builders, and doing everything possible; but we do not deign to bestow even ordinary care upon the house of God (for the soul of a youth ought to be God's house)?" And further: "If you are a mother, after the example of Anna, consecrate your son to God, and lead him to the temple — or rather prepare him as a royal temple for God. Your members, says the Apostle, are the body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you;" therefore they ought to be consecrated and dedicated to God as soon as possible. St. Ambrose adds in On Virgins, Book 2; for what he writes there about girls can equally be written and said about boys in the same way: "A virgin, he says, is the house of God, the gift of parents, the priesthood of chastity; a virgin is the offering of a mother, by whose daily sacrifice the divine power is appeased," etc. Therefore St. Thomas, III, Question 89, article 6, in the body, teaches that a boy, when he begins to use reason, is bound to turn to God by an act of faith, love, and religion, offering himself and dedicating his whole life, under penalty of mortal sin.
Second, chanoch can be translated as: initiate the boy, as a recruit for the war that must be waged throughout his whole life against the flesh, the world, and the devil: for chanich means a recruit, who learns to handle weapons and is prepared to become a soldier, and is trained in all things pertaining to military service, as is evident from Genesis 14:14. Therefore the instruction of boys should be like the training of a recruit, who is habituated to weapons, cold, hunger, toil, fighting, etc. Hear Theodoric the king instructing his Goths in military discipline, in Cassiodorus, Book 1, letter 24: "Bring forth, he says, your young men to the discipline of Mars; for what is not learned in youth is unknown in mature age." Vegetius also, Book 1, chapter 4: "No one is unaware, he says, that the beginning of manhood should be compelled to enlistment; for things learned from boyhood are not only absorbed more quickly, but also more perfectly." Diodorus likewise writes of the Balearic people and their skill in slinging: "They hurl stones so accurately that the targeted spot rarely escapes the blow. This skill is given to them by continual practice from boyhood, driven to this contest by their mothers: for they place bread as a target upon an upright piece of wood, which they aim at with their throws, and they do not take food until they have knocked down the bread with a stone and taken it as their meal," etc. By similar reasoning, parents, teachers, and tutors should train boys as recruits, to fight against their desires and obtain the palm of virtue.
Third, chanoch can be translated as: initiate the boy, so that the beginning of his reason, age, and life may be rightly formed toward all uprightness and integrity, as the Septuagint translates enkainison; whence encaenia are so called, as if you were to say "renewals": for from the oldness of the old Adam, that is, from concupiscence, the mind of the boy must be renewed, so that it may be restored to its newness, in which it was created by God in Adam: for old age and the elderly cannot be renewed; hence Diogenes used to say that "to heal a dead man and to teach an old man" are the same thing. Therefore that foolish old man in Theogenes would not allow himself to be taught by another, saying: "Do not teach me; age has made me unteachable." With these Seneca agrees, Book 3, letter 25: "Advanced age, he says, is hard and intractable; it cannot be reformed; tender things are shaped." From the storehouse of his own Philosophy, the Mantuan [Virgil] drew that hexameter in Aeneid 10: The best of all the days of life for wretched mortals is the first to flee. Where he called the first day of life, that is, the first youth, the best. Seneca emphasizes the reason, Book 6, letter 109, because youth alone is capable of discipline, not old age: "Why, he says, is it the best? Because when young we can learn: this is the fitting time for exercising our minds through studies; what remains is more sluggish and languid." As if the best part of life were that in which we learn; the worst, that in which we grow languid and idle in learning, which the Philosopher here testifies is what ignorant old age is like. Hence that proverb: "An old parrot ignores the rod." For, as Apuleius, Book 2 of the Florida, and Pliny, Book 10 of the Natural History, chapter 42, have recorded, a parrot in the first two years of its life easily learns whatever is suggested to it, but in old age becomes so stupefied that, however much it is beaten, it never learns. St. Jerome confesses the same difficulty, Preface to the Gospels: "It is a dangerous presumption, he says, for an old man to change his language, and to drag back a graying world to the beginnings of children." So Mendoza on 1 Kings 3:13.
Fourth, chanoch can be translated as: imbue the boy, as an allusion to cloths which are imbued with their colors in the dyeing, according to St. Jerome, letter 7 to Laeta, on the education of a daughter: "What tender years have drunk in is difficult to eradicate; who can restore the purple of wools to its original whiteness? A fresh jar long retains both the flavor and the smell with which it was first imbued." He alludes to that saying of Horace, epistle to Lollius: The jar will long keep the scent with which it was once imbued when new. And to that saying of Quintilian, Institutes 1: "By nature, he says, we retain most tenaciously what we perceived in our unformed years; as the flavor with which you imbue a new vessel endures; nor can the colors of wools, by which their original whiteness was changed, be washed out." Akin to this is that saying of Philo, in the book That Every Good Man Is Free: "Just as vessels, he says, retain the scent with which they were first imbued, so the minds of the young never allow the first forms that they conceived in their imagination to be abolished." And that saying of the Poet: What the new jar drinks, the old one savors.
Therefore what a person learns as a youth, he, having become a man or an old man, unlearns with difficulty.
Fifth, chanoch can be translated as: renew the boy, as an allusion to fallow land, that is, new fields, which are plowed, harrowed, and sown, in order to produce an abundant harvest. For in a similar way, the mind of the boy must be plowed, harrowed, and sown with good precepts and habits so as to produce a harvest of all the virtues. Hence Religious, at the entrance to Religious life and during the novitiate, are trained in all the duties of the Religious life, so that they may turn out to be worthy Religious. For this reason Zophar, Job's friend, says in chapter 20:11: "His bones, he says, shall be filled with the vices of his youth and shall sleep with him in the dust." Why, I ask, did he not say "his flesh," but "his bones"? Clearly, because just as what is fixed in the bones hardens and endures with them, so the vices of youth, as St. Gregory notes there, Book 15 of the Moralia, chapter 5, become harder every day, and grow so deeply rooted that they solidify even in old age, and what is worse, not diminished but usually multiplied, as the same St. Gregory cited observes. Hence Clement of Alexandria, Book 2 of the Paedagogus, chapter 10: "Often, he says, men educated in evil habits of life have become more effeminate than women," as if to say: Those very persons who are born men, often because of a bad education, do not grow into men, but grow old into women, nature degenerating through bad education. And would that the vices of youth might stop in old age! But alas! with the sinner they "shall sleep in the dust," that is, they will be deposited in the grave: for while all other things, as Titelmann rightly observes on that passage, are left behind after death, works alone, from the cradle to the grave, will follow the dead. So our Mendoza on 1 Kings chapter 1, verse 28.
Sixth, chanoch can be translated as: accustom the boy, according to Lamentations 3: "It is good for a man when he has borne the yoke from his youth;" for, as Aristotle says, Ethics Book 2, chapter 1: "It matters not a little — indeed, it is what contains the substance and cause of the matter — that men be accustomed from boyhood." Plato agrees, in Laws Book 2, where he establishes this about boys: "By discipline, he says, I mean virtue which can hold the minds of boys in check; for pleasure and pain, love and hatred, should flow into their minds as rightly as possible, before they are moved by reason, so that when they have arrived at the age of reasoning, they may do all things in accordance with reason." Therefore what a person learns as a youth, he unlearns with difficulty when he has become a man or an old man. Hence St. Jerome, and following him Bede: "Greek history, he says, records that Alexander, the most powerful king and conqueror of the world, both in his character and in his gait could not free himself from the vices of Leonides his tutor, with which he had been infected while still small." So Susanna retained the chastity and constancy which she had imbibed from her earliest years, all the way to death, Daniel 13:3.
Plato gives the physical a priori reason in Laws Book 7: "At first light, he says, boys should set out for school. Since indeed neither cattle, nor any other animal should live without a guardian, nor boys without tutors, nor servants without masters; and a boy is more unmanageable than all beasts: for since he does not yet have the fountain of wisdom properly formed, he is the most treacherous, the fiercest, and the most insolent of all brute animals. Therefore a boy must be restrained by many bridles, as it were, and as soon as he is separated from mothers and nurses, he must immediately be handed over to tutors, who may govern and tame his wantonness: and then he must be entrusted to teachers to learn those disciplines that are fitting for a free man."
Again, Clement of Alexandria, Book 1 of the Paedagogus, chapter 5: "Youth itself, he says, is the breast of our age," meaning: Just as from the mother's breast is sucked the milk by which all the infant's members are nourished: so from youth are drawn the habits by which all the remaining stages of life are formed.
Therefore a wise man prudently says: "For four reasons the devil especially hunts young people. First, because he knows that pious young people are especially loved and desired by God, therefore he delights in snatching this flower of life from God." As a symbol of this, God in Leviticus 12:8 commanded that not doves, but young pigeons be offered to Him; because, as Theodoret says there, He detested the wantonness of adult doves, and embraced the innocence of small chicks. Second, "because thus he paves the way for the sins of the later life." Third, "because young people can easily be deceived, and cannot easily extricate themselves from the devil's chains." Fourth, "because when they sin, they sin without restraint." Hence St. Augustine, Sermon 246 on the Seasons: "O young people, he says, the flower of life, the peril of the mind." Therefore, "four things are profitable for the young for their whole life: First, to esteem God above all things, and to know that the soul is more precious than all things after God. Second, to love the Blessed Virgin Mary with one's whole heart, as the Mother of the Son of God, and to commend oneself daily to her, and to do something in her honor." Third, "never to tolerate a mortal sin on one's conscience, but every day to grieve for one's sins, and to confess them as soon as possible." Fourth, "to think frequently that they will die soon, and that after death they will either burn eternally in hell with the devil, or enjoy God and the Angels in heaven eternally in the greatest happiness." For, as St. Ambrose says, Book 1 of On the Appeal of Job, chapter 7: "Youth alone is weak in strength, infirm in counsel, hot with vice, fastidious toward monitors, enticing with pleasures." Hence the Poet: Pliant as wax toward vice, harsh toward advisors. On which matter see more in St. Augustine, Sermon 246 on the Seasons. See also what I noted on Ecclesiasticus 30:1ff.
7. THE RICH MAN RULES OVER THE POOR: AND HE WHO RECEIVES A LOAN IS THE SERVANT OF THE LENDER
That is, of the one giving the loan. For the Hebrew malve signifies one who gives a loan, whether with interest or without interest. Hence in Scripture "lending at interest" is sometimes the same as "lending." Therefore Pagninus translates clearly: the rich man will rule over the poor, and the one receiving the loan will be a servant to the man lending; Vatablus: and the debtor serves the usurer.
First, Baynus explains it thus, as if Solomon here censures the perverse custom of the world, which assigns dominion over the poor to the rich, on account of their wealth, whereas to rule and govern belongs not to wealth, but to prudence and judgment, which the poor often have to a greater and more sincere degree than the rich, being further removed from their greed and ambition.
Second, Lyranus and Cajetan consider that the arrogance and pride of the rich is here denounced, by which they claim dominion over the poor and enslave them as their servants. Hear St. Basil in his oration On Riches and Poverty: "Dogs, he says, when they have received something, immediately become gentle; but the money-lender is more and more irritated; for he does not cease to bark: even if you bind yourself by oath, he does not trust you; he examines your domestic affairs, curiously inquires into your business, in the presence of your wife, when you are overcome with shame, he loads you with insults before friends, in the forum he hurls threats, and in short makes your life intolerable."
Third, more fully and simply, R. Levi, Aben-Ezra, Jansenius, and others say: This maxim, they say, declares the advantage of riches and the disadvantage of poverty, namely that riches bring with them strength, power, and dominion; but poverty brings hardships, weakness, servility, and servitude: hence it tacitly advises everyone to at least acquire moderate means by working, so as to enjoy their advantages and avoid the disadvantages of poverty. "The rich man therefore rules over the poor," both because he binds and obligates them to himself by gifts, contracts, loans, etc.; and because the rich man through his wealth easily acquires for himself servants, followers, and soldiers, by whom he prevails over others and commands them; and because riches make men bold and confident, while poverty makes them timid and diffident; and finally because the poor expect sustenance and many benefits from the rich; but the rich man hopes for nothing from the poor. Therefore in the state, the rich are usually chosen for magistracies, as being more honored and more powerful, to rule over the rest as their inferiors and subjects.
Mystically, Bede explains, meaning: "Those rich in virtues in the judgment of the hidden inspector rule over those who lacked the riches of virtues, and indeed will be their judges in the future. And he who receives the word of saving doctrine from a teacher, is the servant of that same teacher, that is, he is a debtor obliged to fulfill all things which the teacher by the right of heavenly teaching commands." So also the Author of the Greek Chain, R. Solomon, Hugh, and others.
AND HE WHO RECEIVES A LOAN IS THE SERVANT OF THE LENDER
In Hebrew: and the servant receiving a loan, to the man giving the loan. For among the Hebrews lemalve, like any participle or noun, can be of almost any case; hence it can be translated in the dative, "to the man giving the loan"; in the ablative, "from the man giving the loan"; and in the accusative, "the man giving the loan," supply: he will honor and revere. The Septuagint therefore translates: the rich will rule over the poor, and servants will lend to their own masters, meaning: The rich customarily rule over the poor, but let them rule them modestly, remembering that the wheel of fortune often turns and reverses, so that the rich become poor and the poor become rich, namely so that servants give loans to masters reduced to poverty, and thus subject them to themselves and bind them as debtors; thus we see it not rarely happen that the poor man becomes rich, the debtor becomes the creditor, the servant becomes the master, the slave becomes the lord, the subject becomes King and Emperor. To this sense some try to bend the Vulgate version: "And he who receives a loan is the servant of the lender;" but they do violence to it, and twist it from its own meaning to another.
The Syriac, following the Septuagint, asserts something even more and plainly contrary to the Hebrew; for it reads: the poor man rules over the rich, and the servant will lend to the lender. Following the Septuagint and the Syriac, St. Ambrose in De Nabuthe, chapter 14: "You do not know, he says, O man, how to build riches. If you wish to be rich, be poor to the world, that you may be rich toward God. Rich in faith, be rich toward God. He who is rich in mercy, this man is rich toward God. Rich in simplicity, he is rich toward God. Rich in wisdom and knowledge, he is rich toward God. There are those who abound in poverty, and those who are in want amidst riches. The poor abound, whose profound poverty has abounded in the riches of their simplicity: but the rich have been in want and have hungered." He proves this from the present maxim of Solomon, adding: "For it is not written idly: The poor will be set over the rich, and servants will lend to their own masters; because the rich and the masters sow what is superfluous and evil, from which they gather not fruit, but reap thorns. Therefore the rich will be subject to the poor, and servants will lend spiritual things to their masters, just as the rich man begged that the poor man Lazarus might lend him a drop of water. You too, O rich man, can fulfill this saying if you give generously to the poor. For he who gives to the poor, lends to the Lord."
St. Ambrose likewise, mystically expounding this maxim in Book 2 of On Jacob and the Happy Life, chapter 3, and applying it to Esau who served Jacob, and to the Jews who serve the Christians: "He who is subject to vices is the servant of many, he says; he has bound himself to many masters. For he who does all things prudently, and thus lives as he wills, he alone is free: it is not the condition of fortune that makes a slave, but shameful folly. Indeed, a prudent servant will rule over foolish masters, and servants will lend to their own masters. What will they lend? Not indeed money, but wisdom, as the law also says: You will lend to many nations, but you yourself will not borrow, Deuteronomy 15. The Jew will lend the oracles of the divine law to the convert, but because he himself could not see the mysteries of the law, and did not know the oracles he possessed, he who lent the letter to the Gentiles now borrows from them the grace of spiritual teaching, and is rightly subject to servitude, since he who borrows is a slave, as one bound to the interest of his creditor; but he who imparts the interest of pious teaching, he is a prince, as the law says: You will be prince of many nations; but from them there will be no prince for you, ibid. For a prince is he who rules, who also holds the principate of wisdom, which the people of the Jews held. But since he could not keep what he taught, he must learn what he did not know how to teach." The same in Psalm 104: "Indeed, he says, many free men serve a wise servant (as it is written), and there is an intelligent slave who rules over foolish masters. Whom then do you consider more free? Wisdom alone is free, which sets the poor over the rich, and which causes slaves to lend to their own masters — to lend not money, but understanding."
And after several intervening words, he adds: "But he is more free who is free within himself, who is free by the laws of nature, knowing that the law of nature is prescribed for character, not for conditions, and that the measure of duties is in accord not with human choice, but with the teachings of nature: does this man then seem to you merely free, or rather a kind of censor and prefect of morals? Hence Scripture truly says: That the poor will be set over the rich, and the private over those who administer. For the wise man is always free, always honored, always the one who presides over the laws."
But this reading of the Syriac and St. Ambrose seems less authentic and less true: for it conflicts with the Hebrew, the Vulgate, Symmachus, Theodotion, the Chaldean, and the rest, who all agree with the Vulgate.
The Vulgate version therefore is the true and genuine one; and its meaning is plain, namely: He who receives a loan becomes as it were the servant of the lender; and he who borrows at interest or usury becomes the servant of the money-lender or usurer: because he is bound to them by the debt of the loan or the interest, and becomes as it were a debtor to his creditors, and pledges himself and all he has: therefore the money-lender and creditor is called in Hebrew nose, from elevating and exalting; because he who receives a loan from him is compelled, on account of the benefit received, to supplicate him, revere him, and honor him. In Chaldean he is called raschia, from the root rascha, that is, he was able: for a creditor has, as it were, power and right over him to whom he gave the loan. Hence that widow said to Elisha in 4 Kings 4:1: "Behold, the creditor comes to take my two sons to be his servants." For this was permitted to the creditor by ancient laws, as Budaeus notes in his Forensic works; indeed Christ says in Matthew 18 of the wicked servant, whose debt of ten thousand talents had been forgiven: "Since he had not the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made."
Moreover, that by ancient laws creditors claimed debtors for themselves as slaves, and that it was formerly the custom and the law that debtors were handed over to creditors as servants and captives bound in chains, is clear from the monuments of the ancients. Certainly among the Hebrews the testimonies of this matter are not obscure, Isaiah 58:6: "Loose the bonds of wickedness," that is, dissolve the obligations and chains which wicked and unjust creditors cast upon debtors through pledges and contracted interest.
Concerning the Greeks, Plutarch likewise testifies in his treatise On Avoiding Debt, where with an elegant simile about creditors and tax collectors he speaks thus: "Just as Darius sent Datis and Artaphernes to Athens, carrying chains and shackles in their hands to bind captives, so these men go about the cities importing vessels full of bonds and documents like fetters throughout Greece."
Concerning the Romans, Livy teaches in books II and VIII: "Those who had previously been bound over were handed to creditors, and others were bound anew." For among the Romans nexus or nexum was a type of obligation, "whereby the body of the debtor could be seized as a pledge by right and condition of the obligation," as Budaeus explains: for the debtor who was pledged was handed over bound to the creditor. On this matter and on the inhumanity of usurers, see Livy at the passage cited; Varro, book VI of On the Latin Language; Cicero, discussing alienation, mancipation, and nexum in the Topics; Budaeus in the Pandects, under the title On adjudication with a time limit; Quintilian, book VII, chapters IV and VII; Gellius, book XX, chapter 1; Macrobius, book I, chapter XVI; Aelian, book XII, chapters XX and XXI. But Solon, as Diodorus, Plutarch, and Laërtius write, abrogated that law at Athens. "Payment," says Diodorus (speaking of the laws of the Egyptians), "was made only from the goods of the debtor; the body could not be adjudged to the creditor."
Christ adds, in Matthew 18, that the creditor had the right over the debtor's body to torment it: "His master, being angry," He says, "delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was owed." Which indeed seems to savor of that most inhuman cruelty of creditors, by which at the creditors' pleasure, after chains and fetters, the limbs of debtors were torn apart — as Aulus Gellius reports, book XX, chapter 1, from the Law of the Twelve Tables, whose text runs as follows: "For a confessed debt, and for matters legally adjudicated, let there be thirty lawful days. After that, let there be seizure by hand; let him be brought to court, let him be led away, let him be bound with ropes or fetters of fifteen pounds, or, if he wishes, with heavier ones." Then it further teaches that if there were multiple creditors, they had the right to cut up the debtor's body. "On the third market day," it says, "let them cut the parts; if they cut more or less, let it be without fraud." Gellius then adds on his own: "Nothing is indeed more monstrous, nothing more cruel, unless (as is apparent in practice) such great severity of punishment was proclaimed with the design that it should never actually be carried out."
And Plutarch, in the treatise already cited: "While we are ashamed to be content with our own means, by giving pledges and entering into contracts we deliver ourselves into servitude." And about that butchery and slaughter a little further on: "These men reduced wretched debtors from the forum to a place destined for the punishments of criminals, devouring and tearing them like vultures, 'and pounding their entrails with deeply inserted beak.'" So our Pineda on Job 22:6.
Wherefore the Persians, according to Herodotus, used to say that there are two shameful sins among men, the first of which is to be a debtor (for this generally arises either from laziness, or from gluttony and luxury), the second is to lie, which follows from the former. An anonymous author quoted by Suidas says that the most wretched of men are those who have now red, now pale teeth — a saying by which he noted those who had borrowed from others: for when repayment is demanded, they blush; but when they see the creditor, they turn pale lest they be compelled to pay.
More nobly St. Basil, quoted by Antonius in the Melissa, Part II, chapter 28: "He who," he says, "subjects himself to usuries, whose possession he does not hold, serves a voluntary and perpetual slavery. I have witnessed a pitiable sight — free men whose estates were burdened with debt, who were dragged away to be sold. Nights bring no rest to the debtor, the day is not pleasant, the sun gives no delight, but throughout his whole life he dwells in sadness. He hates the days that hasten toward the appointed time; he dreads the months as the begetters of interest. If he sleeps, in his dreams he sees the usurer looming over his head — an accursed dream. If he wakes, his thought and anxiety is about interest." If these things are true of monetary debt and the monetary debtor, they are much more true of the debt of the soul, namely of sin and the sinner, who, always fearful, dreads death, judgment, demons, and hell, which await him until he pays the last farthing, Matthew 5:26.
8. HE WHO SOWS INIQUITY SHALL REAP EVILS, AND THE ROD OF HIS ANGER SHALL BE CONSUMED
For 'iniquity' the Hebrew has עולה aula, which is a general word signifying everything wicked that is committed against the laws or against equity and uprightness. Properly, however, it denotes injustice and injury inflicted on another. For that injury is the subject here is clear from what follows: "And the rod of his anger shall be consumed;" for the one whom the unjust man strikes, the struck man strikes back. For 'shall reap evils' the Hebrew has 'shall reap' און aven, that is, iniquity or pain: for aven signifies evil both of guilt and of the punishment that follows guilt. Hence Vatablus translates 'calamity'; the Septuagint, 'he who sows evils shall reap evils'; Theodotion, 'he who sows injustice shall reap iniquity'; Aquila, 'damage'; Symmachus, 'he who sows iniquity shall reap injustice.'
Some attach this maxim to the preceding one, and according to the Septuagint version it can be attached, but not according to the Vulgate: for according to the Vulgate these two sentences plainly seem to be separate. According to the Vulgate, then, the meaning is: He who sows guilt shall reap punishment, indeed not infrequently a new guilt with a new punishment. The force and emphasis lies in the word 'sows.' First, just as a seed has the power of producing a grain like itself, so guilt has the power of producing both punishment and guilt like itself. Thus injury begets injury, quarrel sows quarrel, slaughter provokes slaughter, abuse elicits abuse, so that he who is unjust and injurious to another receives in turn from him a similar injury — a blow or harsh word, as it were offspring elicited by himself. Second, just as one sown grain, so likewise a single guilt produces manifold guilt and punishment: for evil seeds are more fruitful than good ones. If, then, the seed of a single virtue produces many virtues and rewards of glory, much more will the seed of sin produce many crimes and punishments. Third, each seed brings forth its own grain — wheat produces wheat, barley produces barley; so each fault begets its own faults and punishments: for pride begets anger, envy, strife, slaughter, etc.; but gluttony begets revels, drunkenness, hangovers, debauchery, lusts, quarrels, etc., and moreover the punishment of nausea, vomiting, insomnia, catarrh, fever, dysentery, dizziness, and a thousand diseases that usually follow gluttony. Similarly avarice begets certain punishments, sloth others, envy others, etc. Fourth, just as the same earth that receives the seed receives the harvest; and just as the farmer who sows also reaps: so likewise the sinner who sows iniquity also reaps iniquity and its manifold punishment; for the penalty follows the guilty one, just as the executioner follows the condemned man to torment and punish him. This is what Job 4:8 says: "Those who sow sorrows reap them." And Paul, Galatians 6:8: "What a man sows, that he shall also reap." And Christ, Matthew 7:2: "With what measure you measure, it shall be measured back to you."
AND THE ROD OF HIS ANGER SHALL BE CONSUMED. — Others read 'shall be consummated,' that is, consumed. 'The rod of anger,' first, is anger itself, by which the angry man rages like a rod and beats others either with harsh words or even with inflicted blows and beatings: for on account of this, by the just judgment of God, he is punished with a similar anger and cruelty from others, with which he had harassed and oppressed them. For anger is compared to a rod, says Aben Ezra, according to Isaiah 10:5: "The rod of My fury." The meaning therefore is: His anger, cruelty, and injustice will be turned into a rod for him, by which he may be punished and destroyed.
Second, 'the rod of anger' is power (for its emblem is the rod and scepter, as the Hebrew has), to which pride and anger are joined: for this greatly presses down, indeed oppresses, according to that saying of Seneca in the Proverbs: "It is a thunderbolt when wrath dwells with power." But such men will experience and feel a similar power sharpened by the anger of others, either in the present life or in the future.
Third, aptly relating to the seed and harvest about which the preceding discourse was held, the rod here can be understood as that of threshing — namely the flail by which grains are beaten out of the crop. That is to say: the unjust man who has flailed and threshed the harvest and goods of others will himself likewise, along with his own harvest and goods, be flailed and threshed by others, so that in the very thing in which he sinned, in that same thing he may be punished, according to the law of retaliation. Thus the rod or flail, with which his crops were to be beaten out — not crops (for he has none), but he himself along with his tares and thorns, that is, his crimes and offenses — will beat and thresh him; the rod, I say, and flail with which he will be flogged, either by God, or by a judge, or by anyone else in whatever manner.
For 'shall be consumed,' Vatablus and Pagninus translate 'shall fail,' meaning: God will repay each one according to his works, and will deprive those who work iniquity of all the authority they exercise with cruelty toward their subjects; so R. Levi and Aben Ezra. Others translate 'shall consume,' namely him, meaning: The very rod of anger will consume the angry man, that is, the one who strikes in anger. Hence the Septuagint translates: 'but the plague of his works shall be consummated,' or 'the poison and wound of his works he shall feel to the end,' as the Author of the Greek Catena translates. For just as a wound ejects virulent pus, so anger and cruelty beget pain and harm for their author.
Mystically, Bede says: "He who sows iniquity shall reap evils," that is, "he who by word or example spreads his iniquity upon others will receive vengeance in place of a harvest." Moreover, what follows — "And the rod of his anger shall be consumed" — may rightly be applied to teachers and superiors who strictly punish sinning subjects while they themselves sin more grievously; or to those who teach just and upright things while they themselves are unjust and wicked. For these men condemn themselves by their own words: the censure with which they strike others they bring upon themselves. Wherefore they themselves deserve to be chastised with the chastisement by which they chastise others, according to the Apostle, Romans 2:21: "You then who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say not to commit adultery, do you commit adultery?" etc.
9. HE WHO IS INCLINED TO MERCY SHALL BE BLESSED: FOR HE GAVE OF HIS BREAD TO THE POOR
For 'he who is inclined to mercy,' the Hebrew has טוב עין tob ain, that is, 'good eye,' or rather 'good of eye'; the Chaldean, 'he who has a good eye.' "A good eye," says Vatablus, is a man who is generous, kind, and sincere. "Good of eye" is he who looks upon the poor with a calm and kind eye, because he is inclined to mercy, both by the inclination of nature and by the inclination of virtue — that is, inclined both from natural compassion and even more from the practice of charity, says Lyranus. "This man shall be blessed," that is, he shall be prospered by God, and with every blessing, temporal and heavenly, human and divine, present and eternal he shall be filled. For, as St. Chrysostom says, Homily 12 on the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Almsgiving and mercy is like a certain golden and living dove, having a calm countenance and a gentle eye: nothing is better than that eye; and thus the eyes of mercy have become dove-like, calm, benevolent, and in a certain way made gentler by their very gentleness."
The word 'shall be blessed' could also be taken to mean 'shall be praised,' meaning: Men will praise and bless him, indeed God and the Angels; for Sirach 31:28 seems to allude to this when it says: "The lips of many shall bless him who is generous with bread."
The meaning therefore is: He who has a kind heart, and hence a kind eye, who looks kindly upon the needy — even if he himself is poor, so that he cannot benefit them lavishly — he shall nevertheless be blessed by God, because with a generous heart he gave of his bread, even bread necessary for himself, to the poor; indeed he halved his bread, giving half to the poor and keeping the rest for himself. For God looks more at the readiness and kind mind and eye of the giver than at the greatness of the gift, according to Christ's words, Luke 21:3: "Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all these have put in offerings to God from their surplus, but she from her want has put in all the living she had." Hence the Septuagint translates: 'God blesses or loves a cheerful giver.'
The a priori reason is that a gift is valued more from the affection of the giver than from the excellence of the gift: for he who gives a small thing with immense affection and goodwill of mind is more pleasing, and is judged to give more, than he who gives a great thing with little affection of mind. Now the affection of the mind, especially love and goodwill, as well as hatred and indignation, shines through and gleams most clearly in the eyes, as if in the windows of the heart. Hence the envious and malicious, like those who cast the evil eye, carry their spell and poison in their eyes, and from them they dart it at bystanders, especially children, so that children lose their appetite for food and waste away. On the contrary, the kind and beneficent, looking upon the needy with a kind heart, eye, and hand, and doing them good according to their means, however small, bestow upon them life and health. Following Solomon, Ben Sira, in the first alphabet, letter Teth, says: "Do not withdraw your hand from doing good."
You may ask how much, to whom, how often, and in what manner one ought to do good? I answer that one should give as much as one's means permit, so that one should rather give beyond one's means than below them. But first of all one must consider those to whom we give: for if they need little, let little be given; if much, much. And one should give as often as the poor are in need. Hence Aquila, the teacher of Aquila of Pontus, used to say that if a poor person who had experienced our beneficence in the morning should return in the evening, he should not be sent away empty. But how, you may ask, shall we give? Here the Hebrews advise that three things are to be observed: first, that alms be given secretly and in private, not openly and in public; second, that it be given with a cheerful countenance, for God loves a cheerful giver, according to the Apostle's saying; third, that when we give, we should address the recipient with kind words, for speech conciliates grace to a gift, and very often has more value and power than the gift itself. Here is relevant the maxim of the Arabs, Century I, number 80: "The generous man is a neighbor of God, a neighbor of man, a neighbor of paradise, far from the fire of hell" — meaning: the beneficent and generous man is happy in this life and in the future, on earth and in heaven.
Gregory Nazianzen says beautifully in his oration On the Care of the Poor: "Be God," he says, "by imitating God's mercy toward the afflicted; for nothing more divine than beneficence falls upon man. And again: "Most beautifully and most kindly God does this: that He values the gift not by the price of the thing given, but by the means and spirit of the one offering. Do not delay being generous, but be so now; and do not, because the sum of the price is lacking to you, abandon all generosity, but supply part in fact, and part in readiness of spirit, or in future purpose (for the Greek προθυμία signifies both). A great remedy for the afflicted is mercy bestowed from the heart, and genuine compassion renders the calamity much lighter."
Here is relevant the fable of the bear, the lamb, and the dove — armed with vigorous similes — which Cyril recounts in Moral Apologues, book I, chapter 22, whose title is: Always hold rather to the side of mercy. "A dove," he says, "looking down upon a bear cub raging against a captured little lamb, said: Why do you rage against this wretched creature? The cub replied: If you considered my parentage, constitution, and nature, you would answer yourself: I am obviously the son of a bear, my appearance shows I shall be a bear, and therefore I now imitate a bear's behavior. Then the dove rejoined: Abandon your corrupt parentage, overcome your savage constitution, put aside your bestial behavior; for a merciful God created you, kindly nature nurtures you, the level earth sustains you. You live by sweet blood, you subsist by the friendly joining of your limbs, and you are strengthened by the peace treaty of your humors. Truly, the whole order of nature draws you toward kindness. For all things celestial and terrestrial bestow upon you so much goodness that you may live. For you do not buy the life-giving motion of your body, nor the light of heaven, nor the breath of air, nor the grain of the earth, nor the flowing of abundant water, by which you live. Whence, I ask, are all these things for you, except from nature's clemency alone? Therefore abandon your fury, soften your rage, cease your cruelty, and turn yourself to imitating the common kindness. To this the cub, somewhat softened, replied: Indeed I would do what you wisely urge, if I had reason ruling over all my evil impulses. At once the dove said: Well have you spoken. For all cruel harshness arises from the ferocity of a bestial mind. For the troubled sea is covered with darkness, and gold smoothed by polishing gleams more brightly. Thus the light of wisdom is the companion of kindness and always the friend of piety, but in a troubled mind there arises turbid anger, dark folly, and harsh cruelty." From this he draws the following practical conclusion and assigns, as it were, this moral: "The wise man therefore, conquering all evils by reason, having suffered an offense, by the power of magnanimity spurns anger, by the generosity of liberality he pardons injury and cruelty, nor does he any longer remember anything other than the kindness of his heart. Thus constancy breaks injuries inflicted, patience conquers them, and mercy shows him to be a triumphant victor with his whole heart. For he knows that the offender is now subject to anger, and therefore the victor has compassion on the vanquished, and by the antidote of his own piety he cures the malady of another's weakness. Thus therefore the peace of the wise man is unconquerable, and his vengeance is clemency. For in good things his victory is supreme; and in evil things, his virtue is inviolate. But he who is quickly kindled by the flames of anger stinks like fiery sulfur. Yet when the prudent man is justly angry, he gleams like polished gold. The angry man therefore is foul-smelling sulfur, and the angry wise man is refined gold. Having said these things, she departed."
Moreover this sentence is illustrious: for this reason the Septuagint expand and explain it, as if paraphrasing, with a threefold amplification. The first is: "He blesses the cheerful and generous man;" or, as others read: "God loves him; he has consummated the vanity of his works." The former part the Apostle cites, 2 Corinthians 9:7: "Let each one give," he says, "as he has purposed in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver." And Romans 12:8: "He who shows mercy, with cheerfulness" — where I have noted more on this subject.
St. Augustine says beautifully at the end of his commentary on Psalm 42: "If you break your bread for the hungry from your heart — since it is very often done by those who are sad and grumbling, in order to rid themselves of the annoyance of the one asking, not to refresh the bowels of the needy. But God loves a cheerful giver: if you give bread sadly, you have lost both the bread and the merit." Consider the phrase 'not to refresh the bowels of the needy,' meaning: He who gives alms sadly or with indignation refreshes the body of the poor person, but by his sadness or indignation he torments and wounds the poor person's spirit and feelings; but he who bestows it cheerfully feeds and refreshes both the spirit and feelings, as well as the mouth and body of the needy person. "Therefore do it from the heart, so that He who sees within, while you are still speaking, may say: Behold, I am here." And shortly after: "Do you want your prayer to fly to God? Give it two wings: fasting and almsgiving."
Moreover, what the Septuagint add — 'he has consummated the vanity of his works' — is the antithesis of what they said in the preceding verse about the unjust man: 'He who sows evils shall reap evils; the plague of his works he has consummated,' meaning: He who sows evils will carry back the full and complete punishment of the evils he sowed; but he who sows good things, and especially cheerfully distributes alms to the poor, will by his cheerfulness supply, perfect, and consummate whatever in his works and conduct is vain, that is, empty and void. For almsgiving fills up what is lacking or wanting in other actions, and especially a cheerful and ready spirit of giving supplies what is lacking to the donation on account of poverty or some other cause. For God values not so much the gift as the giver's affection. Just as, therefore, if you pour water from a vessel, air enters the empty vessel and fills its emptiness: so if you give a small alms, you may seem to empty your purse and mind, and to make an empty — that is, slight and insignificant — result; but that emptiness is supplied and filled by the cheerfulness and readiness to give more, if the means were available. Wherefore, following Solomon, Sirach says, Ecclesiasticus 35:11: "In every gift," he says, "make cheerful" — in Greek λάρωσον, that is, 'make bright' — "your face."
The second is: "He who has mercy on the poor is himself nourished in turn, inasmuch as he has shared his bread with the needy." For he who shows mercy deserves mercy; and he who feeds others deserves to be fed, according to Christ's words, Matthew 5: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." And the Apostle, 2 Corinthians 9: "He who sows in blessings shall also reap from blessings." See what follows and what I have noted there.
Mystically, the Author of the Greek Catena says: "Teachers who feed the poor in spirit with their doctrine nourish themselves most of all, according to the saying: In days of famine they will be satisfied with their own bread (that is, with their own doctrine, by which they themselves are also sustained)." Examples of this maxim and of the blessing of almsgiving are found in the Life of St. John the Almsgiver, who the more he gave to the poor, the more he received, as I have recounted more fully elsewhere; in the Life of St. Lydwina, who by her generosity merited to obtain the purse of Christ, from which however much she dispensed, there always remained more to dispense further; in the Life of St. Catherine of Siena, and of many others.
It is remarkable what we read of St. Liberalis, a nobleman of Altinum and protector of Treviso: that he was wonderfully generous to the sick and the poor, and therefore cured many of various diseases, and indeed in a single day imparted health by divine power to 120 persons. When in wintertime he was going to the cathedral church, and met a poor man naked and trembling with cold, he took off his own garment and gave it to him. The poor man, appearing to him the following night, said that He was Christ and returned the garment. Wearing it, Liberalis was saved from dangers more than once. For when, with the Arians prevailing, St. Heliodorus with his disciples had boarded a ship to find a solitary place where he might serve God, and a fierce storm had arisen, Liberalis immediately calmed it by lowering the edge of that garment into the sea — so Philippus Ferrarius narrates from the monuments of the Church of Treviso, in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, under the date April 27.
The third is: "He who gives gifts acquires victory and honor, and indeed carries away the soul of those who possess them, or of those who receive them;" or, as the Vulgate reads, 'of those who accept them.' This maxim is not in the Hebrew, but is transcribed from the Septuagint. For 'carries away,' the Greek is
ἀφαιρεῖται, which the Author of the Greek Catena translates as 'overturns,' and understands it of gifts given to a prince or judge to overturn justice.
But others refer it to almsgiving and mercy, which is the subject of the whole discourse in this verse, so that the meaning is: The beneficent and generous man, who gives alms or gifts, conquers and wins over and subjugates to himself the hearts of the recipients; therefore he obtains from them everything he wants, and is honored by them as munificent, indeed as a guardian and father — as Joseph was honored by the Egyptians when he gave them grain and food, and was therefore called "Savior of the world," Genesis 41:45. The comic poet rightly says: "Gold is the magnet of the soul, a gift is the magnet of the soul."
Mystically, the Author of the Greek Catena says: Gifts, he says, are the virtues by which a man snatches his soul from the demons who possessed it, and indeed wins over the hearts of God, of the Angels, and of men, and thus as it were carries away and steals them — but with a pious and brave theft of goodwill.
The maxim could secondly be understood as an argument from analogy, namely from a judge and prince to whom gifts are given, meaning: Just as he who gives gifts to a judge obtains victory in a lawsuit, and he who gives them to a prince is raised to honors by him, because the gift-giver binds to himself the spirit of the recipient through his gifts: so likewise he who out of love of God gives gifts to the poor will obtain from God victory, honor, and every good thing, indeed even eternal glory; for by these gifts he earns and wins for himself God's heart, that is, His grace and benevolence.
Morally, note here how great is the power of almsgiving and beneficence, inasmuch as it conquers every difficulty and carries off victory over all things. First, it conquers those to whom one does good, even if they are enemies and hostile; for it softens, attracts, and turns back their hearts toward the benefactor. For who would not love in return one who loves him? Who would do evil to his benefactor? This is a powerful and noble kind of victory, about which the Apostle says, Romans 12:20: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink: for by doing this you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
Second, almsgiving conquers avarice and cupidity and all the other vices; for, as the Apostle says, 1 Timothy 6:10: "The root of all evils is cupidity." The reason is that contraries are conquered by contraries: just as fire is extinguished by water, so cupidity is quenched by almsgiving and generosity.
Third, almsgiving conquers and destroys sin — not only present and future sin, but also past sin — according to Daniel 4, addressed to Nebuchadnezzar: "Redeem your sins with almsgiving." And Sirach 3:33: "Burning fire is extinguished by water, and almsgiving resists sins, and God is the observer of him who returns thanks." The reason is that almsgiving done out of love of God and neighbor is an act of charity; and charity destroys every sin.
Fourth, almsgiving storms heaven, which is closed to the avaricious; for on account of the alms given, Christ the Judge will adjudge the almsgivers to heaven and the unmerciful to hell.
Fifth, the almsgiver conquers gold and all the riches of the world, which dominate mortals: he therefore, as if he were the lord of gold and the world, rules, dispenses, and distributes it.
Sixth, beneficence conquers demons and puts them to flight and expels them. The reason is that demons, on account of the anger and envy with which they burn against God and men, are entirely malicious and maleficent; but maleficence is conquered by beneficence, and the maleficent by the beneficent. Just as love conquers hatred, and the lover conquers the one who hates: so the almsgiver conquers demons; for he is like an Angel, who is entirely beneficent, and Angels conquer and put demons to flight. Here is relevant Psalm 41:2: "Blessed is the man who has regard for the poor and the needy; in the evil day the Lord will deliver him. May the Lord preserve him and give him life, and not deliver him into the will of his enemies" — that is, of the demons — says St. Chrysostom in the same place: "For just as oil causes athletes to slip from the hands of their adversaries, so also almsgiving causes those who practice it to evade and flee from demons." The same St. Chrysostom, on Ephesians chapter 6: "Our struggle," he says, "is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of the world and the powers of this darkness; therefore Paul commands us to take up the weapons of light against the darkness: Let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Therefore let the continual pouring of oil nourish this light, lest it fail; let us employ mercy, for this arms us against the most powerful enemies with every kind of weapon."
Seventh, almsgiving conquers God; hence, appearing in the form of a queen to St. John the Almsgiver, it asserted that it was most familiar to God and could obtain everything it wished from Him. Wherefore the Poet says: Gifts, believe me, placate both men and gods.
A similar victory, and a manifold one, Solomon assigned to obedience and to the obedient man, in chapter 21:28.
If beneficence conquers God, it also conquers nature (whose author and ruler is God), and all the advantages and disadvantages of nature, such as poverty, hunger, thirst, opulence, delicacies, gluttony, etc. Hence St. Chrysostom, Homily 19 on 2 Corinthians, in the moral section, praising the widow who gave to Elijah the little flour that she and her children needed for life, asserts that she conquered: first, nature, because she did not spare her children; second, hunger, because she deprived herself of food to give it to Elijah; third, death, because she exposed herself to its danger through starvation; fourth, Abraham, because she gave what was necessary for herself. "For what," he says, "was stronger than that woman? Did she not stand bravely against the tyranny of nature, against the violence of hunger, and against the threats of death, and was she not the strongest of all? But hear how Christ praises her: 'For there were many widows in the days of Elijah, and the Prophet was sent to none of them but to her.' I will say something great and admirable. She spent more on hospitality than our father Abraham; for she did not run to the herd as he did, but with that handful of flour she surpassed all who are celebrated for hospitality. For Abraham indeed was victorious in that he offered himself for this purpose; but she did not even spare her children for the sake of the guest, not yet expecting what was to come."
Hence our Martinus de Roa, book I of Singularia, chapter 9, explains it thus: "He who is inclined to mercy shall be blessed," that is, he shall be called good — indeed the best — that is, divine — indeed a kind of earthly god. For the most characteristic property of goodness (and God is goodness itself) is to do good. Cicero saw this better than anyone, in book II of On the Nature of the Gods: "But Jupiter himself," he says, "that is, the Helping Father, etc., is called by our ancestors 'the best and greatest'; and indeed 'best' before 'greatest,' because it is greater and certainly more pleasing to benefit all than to have great riches." Hence Varro says that 'rich' (dives) is so named as if 'divine' (divus), because like God he overflows with the greatest abundance and is willing to relieve the want and misery of others — himself receiving no inconvenience in the meanwhile — as much as he can. Now the name of God is a name of generosity and magnificence: Jupiter is so called from 'helping' (juvando), God (Deus) from 'giving' (dando). Hence in ancient times Maecenases, by their giving and their princely generosity toward their clients and dependents, found for themselves a divine name.
10. CAST OUT THE SCOFFER, AND STRIFE SHALL GO OUT WITH HIM (Symmachus and Theodotion: quarrel), AND LAWSUITS AND INSULTS SHALL CEASE
The Septuagint: 'Cast out the pestilent man from the assembly, and strife shall go out together with him; for when he sits in the assembly, he dishonors all' — the Greek ἀτιμάζει, that is, he dishonors, treats with contempt, heaps ignominy upon, thinks nothing of, despises. The Syriac: 'strife and reproach shall cease, lest, if he sit in the assembly, he heap insults on all.' The Chaldean: 'cast out the scoffer, and expel the contentious one, and strife and ignominy shall cease.'
For 'scoffer' the Hebrew is לץ lets, which word signifies a harmful and pestilent man who mocks others, scoffs at them, harasses them, disturbs the peace, and stirs up quarrels and fights — such as a whisperer, detractor, reviler, mocker, turbulent and seditious person. For such a man is the constant cause and fuel of arguments and brawls: he attacks others with insults and scoffing, and sows dissensions and quarrels. Therefore it says: "Cast out the scoffer," that is, the whisperer and troublemaker, "and strife shall go out with him, and lawsuits shall cease," that is, quarrels and insults. It says 'scoffer' in the singular, not 'scoffers' in the plural, because one restless and turbulent person is enough to disturb a whole assembly, a whole city and republic, and to harass and afflict it — just as a little leaven ferments the whole lump of dough. With this simile the Apostle proves, 1 Corinthians 5:6, that the scandalous fornicator must be cast out of the Church. Cast out therefore the scoffer, either from life, lest while living he disturb others (so some say); or more simply, cast him out from the assembly, from the city and the republic, so that together with him, as with a fire-starter and torch-bearer, arguments, quarrels, and insults may likewise depart. For just as in a cithara, lyre, lute, or organ, harmony consists in the consonant and fitting tempering of the individual strings or pipes with one another, so that if one is out of tune, it disturbs and ruins the whole harmony — wherefore the citharist, lyrist, or organist, who has keen ears, immediately notices which string or pipe is discordant (even though others unskilled in the art do not notice where the fault lies, but attribute it to the whole cithara or choir), and tunes it to agree with the rest, or, if it cannot be tuned, removes it and substitutes another consonant one in its place, and thus the former harmonious melody returns — so likewise the common life and peace is forged and consists of the peace and concord of individual citizens; and if some restless person refuses to harmonize himself with it, it is the duty of the magistrate or prince to mark him out and cast him out; for once he is cast out, the common peace and concord will return, and with it, well-being. Hence the Second Council of Toledo, also found in Question 5, Question IV, last chapter at the end, decrees that the clamorous and contentious be cast out from the council and assembly of bishops: "Lest contentious voices," it says, "disturb the understanding of the hearers, or tumult disturb the force of judgment. Whoever, therefore, in the assembly of the council disturbs the council with tumult, insults, or mockery, according to the decree of the divine law which commands: 'Cast out the scoffer, and strife shall go out with him,' let him be removed from the common assembly with all disgrace, and let him bear a sentence of excommunication for three days."
Such persons above all are heretics, who mock all things human and divine and turn them into jest, and thereby disturb the Catholic faithful. Hence Bede explains it thus: "Cast out the heretic whom you cannot correct from the Church, and when you have taken from him the freedom to preach, you will provide help for Catholic peace." For this reason the Church excommunicates heretics, as troublemakers, seditious and seducers, and casts them out from the Church, in order to protect the peace of the faithful, the integrity of the faith, and their salvation.
This maxim therefore warns heads of families to expel from their homes, prelates to expel from the Church, and princes to expel from the city and the republic, turbulent and pestilent men. For these disturb the peace, harass everyone, sow lawsuits, and infect the citizens. Therefore, like contagious plagues, they must be diligently sought out by the father, prelate, or prince, and strictly removed and expelled, in order to provide for the peace and well-being of the rest.
And the Author of the Greek Catena, partly literally and partly tropologically, says: Cast out from the chair of teaching a man imbued with wicked opinions and wicked actions. Likewise cast out from the kingdom of your soul the pestilent devil, and not only expel him thence, but also pursue him with hatred: for if he has taken up his seat in the soul, he will disturb and defile all its good thoughts through his innate malice and uncleanness. For the Apostle says that the soul stain them with infamy; and because where there is chastity from lust, there is also purity and cleanness from every crime — indeed faithfulness, sincerity, integrity. For the love of the flesh, or lust, is so powerful in man that he who has conquered it easily conquers the other vices; indeed it cannot be conquered without the other virtues, and especially without immense love. Hence St. Augustine, in his book On Holy Virginity, teaches that charity, like fire, purges and burns away all the dregs of lust, and thus makes virginity purer and more splendid. Now this chastity of heart begets chastity of speech, so that one says nothing that is not upright, modest, chaste, dignified, just, and holy — which is a remarkable grace by which one wins over all people, but especially kings and princes. The well-known saying is: 'A mouth chaste in words, a hand clean from theft, can visit all the regions of the earth.' "In ancient times," says Lyranus, "kings did not permit anyone to attend upon them unless he was pure and upright."
Fourth, R. Levi understands purity of heart as sincere love and charity, meaning: When someone acts with a sincere heart and pursues others with sincere love, such benevolence and charity, which he reveals toward his companions and friends by his words, obtains authority and power over them, so that he seems to be their king. This is his interpretation, who inverts the words by hypallage, meaning: He will be a friend of the king, that is, he will be a king of friends.
Fifth, and most fully, by purity of heart one should understand all the things already mentioned — namely purity from all pretense, duplicity, lying, deceit, lust, and every other wickedness and cupidity: for this is the full and perfect purity of heart. The meaning therefore is: He who has a heart pure from all vice and wicked desires, and at the same time has the grace of speaking by which he wins the goodwill of his hearers, will make kings and princes his friends. Two things, then, are required for this friendship: first, purity of heart; second, grace of lips, by which we are made lovable and pleasing to our hearers, according to Psalm 44:3: "Grace is poured out upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever." And Song of Songs 1:2: "Your name is oil poured out, therefore the young women have loved you." Thus the Jews "marveled at the gracious words that proceeded from His mouth" (Christ's), Luke 4:22. And Isaiah 50:4: "The Lord," he says, "has given me a learned tongue."
Moreover, one without the other is not sufficient, but both purity of heart and grace of lips must be present. Hence from the Hebrew you may translate with the Zurich version: 'the king is a friend of him who loves purity of heart and grace of lips.' Our translator, however, renders it 'on account of the grace of his lips,' because the Hebrews often imply 'on account of,' to signify that purity of heart begets grace of lips. For this purity of heart begets purity and uprightness of words, which wins over the hearers and draws them to love him. For the mouth is the image of the heart, and in pure words as in a mirror the purity of heart shines forth — which is most dear to all, but especially to kings. Just as the purity, cleanness, and genuineness of gold refined from dross is recognized by its ring: so purity of heart is revealed and perceived from the ring and sound of pure words. Kings therefore choose such men as their friends, both because they dare to entrust themselves and their affairs to such men, and because they can take them as partners in government — for their purity and integrity redounds upon the whole people (for as the governor is, so usually is the people) — and because their purity is an honor and ornament to the king. For from this the common people conclude that the king has a heart pure from all vice, inasmuch as he accepts only the pure and clean of heart as his friends and companions. For if impure men creep into the king's friendship, they dishonor and defame him, as if he himself were like them and impure — just as if someone were to stamp a counterfeit coin with the king's image, he would dishonor the king. For the king's image is placed on coins minted by him to signify that the coins are legitimate; therefore he who places the same image on counterfeits falsely claims they were minted and approved by the king as legitimate — which is a great injury and disgrace to the king. Just as the king's image testifies that a coin is true and pure, so likewise the king's favor and friendship commends a man's purity and excellence by its testimony. Such was Hushai, devoted to purity, and therefore a friend of King David, who accordingly faithfully thwarted the rebellion of Absalom from David, 2 Samuel 15 and 16. And Zabud, son of Nathan, friend of Solomon, 1 Kings 4:5.
This maxim therefore signifies, says Jansenius, that he who loves integrity of mind, and is free from pretense and is free from impiety — if the grace of speaking is also added — will please the king and the great. Or it signifies that such a person cannot help but have grace of lips with kings, that is, the words and speeches of such persons are for the most part pleasing, because they are spoken with a sincere mind, while the flattering eloquence of the wicked and deceitful, however elegant and polished, is displeasing and odious to the wise, inasmuch as through it they contrive evil. Hence it is written of Darius that, while holding a pomegranate in his hand, he said that he did not desire any greater treasure than to have as many Zopyruses as there were seeds in that fruit — signifying that nothing should be more pleasing to kings than faithful friends.
Moreover, he who is pure of heart and gracious in lips is not only a friend of the earthly king, but also of the heavenly king, that is, of God, according to Christ's words, Matthew 5: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." So R. Solomon says: He who excels in purity of heart and lips has the king as his friend, that is, God, who will both love him and see to it that he is loved by others. Wherefore, for 'who loves,' the Hebrew is אהב oheb, that is, 'loving,' which many refer to God. Thus the Chaldean: 'God loves,' he says, 'the one who is pure of heart, and by the grace of his lips he shall be a companion of the king.' The Syriac: 'and He loves the lips of the companions of the king.' Vatablus: 'loves' (supply 'the Lord') him who is pure of heart; on account of the grace of his lips, his companion is like a king, that is, he pursues his friend with such love that, were he a king, he would not wish to offend him even with a word. The Septuagint: 'God loves holy hearts' (Aquila and Theodotion: pure; Symmachus: chaste or pure), 'and all who are blameless in their ways are acceptable to Him,' or who are such that they cannot be reproached. Then what follows about the king is carried over to the next verse, in this manner: 'A king feeds with his lips' (they read רעה raah, that is, 'feeds,' instead of רע rea, that is, 'friend'); 'but the eyes of the Lord guard understanding,' meaning: The strength of a kingdom consists more in the prudence of the king than in power or the multitude of the people. So the Author of the Greek Catena.
Finally, Bede explains it partly literally and partly mystically thus: "He who with a pure heart preaches rightly will be numbered among those of whom the Prophet said to that same King and Creator of the ages: 'Your friends, O God, are exceedingly honored by me.' For if someone displays the grace of his lips by preaching rightly, but neglects to guard the purity of his heart, such a person must in no way be thought capable of enjoying the friendship of the eternal King."
The a priori reason is that God, as in His essence He is the most pure and most simple spirit, lacking all composition — even that which exists only of act and potency, of genus and difference, of essence and existence, such as exists in Angels — so likewise He is most pure in intellect and will, and therefore most remote from all error, duplicity, pretense, cupidity, passion, and impurity. Wherefore He loves the Angels, as pure spirits, and as approaching His own purity more than all other creatures. Likewise He loves chaste and pure souls, because in them, as in a clear and limpid mirror, the image of divine purity and splendor shines forth. These therefore are most like God; and likeness causes love and friendship, for like loves like. Hence chaste and pure souls are the temple of God, according to 2 Corinthians 6:16: "For you are the temple of God, as God says: 'I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people,'" Leviticus 26:12. Hence from the Chaldean and Vatablus you may translate this passage thus, and invert the version already cited (for Chaldean and Hebrew nouns, being indeclinable, can be translated in any case): "The one who is pure in heart loves God," etc. Such a person therefore says with Herminius: "I prefer to die rather than be defiled;" for purity is dearer to me than life. But the supreme and uncreated purity is God Himself.
Here are relevant the maxims of the wise. Antonius in the Melissa, Part II, chapters 88 and 89, cites this saying of Basil: "The first and most blessed thing is what is pure in our heart, because the counsel of the heart is the root of all the body's actions." And this saying of Nazianzen: "Piety consists not in downcast countenance, but in purity of thought." And this of Clement: "Not abstinence from crimes justifies the faithful, but chastity of thoughts and pure sincerity. A chaste prayer and a life stained by no blemish is a throne and the true temple of God." And this of Philo: "The thought of the wise man is the house of God, and He who is the God of all things is properly called the God of this house, because God walks in it as in a royal palace." And this of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr, to the prefect Paschasius: "Those who live chastely and piously are the temple of the Holy Spirit."
Now St. Cyril in the same place suggests the manner of purifying the heart: "Concupiscence," he says, "stirs up all impure thoughts and disturbances (just as fire stirs up smoke), inviting the mind to them, first deceiving with illusions, then applying force and shaking it. For in the manner of smoke, or even like certain vapors, the appetites of inborn pleasures arise in us. But he who is temperate and strong rebukes these impulses and does not allow them to advance further, and easily overcomes the still-weak impulses of disturbance. But the lazy and negligent person admits the beginnings of pleasures as if they were mere bare thoughts; and when he has permitted them to spread widely, it will be most difficult to resist. For he who has already been captured and occupied is not the master of his own counsels; indeed he is rather subjected to the victorious disturbance as to some barbarian conqueror.
Wherefore St. Basil wisely says in his homily at the beginning of Proverbs, and from him Damascenus, book III of the Parallels, chapter 27: "The mind," he says, "ought, like a certain helmsman, to sit above the vicious passions and mount the flesh as a ship, and skillfully turning the rudder of reason this way and that, to crush the waves with a noble and strong spirit; and so to conduct itself that, remaining above and impervious to disturbances, it may not be filled with their bitterness, just as it would not be filled with the saltiness of the sea." Damascenus in the same place cites this saying of Didymus: "By prolonged study and meditation, the force and ferocity of the excited movements of the soul is weakened. Nor are all things tranquil once the charioteer of the disturbances has subdued them even once; for as long as man dwells in this life, this war lasts."
11. HE WHO LOVES PURITY OF HEART, ON ACCOUNT OF THE GRACE OF HIS LIPS SHALL HAVE THE KING AS HIS FRIEND
You may ask what is here called purity of heart, and what is the grace of lips? First, Baynus, Cajetan, and Jansenius understand by purity of heart the candor and sincerity of the heart, and by grace of lips, truthfulness: for kings and princes love both, partly because they are vicars of God, who is the first truth, purity, and sincerity; and partly because they must judge truly and sincerely, govern the people, and administer all the duties of the republic. Therefore they greatly hate hypocrites, the deceitful, liars, and fraudsters, who attempt to obscure, remove, or pervert this truth that is so becoming to them and necessary for good governance. The meaning therefore is: He who loves "purity of heart," that is, candor and sincerity, and a similar "grace of lips," that is, truthfulness conforming to sincerity, free from deceit, pretense, and fraud — this man will please kings and princes, so that they will ardently desire to have him as a friend and familiar. By kings, understand the upright and wise: for the wicked and foolish love those like themselves, especially those who flatter them, even though they lie, deceive, trick, and mock — as Nero loved Simon Magus the impostor.
Second, our Salazar understands by purity of heart a heart free from hatred, malice, and wickedness — calm, peaceful, devoted to quiet and harmony; by grace of lips, he understands the grace of speaking and of conciliating love, peace, and concord. Thus this verse is connected with and opposed to the preceding one about casting out the scoffer, meaning: "He who loves purity of heart," etc. — that is, if someone is a man of sincere mind, truthful, devoted to peace and concord, the king should certainly choose him above others as his friend; for he is in every way suited to fulfill the duties of that office. And so, just as in the previous verse Solomon said that the scoffer should be kept as far away as possible, so here he teaches that this truthful and calm man should be attached and joined to oneself as closely as possible. I frequently cite the actual words of authors, because no one is a better interpreter of his own mind than himself — from which those who interpret it in their own words not infrequently stray.
Third, Bede, Hugh, Dionysius, and others understand by purity of heart the chastity of the heart, and by grace of lips, the chastity of words — on account of which St. John was beloved by Christ, King of kings, above the other Apostles. Kings and princes love both qualities in their intimates, both lest by their crime and but chastity of thoughts and pure sincerity. A chaste prayer and a life stained by no blemish is a throne and the true temple of God." And this of Philo: "The thought of the wise man is the house of God, and He who is the God of all things is properly called the God of this house, because God walks in it as in a royal palace." And this of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr, to the prefect Paschasius: "Those who live chastely and piously are the temple of the Holy Spirit."
12. THE EYES OF THE LORD GUARD KNOWLEDGE; AND THE WORDS OF THE WICKED ARE OVERTHROWN (incorrectly read in the Royal editions as 'superplantantur')
For 'guard' the Hebrew is נצרו natseru, that is, 'they observe.' For the proper function of eyes is to observe the thing seen; they also guard, preserve, and conserve. Again, for 'are overthrown,' the Hebrew is יסלף iesalleph in the active voice, that is, 'He overthrows, tramples, crushes, overturns' — namely, the Lord God.
You may ask what this knowledge is, and how it is opposed to the words of the wicked. First, Aben Ezra understands by 'knowledge' men endowed with knowledge: for thus the antithesis between the wise and the wicked is established, meaning: The eyes, that is, the intellect or will and good pleasure — namely, the providence of the Lord — guards men imbued with knowledge from all calamities; but the words of the wicked man plotting evil against those cultivated in knowledge, He will overthrow and render null. By knowledge, understand the practical kind, namely the pursuit of virtue, which is the knowledge of the Saints. The knowledgeable, therefore, or the wise, are the same as the just and holy. And R. Levi says: The eyes, or providence of God, preserves the mind of the wise, so that their thoughts and counsels may come about in reality. The same God demolishes the words of the wicked, casting them down from those things they had deliberately planned. And Vatablus says: God approves the things that are done by wise men; but He rejects the words (that is, the deeds), works, and actions of transgressors.
Second, Bede understands by 'knowledge' truth, especially of religion and faith, meaning: The divine gaze always guards in the Church the knowledge of the truth which it taught; but the words of heretics — indeed every discourse contrary to piety and justice, which is not preserved by the Lord the King — is overthrown along with its author. The words of the wicked are therefore 'overthrown,' when heretical doctrines are extinguished and, as if by the sole of the foot, are trampled and smothered, lest they propagate themselves and creep forth to infect neighbors and posterity.
Third, Jansenius understands by 'knowledge' truth spoken aloud, especially when a witness testifies to what he knows to be true. Knowledge, he says, can simply be taken for the cognition of a matter about which people speak and testify: so as to signify that the providence of the Lord preserves and protects the testimony of truth — namely, that testimony by which men speak and attest what they know. But on the contrary, He overthrows the words of the wicked, which they have devised against the truth to the ruin of others, saying something different from what they know to be true. The Chaldean version supports this, which for 'the words of the wicked are overthrown' translates: 'He struck down the words of robbers'; and the Syriac: 'the words of falsehood are put to rout.' The Chaldean and Hebrew טלטל tiltel means the same as 'struck down,' 'puts to rout,' 'casts out,' 'uproots,' 'transports'; or 'covers,' 'conceals,' 'obscures,' 'overshadows.'
Fourth, others understand by 'knowledge' prudence and wisdom. For the eyes, that is, the providence of the Lord in the world, and especially in His Church, protects and guards this, and overthrows the "words," that is, the sayings and deeds of the foolish — that is, of the wicked — which are contrary to prudence and wisdom.
Fifth, plainly and genuinely, our Salazar considers these things to be said against the lying scoffers of verse 10, meaning: God indeed sees all things; for nothing escapes His most penetrating gaze, and He is therefore an eyewitness of all things. This is what those words mean: "The eyes of the Lord guard knowledge," that is, they preserve within Himself the most certain and intuitive knowledge of every matter; "and the words of the wicked are overthrown." In the Hebrew this sentence is active, in this manner: 'And He overthrows, or overturns, the words of the wicked.' Namely, God Himself, who is an eyewitness of the matter, convicts the words — that is, the lies and deceits — of the wicked impostor, and plainly exposes his falsehood. Solomon also signifies that even when someone lies with the greatest confidence, because he thinks the matter is completely hidden, he is not safe, because he had God as a spectator, who, retaining the knowledge and awareness of the matter within Himself, will be able, when He wishes, to expose it once the man's falsehood has been convicted, and to spread it abroad among the people. This is indeed a very elegant and God-worthy maxim.
Finally, in general 'knowledge' here can be taken for any cognition and truth, whether of faith or of morals, which God protects and guards in the world and in His Church through teachers and wise men, and overthrows and crushes the falsehood contrary to it which the wicked try to introduce. For to God, who is the first truth, belongs the care and protection of every truth, so that even though it be oppressed for a time by the wicked, yet with God as its guardian and avenger it may at last raise its head, shine forth, conquer, and triumph — as was manifested in Christ, the Apostles, St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and the other teachers, defenders, and champions of faith, truth, prudence, and wisdom.
The Septuagint translates: 'A king feeds with his lips; but the eyes of the Lord preserve understanding; but the wicked despises words,' meaning: The king by his wise edicts, responses, and sayings feeds his subjects like sheep — that is, he governs and nourishes them in civil life. But the wicked despise his words and laws, and by perversely interpreting them twist them into another sense that favors their own desires. But the eyes of the Lord preserve their true meaning, according to which in His own time, and especially on the day of judgment, He will judge, condemn, and punish the wicked, or, as the Hebrew has it, בוגד boged, that is, the transgressor of the law. And thus by this maxim Solomon strikes the impious with fear of divine judgment — those who pervert and violate the laws of kings — in order by that fear to bring them back to a sound mind and to obedience to the king and the laws.
13. THE SLUGGARD SAYS: THERE IS A LION OUTSIDE, I SHALL BE KILLED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREETS
The Septuagint: 'The sluggard offers an excuse and says: A lion is in the roads, and murderers in the streets.' The Syriac: 'The sluggard says when he is sent: A lion is in the way, behold, a slayer in the street.' The Chaldean: 'The sluggard says in his sluggishness: Behold, a lion is outside, and in the streets a murderer.' R. Levi says: The lazy man does not go forth from his house to his work because of the remarkable sloth with which he is torpid, and says that there is a lion outside which will tear him apart if he leaves the house, and that robbers occupy the marketplace who will kill him if he betakes himself thither.
This maxim vividly portrays the sluggishness of the lazy; for lest they be compelled to work and to earn their living by labor, they invent for themselves a thousand empty fears and dangers, and exaggerate small difficulties, reckoning them to be the greatest — just as children dread shadows and phantoms. And, as the common saying goes: "They make a lion out of an ant." They invent, I say, for themselves a myrmecoleon, that is, an ant-lion, when they seize upon and dread some light matter and easy task as if it were something terrible and insurmountable. Hence Olympiodorus, on Job 4:11 according to the Septuagint: "The myrmecoleon perished because it had no prey" — the myrmecoleon, he says, that is, the ant-lion, is the devil, who to the vigorous and noble is contemptible as an ant, but to the timid and lazy is terrible as a lion. Hence the devil's type is this: "The crocodile is a fleeing animal before the bold, but most bold before the timid," says Seneca, book IV of Natural Questions, chapter 2. On the other hand, concerning Modestus, the prefect of the Emperor Valens, who tried in vain to drag St. Basil to Arianism, Cyrus Theodorus sings: 'Modestus, you are subject to Basil the Great: You are an ant, though you roar like a lion.'
The sluggard therefore says: "There is a lion outside," that is, a lion is prowling in the fields outside the city, which will maul and devour me if I leave the city. "I shall be killed in the middle of the streets," that is, in the city itself and its streets brawls and assassins are rampant, who will kill me if I leave the house. Everywhere, therefore, he paints deadly and insuperable dangers, lest he be compelled to go out to work, meaning: I cannot safely leave either the city or the house. For if I leave the city, I will fall upon a lion which will tear me apart; if I go out of the house, I will fall upon brawlers and assassins who will stab me. It is therefore necessary, if I wish to protect my life, that I sit quietly and idle at home. It does happen from time to time that people leaving a city fall upon lions and are mauled by them, as happened to the prophet sent by God to Samaria because he had eaten food there against the Lord's command, 1 Kings 13:24; and in Africa this is frequent in some places, as Pliny testifies, book VIII, chapter 16. But the lazy transfer the danger of one place to their own, where there is none, and make universal what happened once to one person, and appropriate it to themselves. For this is what the fear bred by laziness does.
In Hebrew it says עצל atsel, that is, sluggish and slow like a donkey: 'A lion is outside.' For the donkey marvelously dreads the lion, as if it were the peculiar enemy lying in wait for its life, to feed on its flesh. Hence Sirach 13:23: "The wild donkey is the lion's prey in the desert." He alludes to the character and roar of lions. For this is so terrible that it strikes all animals with terror and stupefies them, and thus halts, captures, mauls, and devours them, as I have taught above from Pliny. In a similar way, terrifying phantasms and the apprehension of difficulties, which laziness suggests to the sluggard, so strike him that they stupefy him, halt him, consume him, waste him away, and kill him. For the courageous are like lions, who fear nothing but are feared by all, especially by donkeys — that is, the lazy — who fear everything, even what is safe and not to be feared. Hence they make themselves the slave, the fodder, and the laughingstock of fear.
The cause is that idleness and laziness suggest to a man a thousand apprehensions and imaginations which represent, exaggerate, and magnify all the difficulties of labor and of the task to be done, even the smallest, so vividly that the mind is struck with fear and shrinks from work. Hence St. Basil, quoted by Antonius in the Melissa, Part II, chapter 46: "Idleness," he says, "is the beginning of mischief. This is the peculiar disease of the idle and slothful mind — that while the body is awake, it sees dreams." In the same place, St. Chrysostom: "Nothing," he says, "is so easy that great laziness does not make it seem very burdensome and hateful; nor is anything so laborious and difficult that zeal and eagerness does not make it very easy." And Clement: "Those who are weak and feeble find even what is moderate to be beyond their strength." And Philo: "Countless people, by neglecting exercise, have enfeebled even their natural strength. Idleness confirmed by habit and rest is treacherous."
This maxim is true in temporal matters, even truer in spiritual ones. For the slow and lazy invent for themselves dangers and burdens that do not exist, and tremble with fear where there is nothing to fear. Fasting, praying, resisting desires, etc. — the carnal and the lazy consider these to be intolerable and impossible for themselves. Hence Bede says: "'A lion is outside, I shall be killed in the middle of the streets' — which is to say openly: 'When the words and works of virtue begin to be displayed outwardly, immediately persecution from either men or envious spirits follows, and I am unable to resist in temptations, but am defeated in the very beginnings of my good resolution.'" So also the Author of the Greek Catena: "He who is sluggish toward virtue," he says, "usually says: 'A lion is in the way,' that is, it is better to live in an ordinary and careless manner than to face any danger on account of piety. By the lion the devil is designated: for it is he who besieges the ways of virtue. Indeed, under the name of murderers, demons are not unfittingly symbolized." And a little later: "Otherwise, the sluggard says: 'A lion is in the way,' that is, demons and wicked thoughts are an obstacle to me, preventing me from making progress in God's commandments."
Again, you may apply this maxim to tepid and lazy clerics, priests, and religious, who wish to be idle and do nothing, devoting themselves neither to contemplation nor to action. Such a person in reality says: I do not wish to withdraw from the bustle of the city to a secluded place to devote myself to contemplation, because there a lion prowls — that is, the devil, who prepares a thousand temptations and snares for hermits and contemplatives. Likewise I do not wish to devote myself to action; I do not wish to preach, catechize, or hear confessions, because in these there are dangers that I may destroy myself and make myself liable for others' sins, and transfer them to myself. But let such people consider that in idleness and sloth a far graver danger threatens them from the leopard and panther, who lies in wait for the idle to spring upon them and maul and devour them — namely from Asmodeus and the spirit of fornication, who stirs up in the idle a thousand desires of every kind of lust, and concupiscences that oppress and suffocate them, just as Asmodeus suffocated the seven bridegrooms of Sarah because of their idleness and lust, Tobit 3:8.
St. Augustine says beautifully, Sermon 65 On the Times, speaking of the diligence of hospitality with which Abraham received the Angels, Genesis 18: "See, brethren," he says, "with what fervent spirit you ought to receive guests. Behold, Abraham himself runs, his wife hurries, the servant hastens; there is no sluggard in the house of the wise man." The same, Sermon 245: "Do not be lazy," he says, "in the work whose reward you desire, etc.; labor passes, rest comes." Work therefore in time, so that you may rest and exult in eternity: "For the sufferings (likewise the actions and labors) of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that shall be revealed in us," Romans 8:18. Live therefore, labor, suffer, sweat for eternity. What torments is but a moment; what delights and blesses is eternal.
14. THE MOUTH OF A STRANGE WOMAN IS A DEEP PIT: HE WITH WHOM THE LORD IS ANGRY SHALL FALL INTO IT
In Hebrew: 'A deep pit is the mouth of strange women; he with whom the Lord is incensed shall fall there.' So also in Symmachus and Theodotion: 'the mouth of strange women,' that is, of adulteresses and harlots. The Septuagint, however, takes 'the mouth of strange things,' that is, of foreign matters, as the mouth of the wicked man, which belches forth things foreign to the law and to God. Hence they translate: 'A deep pit is the mouth of the wicked; he who is hated by God shall fall into it.' So also R. Levi, who explains it thus: When someone speaks things that are foreign and contradictory — namely, things that conflict with truth and the foundations and principles of the art — this is entirely like a deep pit, from which one who falls has no support to get out. "He with whom God is angry": And God is angry with him who falls into this pit, for he will constantly recede from the right path and the summit of the virtues, so that he will always harden more firmly in this pernicious course.
But others generally understand 'strange women' as harlots. Hence Vatablus: 'The mouth of a harlot is a deep chasm, into which he will fall with whom the Lord is angry.' By 'mouth,' understand kisses, nods, and words of flattery, and all the other allurements of the harlot's mouth and face, by which harlots, like sorcerers, snatch men to themselves and drive them mad. The meaning is: The mouth of the harlot, which by kisses, amorous words and songs, like a siren lures young men and men to itself, is a deep abyss, swallowing up young men and men, like Hekla, Vesuvius, and Etna. For just as these mountains, seething with fires, hurl forth fiery globes by which they set ablaze and burn everything round about, so the mouth of the harlot, seething with the fire of lust, hurls forth the flames and torches of love, by which she snatches everyone into desire for herself and sets them ablaze. Again, just as Vesuvius snatched and swallowed up Pliny the Elder, who approached too close to its mouth in the time of the Emperor Vespasian to investigate the causes of so great a conflagration, so the mouth of the harlot snatches and devours the young men who approach her, just as the sirens devoured the companions of Ulysses, whom they had lured to themselves and driven mad with their sweet-sounding songs.
"Deep pit" signifies here by catachresis the utmost destruction and ruin — namely poverty, diseases, infamy, death, and finally the abyss of hell, into which those who resort to harlots fall. This pit is so deep that it has no bottom and is endless and eternal. Thus the harlot is a whirlpool of patrimonies, a devouring abyss of all goods, the pit of hell, according to that verse in chapter 7:27: "The ways of hell are her house, penetrating to the innermost parts of death."
Moreover, just as Etna does not always vomit fire, but first gathers and heaps it up within itself, so that at the appointed time it may hurl forth at once immense masses of flame like mountains: so the mouth of the harlot deliberately suppresses her loves from time to time, so that, having accumulated them, she may hurl them with greater force at those who approach her at the right moment, so that they cannot resist. The mouth of the harlot is therefore like the mouth of the abyss, indeed like the vestibule of hell, so that if you fall into the mouth of the harlot, you will fall into meretricious loves and entanglements from which you will never extricate yourself, and finally into the abyss of hell, from which you will never be able to emerge for all eternity. So Bede says: "'A deep pit is the mouth of a strange woman,' etc. For he who willingly embraces the words or kisses of a harlot is, as it were, already knocking at the door of the abyss of hell, and is quickly submerged if he does not cautiously draw back his foot, if he does not restrain the rest of his members from the vicinity of the penal pit, into which absolutely no one falls except a child of wrath."
HE WITH WHOM THE LORD IS ANGRY SHALL FALL INTO IT
In Hebrew the word is 'ebreum,' which denotes intense anger, fury, and rage — meaning: He with whom God is vehemently angry, or who is the object of divine indignation, and against whom God's wrath burns and He hurls His fury, shall fall into this pit of the harlot.
Some take these words by hypallage, as if to say: "He with whom the Lord is angry shall fall into it" — that is, he who has fallen into it will bring God's wrath upon his own head; and the chief part of his ruin will be that from that ruin and pit he will never emerge. But others take these words more simply as they sound, meaning: To fall into a harlot is the punishment for a preceding sin; for God does not usually permit so great and so ruinous a fall except for him with whom He is vehemently angry on account of preceding sins.
Solomon therefore signifies that, just as it is a singular grace of God to be preserved from this meretricious pit — which happens to few who are beloved by God — so it is a special mark of His vengeance to fall into it. Hence theologians teach that a subsequent sin is the punishment of a prior one, and that God punishes a lesser preceding sin with a greater subsequent one, as the Master of the Sentences teaches in Book II, distinction 35; St. Augustine in Psalm 57; St. Gregory, Book 26 of the Moralia, chapter 12, and others throughout; which the Hebrews express as: Transgression draws transgression.
Moreover, the sins on account of which God permits men to fall into inextricable meretricious loves are chiefly two. The first is heresy and unbelief, on account of which God permitted the Philosophers to fall into unnatural lusts, as Paul teaches in Romans 1. So in this age we hear and see with our own eyes that the heresies of Calvin, Luther, and the Anabaptists are punished with unrestrained and horrendous lusts, which are followed by unheard-of diseases, the French disease, and other horrible penalties and miseries. The second is pride: for the fitting punishment of pride is lust, so that those who by pride raise themselves to the heights are by lust cast down to the depths. Hence St. Gregory, Book 26 of the Moralia, chapter 13, teaches that the guardian of chastity is humility, and that the punishment of pride is lust: "Thus, thus the proud were to be struck with a just retribution: that because by their pride they set themselves above other men, by their lust they should be degraded to the likeness of beasts. For man, when he was in honor, did not understand: he was compared to senseless beasts and became like them." And after many intervening words: "Hence indeed through Hosea, chapter 5, it is said against the Israelites: 'The spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord.' Who, to show that the cause of lust burst forth from the fault of pride, immediately added, saying: 'And the arrogance of Israel shall answer to his face.' As if to say: The fault that lay hidden in the secret pride of the mind has answered openly through the lust of the flesh." Whence he wisely concludes, saying: "Therefore the purity of chastity must be preserved through the custody of humility; for if the spirit is devoutly held down under God, the flesh is not unlawfully raised above the spirit. For the spirit has the dominion over the flesh committed to it, provided that it acknowledges the rights of lawful service under God. But if by pride it despises its Author, it rightly undergoes warfare from the subject flesh. Whence also that first disobedient man, as soon as he sinned by pride, covered his shameful parts. For because his spirit offered insult to God, he immediately found the insult of the flesh. And because he was unwilling to be subject to his Author, he lost the right over his subject flesh, which he had governed: so that the confusion of his own disobedience might rebound upon himself, and being overcome he might learn what he had lost by being proud."
Tropologically, the deep pit is the mouth of the harlot, that is, the mouth of heresy and the heretic: for from one error it slides into another, from one crime into another, and drags others along with it, and so entangles them that they cannot extricate themselves, but always fall more deeply, until they plunge into the abyss of hell. For from heresy a return to the orthodox faith is rare: few acknowledge their error, repent, and come to their senses. "He with whom the Lord is angry shall fall into it," because heresy is never the first sin, but the punishment of preceding pride, injustice, or lust. For it is the supreme wrath of God when He permits someone to fall into heresy; therefore grave sins must precede, which provoke so great a wrath of God that He allows the person to slide into the abyss of heresy. Hence the Vatican Septuagint here fittingly appends another maxim that does not exist in the Hebrew, Chaldean, or Vulgate, namely this: "There are evil ways before a man, and he does not love to turn back from them; but one ought to turn aside from a perverse and evil way." The Scholia append yet another fitting saying to this: "There are ways through which a man should not walk; but the impious man loves the ways of death and perdition."
15. FOOLISHNESS IS BOUND UP IN THE HEART OF A CHILD, AND THE ROD OF DISCIPLINE SHALL DRIVE IT AWAY
Vatablus renders: 'and the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.' The Vatican Septuagint: 'folly hangs from the heart of a youth, but the rod and discipline are far from him.' The Complutensian and Royal editions: 'foolishness is suspended in the heart of a youth,' etc. The Syriac: 'foolishness makes the heart of a child fly away, and the rod of discipline is far from him' — namely, instead of the Hebrew 'iarchikenna' in the hiphil, meaning 'he shall drive away' or 'put far from' it, the Septuagint and Syriac read with different vowel points 'iarchecna,' meaning 'the rod and discipline shall be far from him.' The Author of the Greek Catena reads: 'discipline is far from it,' namely from the foolishness of the child, as if to say: Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child as long as it remains unchastised; for by chastisement it is loosed and removed. "Bound up" means it clings, is attached, is joined, just as if it were tied with a rope. It is a catachresis.
This foolishness consists in childish levity, petulance, rudeness, thoughtlessness, imprudence, inexperience, inconstancy, and concupiscence: for these are bound up, indeed innate, in the child. For a child is like a brute animal, which is driven not by reason but by sense, and desires everything it sees. "In children and beasts," says Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6, chapter 13, "natural dispositions are present, but without intellect and mind, they appear to be harmful." Therefore, just as a donkey, horse, or mule is kept from its desires by a rod or stick, and is driven and directed straight to where the rider or driver wills, so likewise a child is kept from his foolish desires and driven onto the right path, to live according to the dictates of law and right reason, by the rod of discipline, by which he is chastised by his father, teacher, or tutor. For children, being foolish and dependent, because they have a weak reason and mind, fear rods more than swords and blades; hence foolishness is properly restrained by the rod, as is evident in the case of the simple-minded.
"Bound up" therefore signifies, first, that a strong, knotty, and pertinacious foolishness and concupiscence clings to the child; yet not so as to be insoluble and incorrigible, but rather such that it can and ought to be loosed and removed by the rod of discipline.
Second, that the nature of the child is not in itself foolish and depraved, but sound and good; and that foolishness comes to it from outside, just as a bond comes from outside to the thing bound — namely, from the sin of Adam. For through this all children contract foolishness, that is, concupiscence and original sin.
Third, that children cannot free themselves from foolishness, because they are bound to it and have their minds fettered by infancy; therefore this foolishness must be driven out by the rod. For children, like animals, do not grasp reason, but they feel the blows of the rod, and thus renounce their foolishness.
Fourth, "foolishness," that is, concupiscence, is here introduced anthropopathically as a person — for example, as a playful spirit or little demon bound to the child, besieging and occupying him and inciting him to playful actions, who must be driven away by chastisement.
Fifth, by this word it is signified that concupiscence, like a strong rope, binds the children of Adam throughout their entire life. For as Isaiah says, chapter 5:18: "Woe to you who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with a cart rope!" And Solomon, Proverbs 5:22: "His own iniquities catch the wicked man, and he is bound by the cords of his own sins." See what has been said on both passages.
Hugh considers foolishness to be bound up in the child, just as grains or chaff are bound together in a sack; or rather, just as chaff clings to the grain and is shaken out and winnowed by the rod, so that the grain remains pure and whole. Cajetan, however, thinks the metaphor is drawn from drunkenness, which binds the mind of the drunkard but is shaken off and dispelled by blows and stripes. For the child, like a drunkard, has his mind and reason bound by his desire as if by drunkenness; but the rod of discipline dispels it, so that the mind may be free and reason may awaken. Others think the figure is drawn from horses and donkeys, which are tied by a rope to the manger and their feed: for so children are tied by the rope of foolishness and concupiscence to their playthings and dainties.
Moreover, the Septuagint, who translate "foolishness is suspended from the heart of a child," seem to allude to the bullae (amulets) which the ancients hung from the necks of noble children above the heart, as if to say: Foolishness, like a bulla, clings to the heart of a noble or freeborn child, whom his parents do not chastise but allow to do whatever he pleases. Hence they add: "but the rod and discipline are far from him," as if to say: The cause of the foolishness of the spoiled child is the absence of the rod — namely, that his parents, being too indulgent toward him, spare the rod, and thus allow him to remain in foolishness, to grow more foolish day by day, and to brood freely over his childish passions.
Moreover, immense is the stupidity of men who not only fall into this pit and whirlpool of evils, but even willingly throw and hurl themselves into it. Empedocles the philosopher, a disciple of Pythagoras and inventor of Rhetoric, was a madman who, in order to be considered an immortal god, leaped into Etna; but his iron sandals, cast back out of the furnace by the flames, revealed the truth. Hence Horace, in the Art of Poetry:
'Wishing to be held an immortal god, Empedocles fervently leaped into burning Etna.'
The same, Book 1, Epistle 12:
'Whether Empedocles or the acumen of Stertinius is more mad.'
Those who willingly throw themselves headlong into meretricious loves imitate the madness of Empedocles.
In like manner, foolishness — that is, concupiscence — is bound up in the heart of every man who is a child, that is, a son of Adam, and therefore full of ignorance and concupiscence. Therefore this must be taken from him by the rod, both of self-denial and self-mortification, and of external chastisement and direction, which is provided by a Superior, or by a companion and friend. For concupiscence is similar to a child, and makes children out of men, on account of the analogies which I reviewed from Thomas at Sirach 30:8.
Moreover, the Syriac translates: 'foolishness makes the heart of a child fly away.' For the mind of a child is flighty, and now flies here, now there, while it desires now this thing, now that; while restlessly it settles nowhere, but now thinks and wills this, now that; now it is carried here, now elsewhere and elsewhere, like a little bird that now flies here, now there. For so the chicks of birds, when they fly from the nest, rest nowhere but constantly flit from one branch to another and another; for they are learning to fly and are eager to fly about. Similarly the mind and imagination of a child flies about, until it is restrained and bridled by the rod of discipline and tied and bound to a book and school or something similar.
Finally, it should be noted, says Jansenius, that the text says 'the rod of discipline,' signifying that moderate chastisement should be applied to children, not the rod of anger and cruelty — that is, they should be chastised not so much for punishment as for correction. The rod of anger is due to the wicked, who sin knowingly; the rod of discipline to children, who sin from ignorance and lack of knowledge. This rod does not drive foolishness from the wicked, when they have come into the depths of sins; it drives it from children who are to be formed in virtues by the fear of punishment. How much the care of men avails for the change and correction of a corrupted nature is shown by St. Basil, Homily 5 on the Hexaemeron, from the care of farmers, by which wild and woodland fruits are softened and transformed for human use.
Following Solomon as usual, Sirach says, Sirach 30:1: "He who loves his son," he says, "gives him frequent stripes, that he may rejoice in the end." And verse 8: "An untamed horse becomes stubborn, and an indulged son becomes headstrong. Pamper your son, and he will make you afraid," etc. See what has been said there.
With Solomon and Sirach agree the other wise men. Antonius in the Melissa, Part II, chapter 20, cites St. Basil, who says: "It is the natural vice of youth that, because of the levity of their judgment, they think they already possess what they have desired only in hope, and therefore are puffed up — because in their foolishness they think they enjoy hoped-for things as if they were present. Youth is fickle and inclined to wickedness: unbridled desire, the rage of beasts, rashness, injustice, pride, vainglory, and lofty spirits are innate and intertwined with the evil of youth. Envy of what excels, suspicions about close friends — in short, the swarm of all evils is connected and joined to youth. Youth is exceedingly changeable, for it is driven by the diverse waves of passions. It therefore needs a guide to lead it straight to port." And St. Gregory Nazianzen, who says: "Youth is the heat of the season." And St. Chrysostom: "By anger and desires young people are more easily led and overcome; therefore they require greater vigilance and a harder bridle." And Philo: "A young man who has attained supreme power and uses unbridled desires is an unconquerable evil." Among the Spartans, if a boy who had been chastised by a teacher or by another person for a fault brought a complaint to his father, it was shameful for the father if, upon hearing this, he did not chastise his son again. For by the institution of their ancestors they had this care for their children, and this mutual confidence about one another, that they believed there was no one who would command anything dishonorable to anyone's children, whom each regarded as his own. So Plutarch in the Laconian Apophthegms. See Aristotle, Politics, Book 8, chapters 1 ff., especially chapter 5, where he teaches that children should be taught music, so that through it as a kind of discipline they may harmoniously compose their character: "Since it has happened," he says, "that music belongs to pleasurable things, and virtue consists in rejoicing rightly, and in loving and hating, one must above all learn and become accustomed to nothing so much as to judging rightly and to rejoicing in gentle manners and praiseworthy deeds." This is what musical harmony accomplishes, which snatches the ears and mind of the child away from earthly pleasures to itself, and by its modulations, as it were, tempers and composes it, just as David by striking and modulating the harp would temper and calm the perturbations of Saul, 1 Samuel 16:23.
16. HE WHO OPPRESSES THE POOR TO INCREASE HIS OWN RICHES SHALL HIMSELF GIVE TO A RICHER MAN AND SHALL BE IN WANT
"Oppresses" — that is, by slanders he plunders, despoils, and defrauds. For the Hebrew word 'asak' means to calumniate, oppress, to seize and occupy another's goods through sophistical tricks and lawsuits — which the Greeks call 'sykophantein' — whether by denying a promised wage, or by unjustly withholding another's property, or by invading it, or by deceiving in any way whatever, and stripping him of his right, or depriving him of what is owed. He who does any of these things is called a Sycophant, about whose word's force and etymology I shall say more at chapter 28, verse 16. Hence Pagninus translates: 'he who takes by force from the poor to increase his own wealth.' Vatablus: 'he who by injustice and violence oppresses the poor, in order to enrich himself.'
The Hebrew words, therefore, taken literally are: 'he who defrauds the poor in order to increase, giving to the rich — certainly to want.' These words are general, loose, and unlimited, and can be variously joined, bound, limited, and drawn to various particular senses. Hence —
First, the Chaldean translates: 'he who oppresses the poor multiplies evil for himself; and he who gives to the rich — poverty shall be his.' So the sentence is bipartite and signifies two things: first, that he who plunders the poor accumulates evils for himself, that is, losses of his goods and fortunes; second, that he who gives his goods to the rich in hope of a return will be reduced to poverty, since the rich, being proud, avaricious, and ungrateful, often swallow up everything.
Even if foolishness is most closely joined to the mind of a child, even if foolishness clings to the inmost bowels of the child, yet the chastising rod will drive it out from there. are called such, which is required in the mystical sense, so that it may truly be mystical and intended by the Holy Spirit.
Fourth, Baynus explains it thus: He who slanders the poor man, that is, he who violently seizes the goods of the poor, or who defrauds the needy of due alms in order to grow rich; likewise he who gives to the rich, that is, who by flattering the wealthy gives them small gifts so as to receive greater ones ("who, as Isocrates says, sell their wares more craftily than those who openly keep shop") — both will come to want and poverty. For the true art of growing rich is to give generously to the poor, not to take from them, according to that saying in chapter 19:17: "He who has mercy on the poor lends to the Lord, and He will repay him his due." Nor do gifts given to the rich avail, but rather are lost, because the rich, always grasping to increase their own wealth, are forgetful and ungrateful for what has been given, expecting new gifts.
Fifth, a certain Rabbi takes the word "multiplies," or as it is in Hebrew, "for multiplying," as referring to multiplication both passive and active, both of punishment and of guilt. That is to say: He who strips the poor man of his goods gains this profit, that his own wealth is multiplied; but just as he multiplies his riches, so also he multiplies the dispersal of those riches, so that, just as he himself seized the great wealth of many and gathered it into himself alone, so in turn those riches are divided from him alone into many parts and distributed among many, and thus while many are enriched, he himself is reduced to poverty. Therefore, just as he multiplied riches for himself, so he will multiply his punishment; he defrauded many, by many he will be defrauded; he seized much, much will be seized from him.
Sixth, our translator most aptly renders it: he who slanders the poor to increase his own riches will himself give to one richer and be in want. That is to say: He who defrauds and plunders the poor man in order to enrich himself will likewise be plundered by one richer than he, whereby he will fall into poverty. For this is the fitting punishment of retaliation, which the providence of God inflicts upon them, as experience proves. Thus we see that those who prey upon others become the prey of the more powerful: just as the fish that preys upon a smaller one becomes the prey and food of a larger, and so all at last become the prey of the whale. "The larger fish, says Aristotle (History of Animals, Book IX, ch. 2), wage war against the smaller; for each larger and stronger one devours the smaller and weaker." The same is taught by St. Basil, Homily 7 on the Hexaemeron, whose words I cited at Habakkuk 1:14, on the verse: "And you make men like the fish of the sea." Furthermore, those who violently oppress the poor are compelled to give much to governors, so that, defended by their patronage, they may more freely seize and oppress the weak, who can defend themselves neither by strength nor by wealth; or conversely, the rich who are more powerful than they justly or unjustly seize from them what was ill-gotten, just as we see princes despoil usurers and plunderers. This maxim strengthens us, so that when we see certain people growing rich by evil means, we may not be immediately scandalized, but await the outcome, and be firmly persuaded that their riches will not be stable, but that what was unjustly taken will someday be taken away, and they will be punished by the same means by which they sinned, as it says in Wisdom, chapter 11.
Mystically, Basil, whether the Great or of Seleucia, in the Greek Chain, says: "See how the devil acts unjustly and slanderously with us. He takes away from us the virtues that we ourselves had given; he gives back in return the vices that we had not asked for. We receive from him as from one who is poor in virtues. We on the contrary give him our virtues, as to one who is rich in malice and vices, and this to our manifest harm: for the more one gives to him, the more he wounds his own soul."
Third, Rabbi Levi translates: he who oppresses the poor will multiply riches for himself; but he who gives to the rich will tend toward poverty. And by the poor and the rich he understands appetite and desire, which the good repress and restrain, so that it becomes needy and thin; but the wicked give it free rein, so that it becomes rich and ample. He who restrains, he says, the appetitive faculty by which bodily desires are inflamed, when indeed he does not comply with this inclination, this will be of the greatest profit: for the more diligently one labors to restrain these desires, the less will he be troubled by anxiety and craving, and therefore the greatest abundance will always flow to him unto satisfaction. But he who gives to the rich, that is, he who indulges his desires, will thenceforth suffer want: for the more he will continually hunger, the more he will desire, according to the well-known saying: "Man has small limbs, and he who sates them goes hungry; he who starves them is satisfied." So says Rabbi Levi. But these are mystical interpretations, and are not fittingly built upon the letter of the text.
Second, the Septuagint varies here. For the Complutensian and Royal editions have: He who slanders the poor multiplies his own evils; but he gives to the rich to his loss. The author of the Greek Chain renders and clarifies this in one sentence: "He who slanders the poor man, and gives more than is fitting to the rich in a matter of less importance, makes his own evils more heaped up." But the Vatican Codex deletes the word 'evils,' as do the Hebrew and Latin. Hence it reads: He who slanders the poor makes many things his own; but he gives to the rich to his loss. And this seems to be the true and genuine reading of the Septuagint. Now various authors explain 'to his loss' in various ways. The author of the Greek Chain says: To his loss, that is, in a matter of lesser importance. The Scholiast, on the contrary, says it gives a greater occasion for evildoing, meaning: He who plunders the poor to enrich himself gives the poor man an occasion to plunder and despoil another lesser person in like manner, to relieve his own poverty. Others say: to his loss, meaning: lesser is this punishment, namely that he is compelled to give his goods to a richer man; for another greater punishment awaits him in the world to come. But the Septuagint's 'to his loss' is the same as what the Hebrew has, 'to deficiency,' meaning: to his loss, that is, he will be reduced to want and poverty. Hence Symmachus translates: he will give to the rich, and be utterly destitute. The sense therefore is: He who plunders the poor man in order to grow rich will likewise give his goods to a richer man; and so he will come to his loss, that is, he will be brought to poverty. Thus the Septuagint agrees with the Vulgate.
The Syriac agrees: he who oppresses the poor multiplies evil; he who gives to the richer man is his own destruction.
The Emperor Vespasian, says Suetonius, used to promote the most rapacious men to the helm of the State, so that once they had grown rich he might condemn them. Hence it was commonly said that he kept his officials as sponges, which, like sponges when dry, he would soak, and when wet, squeeze out. Cato used to say, "Thieves of private property spend their lives in fetters, but thieves of public property walk about conspicuous in gold and purple." Hence Diogenes the Cynic, seeing a thief being led to prison by a magistrate, said: "The great thieves are leading away the small one." punished, by the same means by which they sinned, as it says in Wisdom chapter 11.
Many people in various provinces complain constantly that they are burdened with heavy taxes by princes, magistrates, and governors, and drained by enormous exactions; but they do not look to the cause and the just judgment of God. For the cause is what Solomon suggests here, namely that many acquire their wealth through usury, fraud, and oppression of the poor; therefore God permits that wealth, as unjustly acquired, to be seized by the treasury, the judge, or the prince. Why do you complain, O plunderer, that the prince seizes your goods, when you have stolen what belongs to others? What the prince justly takes or unjustly seizes is not yours but another's: let that other person complain about you and your plundering, not you about the prince. This is what Isaiah thunders in chapter 33:1: "Woe to you who plunder, shall you not also be plundered?" And Jeremiah chapter 30:16: "Those who lay you waste shall be laid waste; and all your plunderers I will give over to plunder." For the greater plunderer seeks and seizes the lesser. The Hebrew has more force: "He who slanders, etc., certainly even only to deficiency," meaning: He who plunders the poor man hopes to enrich himself from this spoil; but he is deceived, because this spoil tends to nothing other than deficiency, namely to lead the plunderer, like a thief, to poverty, or to the gallows. This maxim can also be applied to almsgiving, meaning: He who slanders the poor man by accusing him of being rich, a fraud, an impostor, healthy, able to earn his own living by labor, and therefore defrauds him of the alms that are due to him as one unworthy — this man will likewise fall into the slanders of the richer, and will be deprived of his own goods.
Furthermore, Cajetan takes the richer one to mean God, meaning: He who despoils the poor, etc., "will give to one richer," that is, he will give the wealth acquired by plunder to God, who, just as He is the richest, so also He is the most just, and therefore takes away unjustly acquired goods from their unjust possessors. But this is symbolic and mystical rather than literal and genuine.
St. Augustine says admirably, on Psalm 123: "Therefore a greater plunderer seeks you, because he has found a lesser plunderer; therefore a greater eagle seeks you, because you first caught the hare: the smaller creature was your prey, you will be prey to the greater." The same, in Homily 48 among 50: "Our ancestors abounded in all resources because they gave tithes to God and paid tribute to Caesar; but now, because devotion to God has departed, the tax collector has arrived. We refuse to share our tithes with God, and now the whole is taken. The treasury takes what Christ does not receive." Thus pirates captured by Alexander the Great, when asked who and what they were, answered: "We are the same as you; we plunder with one ship, you with an entire fleet;" but lesser plunderers become the prey of the greater. Indeed Vespasian
Mystically, Bede says: He who slanders a brother who is poor in spirit by detracting from his virtues, so that through this vilification he himself might increase the riches he desires, that is, receive a greater share of the glory of human praise as though he were holier — such a slanderer will deservedly lose whatever good action he seemed to possess, and in the end will remain empty of the fruit of virtues.
But Baynus says: Violence takes from the poor and gives to the rich — that is, he who renders his own mind and reason, stripped of virtues and thin in the goods of the soul, daily thinner through luxury and pleasures; while he denies nothing to the brute and irrational part, as though buying peace and considering himself safe if he indulges his own inclination — this man will come to great want and deficiency, and with the rich man in the parable will be forced to beg from Lazarus, and to ask that Lazarus come and dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue burning with the flame of sensual pleasure.
17. INCLINE YOUR EAR AND HEAR THE WORDS OF THE WISE: AND APPLY YOUR HEART TO MY TEACHING
The Septuagint reads: apply your ear to the words of the wise, and hear my discourse, and confirm your heart, that you may know that they are good. Solomon in the first nine chapters of this book said much in preface about the pursuit and dignity of wisdom, so as to prepare and kindle the listener or reader for the wisdom he was about to expound. Then from chapter 10 up to this point he developed and explained wisdom in the manner of the ancients through brief and weighty maxims. Now, because his discourse has been lengthy, and the remainder still to be developed will be even longer, lest the reader, wearied or overcome by tedium in hearing or reading these things, should yawn or fall asleep, he rouses him by direct address and sharpens his attention by setting forth the new excellence of wisdom, so that he might wake up and give fresh attention to what is being said. For just so do teachers rouse their students, and orators their listeners, who after a long speech are fatigued and yawning, by proposing something new, so that they may shake off tedium and sleep, and as though awakened may attend vigilantly with renewed zeal and effort to what is being said. Sirach does the same, Ecclesiasticus chapter 15, verse 24, and often elsewhere after his maxims he inserts an exhortation to their study, that is, to the study of wisdom, as a kind of new spur, and thereby prods and stimulates the reader to attention. He says therefore: "Incline your ear," that is, sharpen your ears and draw closer, so that you may hear better and attend more closely to what I am about to say and teach. "And hear the words of the wise," that is, the words
— my words, which are, as it were, the marrow and compendium of wisdom collected from all the wise; hence, explaining further, he adds: "And apply your heart to my teaching."
Our Salazar conjectures, not improbably, that Solomon is pointing here to two wise men who are guests and interlocutors at his banquet of wisdom, namely Agur and Lemuel, about whom see chapter 30. For their words and teachings seem to have been inserted between chapters 24 and 25, where the Septuagint inserts them, although in our Vulgate, as in the Hebrew, the collectors of the Proverbs transferred them to chapter 30. Solomon therefore says: You, O banquet guests, have heard my wisdom up to now; now I make room for my companions Agur and Lemuel, so that they may take their turn speaking as in a convivial dialogue in the ancient manner, and thus refresh and feed the guests with their alternating sayings. Therefore attend to the words of these wise men; meanwhile receive attentively and peacefully, not only with the ear but also with the mind and heart, the few things I shall add in chapters 23 and 24, to complete my thought, wisdom, and teaching. For, as the saying goes: "Wisdom resides in the heart, not in the mouth, nor in the ear." The Septuagint adds: and confirm your heart, that you may know that they are good, meaning: Steady and confirm the wandering levity, fickleness, and inconstancy of your heart with these words of mine; for thus you will experience their goodness, that is, their usefulness and fruit. For just as a ship, lest it be tossed by the waves and tides of the sea, is steadied and made firm by the ballast placed in it, so the heart, lest it be carried away by the tides of thoughts and desires on the sea of this life, must be steadied by the sayings of the wise. For, as St. Chrysostom says (Homily 3 on 1 Thessalonians): "A ship without cargo, and a mind without precept — both are unstable and tossed about."
18. WHICH WILL BE BEAUTIFUL FOR YOU WHEN YOU KEEP IT IN YOUR BELLY, AND IT WILL OVERFLOW ON YOUR LIPS. — For 'beautiful' the Hebrew has נעים naim, that is, beautiful, sweet, pleasant; the Chaldean, sweet; Pagninus, delightful; Baynus, charming. Hence that passage in Ruth 1:20: "This is that Naomi;" and shortly after: "Do not call me Naomi, that is, beautiful." For 'will overflow' the Hebrew has vicconu, that is, they shall be prepared, disposed, directed, made firm, established. The Septuagint reads: if you send (these words) into your heart, they shall build you up together on your lips; Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion: they shall be prepared on your lips; the Chaldean: they shall be directed together on your lips; the Syriac: make them firm as one upon your lips; the author of the Greek Chain: with delight it shall overflow on your lips, meaning, he says: "Son, apply yourself to reading not casually or perfunctorily, but seriously and carefully, with great judgment and investigation of mind; for through this and on account of this your heart will rejoice and your lips will be refreshed, and you will say with the Psalmist: How sweet to my palate, O Lord! are Your words, sweeter than honey to my mouth." Solomon commends his teaching, that is, these parables, on account of their beauty; and this beauty consists partly in the grace of words, their composition and elegance, but more so in the weightiness of their subject matter, their acuteness, sweetness, connection, likeness, antithesis, proportion, and especially in their eloquence — namely that whoever holds them in his mind can speak the same with his lips, and speak wisely, and teach others, and instruct and form them in an honest and holy life. For this is a remarkable beauty, grace, and doctoral distinction, which makes wise men into Doctors, indeed into Prophets and Apostles.
Some take 'belly' to mean memory, and 'lips' to mean rumination, meaning: If you store up these teachings of mine in the belly of memory, you will be able often to recall them to the mouth and ruminate upon them in the mind, and then you will perceive their beauty and sweetness. Just as clean animals swallow food whole into the stomach, and afterwards bring the same back to the mouth, ruminate, and digest it, and so they break it down and transmit the digested food to each limb for nourishment. Hear St. Augustine, On True Innocence, chapter 110: "The listener, he says, ought to be like those animals which are called clean because they chew the cud, so that he does not grow weary of pondering what he has conceived in the belly of the heart; and when he hears, let him be like one eating; when he recalls what he has heard to memory, let him be like one ruminating." And the author of the Opus Imperfectum, in St. Chrysostom, Homily 41 on Matthew: "Among the Jews, those animals are clean which bring back their food and ruminate; therefore that animal is clean which chews, passes food to the belly, and from the belly brings it back and ruminates. And that man also is spiritual and holy who, hearing the word, ponders it, and when he has understood it, commits it to memory as to a womb, and again from memory as from a womb recalls it to the mouth, ruminates, and reflects upon it."
Better, take 'belly' to mean the mind: for the mind is to the soul what the belly is to the body, because the soul is the innermost part and presides over all the faculties, and imparts and distributes food — that is, sound and holy doctrine — to all, just as the belly does. The sense is: If you keep these teachings of mine in your mind, you will imbue it with such wisdom that it will overflow to your lips, so that you may pour forth wisdom from your lips and breathe it upon others; just as precious food, filling the belly and stomach, overflows to the mouth, sending forth sweet odors and breathing upon others. Thus often in Proverbs and elsewhere the 'belly' is taken for the mind. The reasons for this analogy between the two are given by St. Gregory and Rabanus, whose words I cited at chapter 20:27.
Note the word 'will overflow,' meaning: Just as a vein of water, or an abundant spring, is so plentiful in the bowels of the earth that through an opening in the earth's surface it flows, gushes, and overflows, and produces a perennial fountain and stream, indeed sometimes a river: so likewise this teaching of mine, like a perennially springing vein, will supply you with so many ideas, so many teachings, so many maxims,
In Hebrew it reads: for it is pleasant if you keep those words in your breast, and when they are established together upon your lips; truly, if all things are prepared upon your lips. so that you may perpetually speak, teach, and pour them forth; and so it will make you from a disciple into an eloquent and fruitful teacher, who will continually pour out upon others the words of wisdom. For a teacher and "a preacher ought to imitate fountains, which always send forth waters even if there is no one to draw from them. For so it is fitting that he who preaches, even if no one listens, should always pour forth his doctrine," says St. Chrysostom, Homily 1 on Lazarus. Truly the Playwright says: "As the sun is the light of the eyes, so wisdom is the light of the heart; the wise man is the most limpid mirror of God; wisdom rests not in words, but in virtues."
The Septuagint intended the same: If you send them into your heart, they shall build you up (some read: they shall be built up; the Complutensian less correctly reads: they shall gladden) on your lips, meaning: These words of mine will establish you in true wisdom, so that you will speak nothing but what is right, certain, solid, and grounded in wisdom.
Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion intended the same, when they translate: they shall be prepared on your lips, meaning: You will become so eloquent from these maxims that, when it is opportune to cite them, they will immediately recur to memory and come spontaneously to your lips, so that you will seem to have them at hand and, as it were, prepared and stored upon your lips.
The Chaldean intended the same, when he translates: they shall be directed together on your lips, meaning: You will frequently and opportunely speak of these maxims and precepts. So Vatablus: for words are directed on the lips when, on the occasion given, they come forth as if by a straight path and are pronounced, and are ordered to the salvation of others.
Note here how useful it is to hold, ponder, and commit to memory these and similar sentences of Sacred Scripture; for thus we can very easily use them for the benefit of others on any occasion. So we see religious men, confessors, and preachers who are well versed in these maxims using them freely in familiar conversation, in confession, in preaching, etc., as the situation requires, and with them, as with fiery darts of the Holy Spirit, striking and inflaming the consciences and minds of their listeners. In this regard the most illustrious and most reverend Lord Matthias Hovius, Archbishop of Mechelen, was outstanding, about whom I said more in the Preface to St. Paul. St. Willibald excelled in this, the son of St. Richard, king of England, the first Bishop of Eichstatt consecrated by Boniface; for by constantly reading the Wisdom books and the Proverbs of Solomon in preference to the Prophets and other books of the Old Testament, as his Life records — written by Philip III, Bishop of Eichstatt, which our learned Jacob Gretser edited and annotated — he became wonderfully skilled in healing the wounds of souls, removing anger from one, lust from another, pride from a third, sadness from a fourth, envy from a fifth, and forming all in every virtue and perfection, administering to each the appropriate medicines from these maxims. So much so that he even persuaded his own father, St. Richard, to renounce the kingdom of England and follow Christ in poverty and nakedness. Richard therefore, exchanging purple for sackcloth and scepter for staff, made pilgrimage to Rome and came to rest with a holy end at Lucca (a city of Italy). After his death he appeared to a certain Count and, healing him of paralysis, said: "I am St. Richard, formerly king of the English, previously Duke of Swabia, an exile from my homeland, a despiser of the world, a scorner of self, who left behind the tributes of kingdoms and sought the thresholds of the Saints, and together with my sons set out as a pilgrim to many regions; and after long exiles, after many struggles, in this present city which is called Lucca, my battle was ended, and snatched from this wicked world, the Lord took me to His glory." So reads the Life of St. Willibald, chapter 12.
Moreover, in chapter 56, the gifts of St. Willibald's eloquence and life are described thus: "He was generous in almsgiving, diligent in vigils, devout in prayer, perfect in charity, lavish in kindness, outstanding in teaching, ready in speech, most holy in conversation. He showed the sincerity of his mind by the serenity of his countenance, and manifested the piety of his most merciful heart in the gentleness of his speech. Whatever could pertain to eternal salvation, the most blessed man fulfilled no less by deed than he taught by the preaching of his word." And after a few intervening passages: "He was also a neglector of his own rest, a fugitive from his own will, a seeker of labor; patient of abasement, impatient of honor; poor in money, rich in conscience; humble in regard to his merits, proud against vices. In short, no care was dearer to him than to speak about God in reading and discourse, or with God in prayer." Wherefore, heaped with a great harvest of merits and of souls, he flew to heaven in the year of the Lord 781.
19. THAT YOUR TRUST MAY BE IN THE LORD, WHENCE I HAVE SHOWN IT TO YOU TODAY
The words 'that' and 'whence' indicate that this verse depends on the preceding one, meaning: I have commended my teaching to you and commanded that it be diligently kept in the belly of the mind, to this end and fruit: namely, that you may be able to trust in God, and deal confidently with Him, and trustfully expect from Him in this life His grace and help in every matter, and in the life to come eternal rewards. For all these things will come to you if you transfer your hope from created things to God, by following my teaching. For my teaching and law is the teaching and law of God; if therefore you keep it, you will win for yourself the grace and friendship of God, so that you may securely place all your hope and trust in Him. Hence the author of the Greek Chain connects this verse with the preceding one thus: "If you send it into your heart, it will overflow upon your lips not without delight, and will cause your hope to be fixed upon the Lord, and He will make His ways known to you." He explains this hope, adding: "When you diligently study the words of the Lord, your hope will be raised toward Him, that is, you will have all your thought and all your mind fixed and raised toward Him; and therefore you will rightly hope from Him grace, salvation, and every good; that He may lead you by straight paths, like a shepherd his sheep, after the manner of Joseph, and bring you to eternal happiness. Therefore Solomon rouses the listener's attention with the hope of fruit, which is trust in the Lord. In the Hebrew, this verse, connected to itself, stands independently: "That your hope may be in the Lord, I have shown it to you today, even you," meaning: I have shown you the law and will of God, so that by embracing it, you may securely fix all your hope in Him and hope for every good from Him.
Various authors fill out the 'even you' in various ways. Pagninus and Vatablus say: Even you, cooperate with God. Jansenius says: even you know or remember; or, even you show it to others, just as I have shown it to you. But I say it is a Hebraism, namely a Hebrew pleonasm with emphasis, meaning: To you, to you, I say, I have shown these things. For the Septuagint repeats 'you,' that is 'to you,' to impress this upon the listener with greater force. So in Latin the pronouns 'to me,' 'to you' often redundantly recur as pleonasm. Hence our translator, the Septuagint, and the Chaldean omitted the 'even you.' An exactly similar Hebraism occurs in the next chapter, verse 15, and often elsewhere. The Chaldean translates: that your trust may be in the Lord, and I will show, or make known to you today; where the word 'today' has emphasis, meaning: So that you may securely fix your hope in God, I will show you His will and laws; and lest you complain that they will be long and prolix — today, that is, in this one day, I will deliver and complete the remaining precepts for you. There is no need for you to attend my school for a long time: for if you listen attentively to what I say today, today also you will become learned.
The Septuagint diverges somewhat: That your hope may be upon the Lord, and that He may make known to you your way; or, as the Complutensian reads, 'His,' meaning: If by heeding my teaching you place your hopes in God, He Himself will direct your ways, that is, your actions, so that you may wisely arrange and order them toward their end, namely eternal happiness. He Himself in turn will make known to you His ways, that is, His laws, by which He has determined to lead you to His glory. Therefore you will have not so much me as God for your teacher and guide, who can neither deceive nor stray from the goal.
Finally, Aquila and Symmachus translate: I have made known to you the way, that is, the manner of rightly and holily ordering one's life, which if you follow, you will reach a happy and eternal life.
20. BEHOLD, I HAVE DESCRIBED IT TO YOU IN A THREEFOLD MANNER, IN COUNSELS AND KNOWLEDGE
For 'in a threefold manner' the Hebrew has שלשים schalischim, which means threes or groups of three, and thence captains, officers, and triumvirs, who presided over groups of three times ten, that is thirty soldiers, or three men who governed the state; just as after the assassination of Julius Caesar, Rome was governed by triumvirs, namely Antony, Lepidus, and Augustus; and the third in rank after the king among the Hebrews was called a schalis. Hence Rabbi Levi says: Just as the king rules and governs the entire people, and the same is done by him who is second after the king, while commanders govern some part of the whole people, so by the same reasoning these precepts are called commanders, by which one is directed in particular matters, in every kind of prudence and knowledge.
Furthermore, these maxims can be called triarii (reserves), on account of their constant truth, strength, and efficacy; for the triarii were the strongest soldiers and the backbone of the army. Hence there is a remarkable variety of versions here. Vatablus: Behold, I have described to you triarii or princes, namely Agur and Lemuel, whom I will introduce as speakers after me, in chapter 30. Rabbi Abraham: Behold, I have described to you principal or princely words; others: princes and leaders; Rabbi Levi: glorious words; Pagninus: perfect; Aben-Ezra: in three days; others: Behold, I have described to you threefold or triple things. Our Vulgate has 'in a threefold manner,' following indeed the Septuagint, which in the edition corrected at Rome reads: And you, write them down for yourself in a threefold manner, in counsel and in knowledge, upon the breadth of your heart. But the Complutensian and Royal translation deleted the last words: "You, write them down for yourself in a threefold manner, in counsel and in thought." The Chaldean: Behold, I have described them to you three times, in counsels and in knowledge.
Now Vatablus, Rabbi Solomon, and Lyra hold that Solomon speaks here in the person of God, meaning: I, God, have written My teaching and law in three volumes of Sacred Scripture, namely in the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa. Hence the Rabbis in the Midrash teach that from three threefold elements the whole work of the law consists; that there are three orders of the commonwealth and the Church: Priests, Levites, and Israelites; that in the third month, and on the third day of the month, the law was given by God; that the whole law consists in three letters, which are אמת emet, that is truth: for the law was given by God to Moses in truth, written in truth, and received by the Israelites in truth. They add further mysteries and symbols of the number three, which are more cabalistic than genuinely and solidly literal.
But Hugh and Denis hold that Solomon speaks of himself, meaning: I, Solomon, have written my wisdom in three books, namely Proverbs, by which I instruct beginners; Ecclesiastes, by which I instruct those who are making progress; and the Canticle, by which I form and teach the perfect.
But others more properly and precisely, and therefore more genuinely, hold that Solomon speaks of this one book of Proverbs alone; for he composed Ecclesiastes and the Canticle later. Therefore Rabbi Levi, Vatablus, and Aben-Ezra translate: Behold, I have described principal, or princely, or glorious words, meaning: Not light, not lowly, not common sayings from the street, but I have written outstanding, chief, select, learned, and keen maxims and axioms, which are therefore called in Hebrew משלי misle, that is, preeminent and excellent sayings, as I explained in the Preface.
But our translator most aptly renders it: Behold, I have described it to you in a threefold manner; for so also the Septuagint translates, as do Origen, St. Jerome, Cassian, and others soon to be cited; but in what way threefold?
First, St. Ambrose on Psalm 108, section 16, commenting on the words: My eyes have failed for your salvation. "You find, he says, written in Proverbs: And you, write these things for yourself in a threefold manner, in counsel and in knowledge. He promised a threefold writing, and added two things: counsel and knowledge; but knowledge is twofold: one of spiritual things, the other of bodily things." Meaning: Write these things in a threefold manner: first, in counsel; second, in knowledge of angels and souls; third, in knowledge of bodily things.
Second, Cajetan says: I have written them in a threefold manner, that is, I have divided this book into three sections: the first section is from chapter 1 to chapter 10; the second, from chapter 10 to chapter 25; the third, from chapter 25 to the end of the book. Baynus, however, begins the third section from this point.
Third, Origen (Peri Archon, Book IV), St. Jerome on Ezekiel chapter 16, and Cassian (Conference XIV, chapter 8) say: I have written them in a threefold manner, that is, with a threefold sense, meaning: These maxims of mine do not contain just one sense, but a threefold one, namely the literal, the tropological, and the allegorical. The literal is that which the sentence itself first and immediately signifies according to the letter; the tropological is when the literal sense is applied to the formation of morals; the allegorical is when it is adapted to Christ and the Church; the anagogical is when it rises to heavenly things and the Church of the Blessed reigning in heaven with Christ. Solomon says this to sharpen the reader's attention and study, meaning: These maxims of mine are not simple, nor plain and obvious, but threefold, profound, and hidden. For they contain a threefold sense, and a deep one, which must be searched out with great study and investigation, just as the Essenes of old searched out the mystical senses of Sacred Scripture, as Eusebius, Josephus, and Philo attest. Thus Jerusalem literally signifies the city of Jerusalem; tropologically, the holy, quiet, and peaceful soul, which is the city and temple of God — for Jerusalem in Hebrew means 'vision of peace.' Allegorically, it signifies the earthly Church; anagogically, the heavenly Church. So also the author of the Greek Chain, whom hear: "Just as man consists of body, soul, and spirit, so Sacred Scripture is constituted of the letter as of the body, of tropology as of the soul, and of anagogy as of the spirit. For example, in the donkey that was tied at the castle which was set opposite, and which bore Christ the Savior as its rider, first observe the ἱστό, that is, the history, or the event simply as it occurred; then according to tropology consider how, as soon as God the Word ascended upon it as upon a yoked beast of burden, it immediately began to move and walk according to the direction of reason. Finally, according to anagogy or spiritual contemplation, consider the human nature of Christ, assumed in a place set opposite paradise, bearing the image of him who had been driven out of paradise, so that He might carry and lead us back again into paradise." So he says.
Fourth, our Salazar says: 'In a threefold manner,' that is, variously, in disconnected and unconnected fashion. For Plutarch in the Table-Talk prescribes that the problems discussed by the wise at banquets should be loose and detached from one another, lest the minds of the listeners at the banquet be overburdened. Solomon therefore, to make his disciple docile, says thus: "Behold, I have described it to you in a threefold manner," that is, in manifold and various ways. For my intention was not to compose or weave together a single discourse from parts coherently connected to one another; but as is customary in convivial conversations, I wished to set down multiple, varied, disconnected, and unconnected maxims, which by their variety would delight, and by their disconnection would not require excessive mental strain.
Fifth and genuinely: "Behold, I have described it (my ethical teaching and wisdom) to you in a threefold manner," that is, in manifold, varied, full, and perfect fashion, so that beyond it you need nothing else; but that it, as if complete in every respect, may fully instruct you about all things to be done that lead to salvation. For the number three is a symbol of multitude, perfection, and universality. Hence Aristotle says: "All things are three." And the saying: "O thrice and four times (that is, fully and supremely) blessed!" And Hermes, or Mercury, was called Trismegistus, that is, thrice greatest, because he was the greatest philosopher, and priest, and finally the greatest king. And St. Jerome, cleverly punning, says that Tertullian was 'thrice Tully,' because he perfectly imitated Cicero. For more on the number three and its symbolism, see Peter Bongus, Book on Numbers.
Solomon rouses the reader's attention by saying that these teachings of his are most full and complete, and that "in counsels and knowledge," meaning: I wrote these things not casually, not without premeditation, as they happened to come to mind, but with deliberate and careful thought, and with much experience and knowledge of the subject. In Hebrew it reads: in counsels and in knowledge, meaning: I did not write these things rashly, but with much deliberation, premeditation, counsel, and from much knowledge and understanding of the subject. Orators customarily in the exordium of a speech make the listener attentive, well-disposed, and teachable: he made him attentive and well-disposed in verses 18 and 19; now in this verse 20 he renders him teachable, showing the method by which he composed these writings, so that more easily from their arrangement his teaching may be grasped. He says therefore: "I have described it in a threefold manner," that is, in manifold ways and in various modes, phrases, comparisons, antitheses, and figures, which are everywhere visible in these Proverbs — namely, not once or twice, but frequently and repeatedly, by iterating and impressing the same things. Others explain it more minutely, meaning: I have written in a threefold manner: first, sharply rebuking vices; second, gently attracting to virtue; third, suggesting certain most perfect things.
Mystically, St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, section 18, commenting on the words: Your word is refined by fire: "In a threefold manner, he says, write for yourself the fiery word of God: either because it cleanses, or because it kindles, or because it illumines those who hear it." Meaning: I wrote these things with a threefold end and fruit: first, to cleanse readers from vices; second, to kindle them with the love of God; third, to illuminate them on the path of virtue and perfection.
Tropologically, Bede and Salonius say: "I have described it in a threefold manner;" because, they say, I have resolved to instruct and form your threefold actions, namely your thoughts, words, and deeds, so that you may practice virtue in heart, mouth, and deed. And Hugh says: "Behold, I have described it in a threefold manner, that is, he says, it is to be possessed in three ways, namely in thought, speech, and action. So Solomon explains himself, adding: In counsels, that is, for thinking inwardly in the heart; and knowledge, that is, for teaching outwardly by word and deed. Behold, wisdom has been described in a threefold manner: for thinking, for speaking, and for acting. Thus every teacher must possess it, and thus every listener must receive it, namely so that he may know, speak, and do." Again, in a threefold manner, that is, for rightly forming the three faculties of the soul: namely for illuminating the intellect, for stimulating the will, and for strengthening the memory.
Moreover, the Septuagint varies here. For the author of the Greek Chain reads: "You yourself write down that same teaching in a threefold manner, namely in counsel, in knowledge, and in the breadth of your heart." Behold, here is a triad of subjects or faculties, meaning: Write it in the intellect, where counsel thrives; in the memory, where knowledge of things is preserved; and in the breadth of your heart, that is, of your will, so that it may be amply and broadly imbued through all those faculties, indeed suffused throughout. Cassian in the cited passage reads: but you, write them down for yourself in a threefold manner upon the height of your heart. The Complutensian reads: but you, write them down for yourself in a threefold manner, in counsel and in thought. The Vatican Codex reads: and you, write them down for yourself in a threefold manner, in counsel and knowledge, upon the breadth of your heart, meaning: So engrave and carve them into the mind, and into its counsels and knowledge, that they may always cling most deeply to the soul.
Hence the Chaldean translates: I have described them three times, that is, I have impressed them upon you many times over, so that they may be firmly fixed in your mind.
21. THAT I MIGHT SHOW YOU THE CERTAINTY AND THE WORDS OF TRUTH, TO ANSWER FROM THESE THINGS THOSE WHO SENT YOU
In Hebrew: to make known to you the certainty of the words of truth, to bring back words of truth to those who sent you. The Septuagint: I teach you therefore a true discourse and knowledge worthy of obedience, so that you may answer words of truth to those who question you. The Syriac: so that I may make known to you counsel and knowledge. The Chaldean: truth and right words, so that you may bring back words of truth to those who sent you.
The words are clear; the only question is what 'to those who sent you' means. Some restrict this to an ambassador or messenger, meaning: When you are sent by someone as an ambassador or messenger, this teaching of mine will instruct you in what you should do, and what to report and answer to the prince or other person who sent you. But this meaning, being too narrow, seems beside the point.
Second, others explain it better, meaning: "To answer those who sent you," that is, who sent you to seek counsel or to inquire. Meaning: This teaching will make you learned, indeed a teacher, so that you can answer all who send their servants or associates to you, to consult or question you about their doubts. Hence Vatablus translates: to bring back words of truth to those who send to you. The Septuagint: who put questions before you. For thus from all sides difficult questions are sent to the wise and learned to be resolved, just as Hiram used to send questions to Solomon, as Josephus attests (Antiquities, VIII.11). Indeed "the queen of Sheba, having heard of Solomon's wisdom, came to test him with riddles; and Solomon taught her all the things she had proposed" (3 Kings 10:1). So to St. Jerome, as to an oracle, St. Damasus, St. Augustine, and others sent questions from Sacred Scripture to be resolved; and to St. Augustine were sent questions about the faith and the heresies of the Pelagians, Donatists, Arians, etc. This is the plain and genuine sense.
Third, a learned man explains it thus: From these maxims of mine you will be able to answer those who sent you an invitation to a banquet, meaning: When some people send servants to invite you, and at the banquet in the ancient custom put difficult questions before you, from this instruction of mine you will be able to answer them and resolve the questions. For in ancient times, wise men at banquets used to put questions to one another, as is clear from Athenaeus in the Banquets of the Wise, Plutarch in the Table-Talk, and others.
Finally, plainly as it sounds, this 'sending' could be understood of a son or boy whom parents, relatives, or friends send to school to learn this wisdom of Solomon, meaning: In this school of wisdom, O son, you will be so instructed that, returning home to your parents or friends, you will be able to answer all the questions they and others put before you.
Tropologically, Bede and Salonius say: "I have described it in a threefold manner;" because, they say, I have resolved to instruct and form your threefold actions, namely your thoughts, words, and deeds, so that you may practice virtue in heart, mouth, and deed. And Hugh says: "Behold, I have described it in a threefold manner, that is, he says, it is to be held in three ways, namely in thought, speech, and action. So Solomon explains himself, adding: In counsels, that is, for thinking inwardly in the heart; and knowledge, that is, for teaching outwardly by word and deed. Behold, wisdom has been described in a threefold manner: for thinking, for speaking, and for acting. Thus every teacher must possess it, and thus every listener must receive it, so that he may know, speak, and do." Again, in a threefold manner, that is, for rightly forming the three faculties of the soul: namely for illuminating the intellect, for stimulating the will, and for strengthening the memory.
Therefore the interpretation of Aben-Ezra is far-fetched and beside the point: "Those who sent you, he says, means: I will report to the Lord by whom I was sent, to instruct you; for the faculty of understanding is called the messenger of God." Mystically, however, it can be admitted. For a teacher ought to refer all his work to God; for he is sent by God, and must render an account of his teaching to Him, as well as to the Princes and Prelates of the Church: for they send him in God's stead.
22 and 23. DO NOT DO VIOLENCE TO THE POOR BECAUSE HE IS POOR, NOR CRUSH THE NEEDY IN THE GATE, BECAUSE THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS CAUSE AND WILL PIERCE THOSE WHO PIERCED HIS SOUL
In Hebrew: do not plunder the poor, because he is poor, nor crush the afflicted in the gate. The Septuagint: nor dishonor the weak in the gates. The Chaldean: do not seize the poor man. Vatablus: do not oppress the poor either by force or under the appearance of law, that is, by having him condemned through a friendly judge in the gate, that is, in the tribunal.
This maxim can first be referred to judges and princes. For they used to sit in the gate of the city, as in an open and free place, to which farmers and strangers could easily and safely come together. In the gate therefore they sat, to hear lawsuits as from a tribunal, and to render justice to each person. The sense will thus be: Do not do violence and injury to the poor because he is poor and cannot defend or avenge himself, nor crush the needy in the gate, that is, in judgment, by condemning him though he is innocent, and adjudging the case in favor of the rich or powerful man who brings an unjust case and lawsuit against the needy, having been corrupted by his gifts or awed by his power. For God, the supreme Judge, will take up the cause of the poor, and will condemn both the judge who unjustly condemned the poor man and the rich man who brought the unjust lawsuit against him and was the cause of his condemnation. For it is the height of injustice to abuse the gate, that is, the place and power of judgment, to crush the poor, when by it the poor and innocent should be defended from injury and oppression, and which God established as a sacred asylum for their protection.
Second, more generally this maxim can be taken of any rich or powerful person; for such people not infrequently oppress, indeed crush, the poor. The sense is: Do not, O powerful man, press down, plunder, or afflict the poor, nor bring an unjust lawsuit against him to have him condemned, and crush him in the gate, that is, in judgment, through the favors or gifts you give to the judge. For God will take up his cause and will judge, condemning and punishing your judgment, and declaring and rewarding his innocence. For God takes singular care of the poor, as those who are abandoned by all others and left to Him alone, according to the verse: "To You the poor man has been left; You will be a helper to the orphan" (Psalm 9:14).
The phrase 'because he is poor' you may refer to the violence, meaning: The proud are accustomed to doing violence to the poor because they are poor, that is, wretched and powerless, who cannot defend themselves against the force of the more powerful. But do not abuse their poverty, nor insult them. Or rather, connect it with 'do not do,' meaning: Do not inflict force and injury upon the poor man, since he already suffers enough evil in his poverty; do not therefore add sorrow to one who sorrows, affliction to one who is afflicted. So Aben-Ezra.
AND HE WILL PIERCE THOSE WHO PIERCED HIS SOUL. — That is: Just as the rich man, by injustice, violence, and fraud oppressing the poor, as if driving in a nail or dagger of sorrow and anguish, pierces and transfixes his inmost soul, so likewise God will repay like for like, and will prick and transfix the inmost vitals of the rich man with similar stings of sorrow and anguish, often in this life and always in the next. Our Martin de Roa (Book I of Singularia, chapter 4) explains 'will pierce' as "will lay hands on," as a creditor does to a debtor. For, he says, since the wise man had exhorted us not to summon the poor to judgment on account of debts, nor to oppress them at our whim, he adds the reason: "Because the Lord will judge his cause, and will pierce those who pierced his soul." That is, the Lord will compel them to undergo the same fortune and will reduce them to poverty, so that they are bound by debt, and creditors lay hands on them and bind them, just as they themselves raged against the poor who were bound, that is, obligated to them.
For 'will pierce' the Hebrew has קבע kaba, which is used only here and in Malachi 3:8: "Will a man rob God? For you are robbing Me." Where St. Jerome asserts that kaba from the language of the Syrians and Chaldeans means to pierce. Therefore he who defrauds the Levites and the poor of their goods, and pierces and, as it were, crucifies them with the sting of sorrow and hardship, here pierces and crucifies God and Christ again, as if by driving in nails — for Christ lives, hungers, thirsts, suffers, and is afflicted in the poor (Matthew 25:35).
Aben-Ezra translates kaba in three ways: He will corrupt, or kill, or seize those who corrupt, or destroy, or seize his soul. The Chaldean: He will avenge the vengeances of their souls. The Syriac: and He will repay the oppression of their soul. Vatablus: He will despoil the despoilers of their life. Symmachus: He will torment those who tormented his soul. Others more genuinely: He will supplant, trample, crush, and destroy those who supplanted, trampled, crushed, and destroyed his soul. I said more about this word at Malachi 3:8.
Moreover, the Septuagint translates contrariwise: and you will deliver your soul ἄσυλον, that is, innocent, holy, safe, and inviolable like an asylum. Meaning: If you do not do violence to the poor, but keep yourself innocent, upright, and pure from all injury, you will render your soul safe and free from all evil, so that it will seem to be like a sacrosanct and inviolable asylum. For there is no such asylum as innocence, justice, and holiness. For men are called ἄσυλοι (inviolable) when they are protected from violence, as are sacrosanct persons whom it is not permitted to touch without peril — such as among the Romans the tribunes of the plebs and heralds, heralds, whom to harm or violate was an inexpiable crime. And the statues of the Emperors gave to those who fled to them the right of asylum, that is, of immunity and impunity; Philostratus writes that there was such a statue of Tiberius. Much more so does innocence, integrity, and purity from all crime provide a safe and inviolable asylum before God and men.
Perhaps the Septuagint translates kaba as ῥύσῃ, that is, 'you will deliver,' looking to קובע koba, that is, 'helmet,' meaning: Innocence will be like a helmet for you; it will protect your head like a helmet, for it will deliver you from all evil and render you unharmed and safe from every hostile blow in all things, so that you will appear inviolable.
Some think these words are said about the poor man, for the discourse here turns from the rich man to him, meaning: That rich man, acquiring wealth by unjust gain, loses his soul; but you, though losing your fortune, save your soul, and his condition is far worse. Not only do you save your soul from destruction, but you also "place it in an asylum and perpetual security." For poverty is an asylum for man. Hear St. Chrysostom in his Homily on Receiving Severianus: "Poverty, he says, is a safe asylum, a tranquil harbor, perpetual security, delights free from dangers, sincere pleasure, a life that knows no disturbances, a way that knows no storms." But the former exposition is more connected, and therefore more fitting and genuine.
Examples of this maxim are found in Haman, who ruined the Jews, and therefore was himself impaled on the same gallows on which he had intended to impale Mordecai (Esther 7 and following); in the Sodomites who, afflicting Lot and his guests, were struck with heavenly fire and burned (Genesis 19); in Pharaoh and the Egyptians who, oppressing the Hebrews and pursuing them, were engulfed and drowned in the Red Sea (Exodus 14); in Christ and the Christians, whom the Jews afflicted and crucified, and therefore the Jews themselves were afflicted and crucified by Titus and Vespasian; and the remnants of them, scattered throughout the world, wander as exiles and wretches to this day, to the point that they do not possess a palm's breadth of land. Hence Bede says: "This passage is better understood of Him who, though He was rich, became poor for us; and not only poor, to enrich us, but also deigned to be crucified to redeem us. Wisdom therefore forbids its hearers to inflict violence and death upon the Lord preaching in the flesh, because certain destruction surely awaits those who did not fear to lay hands upon the Author of life." So he says.
24 and 25. DO NOT BE A FRIEND TO AN ANGRY MAN, NOR WALK WITH A FURIOUS MAN, LEST YOU LEARN HIS WAYS AND TAKE A SNARE FOR YOUR SOUL
In Hebrew: do not associate with a man who is a master of the nose (that is, powerful in anger — for anger shows itself in a wrinkled and burning nose), and with a man of wraths do not walk. The Septuagint: do not be a companion to a furious man, do not dwell with an angry friend. Symmachus: do not form a friendship. The Chaldean: do not mingle with a bilious man. For 'snare' the Hebrew has מוקש mokes, that is, a trap. Aquila has σκῶλον, that is, a stumbling block. For 'an angry man' the Hebrew has את בעל אף et baal aph, that is, literally, a master of the nose, or of anger — not one who has anger in his power and rules over it, but a master, that is, a possessor, who possesses much and great bile, that is, holds and contains it. And it signifies, says Baynus, not only one who frequently grows angry, but also one who breathes his anger upon others and provokes them to anger; and therefore one who is worthy of anger and deserves that someone be angry at him and pour anger back upon him. Meaning: Do not join in fellowship or friendship with a bilious man, who displays his wrath, stirs up quarrels, and provokes anger, and therefore displeases God and men. Others translate baal aph as 'husband of anger,' who has, as it were, espoused and united anger to himself as a wife, so that he neither wishes nor is able to be separated from it. For women tend to be prone to anger and to stir up anger and quarrels in the house.
He gives two reasons for this warning. The first is: lest you learn, in Hebrew פן תאלף teelaph, that is, become accustomed to, his ways. For a bilious man rubs his bile onto his companion; indeed, his anger and quarreling stir up the other's anger and quarrels, just as a barking dog provokes and receives back the barking of another dog. For a companion absorbs and puts on the character of his companion, a friend that of his friend. For it is difficult to maintain constant wisdom and gentleness with one who frequently grows angry, and to restrain the anger that he provokes from erupting. Whoever can do this and does it is truly a great and perfect man. And St. Basil teaches that one should strive for this, in his Homily on Anger: "Do not, he says, use your adversary as your teacher, nor wish to become like the mirror of an angry man, displaying his image in yourself" — that is, reflecting and reproducing in yourself, as in a mirror, his fierce, savage, threatening, and furious gestures, words, and behavior. Do not, therefore, respond with anger to the angry, hurl insults back at the insulter, return quarreling to the quarreler, or bark back at the barker; but by gravity and silence overcome and calm his anger, consider that you are hearing the barking of a dog, and pass by in peace. Hence learn that, just as an angry man breathes anger upon his companion, so a gentle man breathes gentleness upon his companion, just as roses breathe their sweet and rosy fragrance upon bystanders. For everyone becomes like those with whom he associates. If therefore you wish to become gentle, peaceful, humble, holy, and zealous, flee the harsh, the savage, the proud, the impious, and the slothful, and associate with the gentle, the peaceful, the humble, the holy, and the zealous, according to the verse: "With the holy you will be holy, and with the innocent man you will be innocent; and with the elect you will be elect, and with the perverse you will be perverted" (Psalm 17:26). Moreover, from this appended reason it is clear that not everyone must always avoid the company of the angry. For in general, perfect men ought not to flee from the perverse, but should sometimes associate with them in order to draw them to righteousness, since they are not easily overcome by their perversity and vices. Hence this precept pertains chiefly to the weaker, for whom there is greater danger from the examples they see, as Bede also noted. So Jansenius.
The second reason for fleeing the company of the angry is: "Lest you take a snare for your soul," that is, lest you set a trap by which your soul, that is, your life, may be ensnared and strangled — whether natural life through death, or supernatural life through the sin of quarreling, fighting, and murder, or eternal life through the punishment of hell, decreed by Christ for the angry and insulting (Matthew 5:22). Hence Vatablus explains, meaning: "Lest you finally perish miserably, and be killed by others." For easily from anger one passes to dispute, from dispute to quarreling, from quarreling to fighting, from fighting to blows and killings. For, as St. Basil says in his Homily on Anger: "First insults are hurled among the angry, and they continue thus until insults, like arrows, are exhausted; then, once every insult has been spent by the tongue, they come to blows and fighting. For anger stirs up conflict, conflict stirs up abuse, abuse stirs up beatings, and these produce wounds, from which deaths often follow." And after many intervening words: "Once the perturbation of anger, having overthrown reason, has seized dominion of the soul, it makes a man utterly savage and does not allow him to be a man who has further recourse to reason. For what venom is in poisonous creatures, that is what anger is in the irritated and embittered. For just as torrents, flowing through hollows, drag along whatever they encounter, so the impulses of the angry are violent, and such that they cannot be restrained, and they run over everything alike." He adds the reason: "For the angry, neither venerable gray hair, nor the conditions of life, nor kinship of blood, nor past benefits, nor anything else of the kind is held in great esteem among such people. The angry do not cease until, through the great and incurable evil of anger, their fury, like a blister, bursts and the inflammation is dispelled. For neither the edge of a sword, nor fire, nor anything else among the things most feared can restrain a soul raging with anger — no more than those who are held in the grip of demons, from whom the angry differ in nothing at all, neither in outward appearance nor in the state of their souls."
Anger therefore is a snare for the soul and for life. For just as birds are caught by snares, and unwary mice by mousetraps, so men, when they indulge in anger, heedlessly and thoughtlessly fall into snares and tangles from which they cannot extricate themselves. Moreover, this snare lies, first, in anger and strife arising against an angry friend; for the quarrels of angry people frequently escalate at last into blows and killings, especially because anger is sudden, and like madness immediately moves the hand to the sword before the mind sees what it is doing. And the greater the love of friends, the more it turns into hatred and anger: for a friend considers the injury done to him by a friend to be greater, if he is harmed by the one from whom he expected all goodwill, than if it came from a stranger, as I have shown elsewhere. So Alexander the Great in a fit of anger killed Clitus, his dearest friend, for which he was immediately filled with the deepest remorse.
Second, this snare lies in anger and strife arising against others and strangers; for whoever associates with an angry friend takes upon himself the latter's anger, quarrels, and brawls, which are frequent and maintained with many. Therefore, when a fight comes to blows, he is obliged to assist his friend and fight for him against outsiders. Now a fight is a snare of slaughter; for in it, combatants in a light moment either kill or are killed. Hence the author of the Opus Imperfectum, Homily 12 on Matthew, says: "Just as anger is the mother of murder, so desire is the mother of adultery." And St. Chrysostom, Homily 16 on Matthew: "The root of murder is anger. Therefore whoever cuts off the root will much more easily be able to lop off the branches themselves — indeed, he will not even allow them to sprout." Hence Nazianzen wisely says: "Restrain anger with a bridle, lest you lose your mind." For anger is like the fiercest wild beast, which savagely rages against all. Again, anger is like the sea agitated by winds and storms, which hurls its waves to the sky and dashes and shatters everything, says St. Cyril. Finally, "anger is a brief madness," as the Poet says.
Following Solomon, Sirach in Ecclesiasticus 8:19 offers a maxim that is apparently opposite but actually congruent and similar: "With an angry man, he says, do not make a quarrel, and with a bold man do not go into the desert; for blood is as nothing before him, and where there is no help, he will strike you down." For whoever is a friend to an angry man must necessarily often fall into quarrels with him; for the friendship of an angry person is angry and quarrelsome, as I have already shown. See what was said there.
From this passage, the author of the book On Friendship, chapter 12 (found in volume IV of the Works of St. Augustine), teaches that bilious people are little suited to friendship: "There are certain faults, he says, which if someone is entangled in, he will not long observe the laws or rights of friendship. For those who are excessively angry, unstable, suspicious, or talkative are not fit for friendship — these four things must be noted in the choice of a friend. It is difficult for one whom the fury of anger frequently agitates not to rise up at some point against his friend. Hence Ecclesiasticus says: There is a friend who will reveal hatred and quarreling and insults. Do not be a friend to an angry man, nor walk with a furious man, lest you take a snare for your soul. There are some who are angry by natural temperament, who nevertheless are so careful to suppress and moderate this passion that they never burst forth into the five things by which, according to Scripture, friendship is dissolved and corrupted — although they sometimes offend a friend by a word, an act, or excessive zeal. Witticisms must be tolerated, and when we have certainty about the intention, if there has been some excess of speech or action, it must be forgiven to a friend; or certainly he must be admonished about his excess without any bitterness, and indeed lightheartedly."
26 and 27. DO NOT BE AMONG THOSE WHO STRIKE HANDS, AND WHO OFFER THEMSELVES AS SURETIES FOR DEBTS: FOR IF YOU HAVE NOT THE MEANS TO PAY, WHAT REASON IS THERE FOR HIM TO TAKE THE COVERING FROM YOUR BED?
"Those who strike hands," that is, who go surety by striking and giving the hand, as stipulators and guarantors for others. In Hebrew: do not be among those who strike the palm, who go surety for debts; if you have not the means to pay, why should he take your bed from under you? The Septuagint: do not, out of embarrassment or reverence for someone's person, offer yourself as surety; for if you have not the means to pay the debt, the only thing left is for them to take away the bed spread beneath your sides as a pledge. So the author of the Greek Chain. The Chaldean: do not pledge your hand in surety for your companion; if you have not the means to repay, your bedding will be taken from under you. The Syriac: do not give yourself in surety, for if you show him deference, you will be put to shame before others, etc.
To strike hands is to offer oneself as surety to a creditor, and to deliver oneself, as it were, into his hands, so that one may be seized by him, brought before a judge, bound, and led to prison, if the person for whom one stands surety cannot or will not pay. These bonds therefore the surety places upon himself, as I explained at chapter 6:1.
The sense is: Do not join yourself, thrust yourself, and insert yourself among those who rashly go surety for the debts of others, so that you come to share in the surety and become one of the guarantors and sponsors — especially if you have little wealth and goods, so that you have not the means to make good the debt for which you stand surety. "For what reason is there?" That is: Why should you voluntarily cast yourself into the danger of the utmost and extreme necessity, so that the creditor takes as a pledge the bed or bedclothes on which you lie and sleep, so that you cannot lie down comfortably? For the bed cannot be taken under imperial law, if there are other less necessary things that the creditor can take as a pledge. Hence the bed is not included in a general mortgage of goods, as is evident from Law 1 of the Code: Which things can be pledged as security. For this reason also, by divine law (Exodus 22:21 and Deuteronomy 24:12-13), the bed is commanded to be returned to the debtor before sunset, so that he may sleep in it at night.
The Septuagint suggests the reason for the ease of going surety, when they add: being ashamed before a face, meaning: While you associate with those who readily go surety for friends, you will be ashamed if you do not likewise go surety. For you will seem either too timid, or too scrupulous, or less kind and less friendly to your friend. Therefore, to avoid this embarrassment and the danger of going surety, do not associate with those who go surety, but withdraw and keep away from them. See what I said about the danger of surety at chapter 6, verse 1.
Now a vadis (surety), and by syncope vas, is a sponsor of another in a capital matter, says Festus, so called from vadendo (going), because whoever gives sureties is meanwhile permitted vadere, that is, to depart. Hence Horace, Satires I.1: He who, having given sureties, was dragged from the country into the city. Hence his pledge was called vadimonium. Vas, says Varro (On the Latin Language, Book V), is the name for one who promised bail on behalf of another. And vadari, says Priscian, was to bind by bail, or to appoint by agreement a day for trial, and to summon to court.
Cicero, in On Duties Book III, tells of two Pythagoreans: when the one who had been condemned to death requested a few days to commend his household, the other became his surety to present him, so that if the first had not returned, the second would have to die in his place. Here, however, and elsewhere, vas is taken as a surety for any debt, equivalent to praes (guarantor), who is so called because he must praestare (make good) what he promised by going surety, says Festus.
Mystically, an anonymous author in the Greek Chain says: "Do not rashly stand surety for the flesh." And Rabbi Levi: "He exhorts, he says, that the soul should not go surety for the faculty of desire."
Tropologically, Bede applies this to Pastors and Bishops: "Do not, he says, be among those who, though they were free and at leisure, plunge their hands into the cares of saving the wicked, pledging that they will render an account for their souls to the Lord. For if the one for whom you stood surety does not have good works by which to free you and secure you from your pledge, what advantage is it to you to be judged on the day of judgment for his soul, and to lose the garment of justice in which you seemed to be clothed, and to be found stripped of the adornment of virtues? Because you were unable to fulfill what you promised with the Lord as witness? This is said, however, not because you should refuse to undertake the care of governing souls when it is regularly imposed upon you, but lest you rashly seize for yourself without anyone's command the office of teacher and bishop."
28. DO NOT TRANSGRESS THE ANCIENT BOUNDARIES WHICH YOUR FATHERS ESTABLISHED
In Hebrew: do not move back the boundary of ages, which your fathers made. Pagninus: do not transfer. Vatablus: do not move from their place the perpetual boundaries. The Chaldean: do not change the boundary that has existed from of old. The Septuagint: do not transfer the eternal boundaries which your fathers established. Cajetan: do not encroach upon the boundaries. All come to the same thing. The Syriac, as usual, follows the Septuagint.
Grammatically, it enjoins literally that no one should transfer or extend beyond what is fair the boundaries of fields, possessions, and properties, so as to invade and occupy the fields of neighbors and the property of others, according to the law ordained by God in Deuteronomy 19:14: "You shall not take up and transfer the boundaries of your neighbor, which your predecessors have fixed in the possession that the Lord your God will give you in the land you are to receive and possess." Furthermore, it was not permitted for Jews to retain a purchased field beyond the jubilee year, for this was the limit of alienation; when it had elapsed, the purchased field had to return to the seller, according to the law in Leviticus 25:13. So Baynus, Cajetan, Lyra, Jansenius, and others.
The reason is that transferring boundaries is against the law of nations and of nature, because it violates justice: both commutative justice, by which another's property is invaded and seized; and legal and political justice, for it disturbs the common peace of citizens and neighbors, and confuses possessions and inheritances, and is therefore the cause of serious lawsuits, quarrels, and killings. For this reason, the ancients took the greatest care of boundaries. Hence Virgil: A boundary was set in the field, to settle the dispute over the land. For private contention over boundaries often grows into war: among the Iapygians and Tarentines in Italy, for example, the dispute over boundaries went so far that the Iapygians assembled an army of up to twenty thousand men and fought in pitched battle against the Tarentines and Rhegians. Similarly, between the Corinthians and Megareans a private dispute over boundaries produced a war, and between the Egesteans and Selinuntians. These and more are narrated by Diodorus Siculus, Books II and XII.
Wherefore Numa Pompilius, the second king of the Romans, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus attests (Book II), ordained that each person should mark out his own boundaries, and place upon the boundaries stones which he consecrated to Jupiter Terminalis, and decreed that sacrifices should be performed annually upon these stones by the adjacent owners, and he called the boundaries themselves termini. If anyone concealed or moved them, he declared him accursed by divine law, so that anyone who wished was permitted to kill him as a sacrilegious person. The words of the ancient law about not moving the boundary marker are reported by Crinitus: "Whoever does otherwise and plows up the boundary marker, he and his oxen shall be accursed." Romulus had earlier decreed that whoever usurped a neighbor's boundaries would have to forfeit his entire field to the person whose land he tried to steal, as a penalty, and it would justly belong to that person. The Emperor Constantine retained this law in cases where a boundary had been moved while a dispute over boundaries was pending and before the matter had been settled by judgment: "Whoever raises a boundary dispute, if before anything is decided by judgment he wishes to usurp another's property, shall lose not only what he wrongly claimed, but, defeated in the lawsuit, shall lose as much land as he attempted to steal, so that each person, content with his own, may not seek what belongs to another." Today, however, as Dynus writes (on the chapter Ex litteris, 13 De Probationibus), it is left to the judge's discretion what penalties, whether monetary or corporal, to impose on those who move boundaries, taking into account the circumstances of the act and the persons involved.
For this reason the Romans made Terminus a god, so that by religious awe of him they might restrain men's greed from moving the boundaries of fields, fearing lest they provoke the anger and vengeance of the god Terminus upon themselves. Hear Ovid (Fasti, Book II): O Terminus, whether you are a stone, or a stump buried in the field, you too have divine power from the ancients. You mark the limits of peoples, cities, and great kingdoms; without you every field would be disputed. You have no ambition, you are corrupted by no gold; you guard the entrusted lands with lawful faith. O Terminus, after that, you have no freedom to be light: in whatever station you are placed, remain. And whether you are struck by ploughshares or by rakes, cry out: This field is yours, that one is yours.
Here is relevant what St. Augustine says (City of God, Book IV, chapter 23): "When King Tarquin wished to build the Capitol, and saw that the site most worthy of it was preoccupied by other gods, not daring to do anything against their will, and believing that they would voluntarily yield to so great a deity and their own prince, he inquired by augury whether they were willing to yield the place to Jupiter. All assented except Mars, Terminus, and Juventas." So immovable and inviolable was Terminus for the Romans that he would not even yield his place to Jupiter, nor allow his boundaries to be transferred for Jupiter's sake. St. Augustine continues: "And therefore the Capitol was so constructed that even these three were present, but with such obscure signs that scarcely the most learned men knew it." He adds the reason, in chapter 29: "For thus it was signified that the Martial race, that is, the Roman, would yield the place it held to no one; that the Romans' boundaries, on account of the god Terminus, no one would move; and that Roman youth, on account of the goddess Juventas, would yield to no one." For more on the god Terminus and his festival of Terminalia, see Giraldus, On the Gods of the Nations, syntagma 1, page 60.
Finally, Plato so ordains (Laws, Book VIII): "The first laws therefore concern agriculture, and let this be the first law ordained for Jupiter Terminalis: Let no one move the boundaries or landmarks of any field, whether of a citizen or of a neighboring foreigner, if he has fields at the outermost part of the territory, considering it impious to move these things, and to which that saying applies: to move immovable things. And let everyone prefer to move a huge rock rather than a small stone confirmed by oath of the gods, by which friendships and enmities, with the authority of the gods interposed, are settled. For of one, Jupiter Contribulis is witness; of the other, Jupiter Hospitalis — who, when violated, are stirred to the fiercest wars."
Symbolically, beneath this grammatical sense and, as it were, the bark of the letter, Solomon had in view something deeper, namely: Do not transgress the boundaries of faith or morals which the orthodox Doctors or Fathers have established, so as to wish to believe, teach, or act differently from what they have ordained. So Salonius says: "By the ancient boundaries he means the boundaries of truth and faith, which the Catholic teachers established from the beginning; therefore he commands that no one receive the truth of Catholic doctrine otherwise than as it was handed down by the Fathers, or he commands that no one interpret the words of the Holy Scriptures otherwise." Likewise, it is not permitted to transgress the boundaries and statutes of Commonwealths, Churches, Religious Orders, Monasteries, etc., which their founders and Fathers established. So also Bede, Hugh, Denis, and others; indeed even Rabbi Solomon explains it thus: "Do not depart from the customs and institutions of your fathers, nor call yourself back."
Others add: Do not strive too eagerly to increase the inheritance and income left to you by your parents, so as to heap up immense riches. In this regard, Thomas More, Chancellor and Martyr of England, gave a notable example: though he served in the highest honors of the state for many years, he did not increase his annual income beyond two hundred gold pieces, as Stapleton reports in his Life. Rabbi Levi agrees: "We are warned, he says, that the definitions and boundaries which our predecessors established should not be changed, since from these the advantage of all is evident." And the author of the Greek Chain says: "Fathers, he says, in this passage means
This is a praise of industry and speed, meaning: An industrious, vigorous, and swift man is magnanimous and well-prepared for great matters. Therefore he will insinuate himself among magnates and kings, to serve and assist them in great affairs, especially in the governance of the commonwealth, and will not lower himself to worthless persons to handle trifling and petty matters. Consequently, in turn, his industry and vigor will please kings, so that they desire and seek to have him at their side, advance him to great affairs, and promote him to great dignities and offices. So Rabbi Levi says: He signifies that the diligent man will be raised from obscurity to dignities, and will escape poverty and the meagreness of things, according to the well-known saying: "For six years famine seizes everything, yet does not reach the door of the craftsman."
For to stand before the king, or to attend upon the king, is in Hebrew idiom the same as being in the king's esteem and favor, being a familiar of the king, ministering to him at court, being raised by the king to ample and royal offices, and governing the kingdom with the king. Those who attend upon the king are therefore called the king's intimates and counselors. So 3 Kings 12:6: "King Rehoboam took counsel with the elders who had attended upon Solomon his father." So the seven princes were those "who, according to royal custom, were always present with him (King Ahasuerus), and by whose counsel he did all things" (Esther 1:13). So the seven chief angels are said to attend upon God (Tobit 12:15; Zechariah 3:9, and elsewhere). Again, stationary governors are said to attend upon the king, who like viceroys each hold their own place and govern provinces for the king. So Azariah, the son of Nathan, is said to have been over those who attended upon King Solomon, that is, the chief of the governors (3 Kings 4:5). See our Pineda, Book V, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 13, number 8.
Morally, Solomon here teaches kings and princes that they ought to select industrious and vigorous men and appoint them to public offices. For he who is vigorous in managing his private affairs, such as his household, will likewise be vigorous in public governance, as Christ teaches (Luke 19:17): "Well done, good servant; because you have been faithful in a little, you shall have authority over ten cities;" and chapter 16:10: "He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in what is greater." And Paul (1 Timothy 3:5) commands that a bishop be chosen who is "one who rules his own house well." He adds the reason: "For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the Church of God?" Indeed Aristotle too (Politics, Book I, chapter 1) teaches that good statesmen are made from good household managers, and that therefore good administrators should be selected. Therefore kings should not allow such men to remain hidden among the ignoble, that is, among private citizens, but should advance them to the noble and public offices of the commonwealth. Thus Marcus Agrippa was advanced to the management of affairs by Caesar Augustus, because, as Velleius says: "He was a man unconquerable in labor, vigilance, and danger, one who put everything beyond delay and joined action to deliberation."
Note here: This speed is to be praised not so much in deliberation as in the execution of what has been deliberated. For, as Aristotle says (Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, chapter 9): "Things deliberated quickly
But he properly transfers the boundaries of the fathers who transforms the limits of religion and the boundaries of piety into heresy, or superstition, or impiety."
Hence Pope Calixtus, as is found in Question 9, Part II, chapter 1, says: "Let no one usurp the boundaries of another, nor presume to judge or ordain another's parishioner: because such a judgment, or ordination, or excommunication, or condemnation will neither be valid nor have any force. Hence the Lord also says: Do not transgress the ancient boundaries which your fathers established." For this is a universal maxim; hence it can be applied to any boundaries whatsoever, whether of jurisdiction, or possession, or religion, or ordination, etc.
St. Jerome on Hosea chapter 5:10 says: "The princes transferred the boundaries which their fathers established, when they change truth into falsehood and preach something other than what they received from the Apostles." On this subject, see the outstanding reasoning of Vincent of Lerins in his golden booklet against the profane novelties of heresies. This is what God, rebuking the Jews, thunders in Hosea 5:10: "The princes of Judah have become like those who move the boundary." See what was said there.
Finally, you may direct this maxim against those who wish to add things supposedly more perfect to the Gospel, to religious life, and to the Rules sanctioned by the Fathers, as though they alone see and understand more than all others — which is a tacit arrogance. Wherefore St. Benedict prudently forbade anything to be added to his Rule. For even if one person can conceive and do something more perfect than the Rule commands, still it is not expedient to impose it on the entire community, Order, or college. St. Gregory Nazianzen says admirably: "Do not, he says, be more legal than the law, nor more upright than the rule, nor loftier than the commandment." It is better that you conform yourself to the tradition of the fathers and to the law, be directed by the rule, and accommodate yourself to the precept that the Gospel teaches you, and not invent new rules and laws that draw you away from the ancient and true ones, under the pretext of excelling more in them.
29. DO YOU SEE A MAN SWIFT IN HIS WORK? HE WILL STAND BEFORE KINGS AND WILL NOT BE AMONG THE IGNOBLE
For 'swift' the Hebrew has מהיר mahir, that is, speedy, ready, vigorous, quick, industrious. For 'will stand' the Hebrew has יתיצב yityatzev, that is, he will set himself, present himself; it is both active and passive, signifying an action reflexed by the agent upon himself: as if to say, he will be presented and will present himself. For 'ignoble' the Hebrew has חשכים chashukkim, that is, dark, as Theodotion translates; dark people are called pallid, squalid, worthless, poor, and idle, by catachresis. The Hebrew therefore reads: Do you see a man swift in his work? He will be presented before the face of kings, or will present himself; he will not present himself before the face of dark ones. The Septuagint: A perceptive man, sharp and ready in his works, ought to attend upon kings; but sluggish and idle men by no means. So the translator of the Greek Chain renders it. must be carried out, but deliberation should be slow." Well-known is the saying of Tacitus (Histories, Book I): "Crimes gain strength by impulse, good counsels by delay." And that of Livy (Book XXXV): "Clever and bold plans are pleasing at first sight, difficult in execution, and sad in outcome." And (Book XXII): "Everything is clear and certain to one who does not hurry; haste is improvident and blind." And (Book XXXI): "Nothing is so hostile to counsels of great moment as speed." Nevertheless, speed of intellect in finding solutions, especially in sudden circumstances and dangers that brook no delay, is to be praised.
Mystically, the author of the Greek Chain says: "He who has acquired a keen mind for the comprehension of the things that exist, he, setting aside the consideration of human and material things, ought to occupy himself with the oracles of the Prophets and Apostles, and with the mysteries and teachings of Christ the Savior." And Bede says: "Whoever you see swift in his work, or vigorous and diligent in the good work that was his to do, know that on the day of the last judgment he will stand before the Apostles, who will sit judging the world with Christ, inasmuch as he will have observed their commands, and will not be placed among the ignoble teachers whose error he caused others to avoid — that is, he will not be placed at the left hand of the Judge."
Tropologically, learn how effective speed is for rightly accomplishing great things, if it is directed by mature counsel. Hence David praises the deceased Saul and Jonathan, because they were "swifter than eagles, stronger than lions" (2 Samuel 1:23). Asahel was summoned by King David among his thirty reserves and bravest heroes, because "he was as swift as one of the gazelles" (2 Samuel 2:18). Isaiah 18:2: "Go, swift messengers, to a nation convulsed." Ecclesiasticus 31:27: "In all your works, he says, be swift, and no sickness shall come upon you."
For speed accomplishes a thing quickly and as effectively as strength; for it causes the thing to be done before it is perceived by rivals and can be hindered. Again, a swift man dispatches many great things, and kings must necessarily dispatch many great things; therefore they ought to employ the swift, not the slow and sluggish.
This is a praise of industry and speed, as if to say: An industrious, energetic, and swift man is magnanimous and ready for great undertakings; therefore he will insinuate himself with magnates and kings, so as to serve and assist them in great affairs, especially in the governance of the state; nor will he demean himself before base persons to handle base and meager affairs. Therefore in turn his industry and energy will please kings, so that they will wish and seek for him to attend them, and will advance him to great affairs and promote him to great offices and positions of authority. So R. Levi says: It signifies, he says, that one who is diligent through his perseverance will be raised to high offices, and will escape poverty and the meagerness of things, according to that well-worn saying: 'For six years famine seizes everything, yet it does not reach the door of the craftsman.'
For to stand before the king, or to attend upon the king, is the same in Hebrew as to be held in esteem by the king, to be in his favor, to be the king's intimate, to serve him at court, to be raised by the king to ample and royal offices, and to govern the kingdom with the king. Those who attend the king are therefore called the king's intimate counselors. Thus in III Kings 12:6: 'King Rehoboam took counsel with the elders who had stood before Solomon his father.' Thus there were seven princes 'who according to royal custom were always in his presence (King Ahasuerus), and by whose counsel he conducted all affairs,' Esther 1:13. Thus the seven principal angels are said to attend upon God, Tobit 12:15; Zechariah 3:9, and elsewhere. Again, those who attend the king are called stationed prefects, who like viceroys each remain in their own place and govern provinces on behalf of the king. Thus Azariah, son of Nathan, is said to have been over those who attended King Solomon, that is, the chief of the princes, III Kings 4:5. See our Pineda, book V, On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter XIII, number 8.
Morally, Solomon here teaches that kings and princes ought to select industrious and energetic men, so as to place them over public offices: for he who is energetic in managing private affairs, such as a household, will likewise be energetic in public governance, as Christ teaches in Luke 19:17: 'Well done, good servant, because you have been faithful in a small matter, you shall have authority over ten cities;' and in chapter 16:10: 'He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in what is greater;' and Paul, in I Timothy 3:5, commands that a bishop be chosen who is 'one who rules his own house well.' He adds the reason: 'For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the Church of God?' Indeed, Aristotle, in Politics book I, chapter 1, teaches that good statesmen are made from good household managers, and that therefore good politicians should be selected. Therefore kings should not allow such men to lie hidden among the obscure, that is, among private citizens, but should advance them to noble and public offices of the state. Thus Marcus Agrippa was appointed to the conduct of affairs by Caesar Augustus, because, as Velleius says: 'He was a man unconquerable in toil, in vigilance, in danger, and beyond all delays in everything, joining deeds to deliberations.'